Calvin On The Lord’s Supper: Revisiting An Intriguing Diversity, Part 2

By Henri A. G. Blocher

[Henri A. G. Blocher taught Systematic Theology and other subjects at the Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique (near Paris) since it was founded in 1965, and he still lectures there occasionally. From 2003 to 2005, he held the Gunther Knoedler chair of Theology at the Wheaton College Graduate School of Biblical and Theological Studies. Part 1 of his study on diverse views on Calvin’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper appeared in WTJ 76 (2014): 55–93.]

This study revisits the issue of Calvin’s alleged “sacramentalism”: whether baptism and, centrally, the Lord’s Supper are instrumental in a causal way, that is, beyond their role as signs. The first part observed the presence, in Calvin’s teaching, of apparently conflicting statements, which may be quoted pro and con. It examined schemes that have been offered to account for the phenomenon and found them insufficient; it made a few hermeneutical recommendations and stressed the need for the broadest possible inquiry, evaluating cumulative evidence and spanning the various kinds among Calvin’s writings. It suggested that Calvin’s basic stance did not change over his ministerial years. The statements can be reconciled if one considers Calvin’s clever use of language and each context. Those which seem to lean towards sacramentalism may be interpreted within the framework of “signification.”

The second part of this study concentrates on issues specific to the Lord’s Supper, whether it is a sacrifice offered to God; whether Christ’s body is present under or with the bread; how it nourishes our souls and how Christ is present in the eucharistic celebration. Results confirm that Calvin put a high value on the sacraments without making real concessions to sacramentalism.

I. The Sacrament Of The Lord’s Supper: Sacrifice? Real Presence?

The doctrine of the sacraments “in general” applies in particular to the Supper. Among Calvin’s statements that have been quoted, many dealt with it, a most sensitive issue in the sixteenth century. More exactly, however, to delineate the Reformer’s relationship to “sacramentalism,” two other points should be considered, points specific to the eucharistic debate: Catholic theology adds, in the case of THE sacrament, the Holy Sacrament which is more than a sacrament, above and beyond the common sacramental function: (1) the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic offering or oblation, and (2) the “real presence” of the substance of the body of Jesus Christ, under the species of bread and wine. Inasmuch as Anglican and Protestant sacramentalism has often been drawn to these articles solemnly affirmed at Trent (and Luther affirmed such a “real presence” together with the substance of bread and wine, more in line with a Scotist tradition), our survey must examine Calvin’s stance in this respect.

1. Supper And Sacrifice

Calvin could wax fiery, Elijah-like, when he denounced the Catholic doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice. “This is a blasphemy which it is impossible to bear,” it “must be condemned as devilish.”[1] It undermines the value of the unique sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Catholic theologians, indeed, claim and believe that they safeguard that value and the uniqueness of the cross, but Calvin only finds in their subtleties “cavil” and “sophistry”: “The enemies of truth . . . say that the Mass is not a new sacrifice, but only an application of the sacrifice of which we have spoken. Although they color their abomination somewhat by so saying, still it is a mere quibble. For it is not merely said that the sacrifice is one, but that it is not to be repeated because its efficacy endures for ever”; applying Christ’s once for all sacrifice “is done not in the way in which the Popish church has supposed, but when we perceive the message of the gospel.”[2] Calvin, at one with Luther and Lutherans in this regard, rejects the interpretation of the Supper as a sacrifice offered to God since it violates, for him, what is central in the sacrament, the offer made to men (requiring their faith) of the gift of Jesus Christ himself and of the fruit of his death: “And such is the import of the injunction which Jesus Christ has left. It is not that we offer or immolate, but to take and eat what has been offered and immolated.”[3] With even simpler brevity: “There is as much difference between this sacrifice and the sacrament of the Supper as there is between giving and receiving” (Inst. 4.18.7). He cannot hide, here, that he disagrees with the ancient fathers of the church, though he treasures their support. He does claim that their error was minimal and grew more and more grievous afterwards:[4] nevertheless, he “cannot altogether excuse the custom of the early churches [singular in French] . . . as that approaches too near to Judaism, and does not correspond to our Lord’s institution.”[5]

Calvin readily grants that returning thanks, praising and confessing the Name, translating these into concrete obedience, may be called sacrifices that we offer: he does not forget Heb 13:15–16, on which he comments forcefully.[6] In the Short Treatise, he assigns to them the status of a fruit of the sacrament; they show, in a subordinate place, its usefulness.[7] In the Institutes, he goes a little farther and includes it in the ceremony: “The Lord’s Supper cannot be without a sacrifice of this kind [the Heb 13 kind]” (4.18.17), but it is not Christ’s sacrifice—it is our sacrifice, our response, which Christ’s sacrifice made possible and acceptable before God. One does not spot the slightest trace of that (most modern) idea according to which a “memorial” implies the “actualization,” more or less mysterious (or mysteric), of the past event. The Supper “was ordained to be frequently used among all Christians in order that they might frequently return in memory to Christ’s Passion, by such remembrance to sustain and strengthen their faith and urge themselves to sing thanksgiving to God and to proclaim his goodness” (Inst. 4.17.44[8]). If “doing in remembrance” possesses a dimension one may call “objective,” it is in the sense of solemnly mentioning, of public confession and praise (the same as in Scripture, I would argue).

Some later Reformed theologians have attempted to retrieve the sacrificial mode of speaking about the eucharist. Pierre Courthial quotes (approvingly) from Pierre du Moulin: “The Lord’s Supper may be called sacrifice since it represents the Lord’s sacrifice in his death: according to the rule that signs and representations ordinarily borrow the names of what they signify.”[9] Calvin, indeed, would defend and use the sacramental “metonymy,” but he does not seem to have used it in that case (Courthial does not suggest that he ever did); he was aware of the serious danger of a “Catholic” misunderstanding. Courthial propounds the thesis: “The Lord’s Supper is a ‘sacrifice’ qua liturgical prayer by which we offer Jesus Christ to God, and ask to this Thrice Holy God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to receive for our sakes the Mediator’s sacrifice.”[10] I have never met this thought in Calvin’s writings, and his constant teaching does not favor it (Courthial, again, makes no attempt to deny this fact). The passage that would come nearest to it, if I am not mistaken, is found in the Commentary on Num 19:2: Calvin affirms that, “in order that we may be partakers of ablution, it is necessary that each of us should offer Christ to the Father. For, although He only, and that but once, has offered Himself, still a daily offering of Him, which is effected by faith and prayer, is enjoined to us,” but this is not located in the Supper and “not such as the Papists have invented, by whom in their impiety and perverseness, the Lord’s Supper has been mistakenly turned into a sacrifice.”[11] The Reformer may have entertained a debatable opinion of the eternal character of Christ’s sacrifice (atemporal?),[12] but his eucharistic theology rules out that this sacrifice be offered to the Father by means of the sacrament—even if this be restrained to application.

