Covenantal Spirituality: Bernardine Themes In Calvin’s Covenantal Theology

By David Barbee

[David M. Barbee is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania.]

Several studies point toward John Calvin’s appropriation of the thought of Bernard of Clairvaux. Through a careful analysis of Calvin’s writings, Anthony Lane demonstrates that Calvin’s knowledge of and appreciation for Bernard increased over time, particularly in regard to questions related to justification and free will as well as a few other areas.[1] While Lane concerns himself largely with how Calvin uses Bernard in dogmatic polemics, Dennis Tamburello addresses Calvin’s borrowing of Bernardine spirituality and finds some remarkable similarities, namely that each thinker conceives of mystical union in strikingly comparable terms in that each describes this process as a spiritual marriage that weds one to Christ and occurs within the context of the church.[2] Tamburello also refers to one significant difference of emphasis that has not been cultivated. He writes that “Calvin is meticulous in describing unio in relation to the ordinary means of grace, particularly the sacraments. This connection, while not absent from Bernard, is less emphasized.”[3] In fact, Tamburello’s observation alludes to one of the areas in which Calvin and other Reformed theologians develop Medieval theology or spirituality. Calvin inherits the broad contours of Bernardine spirituality—the notion that a Christian or the church is the bride of Christ—and gives it a more distinct shape in the development of his covenantal theology by more clearly defining spiritual marriage in the terms of a contract.[4]

Unfortunately, Calvin did not leave a commentary on the Canticles to make an easy comparison with Bernard. An examination of the parallels between the covenant, marriage, and spiritual union will greatly illuminate the matter.

I. The Bride Of Christ In Bernard

Bernardine spirituality is most explicitly described in his famous sermons on the Canticles. Much like the church father Origen, Bernard maintains the ambiguity the Alexandrian pointed to in assigning roles for the interlocutors in his homilies on the Song of Songs.[5] It is clear that the groom is God. Bernard affirms that the bride can be understood as either the individual soul or the church. In fact, after delivering sermon 68, it seems that Bernard was asked about this very fact by one of his listeners. Bernard responds at the beginning of sermon 69:

In my last sermon I attributed this saying [“My beloved is mine, and I am his”] to the Church Universal, because of the promises made to her by God in this present life as well as in the life to come. The question was raised whether it was possible for an individual soul to claim for itself what the whole Church might claim without presumption, or whether indeed it could appropriate the promise to itself in any way at all. If this may not be done, we must apply it to the church in such a way that it may not refer to any individual—and not only this saying, but others like it which express great truths, like “I waited for the Lord and he inclined to me,” and others which were mentioned in the last sermon. If you think they apply to the individual, I would not contradict you.[6]

Again, Bernard dismisses the differences between the bride as the individual or the soul, “And when you consider the lovers themselves, think not of a man and a woman but of the Word and the soul. And if I should say Christ and the Church the same applies, except that the word Church signifies not one soul but the unity or rather unanimity of many.”[7] Yet, the abbot characterizes the bride as “the soul thirsting for God.”[8] Bernard expounds a bit further by commenting that only the church is worthy of the commendation, “Your breasts are better than wine, redolent of the best ointments.” After making this assertion, Bernard clarifies, “And although none of us will dare arrogate for his own soul the title of bride of the Lord, nevertheless we are members of the Church which rightly boasts of this title and of the reality that it signifies, and hence may justifiably assume a share in this honor. For what all of us simultaneously possess in a full and perfect manner, that each single one of us undoubtedly possesses by participation.”[9] According to Bernard, the term “bride” can be applied to either the individual or the church without damaging the theme of the text, provided one remember that the two proposed identities are inextricably connected since a person must be part of the church to claim the title bride of Christ.

More important than positively and definitively delineating the character of the bride is the purpose of the Song of Songs for Bernard. His goal is to show “how thirsty souls seek him by whom they are sought; or rather we should learn it from the one who is mentioned in this passage as seeking him whom her soul loves, the Bridegroom of the soul, Jesus Christ our Lord.”[10] Bernard looks forward to heaven when he comments, “That in heaven it is like this, as I read on earth, I do not doubt, nor that the soul will experience for certain what this page suggests, except that here she cannot fully express what she will there be capable of grasping, but cannot yet grasp.”[11] The abbot refers to the sort of intimate embrace experienced by the bride in the arms of the groom in ch. 2 of the Canticles. Indeed, the selection of the marital motif is highly indicative of the intended nature of the human-divine relationship. “In Bernard’s understanding,” Ann Astell remarks, “the end point of the Song is clearly beyond its literary vehicle, whether one considers the moments of ecstatic prayer or aeternitas itself. His Sermones, however, will have served their purpose of translatio if they kindle the love and longing of their auditors for God and engage the human affectus in the soul’s movement toward him.”[12] Bernard observes, “This is a song of love, in fact, and meant to be sustained only by lovers, not by others.”[13] Etienne Gilson comments, “Love, moreover, is for [Bernard], as for Augustine, the motive power of the soul: machina mentis, and this it is that leads us on to the mystical contemplation of God.”[14] The marital relationship described in the Canticles and the love exchanged between the lovers serves as a paradigm for the sort of relationship Christ ought to enjoy with his bride.

1. The Nature Of Love

If marriage is a model for the relationship between God and his bride, Bernard’s vision of love must be explored more deeply. Bernard believes that the bride’s request for a kiss reflects a desire for knowledge of a particular type. Through the symbol of a kiss, the bride received knowledge of the members of the Trinity.[15] Very clearly, this is not the sort of purely cognitive knowledge that the Scholastics are often wrongly accused of nurturing. In fact, the kiss of the Holy Spirit includes two complementary gifts. This grace “conveys the light of knowledge but also lights the fire of love.”[16] Commenting on Paul’s letter to the Romans, Bernard writes, “From all this it is clear that even their knowledge was not perfect, because they did not love. For if their knowledge had been complete, they would not have been blind to that goodness by which he willed to be born a human being, and to die for their sins.”[17] Again, Bernard repeats this theme, “Felicitous, however, is this kiss of participation that enables us not only to know God but to love the Father, who is never fully known until he is perfectly loved.”[18] Knowledge is the foundation of love, but is deficient unless it is formed by love.

Bernard paints a picture of what this type of love is to resemble. He admonishes his listeners, “Learn a love that is tender, wise, strong; love with tenderness, not passion, wisdom, not foolishness, and strength. . . . Let love enkindle your zeal, let knowledge inform it, let constancy strengthen it. Keep it fervent, discreet, courageous. See it is not tepid, or temerarious, or timid.”[19] Shortly after this statement, Bernard explains the command to love God with one’s heart, soul, and mind. “It seems to me, if no more suitable meaning for this triple distinction comes to mind,” Bernard reasons, “that the love of the heart relates to a certain warmth of affection, the love of the soul to energy or judgment of reason, and the love of strength can refer to constancy and vigor or spirit. So love the Lord your God with the full and deep affection of your heart, love him with your mind wholly awake and discreet, love him with all your strength, so much so that you would not even fear to die for love of him.”[20] Gilson briefly summates some of the more outstanding features of love in Bernard, “It is by definition the common will: chaste, that is to say disinterested; immaculate, that is to say unclouded by any shadow of self-seeking or ‘proper will.’”[21] This ought to resemble the sort of love a lover has for his or her beloved. Bernard likens the ideal form of love expressed between humans and God to inebriation:

Since the abundance of love shows he has clearly begun to live in that state of good and salutary intoxication, he is not unjustly said to have entered the wine-cellar. For as holy contemplation has two forms of ecstasy, one in the intellect, the other in the will; one of enlightenment, the other of fervor; one of knowledge, the other of devotion: so a tender affection, a heart glowing with love, the infusion of holy ardor, and the vigor of a spirit filled with zeal, are obviously not acquired from any place other than the wine-cellar.[22]

As Bernard points out, only a lover asks for a kiss.[23] Denys Turner succinctly states the nature of Bernard’s love, “Bernard is in love with God erotically. It may not be rooted in the neo-platonic metaphysics of Denys; but it is not, for all that, an unrooted language. It is sustained and vivified by the lived experience of the love of God which it perfectly expresses.”[24] Bernard’s brand of love is more closely modeled after the type of love exchanged between a husband and wife than the more congenial agape love expressed between friends.

