We have long known that John Calvin's years in Strasbourg (1538–41), after he and William Farel were expelled from Geneva, were significant. There Calvin became a pastor, theological lecturer, wrote a second edition of his Institutes of the Christian religion (1539) along with a commentary on Romans (1540), and saw first-hand the workings of a city church striking its Protestant path into what became the ‘Reformed’ church tradition. Most significantly, Calvin learned from Strasbourg's leading reformer, Martin Bucer. Scholars have seen Bucer's influence in Calvin's developing theology; and have also noted Calvinian influences on the great reformer.
Now we can gain an even wider and deeper picture of Calvin's formative years in Strasbourg through this collection which emerged from the 2009 Symposium in the city, ‘When Strasbourg Welcomed Calvin, 1538–1541’. The publication of sources since the great work of Émile Doumergue at the beginning of the twentieth century, on which much of the Calvin story in Strasbourg was based, has enabled new looks to fresh dimensions of Calvin and Strasbourg. This book brings the work of the symposium into an accessible form. It features fourteen pieces from mainly Strasbourg-based teacher-researchers who are experts in various disciplines.
Marc Lienhard's ‘Strasbourg in Calvin's time’ admirably sets the stage for the coming contributions. Lienhard explores the Strasbourg context, its leaders – Bucer and Wolfgang Capito(n) – and major lineaments of the Church. Bucer believed that ‘a Christian magistrate had the duty to promote true religion and to punish everyone who was against it’ (p. 10). He had close ties with Luther, Melanchthon and Zwingli and in his tireless quest for Christian unity, ‘Bucer's horizon was truly Europe’ (p. 11). Tensions emerged with city leaders as Bucer ‘pleaded for a church discipline, which was required according to him in order to improve the life of Christians’ (p. 21). Calvin saw this as he participated in the city's full church life. He also saw that Bucer's theology was ‘always attentive to the church’ (p. 17).
Through Christopher Burger's work on Calvin's correspondence up to 1538, we see Calvin adapting to his new city, but always with an eye toward Geneva, by which the deep wound of expulsion had been inflicted. He participated in a number of religious colloquia, enabling him to see the complexities of the growing reform movements. Calvin was to return to Geneva in September 1541 to help meet the city's needs. But the Strasbourg pastors emphasised that ‘once the Reformer had finished his task Geneva could send Calvin back to Strasbourg’ (p. 37).
Two chapters examining the Strasbourg Psalter of 1539 (Philippe François) and Calvin and church music (Robert Weeda) describe the distinctive Psalm-singing tradition that Strasbourg helped foster in Calvin. Calvin's own attempts as ‘poet’ in rendering the Psalms for singing were overshadowed by the poet Clement Marot who went on with Theodore Beza to develop the famous Genevan Psalter.
Calvin's commentary on Romans (1540) emerged from his lectures at the Haute École. Christian Grappe notes that Calvin's commitment to ‘the perspicua brevitas, of precision and clarity’ is teamed with ‘in a constant background, the search for the author's intention’ – a dedication Calvin maintained through all his commentaries (p. 84).
Stephen Buckwalter's examination of Calvin's 1539 Institutio finds influences of Bucer in terms of theological themes, especially in the development of Calvin's views on the Anabaptists, a deepening assessment of the lord's supper, and in Calvin's enhanced recognition of the beauty of creation and the joys of life. These express the goodness of God (p. 105).
Olivier Millet's ‘Books by the Reformer printed or read in Strasbourg’ is an illuminating piece on the images of Calvin that Calvin presented through his works; and what his Strasbourg readers perceived.
The final chapters in this volume consider Calvin's participation in efforts to find agreements among Evangelicals and with the traditional faith. Among these, as Volkmar Ortmann details in ‘Calvin and the religious colloquia of 1539–1541’, is the Frankfurt Meeting (1539) to seek a union on religious questions among emerging Protestants. Here Calvin met Melanchthon and discussed holy communion. The meeting led Calvin to try to be a ‘mediator between the Swiss and the League of Schmalkalde’ (p. 172). The Colloquium of Hagenau (1540) brought Calvin into contact with the main evangelical theologians. The Colloquium of Worms (1540–1) was where he sought ‘to find for the German Protestants their support for their French co-religionists’ (p. 175). Calvin's concern for the persecuted French Church was strong, a disquiet he continued to act upon at the meeting in Ratisbon where he tried to ‘win the support of the evangelicals with the French Protestants’ (p. 182).
An important theological piece is studied in Marianne Carbonnier-Burkard's ‘Consensus and disagreement in the Little treatize on holy communion (1541)’. This was the first work in French which Calvin wrote under his own name (p. 183) and was published in Geneva after he had left Strasbourg. Carbonnier-Burkard says that in the treatise, Calvin announced his aim which was a pastoral in nature. He wanted to declare to the ‘faithful people’ in their own language ‘a common doctrine, a consensus on holy communion’ (p. 184). Yet, Calvin was also aiming to reach a wider public, beyond homes within the Church that he served. He want to speak to ‘his French people’ (as Beza indicated) – those who had stayed in France. Calvin considered the communion's foundations and then its usefulness for believers. He clearly indicated the major mistakes of the mass and then went on to propose a statement of agreement: ‘we are truly made participants in the proper substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ’ (p. 207). This shifted ground from the contentious idea of ‘substance’ in itself to the relationship of the believer with Christ. Calvin's proposal did not meet with success. Eucharistic agreement came closer with Calvin and Bullinger's Consensus Tigurinus (1549).
This splendid collection certainly succeeds in its aim of stimulating ‘Calvinian historiography, in the tradition of the Jubilee of 2009’ (p. xvi).