2. Eating The Flesh And Drinking The Blood Of The Lord

The manducation of Christ’s body, such is the grace which the Lord’s Supper represents. Whosoever eats the bread which the minister tenders to the faithful, and precisely exercises the required faith, infallibly and immediately enjoys that grace. May one draw from these undoubted convictions of Calvin that partaking of the sacrament involves a relationship to Christ’s body, a participation in his flesh, which ordinary preaching cannot bring about? If one speaks specifically of the body, does the Supper establish a specific union, above and beyond what is granted through the other means of grace? The emphasis on “eating” is so striking that it is proper that we should also scrutinize that point. With intriguing insistence, Calvin highlighted the distinction between “believing” and “eating,” he claimed that our unitive participation in Christ (manducation) is not only in his Spirit but in his body and flesh, in his body and flesh which suffered for us on the cross. Some famous Calvinist divines, such as Robert L. Dabney, have not considered “this strange opinion”[13] to be acceptable: “We reject the view of Calvin concerning the real presence . . . first, because it is not only incomprehensible, but impossible”;[14] on John 6, “Calvin (Com. in loco) labours hard, but unsuccessfully, to make the passage bear another sense, which would not be fatal to the peculiar feature of his theory.”[15] Those who draw Calvin on the side of sacramentalism, on the contrary, magnify and glorify what looks so incongruous to Dabney.

A careful and sympathetic reading finds little support for either of those symmetrical reactions. How did Calvin conceive of our manducation (eating)? Why did he emphasize participation in Christ’s flesh? What was the link with the Supper? Zwinglians were wont to quote the famous dictum of Saint Augustine: “Why do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten!”[16] Calvin pleads that “the eating is the effect and fruit of faith rather than faith itself.”[17] One should not, however, widen the gap beyond measure; actually, it is fairly easy to cross. One should only listen to the whole passage:

I readily acknowledge that there is no other way in which we eat Christ than by believing, but the eating is the effect and fruit of faith rather than faith itself. For faith does not look at Christ only at a distance, but embraces him, that he may become ours and may dwell in us. It causes us to be incorporated with him, to have life in common with him, and, in short, to become one with him (John 17:21). It is therefore true that by faith alone we eat Christ, provided we also understand in what manner faith unites us with him.[18]

Calvin’s intention has nothing to do with adding another relationship to Christ than the relationship of faith; rather, he wishes to distinguish, within the relationship of faith, the human move (moved by God) and what it reaches and obtains. He voices his concern: “That no one should think that the life we receive from him is received by mere knowledge” (Inst. 4.17.5)—faith is not just ideas floating in the brain.[19] His peculiar emphasis is the mark of the theologian’s refinement and rigor; it does not imply a serious divergence. One distorts his meaning if one loads its expression with sacramentalistic contents.[20] The Commentary on 1 Cor 11:24 refers (and this time the Lord’s Supper is the topic under discussion) to the “other” opinion, the ordinary Zwinglian one, and Dabney’s, which does not insist on a participation in the flesh of Christ but is satisfied to proclaim the communication of the benefits Christ obtained for us in his death: “As for those who are of this opinion, I have no objection to their holding such a view. As for myself, I acknowledge, that it is only when we obtain Christ himself, that we come to partake of Christ’s benefits.”[21] A rather unusual tolerance on Calvin’s part—“I have no objection to their holding such a view”—which shows that the stakes were not so high in his eyes!

Why so great a stress on eating the body, the flesh? It is, to be sure, an original feature with Calvin. To start with, one should note that Calvin emphasizes just as strongly that the body remains in heaven, that the manducation of it, which feeds our souls, is spiritual. The Short Treatise, already, teaches that Christ’s heavenly glory does not change his nature, which remains truly human, and that his human nature is destroyed, and the glory of the Ascension annihilated, if one fancies a measureless body, or one which can be in several places at the same time;[22] the Institutes develops at great length, even ponderously, the same argument (4.17.24.27–29). Our manducation is defined as a “spiritual” one, and even the flesh of Christ is said to be “a thing no less spiritual than our eternal salvation” (Inst. 4.17.33). The choice of the adjective is justified: since the Spirit is the agent of the conjunction, though the two, Christ’s body and our soul, are “separated by such great distance” (Inst. 4.17.10); since “Scripture, in speaking of our participation with Christ, relates its whole power to the Spirit” (Inst. 4.17.12).

Beyond the conviction that all the benefits of salvation are ours in the person of Christ, a twofold motive seems to determine the emphasis on the flesh: we owe our salvation to the Lord incarnate, who came down from heaven to share in our misery; his death on the cross, which he suffered in his own body, accomplished our redemption. The Commentary on John 6 powerfully displays that motive. Life, whose fountainhead is found in deity, “is placed in his flesh, that it may be drawn out of it”; God was, thereby, chastening our pride, since he enjoins us to rely on what “is contemptible in its appearance”; “so his flesh, as a channel, conveys to us that life which dwells intrinsically, as we say, in his Divinity.”[23] “This will not be difficult to understand, if we consider what is the cause of life, namely righteousness”; Christ’s flesh is life-giving: “For in it was accomplished the redemption of man, in it a sacrifice was offered to atone for our sins, and obedience yielded to God to reconcile him to us; it was also filled with the sanctification of the Spirit, and at length, having vanquished death, was received in heavenly glory.”[24] The Short Treatise stipulates: in order to share in the blessings of salvation, “the thing requisite must be not only to be partakers of his Spirit, but also to participate in his humanity, in which he rendered all obedience to God his Father, in order to satisfy our debts.”[25] Such explanatory comments enable us to follow G. C. Berkouwer (rather than Bavinck on this issue) who justifies Calvin’s way of speaking when placed and viewed in its context: “We think, however, that Calvin is not at all unclear. He thought of a participation in which body and blood did not occur as isolated substances, but wherein communion was held with Christ himself in his true body and blood, with Christ in his offering.”[26]

There is nothing unclear, at any rate, in Calvin’s constant teaching: our life-giving manducation of Christ’s flesh does not depend on the Supper celebration. “In calling himself ‘the bread of life,’ [Christ] did not borrow the name from the Sacrament, as some wrongly interpret” (Inst. 4.17.4[27]). In his Commentary on John 6, Calvin dots his i’s. “The ancients fell into a gross error . . . for this discourse does not relate to the Lord’s Supper, but to the uninterrupted communication of the flesh of Christ, which we obtain apart from the use of the Lord’s Supper”;[28] “the whole of this passage is improperly explained, as applied to the Lord’s Supper”: “It is certain, then, that he [Christ] now speaks of the perpetual and ordinary manner of eating the flesh of Christ, which is done by faith only”;[29] for this manducation, “faith alone is the mouth—so to speak—and the stomach of the soul.”[30] The Supper, itself, was added afterwards to represent and to offer to the faithful the grace of which Christ had preached: he “intended that the holy Supper should be, as it were, a seal and confirmation of this sermon.”[31]

Calvin’s twofold insistence, a rather original trait of his doctrine, was not meant to ascribe to the Supper a special causality, but to magnify, as the core-reality of the gift of grace, union with Christ, with Christ incarnate who reconciled us to God in the body of his flesh.