Knowledge and love ultimately find a confluence in experience, as Turner’s comment suggests. After all, Bernard refers to the Canticles as “the book of our own experience.”[25] Bernard aptly points to the interweaving of love and knowledge found in the experience of God:

But you, if you love the Lord your God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole strength, and leaping with ardent feeling beyond that love of love with which active love is satisfied and having received the Spirit in fullness, are wholly aflame with that divine love to which the former is a step, then God is indeed experienced, although not as he truly is, a thing impossible for any creature, but rather in relation to your power to enjoy.[26]

Paul serves as a case study for this. Bernard writes, “Paul was certainly a great man, but no matter how high he should aim in making the offer of his mouth, even if he were to raise himself right into the third heaven, he would still of necessity find himself remote from the lips of the Most High.” Bernard adds that, in distinction to Christ who is kissed by God in the totality of his being, Paul only participates in the divine through “the kiss of the kiss.”[27] This underscores the limitation of human experience of divine union while also pointing out Bernard’s high Christology. The motif of bride-bridegroom is particularly effective for capturing this aspect of knowledge and love unified in experience, as Bernard explains: “Between [the bride and bridegroom] all things are equally shared, there are no selfish reservations, nothing that causes divisions. They share the same inheritance, the same table, the same home, the same marriage-bed, they are flesh of each other’s flesh.”[28] Tamburello summarizes, “The knowledge that comes from faith is not a purely intellectual but an experiential knowledge.”[29]

2. The Effect Of Love

What ensues from this is a sort of courtship whereby the bride conforms to the groom in order to draw nearer to her spouse. As Watkin Williams remarks, “And yet, such a state [of union], fleeting though it be, is not vouchsafed to the soul without, S. Bernard seems to suggest, a certain ethical preparation proper to each occasion. Even the mature mystic, who has passed through the schools of Ecclesiastics and of Proverbs, finds that the approach of the Bridegroom is heralded by the call to repentance and to good works.”[30] In fact, Bernard interprets the bride’s request to draw her after the groom in 1:3 to mean that “she seems rather to appeal for the grace to follow the example of [the groom’s] way of life, to emulate his virtue, to hold fast to a rule of life similar to his and achieve some degree of his self-control.”[31] The beauty in the blackness of the bride described in 1:4 pertains to her imitation of Christ’s self-degradation so that she may subsequently participate in his beauty.[32] Further, Bernard adds, “And so when you are enlightened you can see even now the Sun of Justice that ‘enlightens every man who comes into this world,’ according to the degree of the light he gives, by which you are made somehow like him; but see him as he is you cannot, because you are not yet perfectly like him.”[33] Based on humankind’s similarity to God through its creation in the image of God, Bernard believes that humans actually see how they fall short of this image and desire to cohere more nearly with the Image, who possesses the attributes of righteousness, wisdom, and truth.[34] Interestingly, Bernard characterizes this return to the Image as a return to one’s “true self, simple and righteous, fearing God and turning from evil.”[35] “Man is so much the more himself,” Gilson observes, “as he is the more like God.”[36] Michael Casey helpfully elucidates the manner in which Bernard’s anthropology relates to the innate desire for union in a person:

Bernard is now saying that the imagehood is realized not in the natural endowment of the human being as a whole, but specifically in its relationship to the Word. The imagehood is identified with that tendency which draws the human being toward the Word, into the Word, and even deeper into him. It is by virtue of this unitive force that the human being is able to participate in the qualities and attributes which are proper to the Word. It is this which makes him desire ever more complete union.[37]

For Bernard, it is axiomatic that a person desires to conform to the likeness of God. This truism is granted more veracity within the context of the bride-groom relationship Bernard utilizes to describe a Christian’s relationship with Christ. Unless the bride conforms to the character of the groom, she will never enjoy full union with her beloved.

The bride achieves this union with the groom through love. As E. Ann Matter points out, it is no coincidence that the three kisses in Bernard’s mystical path correspond to a relationship of increasingly closer union as one progresses toward the kiss of the mouth.[38] The effect of loving God is no different than loving anyone else: “Love neither looks up to nor looks down on anybody. It regards as equal all who love each other truly, bringing together in itself the lofty and the lowly. It makes them not only equal but one. Perhaps up till now you have thought God should be an exception to this law of love; but anyone who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”[39] The more one loves, the more one is able to host God as a temple.[40] “Now through charity,” Bernard explains, “man is in God and God in man; for St John says ‘He who dwells in charity dwells in God and God in him.’ This is the harmony by which they are two in one spirit, or indeed are one spirit.”[41] Bernard elucidates the effects of love on the human soul:

So the soul returns and is converted to the Word to be reformed by him and conformed to him. In what way? In charity—for he says, “Be imitators of God, like dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved you.” 

Such conformity weds the soul to the Word, for one who is like the Word by nature shows himself like him too in the exercise of his will, loving as she is loved. When she loves perfectly, the soul is wedded to the Word. What is lovelier than this conformity? What is more desirable than charity, by whose operation, O soul, not content with a human master, you approach the Word with confidence, cling to him with constancy, speak to him as a familiar friend, and refer to him in every matter with an intellectual grasp proportionate to the boldness of your desire? Truly this is a spiritual contract, a holy marriage. It is more than a contract, it is an embrace: an embrace where identity of will makes of two one spirit.[42]

Through love, Gilson comments, the soul “re-become[s] such that God is able to recognize Himself in it once more; so recognizing Himself, He begins to dwell on it with complacence, for He cannot love Himself without at the same time loving that which, by way of image and likeness, is, as it were, another self.”[43] G. R. Evans elaborates, “For Bernard ‘love’ is thus an instrument of deification, a means of returning from the ‘realm of unlikeness’ to God to a reign of ‘likeness’. It is the approach to a right relationship with God.”[44] John Sommerfeldt arrives at a similar conclusion, “Bernard is sure that, in loving, one participates in the very being of God. For love is the principle of unity in the Trinity. Indeed, God is love.”[45] G. L. J. Smerillo connects the sort of inebriated love described earlier with the unity with God that derives from such sentiment as correlative to the patristic theology of theosis.[46] Since the groom is Love, it is especially important that love is returned, as Casey explains: “To love Love is the ultimate act of uprightness, the purest expression of human being, the definitive conformity with the ordo established by God. Not to love Love, but to love other things instead, is fundamental and total disorder.”[47] To love God, then is to return to a primitive state of human nature prior to the Fall. Loving reforms one’s nature to more nearly reflect God and simultaneously draws one into a deeper union with God. Just as a man and a woman are said to be united in marriage so is God and a person who loves God.

Bernard defines the nature of this union through love more closely still. Union with the divine is of the will, not of substance. Bernard makes this clear on several occasions. “We are transformed when we are conformed,” Bernard explains. “God forbid that a man presume to be conformed to God in the glory of his majesty rather than in the modesty of his will.”[48] In contrast to the unity enjoyed by the Father and Son, Bernard avers, “Since God and man do not share the same nature or substance, they cannot be said to be a unity, yet they are with complete truth & accuracy, said to be of one spirit, if they cohere with the bond of love. But that unity is caused not so much by the identity of essences as by the concurrence of wills.”[49] Later in the same sermon, Bernard returns to this theme, “But we think of God and man as dwelling in each other in a very different way, because their wills, and their substances are distinct and different; that is, their substances are not intermingled, yet their wills are in agreement; and this union is for them a communion of wills and an agreement in charity.”[50] Casey expounds upon the Bernardine interpretation of spiritual marriage: “The embrace of the Word is fundamentally the experience of the full implications of living in harmony with the will of God. This is not to be understood in the sense of mere objective conformity with positive prescriptions and legitimate commands, but rather as having all one’s sensitivities and instincts suffused with spiritual light so that God’s gift of himself is not so much ‘out there’, as within, moulding spirituality.”[51] Couching it in the language of ethics, William Paulsell lists the indwelling of Christ in the soul as one of the benefits of ethical living.[52] Of course, the highest ethical virtue is love. Astell explains, “When the practice of charity has sufficiently conformed the whole person to God’s will, God discovers and loves his own likeness in the human soul, which is then allowed to perceive and love the likeness of God, the Christ-Word within the self.”[53] Gilson describes the nature of life at this stage:

But unity of spirit once more, because since the soul is a likeness to God, the more it conforms itself in will to God’s will so much the more does it become itself. Then the soul knows itself as God knows it, loves itself as God loves it, and loves God as He loves Himself. It subsists, but now it is to be considered as a substance which, although irreducibly distinct from that of God, had no other function than to be the bearer of the Divine likeness. This likeness is its ‘form’; the more it is enveloped by this form, as it is here below by charity and is destined to be more so in glory, so much the more does it become indistinguishable from God.[54]

Love restores a person to the pre-lapsarian state of righteousness, guides the will, and causes it to act in accordance with the divine will. This harmony of wills directed by love constitutes union for Bernard.