3. Understanding: “This Is My Body”

Eucharistic theologies that tend toward sacramentalism focus on the words “of institution,” as they are called, the words Jesus uttered during the Last Supper in the upper room. How does Calvin understand these?

He did not vary. The 1541 Institutes makes a cutting remark about literalists: “The opinion of those who obstinately maintain these words to the last syllable without wanting to admit that there is any figurative sense, is in no way more probable. They do not care what absurdity they may allege”;[32] he thus reinforces his 1536 strictures: “If some disagreeable and ignorant person obstinately fixes on this word: ‘This is my body,’ closing his eyes to all other reasoning. . .”[33] The Commentary on 1 Cor 11:24 (published in February 1546) is no less incisive: “We must hold that the expression is figurative: for, assuredly, to deny this is exceedingly dishonest”;[34] he identifies a “metonymy”; this metonymy may be discerned already in 10:4, “the rock was Christ,”[35] and in 10:16: “Now, when the cup is called a participation, the expression, I acknowledge, is figurative.”[36] The Commentary on Matt 26:26–28 (published in 1555) mentions again “an instance of metonymy.”[37] Calvin does not depart from his analysis in article 22 of the Zurich Agreement, which includes the term.[38] In his Second Defence . . . in Answer to the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal he still makes the point: “How can he, who acknowledges that the bread and the body are different things, get rid of a figure in the words, This is my body?”[39] If he consents to speak of a change or conversion of the bread, through the “consecration” which the words of institution operate, his explanation leaves no ambiguity: “In short, consecration is nothing else than a solemn testimony, by which the Lord appoints to us for a spiritual use an earthly and corruptible sign”; “we must not suppose that there is any change of the substance, but must only believe that it is applied to a new purpose.”[40] Dotting the i’s!

In the heat of his controversy with Lutheran sacramentalists, with Westphal and his colleagues, Calvin spends much energy in repetitious comments on the bone of contention, the dominical “Hoc est . . .” One of his sentences is patient, at least at first sight, of two contrary interpretations: it provides an enlightening example of the way in which interpreters diverge in their reading of Calvin. The Institutes (4.17.20), after the affirmation that Lutherans will grant that “the bread is called the body in a sacramental sense,” adds the statement: “From this it follows that Christ’s words are not subject to the common rule and ought not to be tested by grammar.” Wallace, whose orientation is that of a moderate sacramentalist, sees in that sentence the very expression of Calvin’s own conviction: Calvin distances himself from philological rigor in order to protect the mystery of “real presence.”[41] One can discern, however, just the opposite meaning! In the context of his acrimonious discussion with his theological adversaries, Calvin, according to the other reading, uses a reductio ad absurdum argument. He shows that the Lutherans’ logic leads to this consequence, unacceptable in his estimate: the words of Jesus Christ, when they are treated as those Lutherans treat them, are driven out of language (the rules are no longer relevant), and anyone can impose on them the meaning he pleases! May we adjucate between the two interpretations?

When one reads the sentence in Wallace’s way, it does not make impossible strictly a figurative interpretation, and the meaning is still compatible with other statements by Calvin: one can imagine that his strategy is simply to dismiss, by such words, the charge that he makes the Word of God subject to human rules.[42] Several weighty considerations, however, lend greater probability to the other reading, the reading which discerns the rebuke that forsaking philology is a serious deficiency.

The first consideration is the object of the paragraphs under review (Inst. 4.17.20–23) and the attitude they reveal toward linguistic usage. The section replies to the accusation, which his adversaries level at Calvin, that he “depart[s] from Christ’s words.” It upholds the legitimacy of the non-literal interpretation: “However they may cry out that they are touched with such a reverence for Christ’s words as not to dare understand figuratively what is spoken plainly, this is still not a valid enough excuse for them to reject all the reasons that we bring forward against them” (Inst. 4.17.20). Several times, he appeals to what he would call grammar. Against Catholic arguments, first, he precisely refers to the laws of language: “For it is something unheard of in all nations and languages” (ibid.; as already pointed to, he denounces the Lutherans’ contradiction when they both refuse to differentiate (refusing metonymy) and still distinguish between bread and Christ—how is exegesis possible any more? The next paragraph (21) goes back to the common acceptance, which is also biblical, of metonymy, “a figure of speech commonly used in Scripture,” and he complains: “Let our adversaries, therefore, cease to heap unsavory witticisms upon us by calling us ‘tropists,’ because we have explained the sacramental phraseology according to the common usage of Scripture”—and the French text adds: “They show themselves total barbarians in this stupid prank”; the word “barbarians” definitely implies that Calvin’s adversaries exempt themselves from philological discipline (“grammar”). Paragraph 22 discusses the use of the “copulative verb” (Battles’s translation), verbi substantivi, a rather grammatical problem! Calvin protests that he only seeks “to investigate the true sense [French addition: and natural] of his [Christ’s] words,” while paragraph 23 warns that, once the literalists’ “principle is accepted, a boundless barbarism will overwhelm the whole light of faith,” these men will draw “monstrous absurdities” from Scripture as they please; Calvin prefers to follow linguistic and literary custom and “faithfully and rightly expound” the words (French wording: “with such dexterity as required,” a word that suggests philological competence). Such massive contextual evidence makes it unlikely that Calvin should disparage (in the sentence under scrutiny) the exegetical “dexterity” which applies the rules of language to the words of our Lord—it is easier to imagine that he blames Westphal et al. for lacking the same. This evidence better suits the second reading.

What one finds elsewhere supports the same choice. It would be superfluous to insist on Calvin’s training as a “humanist”; he did not hesitate to take advantage of it in polemics.[43] Refined philological observations are not rare in his commentaries.[44] Even more to the point: he readily mocks his adversaries’ lack of competence in such matters,[45] particularly in his controversy against Lutheran sacramentalists. In his Last Admonition to Westphal, he marvels ironically that the Bremen theologians, “those worthy teachers of the Hebrew tongue, who shortly after convert the pronoun Hoc into the masculine Hic, because the Hebrew has no neuter, do not understand what boys learn in their rudiments,” and exclaims about their refusal of the metonymy: “Their assertion is barbarous in the extreme.”[46] Those of Magdeburg do not impress him more deeply: “Let them go to boys to learn their first rudiments [the French texts adds: of grammar].”[47] Facing Westphal and his friends, he complains that “it is mere childish talk to inveigh with so much vehemence against the flesh and reason.”[48] Bringing forward once more in his Second Defence the argument about figurative language used for the manna and for the dove (the dove “is” the Spirit), he invokes the authority of the rules: “Until he [Westphal] proves that the rule of grammar is applicable to one passage only, and not to all others, he will not convince sound judges of more than this, that the bread is the body, just as the dove is stiled [sic] the Holy Spirit.”[49] In the parallel discussion in the Institutes it would be strange indeed if our French Reformer had renounced the asset of philological support and conceded to Lutheran sacramentalists that the rules do not apply (as Wallace’s reading implies)! In his comments on the Zurich Agreement, Calvin had written, concerning the metonymy: “If they choose to call it synecdoche rather than metonymy, and thus reduce it to a quarrel about a word, we shall leave grammarians to settle it. What, however, will they gain but just expose themselves to derision for their ignorance, even boys being judges?”[50] He never appears to deny the relevance of philological rules.

The mystery, for Calvin, does not lie in the form of words, “This is my body”:[51] “The interpretation of this striking figure is obvious” (Inst. 4.17.23; French: facile et coulante, “easy and harmonious”), in conformity to ordinary linguistic usage.

4. Christ’s Presence

Reputable scholars thus recapitulate Calvin’s doctrine: “In the Supper, Christ comes down to us”;[52] Calvin “holds that the body of Christ is present in the Supper.”[53] Do such formulations best reflect the Reformer’s views?

Ronald S. Wallace soberly remarks: “Calvin appears at times to be inconsistent in his statements about the Supper. He can in one place deny that Christ ‘descends to the earth’ in the Supper . . . and yet in other places he speaks freely about Christ as descending through the Supper.”[54] As one goes through Calvin’s writings, one meets, it seems, more cases of denial than the reverse. He condemns the doctrine which “would place [French: abaisse, “bring down, lower”] him [Christ] under the corruptible elements of the world.”[55] He admonishes: “Let nothing be withdrawn from Christ’s heavenly glory—as happens when he is brought under the corruptible elements of the world, or bound to any earthly creatures” (Inst. 4.17.19); the French version adds in § 24 that we “receive nourishment from Christ’s flesh without it changing place from heaven”; Calvin rejects the argument of those to whom “Christ does not seem to be present unless he comes down to us”—”we do not think it lawful to drag him from heaven” (§ 31). “Jesus Christ does not go down bodily.”[56] Christ presents himself to the faithful “though he descend not to the earth.”[57] Calvin exploits the traditional motto sursum corda¸ “lift up your hearts” (Inst. 4.17.36), and he preaches: “This sacrament is given us not to drag Jesus Christ here below, but rather to lift us up where he is.”[58] The Commentary on 1 Cor 11:24 specifies: “That participation in the body of Christ, which, I affirm, is presented to us in the Supper, does not require a local presence nor the descent of Christ.”[59] And, yet, Calvin does speak at times of Christ descending! What is then important to note, as Wallace perceptively observes, is “that whenever he allows the statement to be made that Christ ‘descends’ he always insists on adding an almost paradoxical qualification to it.”[60] “We say Christ decends to us both by the outward symbol and by his Spirit, that he may truly quicken our souls by the substance of his flesh and blood” (Inst. 4.17.24). Our “true and real communion” with Christ “consists in our ascent to heaven, and requires no other descent in Christ than that of spiritual grace”[61]—a wording which shows both Calvin’s reticence about any talk of “descent” and its possible use through re-interpretation. If the Lord, from heaven, condescends to employ visible signs that our “rudeness” may feel the truth of his promise, and if his Spirit fulfills this promise in believers, he somehow “descends.” But not otherwise.

On the Lord’s presence, Calvin hardly varies his language. After Saint Augustine, he affirms the presence of majesty, that which fills the universe, according to the divine nature of the Son; he affirms the spiritual presence of grace (in which he is “to be with the whole church in the world even to the end of the age” (Inst. 4.17.28), a presence through the Holy Spirit which does not fail in the Supper; but he acknowledges Christ’s absence according to his human nature, his bodily absence and therefore the absence of his body (Inst. 4.17.26). In the Short Treatise he combats any attempt to “enclose” the body in the bread or even to conjoin it locally.[62] A life-long struggle. The temptation which besets the human handling of material signs is the temptation to bind to them the salvific Presence, and Calvin is always preoccupied to arm the faithful against it.

We only chew a morsel and drink a drop of wine: “What Christians do together must so raise them on high that they forget everything that belongs to this body and this flitting life.”[63] The Commentary on Isa 40:20 recalls that “God is not present with us by an idol [simulacrum], but by his word and the power of his Spirit; and although he holds out to us in the sacraments an image both of his grace and of spiritual blessings, yet this is done with no other intention than to lift us upwards to himself.”[64] Generally, when he makes explicit what he means when he affirms the Lord’s presence in the Supper, Calvin follows the line he draws in his Commentary on 1 Cor 11:24: “In order that he may be present with us, he does not change his place, but communicates to us from heaven the virtue of his flesh, as though he were present”;[65] Calvin has often recourse to the simile of the sun, which, high above, from so great a distance, gives life to the world—the image is introduced already into the 1539 Institutes.[66]

Some interpreters mistake the language of the body being presented for a language affirming it present in the Supper; but Calvin’s unambiguous statements rule this out. He opposes any idea of the body present in the bread, in pane.[67] To be sure, Calvin repeatedly teaches that Christ offers, exhibits, really gives, his body or flesh with and under the bread and the wine; readers who have been conditioned by Catholic or Lutheran doctrine easily imagine that he confesses a presence of the body or flesh with and under the elements, but he carefully avoids saying so. The farthest he may go, as in his (most diplomatic) letter from August 1563 to the Elector Frederick, is that the substance of Christ’s flesh and blood “is communicated to us under the symbols of bread and wine.”[68] The offer and exhibition are made through the signs, in the mode of signification, while the reality (res) remains in heaven; and if this reality is also given, this is true because, at the same time, faith receives the fulfillment of the promise, the grace of a heavenly union. There is no “presence” in the bread, beyond this twofold relationship. In his effort to ward off Lutheran charges, Calvin goes a little farther than he commonly does when he writes: “Westphal insists on the presence of the flesh of Christ in the Supper; we do not deny it, provided he will rise upwards with us by faith.”[69] But he hastens to explain what this condition implies (and we can imagine Wesphal’s displeasure!): “But if he means that Christ is placed there in a corporeal manner, let him seek other supporters,”[70] and he comes back to the life-giving virtue flowing down from heaven.[71]