II. Covenantal Spirituality In Calvin

Turning toward Calvin, considerable ink has been spilled on John Calvin’s relationship with covenant theology over the years. Yet, considerably less ink has been used in attempting to depict Calvin’s thoughts concerning one of the most basic forms of human covenant: marriage. Still less has been written that ventures to connect the two ideas, as fruitful as this endeavor might seem. This situation makes some sense. As extensive as Calvin’s works are, there are some limits; consider this comment from Robert Kingdon and John Witte: “Calvin did not live long enough to write a full systematic theology and jurisprudence of courtship, engagement, and marriage.”[55] Yet, a close study of these themes in Calvin’s writings reveals some parallels that are mutually illuminating, particularly in regard to Calvin’s notion of the covenant and the larger context of Bernardine spirituality. Both share similar structures that tie the parties together in an intimate relationship.

1. The Shape Of The Covenant

The starting point lies with an exploration of the contours of the covenant. Although Calvin acknowledges previous covenants with Adam and Noah, he believes the Abrahamic covenant marks the official establishment of the covenant. In fact, Calvin contends that Moses did little more than reiterate and “call [the Israelites] back to the covenant begun with Abraham.”[56] Calvin elaborates on the covenant as it is described in Gen 12 in his notes on Gen 17:2. He comments:

We have said that the covenant of God with Abram had two parts. The first was a declaration of gratuitous love; to which was annexed the promise of a happy life. But the other was an exhortation to the sincere endeavor to cultivate uprightness, since God had given, in a single word only, a slight taste of his grace; and then immediately had descended to the design of his calling; namely, that Abram should be upright. He now subjoins a more ample declaration of his grace, in order that Abram may endeavor more willingly to form his mind and life, both to reverence towards God, and to the cultivation of uprightness; as if God had said, ‘See how kindly I indulge you: for I do not require integrity from you simply on account of my authority, which I might justly do; but whereas I owe you nothing, I condescend graciously to engage in a mutual covenant.’[57]

In this statement, Calvin discloses several critical components of the covenant: mutual obligations and rewards. M. Eugene Osterhaven helpfully summarizes the meaning of covenant in Calvin and draws out some of the implicit elements of the covenant in the above statement. He states, “When Calvin uses the expression ‘covenant’ he means by it the divine promise to Abraham and his seed, received in faith, that God will be a God and father to them, his people, and that they, enabled by his freely given grace, will live before him in loving obedience.”[58]

Osterhaven’s definition alludes to an inherent relational aspect wrapped up in the notion of covenant. In agreement with John Chrysostom, Calvin notes that a covenant consists of “a mutual agreement between God and ourselves.”[59] God’s use of “covenant” as a name for his promises suggests to Calvin that parallels can be drawn between the contracts drawn up in human society and the agreement between God and humankind.[60] This assists Calvin in exploring the mutuality of the covenant: “The law is called testimonies or agreements, because, as men enter into contracts upon certain conditions, so God, by his covenant, entered into a contract with [the Israelites], and bound them to himself.”[61] In a sermon on Deut 4:44-5:3, Calvin comments that testimonies “mean the same thing as if God had declared that when he makes a covenant with men and enumerates it article by article, he neither omits nor forgets anything essential to that mutual covenant which he made when it pleased him to adopt us for his people and his church and to lead us to God. . . . For when a covenant is made, what is appropriate for each party is laid down.”[62] Peter Lillback contends that Calvin’s use of “foedus,” “pactum,” and “testamentum” entails the mutual nature of the covenant.[63] The very essence of a covenant as executed in human civilization suggests to Calvin that there are mutual obligations for both signatories.

If this is the case, then one must inquire as to what is required by the human party. For Calvin, it is clear that “the keeping of God’s covenant always occupies the first place in His service.”[64] Of course, this entails observance of the law, but it is much more comprehensive than that. Calvin comments, “By that word ‘Law’ I mean not only the ten precepts which show us the rule of righteous and holy living, but the form of religion as God published it by the hand of Moses.”[65] God deserves, Calvin claims, the obedience of a son and the chastity of a wife.[66] Calvin succinctly states, “In all covenants of his mercy the Lord requires of his servants in return uprightness and sanctity of life, lest his goodness be mocked.”[67] Similarly, Calvin remarks, “For as God binds himself to keep the promise given to us, so the consent of faith and of obedience is demanded of us.”[68] In his exposition of the phrase “walk before me” in Gen 17:1, Calvin underscores human obligation, “In making the covenant, God stipulates for obedience, on the part of his servant. . . . Now, from these words, we learn for what end God gathers together for himself a church; namely, that they whom he has called, may be holy . . . they whom he has chosen as a peculiar people to himself, should devote themselves to the righteousness of God.”[69] By signing on the dotted line, humans commit themselves to “purity and holiness of life” and the pursuit of piety and innocence.[70] Calvin summarizes God’s expectation for humans in the covenant when he writes that the covenant with Abraham was established on the condition “that he should walk perfectly with him.”[71] As Anthony Hoekema observes, the covenant requires “serious and significant responsibility of man.”[72]

Such labor as one is expected to carry out in the covenant is not without reward. Calvin points toward the benefits in the covenant in his comments on Rom 9:4:

A covenant is that which is expressed in distinct and accustomed words, and contains a mutual stipulation, as that which was made with Abraham; but promises are what we meet with everywhere in Scripture; for when God had once made a covenant with his ancient people, he continued to offer, often by new promises, his favor to them. It hence follows, that promises are to be traced up to the covenant as their true source; in the same manner as the special helps of God, by which he testifies his love towards the faithful, may be said to flow from the true fountain of election.[73]

These promises were not limited to earthly existence, but extended to the afterlife.[74] As humans are bound to God through the covenant, “such a union when present will bring everlasting salvation with it.”[75] Patriarchs who forged a covenant with God had “a real participation in God, which cannot be without the blessing of eternal life.”[76] T. H. L. Parker skillfully describes the effects of covenanting as a revelatory event, “The word ‘communication’ is, in its essential meaning, singularly apt in respect to the Covenant, for it means a uniting of oneself with the other. When, therefore, God spoke his Word (of course, not his ‘strange’ Word of condemnation but his Word of promise and life) to his people, he by that act bound himself to them, them to himself in unity. And unity with God means eternal life.”[77] It would seem, then, that the primary reward of the covenant with God for a person is salvation and, concomitant with that, union with God.

Of course, the covenantal corollary of reward is punishment for those who break the covenant. A “wife” who is no longer spiritually chaste because she has fallen away from pure and sound faith is justly repudiated by God.[78] In his commentary on Ezek 16:1-3, Calvin argues that the Jews were no longer worthy “of being called or reputed Abraham’s seed” due to their infidelity and, instead, they ought to be thought of as “born of a harlot, and that the place of their birth was a house of ill fame.”[79] In Calvin’s reading, God was entirely justified in “rejecting them, and of no longer reckoning them among his people” due to their perfidy and wickedness.[80] God’s favor was hidden from Israel and the children born from adultery were repudiated, as demonstrated symbolically in the Babylonian exile, which Calvin describes as “a kind of death.”[81] Taking his cue from Isa 59:2, Calvin comments, “By their sins they, in some measure, prevent his kindness, and refuse to receive his assistance. Hence we infer that our sins alone deprive us of the grace of God, and cause separation between us and him.”[82] Just as adherence to the terms of the covenant brings life and union with God to a person, so a breach of the covenant brings death and separation from God.