The French version of the Institutes offers an ambiguous statement which might be construed as a concession to “real presence” theology: “Our Mediator, being whole everywhere, is ever near his people. Indeed, in the Supper he shows himself present in a special way”—if the “special way” qualifies the presence, the statement may imply that something unique happens ex opere sacramenti, but the phrase may simply qualify the verbal form “shows” (se montre); Battles’s translation, after the Latin, leaves only the latter possibility: “Our Mediator is ever present with his own people, and in the Supper reveals himself in a special way” (Inst. 4.17.30). The analogy of the many texts on the advantage of the visible and tangible mode of the Word in its sacramental form confirms that Calvin’s thought is no different here from his ordinary emphases.

5. The Communication Of The “Substance”

The term “substance” has figured so prominently in eucharistic controversies that our inquiry must still consider Calvin’s use of it. This use shows surprising variety. The Short Treatise includes what comes most commonly from his pen: “I am wont to say, that the substance of the sacraments is the Lord Jesus, and the efficacy of them the grace and blessings which we have by his means”;[72] Calvin never abandoned this way of speaking: “I call Christ with his death and resurrection the matter, or substance” (Inst. 4.17.11). Confronting Westphal, he confesses that “our souls are truly fed by the substance of Christ’s flesh,”[73] and that the “spiritual substance of the flesh and blood of Christ is life to us, which is communicated to us under the symbols of the bread and the wine.”[74] If, in the 1536 Institutes, he did not grant that the “very substance of the body” be given to us—the communication was restricted to the benefits of Christ’s work [beneficia][75]—he quickly changed, on this point, his language. But the Short Treatise, as it stresses the need of an intelligent apprehension of the truth when one celebrates the mystery, offers this daring formulation, a rather shocking one in a sacramentalist’s hearing: “From this it follows, that the essential part [French: substance; Latin: substantia] lies in doctrine.”[76] Against Westphal, he does not equivocate: “I have classed among opinions to be rejected the idea that the body of Christ is really and substantially present in the Supper,” and he maintains it.[77] He refuses to attenuate what he has always taught on distinction and distance:

Meanwhile, I frankly confess that I reject their teaching of the mixture, or transfusion, of Christ’s flesh with our soul. For it is enough for us that from the substance of his flesh Christ breathes life into our souls—indeed, pours forth his very life into us—even though Christ’s flesh does not enter into us.[78]

The parallel presentation of our spiritual manducation of Christ’s body and our bodily manducation of the bread cannot be maintained to the end: the substance of the bread does enter our body and a “mixture” is produced—not so with the substance of Christ’s body and our souls.

The most disconcerting feature of Calvin’s talk on the matter at hand is the way in which he handles the concepts of “substance” and of “virtue,” that is, of the power (the sense of virtus) which effects in believers life and salvation. On the one hand, Calvin does distinguish between them. On the other, he usually explains our union with the substance (of Christ, of Christ’s flesh) in terms of his life-giving “virtue,” of the benefits he pours down from heaven upon us: many of the foregoing quotations attest the fact.[79] He can preach: “We communicate to the body and blood of Jesus Christ as to virtue, when we draw [our] life from him.”[80] The Commentary on 1 Cor 11:24 precisely defines: “My meaning is, that our souls are nourished by the substance of the body, that we may truly be made one with him, or, what amounts to the same thing, that a life-giving virtue from Christ’s flesh is poured into us by the Spirit, though it is at a great distance from us, and is not mixed with us.”[81] The surprising equivalence stated appears to be highly significant.[82] Calvin is quite constrained to resort to it in order to handle the case of the Old Testament believers. This maxim functions as a cornerstone of his general theology of the sacraments: “He therefore makes them equal to us in sacraments, and he leaves us no shred of privilege . . . whatever is shown us today in the sacraments, the Jews of old received in their own—that is, Christ with his spiritual riches” (Inst. 4.14.23); “the ancient Sacraments of the Law had the same virtue as ours have at this day.”[83] Both in French and Latin Calvin uses the word “substance” when he writes of them: the sacrament “retains its substance” (though John Pringle’s translation chooses “essence”);[84] and of manna he exclaims: “Who dared treat as an empty sign [the French adds: “and without substance,” et sans substance] that which revealed the true communion of Christ to the Jews?” (Inst. 4.14.23). He must then face a serious difficulty: “How would the Jews be partakers of the same spiritual meat and drink, when there was as yet no flesh of Christ that they could eat?”[85] The Reformer’s solution refers to the benefits of redemption, as they were applied in advance. “This reception of it was the secret work of the Holy Spirit, who wrought in them in such a manner, that Christ’s flesh, though not yet created, was made efficacious in them.”[86] Calvin must have felt some embarrassment at this juncture, for his further comments do not radiate consistency. After having affirmed so strongly a perfect identity of privilege, he posits a difference between the ancients and us “according to the measure of revelation.”[87] Is this merely noetic? He is even able to add: “For in the present day, the eating is substantial, which it could not have been then.”[88]

If Calvin’s use of the word “substance” falls short of perfect lucidity, a paragraph of the shorter work The Best Method of Obtaining Concord offers a rather balanced account:

After these matters have been arranged there still arises the doubt as to the term substance, to settle which the easy method seems to be to remove the gross imagination as to the eating of the flesh, as if it were similar to corporeal meat which is received by the mouth and descends into the stomach. For when this absurdity is out of the way, there is no reason why we should deny that we are substantially fed on the flesh of Christ, because we are truly united into one body with him by faith, and so made one with him. Whence it follows, that we are conjoined with him by a substantial fellowship, just as substantial vigor flows from the head to the members. The explanation to be adopted will thus be, that substantially we become partakers of the flesh of Christ—not that any carnal mixture takes place, or that the flesh of Christ brought down from heaven penetrates into us, or is swallowed by the mouth, but because the flesh of Christ, in respect of its power and efficacy, vivifies our souls in the same way that bread and wine nourish our bodies.[89]

So the main threads of Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine are woven together. When he emphasizes “substantial” he is not making any concession to Catholic or Lutheran theologies; his concern is to magnify the central truth—against superficial intellectualism—the truth of our union with Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ come in the flesh and crucified.

II. Conclusion

The exploration of the issues specific to the doctrine of the Supper converges with the results reached on sacraments “in general,” their nature, role, and “efficacy.” A plethora of quotations, taken from the various genres of Calvin’s writings and the successive periods of his ministry, form a sufficient basis for the following conclusions.

1. Nowhere does Calvin ascribe to the sacrament a causative role, (a) as to the grace represented by the sign, and (b) beyond signification itself (the function of “visible words”). He expressly rejects it several times. When, exceptionally, he seems to affirm it, a finer and more rigorous exegesis can show that it is most unlikely.
2. Calvin makes a sustained effort to exalt the role of sacraments, and particularly that of the Lord’s Supper. He employs, so to do, two main theological tools. First, he applies to the sacrament, since a “visible word,” the instrumental language which already suits the preached Word: offering and exhibiting Jesus Christ, even “containing” and “conferring” his grace, once or twice. Second, he stresses the concomitance of the gift of grace and believing participation in the sacrament; he can thus say that believers, in the Supper, really eat the flesh of Christ, though the flesh is not in the bread and the eating is wholly spiritual.
3. His discourse then sounds like a sacramentalist’s in the ears of many. It is not, however. Calvin may have produced such resonances for diplomatic reasons. His main motive, nevertheless, was to repel the unjust charge that he only kept “bare and empty” sacraments.
4. Calvin’s anthropology, not exempt from Platonic tinges, leads him to put a higher value than any has done before him on the pedagogical advantage of a visible and tangible communication of God’s promise (offer). Without affirming a strict necessity, he comes near to it, because of our weakness and “rudeness.” Calvin, however, is not motivated by the desire to enhance the value of the bodily dimension itself, a desire typical of modern Incarnationism.
5. The function of a seal, which ratifies, authenticates, and confirms, is added to that of the visible word, though it cannot work separately. Calvin seems to draw a supplement of assurance from the conviction that the Lord himself tenders to him the material signs of his promise. He does not give the clearest account of this conviction.
6. Likely, the concomitance, in the Supper, of the spiritual manducation of the Savior’s flesh by the “mouth” of faith and the bodily manducation of the bread representing that flesh, the de facto coincidence of the reality signified and of its sign or symbol, made possible a uniquely intense experience of grace—for Calvin’s own intimate feeling, and with repercussions in his construction of a new eucharistic theology, in which he so often refers to the subjective appropriation by the worshipers.

Despite certain tensions, the construction as a whole possesses a remarkable coherence, indeed an admirable coherence. The glory of Jesus Christ, the ultimate substance of the sacraments, shines through. Whether Calvin’s interpretation fully accounts for the biblical evidence, whether the sola Scriptura criterion allows a perfect validation, this should be investigated as the object of another inquiry, but on the basis of a balanced and accurate determination of what the Reformer said and thought!