Finally, Calvin believes that covenants are accompanied by a sign that seals them. Calvin likens sacraments to wax seals that are attached to government documents in that they affirm the document.[83] Sacraments are “exercises which make us more certain of the trustworthiness of God’s word” in that they are intended to lead believers to an understanding of God’s promises through visual means.[84] More concisely, Calvin defines sacrament as “a seal by which God’s covenant, or promise, is sealed.”[85] Calvin is careful to specify that sacraments do not convey any grace in themselves, but rather are only guarantees and tokens of grace.[86] In the OT, there were two primary types of sacraments: circumcision and various rites, such as purifications and sacrifices. On circumcision, Calvin comments, “By this symbol, the promise which was given, indiscriminately, to males and females, is confirmed.”[87] Calvin speculates that circumcision was selected to symbolize that “whatever is born of man is polluted” and that “salvation would proceed from the blessed seed of Abraham.”[88] Purification rites indicate “[the Israelites’] own uncleanness, foulness, and pollution, with which they were defiled in their own nature but these rites promised another cleansing by which all their filth would be removed and washed away.”[89] Sacrifices, on the other hand, “made [the Jews] aware of their unrighteousness and, at the same time, taught them some satisfaction must be paid to God’s justice. They also taught that there should be some high priest, a mediator between God and men, to make satisfaction to God by the shedding of blood and by the offering of sacrifice that would suffice for the forgiveness of sins.”[90] Sacraments were useful pedagogical tools that sealed the terms of the covenant and reminded the human signatory of his or her status in the covenantal relationship.

2. Unity In The Establishment And Fulfillment Of The Covenant

Calvin believes that the covenant is ultimately founded upon grace. Calvin depicts God’s decision to espouse himself to Israel as entirely a matter of grace, “By the word love, God means in many other places the gratuitous election with which he had favored the whole people.”[91] In his commentary on Hosea, Calvin explains that the prophet used the words “kindness” and “mercies” to describe the covenant God intends to initiate so that the Israelites will not be frightened away by their unworthiness. These words also unfold God’s “immense goodness and unparalleled mercies.”[92] Perhaps the notion of grace as the foundation of the covenant is not elucidated any more clearly than in Calvin’s commentary on Dan 9:4, “The covenant flows from God’s mercy; it does not spring from either the worthiness or the merits of men; it has its cause, and stability, and effect, and completion solely in the grace of God. . . . Daniel therefore confesses, in the first place, the gratuitous nature of the covenant of God with Israel, asserting it to have no other cause or origin than the gratuitous goodness of God.”[93] Calvin even asserts that, prior to the establishment of his covenant with God, Abraham was “plunged in the filth of idolatry” and “deceived by Satan’s wiles.”[94] Calvin simply concludes, “The Old Testament was established upon the free mercy of God, and was confirmed by Christ’s intercession.”[95] As Hoekema observes, “While recognizing differences between Old and New Testament eras, therefore, Calvin saw a basic continuity between these two, because he saw both Testaments as linked together by one covenant of grace.”[96]

For Calvin, the fulfillment of the covenant on the human side was located in faith. It has already been shown above that the covenant could be broken for infidelity, but Calvin also demonstrates that the expectation of faith ties the OT and NT together. As the father of all believers, Calvin points to the faith of Abraham “as the best model of believing.”[97] Calvin expounds upon this in his commentary on Ezek 16:61, “Abraham believed in God: faith was always the gift of the Holy Spirit; therefore God inscribed his covenant in Abraham’s heart.” In the next line, Calvin comments that God had also inscribed his law on the heart of Moses as well as the rest of the faithful.[98] Calvin acknowledges that although God’s covenant has been offered to many, some of those who have appeared to accept it have not done so. He observes:

A twofold class of sons presents itself to us, in the Church; for since the whole body of the people is gathered together in the fold of God, by one and the same voice, all without exception, are, in this respect, accounted children; the name of the Church is applicable in common to them all; but in the innermost sanctuary of God, none others are reckoned the sons of God, than they in whom the promise is ratified by faith. And although this difference flows from the fountain of gratuitous election, whence also faith itself springs; yet, since the counsel of God is in itself hidden from us, we therefore distinguish the true from the spurious children, by the respective marks of faith and unbelief.[99]

In his argument against those who claimed that the NT had invalidated the Abrahamic covenant, Calvin rhetorically ponders, “Why are we called the children of Abraham, except on account of the common bond of faith? Why are the faithful said to be gathered into the bosom of Abraham?”[100] David Puckett very nicely summarizes the connection of faith that links the Old and New Testaments in Calvin’s mind, “The major issue of life for the people of the Old Testament was no different than in the New Testament—faith in Christ.”[101]

Naturally, then, one might wonder what faith is for Calvin. Calvin offers a concise definition in book 3 of the Institutes, “Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”[102] Calvin further qualifies the nature of faith, “The Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart.”[103] William Bouwsma, then, appears correct in referring to such knowledge as is acquired by faith as affective.[104] Still more accurately, the emotion elicited in faith is intended for relational purposes. Calvin writes that faith does not reconcile a person to God if it does not also join one to Christ.[105] In his exegesis of John 17:3, Calvin connects faith with the salvific effects it brings:

Where [Jesus] has shone, we possess him by faith, and, therefore, we also enter into the possession of life; and this is the reason why the knowledge of him is truly and justly called saving, or bringing salvation. Almost every one of the words has its weight; for it is not every kind of knowledge that is here described, but that knowledge which forms us anew into the image of God from faith to faith, or rather, which is the same with faith, by which, having been ingrafted into the body of Christ, we are made partakers of the Divine adoption, and heirs of heaven.[106]

In part, this relational aspect is why Calvin can think of true religion as that in which a person cleaves to God.[107] Lucien Richard rightly observes, “Calvin spoke of a Religious [sic] knowledge, for Calvin demanded a personal acquaintance of the subject with its object. Affective elements were considered integral to it. Knowing involves being saved, and being saved means experiencing a new power at work within ourselves.”[108] Faith inherently involves a relationship between a person and God for Calvin and, in turn, this relationship appears to be largely affective.

3. Marriage As A Form Of Covenant

Having delineated the contours of Calvin’s notion of the covenant, a comparison between the covenant and marriage can finally be undertaken. Calvin views marriage largely in terms of a mutual contract.[109] In his commentary on Mal 2:14, Calvin argues “that when a marriage takes place between a man and woman, God presides and requires a mutual pledge from both.”[110] Calvin makes a clear connection between marriage and every other kind of contract, “While all contracts ought to be voluntary, freedom ought to prevail especially in marriage, so that no one may pledge his faith against his will.”[111] This mutuality is really the marrow of the marriage, as Calvin explains, “God considers that compulsory and forced marriages never come to a good end. . . . If the husband and the wife are not in mutual agreement and do not love each other, this is a profanation of marriage, and not a marriage at all, properly speaking. For the will is the principal bond.”[112] As Kingdon and Witte observe, “Calvin started with the principle of freedom of marital contract. Marriage depended in its essence on the mutual consent of both the man and the woman; absent proof of free consent by both parties there was no marriage.”[113]

Yet Calvin did not understand marriage as merely a secular relationship, devoid of sacred meaning. Ephesians 5:31-33, a locus classicus for this notion, was written, in Calvin’s opinion, “to show and declare how we are joined to our Lord Jesus Christ.”[114] Calvin excoriates his opponents who have turned marriage into a sacrament instead of allowing it to remain as a similitude for the relationship between Christ and the church and suggests that those who make such mistakes “ought to be sent to a mental hospital.”[115] Ephesians 5:28 ought to be interpreted in such a fashion that Christ’s relationship to the church serves as a prototype for a husband’s relationship with his wife.[116] In opposition to those who argued for clerical celibacy, Calvin asserts, “Christ deems marriage worthy of such honor that he wills it to be an image of his sacred union with the church. What more splendid commendation could be spoken of the dignity of marriage?”[117] George Scheper comments upon Calvin’s use of marriage as an allegory:

Calvin carried forward the doctrine of one plain literal sense with even greater thoroughness than Luther and rejected allegorical interpretations even when invoked for purely ornamental and homiletic purposes. Yet on typology he was ambivalent. Theoretically, he professed to eschew typology and Christocentric interpretations even of the prophetic writings. But confronted with the typological interpretations made by Paul himself, he is forced to regard them as illustrative references of “accommodations” or else to admit that many Old Testament types actually refer directly or immediately to Christ and not to the apparent referent at all (lest a multiple sense be implied).[118]

Calvin’s insistence on dealing with the scriptural text thoroughly compelled him to view marriage as an allegory for Christ’s relationship to the church, just as did the biblical authors.

This is seen in passages where Calvin is forced to interpret God as a husband because the author has described him as such. In Jer 2:1-2, “God compares himself here to a young bridegroom, who marries a youthful bride, in the flower of her age, and in the prime of her beauty: and it is a manner of speaking commonly adopted by the prophets.”[119] Calvin explains simply, “God had espoused [the Israelites] to himself and wished them to be a wife to him.”[120] In his exposition of Isa 57:9, Calvin comments, “God holds the place of a husband, to whom [Israel] ought to have been subject.”[121] Calvin spells out the relationship more explicitly between the church and God in this metaphor:

The Lord very frequently addresses us in the character of husband; the union by which he connects us with himself, when he receives us into the bosom of the Church, having some resemblance to that of holy wedlock, because founded on mutual faith. As he performs all the offices of a true and faithful husband, so he stipulates for love and conjugal chastity from us; that is, that we do not prostitute our souls to Satan, to be defiled with carnal lusts.[122]

Christ “alone is the bridegroom of the church.”[123] Calvin very clearly sees that God plays the role of the husband according to the canonical authors while the part of the bride of Christ is played by an individual or the church, just as in Bernard.

Of course, this also means that God has to be married to someone or something. Calvin discusses a “sacred wedlock” through which believers are “made flesh of [Christ’s] flesh and bone of his bone, and thus one with him.”[124] In his commentary on Ezek 16:9, Calvin explains that God “married the people, as a young man marries his bride.”[125] In his exegesis of Isa 1:21, Calvin rather forthrightly discusses how the title “wife of God” has changed hands through history, “The Scriptures frequently call the Church the wife of God. That honorable rank Jerusalem held, so long as she maintained spiritual chastity, and continued in the pure and lawful worship of God; but as soon as she departed from it she became an harlot.”[126] Calvin locates the source for the phrase “bone of my bone” found in Eph 5 to Gen 2:23 and points to this as the foundation of the comparison between husband and wife and God and his church:

This applies to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to his church, as Saint Paul shows in the fifth chapter of Ephesians, for he cites this passage, not in a literal sense but by a similitude, as if he said that what was done in the man and the woman when God created them is today accomplished spiritually and in Jesus Christ and his church. For we must be joined with him in such a union, as if we were bone of his bone. . . . Marriage is an image and figure of the union there should be between Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the faithful.[127]

As this last line indicates, it is more appropriate to think of the bride of Christ as simply “the faithful” and not merely the Christian church since non-Jews are included because of Israel’s infidelity. However, such a distinction between the faithful and the church is somewhat artificial. J. Todd Billings notes, “This koinonia wherein Christ lives in us and we in him is, in fact, the source of the koinonia among members of the church. The ‘ingrafting’ into the Body of Christ is both mystical and horizontal and social.”[128]

Given the comparison between the faithful as the spouse of Christ, it should come as no surprise that Calvin often referred to a falling away from this relationship with God as adultery or some other form of marital infidelity. In his ruminations on Isa 57:7, Calvin likens idolatry to fornication, stating that “by forsaking the simplicity of the word, [superstitious persons] violate the bond of that holy marriage into which God has entered with them, and prostitute themselves to Satan.”[129] On a few different occasions in his commentary on Jeremiah, Calvin compares idolatry with adultery or prostitution.[130] Calvin believes that the author of Jeremiah used the phrase “adulteries and perjuries” as an umbrella to include other crimes, indicating that any could be seen as a type of adultery in regard to one’s relationship with God.[131] Calvin interprets Ezekiel as charging Israel with harlotry for two reasons: firstly, they are superstitious and have multiplied the number of idols, and secondly, Israel has made “perverse and unlawful treaties.”[132] Later in his commentary on Ezekiel, Calvin refers to these treaties with other nations as “fornications.”[133] In fact, Calvin broadens the definition of spiritual adultery substantially. A “wanton” wife of God, according to Calvin, is any that “falls away . . . from pure and sound faith. Then it follows that the marriage between God and men so long endures as they who have been adopted continue in pure faith, and apostasy in a manner frees God from us, so that he may justly repudiate us.”[134] Calvin strenuously asserts, “Nor can any more atrocious crime be conceived than for us by sacreligious disloyalty to violate the marriage that the only-begotten Son of God deigned to contract with us.”[135] Any sort of rebellion against God is equated with a divorce for Calvin.[136] When seen in this light, it is probable that Richard is right to judge idolatry as the worst possible sin according to Calvin.[137] Idolatry not only degrades the idolater, but, as spiritual adultery, is grounds for divorce from the believer’s marriage with God.

4. Spiritual Marriage In Calvin

As in any human marriage, the ideal is for the husband and wife to be intimately bound to each other, flesh of flesh and bone of bone. In his Ephesians commentary, Calvin remarks, “As Eve was formed out of the substance of her husband, and thus was a part of himself; so, if we are the true members of Christ, we share his substance, and by this intercourse unite into one body. In short, Paul describes our union to Christ, a symbol and pledge of which is given to us in the ordinance of the supper.”[138] In the union of two becoming one flesh, humans will somehow become partakers of Christ’s substance.[139] Calvin believes that the “great mystery” referred to in Eph 5:32 means “that Christ breathes into the church his own life and power.”[140] Naturally, Calvin expresses similar sentiments in his sermon on Eph 5:31-33. Paul’s comment in this passage was intended to raise believers to a higher point than merely the indissoluble intimacy of marriage, as important as this may be. Rather, it is to make evident that sinners will be “joined to the Son of God, who is the fountain of all good things, and from him draw our spiritual life, and have all our strength and power from him.”[141] Calvin expands on this theme in the Institutes. In his repudiation of the Catholic notion of marriage as a sacrament, Calvin makes it clear that Eph 5:28 is only intended to point to the parallel between human marriage and the relationship between Christ and the church. He alludes to Gen 2:23 as he expands on the “great mystery” mentioned in Ephesians, “This is a great mystery, that Christ allowed a rib to be removed from himself to form us; that, when he was strong, he willed to be weak, in order that we might be strengthened by his strength; so that we ourselves should no longer live, but he should live in us.”[142] This statement has very clear soteriological overtones that he more fully spells out in discussing the title of the Holy Spirit. Union, or “sacred wedlock,” with Christ ensures that Jesus did “not unprofitably come with the name of Savior.”[143] Just as OT patriarchs, such as Abraham and Moses, tasted salvation through their covenant with God, so also do believers by virtue of their binding to Christ through spiritual marriage.

Similarly, while OT worship rites symbolized the certainty of their covenant, so do the sacraments in the NT period, particularly the Eucharist. Calvin defines a sacrament as “a testimony of divine grace toward us, confirmed by an outward sign, with mutual attestation of our piety toward him.”[144] Sacraments are intended “to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace.”[145] Further, the Eucharist illustrates Calvin’s sacramental theology as it translates into the marital covenant perfectly. The Lord’s Supper is intended “to seal and confirm that promise by which he testifies that his flesh is food indeed and his blood is drink, which feed us unto eternal life.”[146] One might think of participation in this rite as a sort of consummation of the relationship initiated with engagement at baptism. More succinctly, Calvin maintains that Christ is present in the elements “that we may grow into one body with him; secondly, having been made partakers of his substance, that we may also feel his power in partaking of all his benefits.”[147] Therefore, not only does the Lord’s Supper testify to divine grace and confirm the covenant, as all sacraments do, but, by virtue of the presence of Christ in the elements, participation in the sacrament actually appears to assist in the process of union with Christ as depicted in the marital covenant schema.