Notes

1. References, generally, will be made to, and quotations taken from, books and articles in their original languages; unless otherwise indicated, English translations are my own. In the case of Calvin’s works, all references have been considered in the original version, Latin or French (since Calvin either translated himself his Latin writings or closely controlled their translation, the French version possesses authentic document value). These are Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, 59 vols.; Brunswick, then Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke, 1863-1900), abbreviated CO with volume and page number (e.g., 9:118); Recueil des Opuscules, c’est-à-dire Petits Traités de M. Jean Calvin (Geneva: Baptiste Pinereul, 1566), abbreviated Opusc., followed by page number (an opportunity to follow Richard A. Muller’s advice and read older texts in contemporary editions); the 1541 French edition of the Institution de la religion chrétienne (ed. Jacques Pannier; Paris: Société des Belles Lettres, 1938), abbreviated Pannier, with volume and page number; the Commentaires sur le Nouveau Testament (Paris: Meyrueis, 1854), abbreviated CNT, with volume and page number; Albert-Marie Schmidt’s edition of the Petit Traicté de la saincte Cène de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ in Trois Traités (Paris: Je Sers, and Geneva: Labor, 1934), abbreviated Trois Traités, with page number. Unless otherwise indicated, translated quotations from Calvin’s sermons and letters are my own. For other works, I have cited widespread English translations: from Ford Lewis Battles’s version of the 1559/1561 edition of the Institutes, abbreviated Inst., with standard references (book, chapter, paragraph; often appearing in the main body of the text); from the translation of the 1541 Institutes by Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), abbreviated McKee, with page number; from the Calvin Translation Society series of Commentaries, whose translators (for those cited) were James Anderson (Psalms), Charles W. Bingham (Harmony of the Law, Exodus–Deuteronomy), John King (Psalms), John Owen (Romans, Hebrews), John Pringle (1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians), William Pringle (Isaiah, Harmony of the Gospels, John, Galatians, Ephesians, Titus), referenced under the form CTS, volume number if there are several, and page number, with the Bible verse indicated; from the companion series of Tracts, translated and edited by Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet, with volume and page numbers. I have accessed all these through the “Ages digital library” (Ages software, Albany, N.Y.) CD-ROM “The Comprehensive John Calvin Collection.” Tracts 2:172 §§ 34 and 35 (Trois Traités, 124).
2. Tracts, 2:173-74 § 37 (Trois Traités, 125-26). Same passion in Inst. 4.18.3 (where he uses “sophism”), or in the Commentary on Heb 10:1-2, CTS 196 (CNT 4:466).
3. Short Treatise, Tracts 2:173 § 36 (Trois Traités, 125).
4. Ibid., § 35 (Trois Traités, 124-25).
5. Ibid. (Trois Traités, 125).
6. CTS 303-5 (CNT 4:530-31): no reticence, and no mention of the Supper!
7. Tracts 2:164 § 18 (Trois Traités, 113).
8. Already in Inst. 4.17.37, Calvin had written: Jesus Christ “taught them to do it in remembrance of him. This Paul interpreted as ‘to declare the Lord’s death,’ that is, with a single voice to confess openly before men that for us the whole assurance of life and salvation rests upon the Lord’s death, that we may glorify him by our confession, and by our example exhort others to give glory to him. Here again the purpose of the Sacrament is made clear, that is, to exercise us in the remembrance of Christ’s death.”
9. Pierre Courthial, “Les aspects sacrificiels de la Sainte-Cène,” RRef 9, no. 34 (1958/2): 49.
10. Ibid., 52.
11. CTS (Harmony of the Law), 2:18 (CO 24:333-34).
12. I encountered two passages which do suggest an atemporal stance. In his Second Defence against Westphal, Tracts 2:273 (Opusc. 1537), Calvin writes: “As the Lamb is said to have been slain from the foundation of the world, so must the fathers under the law have sought spiritual food from [his] flesh and blood”; in his 1st sermon on 1 Cor 10-11, CO 49:589: “In sum, the Lamb by whom the sins of the world are taken away was immolated in his own time; but he did not fail to be already sacrificed before God in power and efficacy before the creation of the world, as it is said in another place.” The clause I put in italics shows that Calvin was somewhat hesitant, or embarrassed. He is wary of speculating on an eternal actuality which could relativize the historical insertion of the event (hence his reminder “in his own time”), he dare not affirm that the sacrifice has always been accomplished as far as its true reality is concerned, ontologically (hence the weakening clause “in power and efficacy”), and yet, he is attracted to the “eternalizing” view; he (unfortunately) reads Rev 13:8 as if the phrase “from the foundation of the world” were attached to to the verbal form “immolated” rather than to “has been written.”
13. Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 810.
14. Ibid., 811.
15. Ibid., 813.
16. Quoted, for instance, in the Second Helvetic Confession, whose redactor was Heinrich Bullinger, ch. 21 (and coming from Tract. Ev. Jo. 25.12). In the preface of his edition of the French text of 1566, Jaques Courvoisier (Cahiers théologiques de l’actualité protestante 5-6; Neuchâtel-Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1944), recalls the widespread influence of that Confession among the Reformed throughout Europe; pp. 8-9: “One can say that, together with the Heidelberg Catechism, which was published three years earlier, it is the book which was most widely spread and whose authority was most universally acknowledged.”
17. On John 6:35, CTS 220 (CNT 2:130).
18. Ibid.; similar comments on v. 47, CTS 225 (CNT 2:135).
19. Cf. Inst. 4.17.11: though we receive everything by faith, “I leave no place for the sophistry that what I mean when I say Christ is received by faith is that he is received only by understanding and imagination” (the French version adds: “as we occupy ourselves with mere and bare beholding”; Calvin may remember the etymology of “theory”).
20. Paul Jacobs offers an interesting example, “Pneumatische Realpräsenz bei Calvin,” in Regards contemporains sur Jean Calvin: Actes du Colloque Calvin, Strasbourg 1964 (Cahiers de la RHPR 39; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), 132: “In order to ward off the misinterpretation of Augustine into which Zwinglians had been slipping, in Calvin’s eyes, he underlines that faith does not replace the eating [nicht das Essen ersetzt].” Precisely, this is not at all Calvin’s language! He never imagined replacing faith by eating or eating by faith. The discrepancy may look a tiny one, but it is significant.
21. CTS 319 (CNT 3:439). The difference, basically, is the same as the one involved in the believing/eating distinction: Calvin wishes to affirm with maximum force our intimate union with Jesus Christ.
22. Tracts 2:176 §§ 41-42 (Trois Traités, 129-30).
23. On John 6:51, CTS 231 (CNT 2:136).
24. Also on John 6:51, CTS 231 (CNT 2:136-37). Cf. on John 6:63, CTS 241 (CNT 2:143): “It is food, because by it life is procured for us, because in it God is reconciled to us.”
25. Tracts 2:161 § 13 (Trois Traités, 110).
26. G. C. Berkouwer, The Sacraments (trans. Hugo Bekker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 231; the whole section on pp. 228-36 (even p. 240) deals with our topic; Berkouwer notes (p. 235), with Dankbaar, that, for Calvin, manducation is of the crucified, rather than the glorified, body.
27. McKee, 548 (Pannier, 4:11) reads: “For the fact that Jesus Christ calls Himself the bread of life is not an account of the sacrament (as more than a few have falsely explained),” a statement from 1536. Cf. above a quotation from the Short Treatise which affirms that the spiritual reality represented in the Supper is antecedently present in believers.
28. On John 6:53, CTS 234 (CNT 2:138).
29. Ibid. (on 6:54). Cf. the sermon preached on March 28, 1562 (Psalmpredigten, Passions-, Oster-, und Pfingstpredigten [vol. 7 of Supplementa Calviniana; ed. Erwin Mülhaupt; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchnener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1981], 161).
30. On John 6:56, CTS 236 (CNT 2:140). Cf. on 6:63, CTS 241 (CNT 2:143): “we must bring the spiritual mouth of faith.”
31. On John 6:54, CTS 235 (CNT 138-39).
32. McKee, 551 (Pannier, 4:15).
33. McKee, 552 (Pannier, 4:17).
34. CTS 318 (CNT 3:438).
35. CTS 270 (CNT 3:410).
36. CTS 284 (CNT 3:418).
37. CTS (Harmony of the Gospels) 3:159 (CNT 1:651).