Finally, thinking of the covenant as a marriage helps to make sense of the theme of adoption in Calvin’s theology. In his interpretation of Jer 31:33, Calvin contends that when the author wrote, “And they shall be my people,” he intends to tell the reader “that the main object of God’s covenant is, that he should become our Father, from whom we are to seek and expect salvation, and that we should also become his people.”[148] Calvin mixes metaphors in his exegesis of Hos 5:7, “God then covenants with us on this condition, that he will be our Father and Husband; but he requires from us such obedience as a son ought to render his father; he requires from us that chastity which a wife owes to her husband.”[149] Calvin provides the hermeneutical key to untangle these metaphors earlier in his commentary on Hos 2:2. In that passage, God tells the prophet to rebuke his mother. Calvin explains that “mother” in this instance refers to the nation of Israel. The Israelites themselves were “sons born by that marriage” between God and Israel. Calvin here makes a distinction between the nation of Israel and the Israelites that allows him to find fault with individual Israelites as outside the covenant. This same line is followed in other places. Calvin characterizes the Israelites as “treacherous children” who could not belong to the seed of Abraham, but were birthed by a whore.[150] In his commentary on Ezek 16, Calvin similarly disowns the Israelites as outside the covenant since they were really children of an Amorite and a Hittite.[151] Calvin’s division between the individual members of the covenant community and the community itself helps to explain his use of the theme of adoption while also adamantly affirming Christ’s marriage to the church or Israel. This allows him to speak of believers as sons and daughters while simultaneously referring to the church or Israel as God’s spouse. Indeed, this appears to heighten also the importance of ecclesial mediation through participation in the sacraments for Calvin since partaking in the rites can be a means to sharing in the koinonia Billings mentioned earlier.

While Calvin inherits the brand of Medieval spirituality typified by Bernard of Clairvaux in his Sermons on the Song of Songs that depicts God as a celestial groom and the church or the individual soul as the bride, he substantially modifies this model to cohere with the shape of Reformed covenantal theology. For both Bernard and Calvin, this marital theme is clearly indicated by the text of Scripture. In Bernardine spirituality, this union is facilitated much more by ascent through mysticism while for Calvin it is grounded in the common experiences of the average Christian. In the same way that a spouse ought to be faithful to his or her mate, so too does Calvin believe a person ought to be loyal to the terms of the divine covenant. This is precisely why Calvin can describe any transgression of the covenant as adultery. Fidelity to the covenant joins a believer to God in the same way that a married couple is united as one flesh. Further, the covenant is accompanied by signs, namely the sacraments, which are intended to guarantee the certainty of God’s promises made in the covenant in the same way that a wedding ring symbolizes wedding vows. The Eucharist is the sacramental sign par excellence for Calvin as it unites the participant with Christ. The primary difference between the two is that for Bernard union is the result of mutual love while for Calvin it is faith that unites the beloved and the lover. Calvin, then, is a clear inheritor of the Medieval tradition of nuptial spirituality symbolized by Bernard, although he appropriates and modifies it to fit the contours of his own creative theological project. This brand of spirituality will further blossom later amongst the Calvinists of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Samuel Rutherford.[152]

Notes

1. Anthony N. S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 87-150; and Lane, Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux (ed. David Willis; Studies in Reformed Theology and History, n.s. 1; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1996).
2. Dennis E. Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Columbia Series in Reformed Theology; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994).
3. Ibid., 107. Tamburello returns to the theme of Calvin and the sacraments in his essay “Calvin and Sacramentality: A Catholic Perspective,” in John Calvin and Roman Catholicism: Critique and Engagement, Then and Now (ed. Randall Zachman; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 193-215, but his discussion there centers on Calvin’s view on sacramentals in regard to the contemporary discussions between Roman Catholics and Reformed theologians.
4. There are other studies examining the relationship between Bernard and Calvin. See also Luke Anderson, “The Imago Dei Theme in John Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux,” in Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor (ed. Wilhelm H. Neuser; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 178-98; Georges Bavaud, “Dialogue entre saint Bernard, saint Thomas d’Aquin et Calvin: Les rapports de la grace et du libre arbitre,” Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (1948): 447-71; Vincent Brümmer, “Calvin, Bernard and the Freedom of the Will,” RelS 30 (1994): 437-55; Brümmer, “On not Confusing Necessity with Compulsion: A Reply to Paul Helm,” RelS 31 (1995): 105-9, K. Exalto, “Bernard en Calvijn over de herders te Bethlehem,” De Waarheidsvriend 75 (1987): 806-8; Paul Helm, “Calvin and Bernard on Freedom and Necessity: A Reply to Brümmer,” RelS 30 (1994): 457-65; C. Izard, “Jean Calvin à l’Écout de Saint Bernard: L’argument des deux glaives,” L’Année Canonique 2 (1953): 197-201, M. B. Praner, “Masters of Suspense: Argumentation and Imagination in Anselm, Bernard, and Calvin,” in Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts, vol. 1 (ed. Peggy A. Knapp and Michael A. Sturgin; Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981), 15-32; Jill Raitt, “Calvin’s Use of Bernard of Clairvaux,” ARG 72 (1981): 98-121; W. Stanford Reid, “Bernard of Clairvaux in the Thought of John Calvin,” WTJ 41 (1978-1979): 127-45; and Reid, “The Reformer Saint and the Saintly Reformer: Calvin and the Legacy of Bernard of Clairvaux,” CH 8 (1989): 28-29. This list is not exhaustive. Lane has written prodigiously on this topic, far more than the two aforementioned works, although the cited texts summarize Lane’s thesis.
5. See Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, in The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies (trans. R. P. Lawson; ACW 26; Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1957), First Homily, 1; Commentary on the Song of Songs, Prologue, 1; and Commentary on the Song of Songs, 2:7. This is contrary to the view of Gillian R. Evans who writes, “[Bernard] preferred to see the Song of Songs as a dialogue between God and the human soul, a spiritual interpretation which owes a great deal to Origen, but more perhaps to Bernard’s own reflections upon the inward workings of his own conversion.” See Gillian R. Evans, The Mind of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 112.
6. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum (trans. Kilian Walsh and Irene Edmonds; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1971-1980), 69:1.
7. Ibid., 61:2.
8. Ibid., 7:2.
9. Ibid., 12:11.
10. Ibid., 84:7.
11. Ibid., 52:2.
12. Ann Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 102.
13. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 59:1.
14. Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (trans. A. H. C. Downes; London: Sheed & Ward, 1940), 19.
15. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 8:5.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 8:9.
19. Ibid., 20:4.
20. Ibid.
21. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, 95.
22. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 49:4.
23. Ibid., 7:2.
24. Denys Turner, Eros & Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 79.
25. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 3:1.
26. Ibid., 50:6.
27. Ibid., 8:8.
28. Ibid., 7:2.
29. Tamburello, Union with Christ, 46. Italics in original.
30. Watkin Williams, The Mysticism of S. Bernard of Clairvaux (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1931), 53-54.
31. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 21:2.
32. Ibid., 28:11.
33. Ibid., 31:2.
34. Ibid., 80:2.
35. Ibid., 82:7.
36. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, 133.
37. Michael Casey, Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1988), 164. Casey helpfully schematizes the manner in which the image of God is executed through the qualities that make a person like God. Casey’s chart only serves to forward the thesis that to become more like the image—in this instance, the groom—the bride must act like that which she seeks to imitate. In essence, this is what it means to be deified. Cf. Casey, Athirst for God, 166.
38. E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 125-26.
39. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 59:2.
40. Ibid., 27:10.
41. Ibid., 71:8.
42. Ibid., 83:2-3.
43. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, 99.
44. Gillian R. Evans, Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 52. In De Diligendo Deo, Bernard writes, “To love in this way [to love oneself for God’s sake] is to become like God [deificari est]. As a drop of water seems to disappear completely in a quantity of wine, taking the wine’s flavor and color; as red-hot iron becomes indistinguishable from the glow of fire and its own original form disappears; as air suffused with the light of the sun seems transformed into the brightness of the light, as if it were itself light rather than merely lit up; so, in those who are holy, it is necessary for human affection to dissolve in some ineffable way, and be poured into the will of God” (Bernard of Clairvaux, De Diligendo Deo [trans. Gillian R. Evans; The Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1987], 9:28).
45. John Sommerfeldt, The Spiritual Teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux: An Intellectual History of the Early Cistercian Order (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 101.
46. G. L. J. Smerillo, “Caritas in the Initial Letters of St. Bernard,” in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: Studies Commemorating the Eighth Centenary of his Canonization (ed. M. Basil Pennington; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1977), 132.
47. Casey, Athirst for God, 197.
48. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 62:5.
49. Ibid., 71:8.
50. Ibid., 71:10.
51. Casey, Athirst for God, 200.
52. William Paulsell, “Ethical Theory in the Sermons on the Song of Songs,” in The Chimera of His Age: Studies on Bernard of Clairvaux (ed. E. Rozanne Elder and John Sommerfeldt; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1980), 21.
53. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, 76.
54. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, 129.
55. John Witte, Jr., and Robert Kingdon, Sex, Marriage, and Family in John Calvin’s Geneva: Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage (ed. John Witte, Jr., and Don Browning; Religion, Marriage, and Family 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 482.
56. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; LCC; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1975), 1.8.3. See also Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. Wilhelm Baum, Edward Cunitz, and Edward Reuss; 59 vols.; Corpus Reformatorum; Brunswick and Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke, 1863-1900), 3:106. Hereafter, CO.
57. John Calvin, Comm. on Gen 17:2, in The Commentaries of John Calvin (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843-1855; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 1.1.444 (CO 23:235). Hereafter, the English translation of Calvin’s commentaries will be abbreviated CTS. Citations first include reference to the volume number in the set of commentaries, followed by the volume, if it is a multi-volume commentary, and finally the page number. For instance, the Genesis commentary is volume 1 of the set and this particular citation is on page 444 of the first volume of the two-volume Genesis commentary. Hence, the citation is 1.1.444.
58. M. Eugene Osterhaven, “Calvin on the Covenant,” RefR 33 (1980): 137. This succinct definition belies the fact that there is considerable disagreement over what exactly constitutes a covenant. Peter Lillback catalogs the list of opinions, which range from a hermeneutical approach to the Bible, to a schematic approach for understanding progressive revelation, and even to a political or social dimension in human civilization. Cf. Peter Lillback, “The Continuing Conundrum: Calvin and the Conditionality of the Covenant,” CTJ 29 (1994): 45-46.
59. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.19 (CO 4:901). Particularly as this concept pertains to the sacraments, Stephen Strehle argues that this mutuality is an area where Calvin dissents from the Zwinglian branch of the Reformed tradition. In part, this is due to Calvin’s emphasis on divine sovereignty and predestination. Lillback adamantly dissents, arguing that Calvin is in harmony with other reformers and that the conditionality of the covenant and predestination are not mutually exclusive. Cf. Stephen Strehle, Calvinism, Federalism, and Scholasticism: A Study of the Reformed Doctrine of Covenant (Bern: Peter Lang, 1988), 154; and Peter Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 162-75.
60. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.6 (CO 4:882). In fact, Calvin viewed the fealty oaths of contemporary European society as a template for understanding the human-divine relationship. Cf. Calvin, Inst., 4.16.4 (CO 4:938).
61. Calvin, Comm. on Ps 78:56-57 (CO 31:739; CTS 5.3.208).
62. John Calvin, Sermons on the Ten Commandments (ed. and trans. Benjamin Farley; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 38 (CO 26:236).
63. Lillback, The Binding of God, 128-34. Interestingly, Calvin makes an explicit distinction between a royal edict and the manner in which God related to Israel. Calvin wants to make the covenant more humane by accentuating the mutuality of the binding between God and Israel while simultaneously downplaying God’s authority. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 31:31-32 (CO 38:690; CTS 10.4.129).
64. Calvin, Comm. on Lev 2:13 (CO 24:510-11; CTS 2.2.330). I have decided to give reference to particular passages in which I draw from Calvin’s works on the four last books of Moses and the synoptic Gospels rather than to those volumes. This is done so that one can more readily index the biblical passage to provide context for Calvin’s comments.
65. Calvin, Inst., 2.7.1 (CO 3:396).
66. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 5:7 (CO 42:305; CTS 13.195).
67. Calvin, Inst. 3.17.5 (CO 4:315).
68. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 17:9 (CO 23:240; CTS 1.1.452).
69. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 17:1 (CO 23:234; CTS 1.1.443-44). It should go without saying that, although Calvin might employ the language of human agency, this in no way implies that he holds to some form of works-righteousness. His doctrine of predestination undercuts such a belief. In fact, this is another area in which Calvin draws upon Bernard in defense of his views against his Roman Catholic interlocutors, although he acknowledges differences between his view on this matter and Bernard’s. See Lane, Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux, 71-73.
70. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.19 (CO 4:901).
71. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 14:22 (CO 38:202; CTS 9.2.243).
72. Anthony Hoekema, “The Covenant of Grace in Calvin’s Teaching,” CTJ 2 (1967): 143.
73. Calvin, Comm. on Rom 9:4 (CO 9:173; CTS 19.340).
74. Calvin, Inst., 2.10.23 (CO 3:505-6).
75. Ibid., 2.10.8 (CO 3:490).
76. Ibid., 2.10.7 (CO 3:490).
77. T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 49.
78. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 2:4-5 (CO 42:229; CTS 13.83).
79. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:1-3 (CO 40:336; CTS 12.2.95).
80. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:59 (CO 40:391; CTS 12.2.171).
81. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 2:4-5 (CO 42:228; CTS 13.82).
82. Calvin, Comm. on Isa 59:2 (CO 37:336; CTS 8.4.246).
83. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.5 (CO 4:881-82).
84. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.6 (CO 4:883).
85. Calvin, Inst., 4.19.2 (CO 4:1081).
86. Calvin, Inst. 4.14.7 (CO 4:883-85).
87. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 17:10 (CO 23:240; CTS 1.1.453).
88. Comm. on Gen 17:11 (CO 23:241; CTS 1.1.454).
89. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.21 (CO 4:903).
90. Ibid.
91. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 2:1 (CO 37:496; CTS 9.1.70).
92. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 2:19-20 (CO 42:250; CTS 13.113-14).
93. Calvin, Comm. on Dan 9:4 (CO 41:133; CTS 13.2.146-47).
94. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 12:1 (CO 23:174; CTS 1.1.343).
95. Calvin, Inst., 2.10.4 (CO 3:487).
96. Hoekema, “The Covenant of Grace in Calvin’s Teaching,” 136.
97. Calvin, Inst., 2.10.11 (CO 3:492).
98. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:61 (CO 40:396; CTS 12.2.177).
99. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 17:7 (CO 23:238; CTS 1.1.449).
100. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 31:31-32 (CO 38:688; CTS 10.4.126).
101. David Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 40.
102. Calvin, Inst., 3.2.7 (CO 4:18-19).
103. Calvin, Inst., 3.2.36 (CO 4:57).
104. William Bouwsma, “The Spirituality of John Calvin,” in Christian Spirituality II: High Middle Ages and Reformation (vol. 17 of World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest; ed. Jill Raitt; New York: Crossroad, 1987), 320.
105. Calvin, Inst., 3.2.30 (CO 4:48).
106. Calvin, Comm. on John 17:3 (CO 47:376; CTS 18.2.166).
107. Calvin, Inst., 1.12.1 (CO 3:141).
108. Lucien Joseph Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1974), 164.
109. In his critique of federal theology, James B. Torrance cites marriage as the archetype of a bilateral covenant amongst equals in which spouses love each other unconditionally. Clearly, the parallel between a mutually binding contract and the covenant established by God will break down if pushed far enough. Torrance asserts that this is precisely what happened in the development of federal theology. The distinctions between a bilateral and unilateral covenant were blurred so that salvation became a matter of humans working to fulfill the terms of a contract with God. It is well beyond the scope of the argument here to try to fit Calvin’s analogy of marriage as a contract compared with spiritual union in with his ordo salutis. To explain the role of human agency in salvation in Calvin’s thought is a more formidable task than can be accomplished here. See James B. Torrance, “Covenant or Contract? A Study of the Theological Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland,” SJT 23 (1970): 54-56; and Torrance, “The Covenant Concept in Scottish Theology and Politics and Its Legacy,” SJT 34 (1981): 228-30.
110. Calvin, Comm. on Mal 2:14 (CO 44:452; CTS 15.552-53).
111. Calvin, Comm. on Josh 15:14 (CO 25:529; CTS 4.207).
112. Calvin, Sermon on Deut 25:5-12, in Sermons on Deuteronomy (trans. Arthur Golding; Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1987), 881-82 (CO 28:299). While it is certainly true that Calvin places great stock in the mutuality of the marriage covenant, this is hardly the only factor that determined the legitimacy of the marriage in practice in his society. There were a number of other issues that had to be taken into consideration before contracting a marriage. In his commentary on Gen 24:3, Calvin teaches that a child should not contract a marriage without the consent of his or her parents. A marriage could also not be arranged for children who had not yet reached puberty. Of course, polygamy was an impossibility for Calvin. In keeping with Medieval custom, one must also be able to fulfill one’s marital duties to arrange for a marriage. Similarly, close relatives by blood could not marry. Although Calvin was greatly distressed by the age difference in the marriage between Guillaume Farel and his much younger bride, he did not seem to think that it could be annulled. It is clear then that mutual consent was just one of a myriad of factors to be considered in proposing marriage in Calvin’s Geneva. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 24:3 (CO 23:331; CTS 1.2.14); Calvin, On Questions of Marriage in Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Advice (ed. and trans. Mary Beaty and Benjamin Farley; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 122-23 (CO 10/1:232-33); Calvin, Comm. on Gen 2:24 (CO 23:50-51; CTS 1.1.136-7); Calvin, On Questions of Marriage, 122 (CO 10/1:232); Calvin, On Questions of Marriage, 121 (CO 10/1:231); Calvin, Letter to Guillaume Farel, in Letters of John Calvin (ed. Jules Bonnet; New York: Burt Franklin, 1972), Letter 516 (CO 17:335-36); and Calvin, Letter to the Pastors of Neuchâtel, in Letters of John Calvin, Letter 515 (CO 17:351-53).
113. Witte and Kingdon, Sex, Marriage, and Family, 41.
114. Calvin, Sermons on Eph 5:31-33, in John Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians (trans. Arthur Golding; Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1998), 614 (CO 51:780).
115. Calvin, Inst., 4.19.34 (CO 4:1122).
116. Calvin, Inst., 4.19.35 (CO 4:1122-23).
117. Calvin, Inst., 4.12.24 (CO 4:846-47).
118. George Scheper, “Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America 89 (1974): 551-52.
119. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 2:1-2 (CO 37:496; CTS 9.1.70).
120. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 2:2 (CO 42:224; CTS 13.75).
121. Calvin, Comm. on Isa 57:9 (CO 37:311; CTS 8.4.205).
122. Calvin, Inst., 2.8.18 (CO 3:435-36).
123. Calvin, Comm. on Matt 11:2 (CO 45:299; CTS 16.2.8).
124. Calvin, Inst., 3.1.3 (CO 4:6).
125. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:9 (CO 40:343; CTS 12.2.105).
126. Calvin, Comm. on Isa 1:21 (CO 36:49; CTS 7.1.73).
127. Kingdon and Witte, Sex, Marriage, and Family, 241.
128. J. Todd Billings, “John Calvin: United to God through Christ,” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung; Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007), 210.
129. Calvin, Comm. Isa 57:7 (CO 37:311; CTS 8.4.203).
130. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 3:2 (CO 37:548; CTS 9.1.156-57); and Calvin, Comm. on Jer 3.6-8 (CO 37:553; CTS 9.1.165).
131. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 23:10 (CO 38:418; CTS 10.3.155).
132. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:15 (CO 40:348; CTS 12.2.112). Given the parallel between the marriage of Christ and the church and of husband and wife, one may naturally wonder what Calvin thought about interreligious marriage. Calvin writes on this topic most clearly in his Comm. on Gen 6:1, “It was, therefore, base ingratitude in the posterity of Seth, to mingle themselves with the children of Cain, and with other profane races; because they voluntarily deprived themselves of the inestimable grace of God. For it was an intolerable profanation, to pervert, and to confound, the order appointed by God. It seems at first sight frivolous that the sons of God should be so severely condemned, for having chosen for themselves beautiful wives from the daughters of men. But we must know first, that it is not a light crime to violate a distinction established by the Lord; secondly, that for the worshipers of God to be separated from profane nations, was a sacred appointment which ought reverently to have been observed, in order that the Church of God might exist upon earth; thirdly, that the disease was desperate, seeing that men rejected the remedy divinely prescribed for them. In short, Moses points it out as the most extreme disorder when the sons of the pious, whom God had separated to himself from others, as a peculiar and hidden treasure, became degenerate.” Yet, in his exposition of 1 Cor 7:12-16, Calvin, following the advice of the apostle, counsels that believers ought not marry unbelievers, but that Christians ought to remain in marriages with unbelievers unless they are asked for a divorce since the unbelieving spouse may be converted through the influence of their Christian mate. Robert Kingdon explores this theme as it relates to the case of Galeazzo Caracciolo, an Italian aristocrat who converted to Protestantism, fled to Geneva, and was eventually granted a divorce from his Catholic wife after she refused to convert to Protestantism or to follow him to a place where they could both practice their respective faiths. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Gen 6:1 (CO 23:111; CTS 1.1.238); Calvin, Comm. on 1 Cor 7:12-16 (CO 49:411-15; CTS 20.1.240-45); and Robert Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 143-65.
133. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:26 (CO 40:359; CTS 12.2.128).
134. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 2:4-5 (CO 42:229; CTS 13.83).
135. Calvin, Inst., 4.1.10 (CO 4:578).
136. Calvin, Inst., 4.1.25 (CO 4:594).
137. Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin, 100.
138. Calvin, Comm. on Eph 5:31 (CO 51:226; CTS 21.323).
139. Ibid. Yet, this ought not be taken too literally. In Calvin’s reading of Osiander, he thinks that Osiander intended to mix Christ’s essence with that of the believer. Calvin views this union as a mysterious spiritual bond, not one of essences, and repudiates Osiander’s view on a wide array of interconnected matters related to Osiander’s conception of an essential bond between Christ and the believer, ranging from Christology to the certainty of salvation. Cf. Calvin, Inst., 3.11.5-12 (CO 4:230-45). For a brief summary of the differences between Calvin and Osiander, see Billings, “John Calvin: United to God through Christ,” 205-8.
140. Calvin, Comm. on Eph 5:32 (CO 51:227; CTS 21.376).
141. Calvin, Sermons on Eph 5:31-33, in Sermons on Ephesians, 606 (CO 51:772).
142. Calvin, Inst., 4.19.35 (CO 4:1123).
143. Calvin, Inst., 3.1.3 (CO 4:6).
144. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.1 (CO 4:878).
145. Calvin, Inst., 4.14.17 (CO 4:896).
146. Calvin, Inst., 4.17.4 (CO 4:979).
147. Calvin, Inst., 4.17.11 (CO 4.988).
148. Calvin, Comm. on Jer 31:33 (CO 38:692; CTS 10.4.133).
149. Calvin, Comm. on Hos 5:7 (CO 42:305-6; CTS 13.1.195).
150. Calvin, Comm. on Isa 57:4 (CO 37:308; CTS 8.4.199).
151. Calvin, Comm. on Ezek 16:1-3 (CO 40:336; CTS 12.2.95-96).
152. See John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 82-114; and David George Mullan, “A Hotter Sort of Protestantism? Comparisons Between French and Scottish Calvinisms,” Sixteenth Century Journal 39 (2008): 45-69.