38. CO 7:742. Calvin’s letter 880 to Bullinger, from February 1547, CO 12:482, explains that he agrees about the metonymy in Jesus’ words but is reluctant to put it simply in the same category as profane images (as Bullinger does): the difference that belongs to the sacramental figures is this: God, through them, makes promises and effectively grants the reality of his grace, actually vivifies the hearts which respond with faith—nothing of the kind happens with an image of Ceasar, or with any profane image.
39. Tracts 2:254 (Opusc. 1520). The Lutheran’s contradiction lies in this: he still makes a distinction between bread and body (since he says that the body is there with the bread), and yet he condemns those who recognize a figure in the statement “This [bread] is my body.”
40. On Matt 26:26-28, CTS (Harmony of the Gospels) 3:158 (CNT 1:651). Regarding the change affecting bread and wine, Inst. 4.17.15 confirms that there happens “no other conversion than with respect to men.” As Vial correctly notes, the change affects the way the faithful look upon the elements (Marc Vial, Jean Calvin: Introduction à sa pensée théologique [Geneva: Musée International de la Réforme/Labor & Fides, 2008], 153).
41. Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1953), 198-99; what I call “philological rigor” (respecting the rules of grammar in the widest sense), Wallace rather awkwardly, and even misleadingly, labels “a too literal interpretation” (he writes: “A too literal interpretation would actually lead to a statement of doctrine which would endanger the real presence of Christ in the sacrament”). Obviously, for Calvin, to follow “the common rule” of language is far from meaning literalism (Wallace, 197, quotes a fine formulation: Utinam tam literati essent, quam literales appetunt [CO 9:198], “Would they were more competent in letters [i.e., literary matters] than attached to the letter!”). Vial, Jean Calvin: Introduction, 152, reads the sentence as Wallace does (as a statement of Calvin’s own position) but does not see in it an expression of sacramentalism.
42. The Second Defence, Tracts 2:255 (Opusc. 1521), expressly discards this accusation. Lutherans often suspected the Reformed to hide a rationalistic bent (hence Calvin’s zeal in stressing that the mystery of our spiritual manducation of Christ’s body surpasses all our comprehension).
43. Cf. François Wendel, Calvin et l’humanisme (Cahiers de la RHPR 45; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976); Peter Opitz, Calvins theologische Hermeneutik (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsverein, 1994), esp. 71-86.
44. Here are a few examples that caught my eye as I was reading: on Hos 11:1-2, on kî and kén (CO 42:431, 434); on Isa 43:19, on a rhetorical use of the interrogative form, frequently found in Hebrew (CO 37:94); on Ps 12:3 and 6, on the etymology of the Hebrew word for “flattery” and on lô (in my 16th-century French edition, pp. 62, 63); on 2 Pet 1:19 and the word epilusis, in Calvin’s reply to Pighius (CO 6:270).
45. E.g., as he denounces V. Gentili’s impious error, Opusc. 1933.
46. Tracts 2:439 (Opusc. 1685).
47. Tracts 2:371 (Opusc. 1624). The quote deserves to be offered in its immediate context: “It is contrary to the usage of all languages to make the demonstrative pronoun in this passage point out any thing but that which is held forth. . . . How will they prove the restriction from the common use of all languages? It is a trite and common usage in the languages of all nations, to denote absent things by the demonstrative pronoun. If they deny this, let them go to the boys to learn their first rudiments, nay, let them recall to mind what they have learned from their nurses, provided they were nursed on mothers’ milk. If this is generally true, why in one passage only shall all languages lose their force and nature?” One could also quote the Clear Explanation against Heshusius, Tracts 2:500-501 (Opusc. 1737): “I omit the Greek terms which he would not omit, and in regard to which, by substituting adjectives for substantives, he betrays his ignorance.”
48. Tracts 2:446 (Opusc. 1691), with this apostrophe: “Do you hear, O barker? Do you hear, O frantic, O brutish man?” This page finely illustrates Calvin’s strategy as he confronts those Lutherans: against the charge of rationalism, he argues that he is just following Scripture, and affirms the mysterious communication of Christ’s body to believers (the res) as they partake of the Supper—the basis of the transfer of the name to the sign.
49. Tracts 2:274 (Opusc. 1536 as printed, the page number should have been 1537).
50. John Calvin, Mutual Consent in Regard to the Sacraments, Tracts 2:228 (Opusc. 1497).
51. The mystery, once more, is that of our union with Christ, spiritual manducation of his flesh which was crucified for our redemption: it is offered by the Word and by the Supper, it is received by faith, without and within the Supper.
52. Rémy Hebding, Pour comprendre la pensée de Jean Calvin: Introduction à la théologie du Réformateur (Figures protestantes; Lyons: Olivétan, 2009), 63 (cf. p. 66: “in the Supper, through the bread and the wine, Christ lowers himself to our level”).
53. François Wendel, Calvin: Sources et évolution de sa pensée religieuse (Etudes d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses, published by the Faculté de Théologie Protestante de l’Université de Strasbourg 41; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), 268; according to Wendel, this affirmation is combined with a denial of a “local or spatial relationship with the material elements of the Supper,” and the two are “difficult to reconcile.”
54. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, 208.
55. Short Treatise, Tracts 2:176 § 42 (Trois Traités, 129); cf. Inst. 4.17.12.
56. 4th sermon on the Ascension (Acts 1:9-11), in Conrad Badius’s edition, 368. Similarly, 1st sermon on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), ibid., 394, “It is not necessary for him to descend here below (as Papists imagine) to communicate to us his body and blood.”
57. Second Defence against Westphal, Tracts 2:257 (Opusc. 1522).
58. 16th sermon on 1 Cor 10-11 (1 Cor 11:23-25), CO 49:789.
59. CTS 320 (CNT 3:440).
60. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, 209.
61. Second Defence, Tracts 2:262 (Opusc. 1527).
62. Short Treatise, Tracts 2:176 §§ 41-42 (Trois Traités, 129).
63. 15th sermon on 1 Cor 10-11 (on 1 Cor 11:20-23), CO 49:771. Not far, Inst. 4.17.29: “To what purpose is the presence hidden under bread [which adversaries imagine], if not that they who desire to have Christ joined to them may halt at this symbol? Yet the Lord himself willed us to withdraw not only our eyes but all our senses from the earth, forbidding women to touch him until he has ascended to the Father.”
64. CTS 2:65 (CO 37:20).
65. CTS 321 (CNT 3:441).
66. McKee, 556 (Pannier, 4:24).
67. As Wallace acknowledges, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, 209 (with n. 8), quoting from Inst. 4.17.31. The French version of this paragraph does not use “in” but “at” and “under” (au pain, sous le pain).
68. Letter 3986, CO 20:73.
69. Second Defence, Tracts 2:262 (Opusc. 1527).
70. Ibid. (the sentence immediately follows the one previously quoted).
71. Ibid., with Tracts 2:260 (Opusc. 1525), the favorite image of the sun. We should note that the clause “in the Supper” is not strictly equivalent to “in the bread.”
72. Tracts 2:160 § 11 (Trois Traités, 108-9).
73. Second Defence, Tracts 2:259 (Opusc. 1524).
74. Letter to Frederick, quoted above, CO 20:73.
75. CO 1:123, also quoted by Hebding, Pour comprendre la pensée de Jean Calvin, 67. This passage already chooses the verb exhibere (for the body in sacramento).
76. Tracts 2:179 § 48 (Trois Traités, 133); cf. 180 § 48 (Trois Traités, 134) on the mass: “the principal and proper substance of the Supper is wanting”).
77. Second Defence, Tracts 2:262 (Opusc. 1527).
78. Inst. 4.17.32. Same rejection of all “infusion” in his Second Defence, Tracts 2:259 (Opusc. 1524).
79. In the Inst., and against Westphal as well, and in the letter to Frederick, and ordinarily.
80. 7th sermon on 1 Cor 10-11 (1 Cor 10:15-18), CO 49:667.
81. CTS 320 (CNT 3:439).
82. One may deplore that the first part of the sentence is often quoted without the second part, a misleading selection as to the impression produced on the reader’s mind: e.g., Wendel, Calvin: Sources et évolution, 260.
83. On 1 Cor 10:3, CTS 268 (CNT 3:409).
84. CTS 268.
85. On 1 Cor 10:4, CTS 270 (CNT 3:410).
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.; on 1 Cor 10:3, CTS 268 (CNT 3:409), he had written that “there is a difference between us and them only in degree, or (as they commonly say), of ‘more and less,’ for we receive more fully.”
88. On 1 Cor 10:4, CTS 270 (CNT 3:411). Similarly in the Second Defence, Tracts 2:273 (Opusc. 1537), and without the vocabulary of substance, in Inst. 4.14.26.
89. Tracts 2:522 (Opusc. 1754).