II. Lectures on Genesis
12. Calvin among the Thorn&s
David C. Steinmetz
Among the three Protestant commentators John Calvin mentions favorably in the preface to his 1540 commentary on Romans was an ex-Dominican, Martin Bucer (1491-1551). Bucer had entered the Do- minican Order in 1506 at the age of fifteen. In 1516 he transferred to the Blackfriars cloister in Heidelberg, where in April, 1518, he heard Martin Luther preside at a theological disputation sponsored by Luther’s own order, the Hermits of St. Augustine. Bucer was so captivated by Luther’s thought that he applied for release from the Dominican Order and in 1521 became a simple parish priest in Landstuhl. After brief parochial duty in Landstuhl and Weissenburg, Bucer fled for refuge to the imperial city of Strasbourg, where he became the pastor in turn of the churches of St.
Aurelia (1524-1531) and St. Thomas (1531-1540). From Strasbourg he swiftly rose to prominence as one of the principal leaders of the Refor- mation in the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1538 Calvin, who had been expelled from Geneva, arrived in Strasbourg to become the pastor of the congregation of French refugees.
From 1538 until his return to Geneva in 1541, Calvin and Bucer were fre- quently in each other’s company. IILvo years earlier, in 1536, while serving as the pastor of the Church of St. Thomas, Bucer had written a lengthy commentary on Romans called the Metaphrases et Enarrationes Perpetuae in Epistolam ad Romanos, which he published through the Strasbourg printer, Wendelin Rihil.1 Four years later, in 1540, using the same
1. Martin Bucer, Metaphrases et Enarrationes Perpetuae Epistolarum d Pauli Apos-
This essay was written with the aid of a grant from the Herzog August Bibli- othek in Wolfenbiittel, West Germany.
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Strasbourg printer, Calvin published his own much shorter Commentarii in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, and included in his dedication high praise for Bucer’s 1536 commentary: “Finally there comes Bucer, who spoke the last word on the subject with the publication of his writings. In addition to his profound learning, abundant knowledge, keenness of intellect, wide reading, and many other varied excellences in which he is surpassed by hardly anyone at the present day, this scholar, as we know, is equalled by few and is superior to very many. It is to his especial credit that no one in our time has been more precise or diligent in interpreting Scripture than he.“2
The question has frequently been asked whether Bucer as a former Dominican brought with him to the Reformation theological and exegetical insights shaped by the teaching of the preeminent theologian of his old order, Thomas Aquinas.3 If so, did Bucer in turn influence the thinking of John Calvin in a Thomistic direction? The issue is, of course, far too broad to be resolved in a single essay. Yet it is possible to pursue in one essay a limited case study that may provide a partial answer to a long and compli- cated question. What I propose to do in this essay is to examine the exegesis of Rom. 9 by Thomas Aquinas, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin, in order to isolate the agreements and disagreements between them and to determine whether those agreements and disagreements argue for or against the pres- ence of a common school tradition.4 In order to provide a contemporary context for Bucer’s exegesis, I will compare Bucer’s interpretation of Paul at several points with the exegesis of two Dominican theologians who did not become Protestant: Thomas de Vio, known as Cajetan (146%1534), and Ambrosius Catherinus Politus (1484-1553).
toli. Tomus Primus continens Metaphrasim et Enarrationem in Epistolam ad Romanos (Strasbourg: Wendelin Rihil, 1536).
2. T. H. L. Parker, ed., Iohannis Calvini Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Roma- nos (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 2 [hereafter cited as Calvin, Commentarius]. English translation by Ross Mackenzie, in Calvin’s Commentaries: The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, ed. David W. and Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids:
Berdmans, l%l), 2 [hereafter cited as Calvin, Romans].
3. W. P Stephens is not inclined to think that Thomism is an important factor in Bucer’s development. See, e.g., his comment in The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Martin Bucer (Cambridge: University Press, 1970), 18: “It is not clear how far the influence of Thomism is more than superficial, affecting Bucer’s language rather than his fundamental understanding of the Christian faith.” See also Karl Koch, Studium Pietatis: Martin Bucer als Ethiker (Neukirchen, 1962), 9, 12-13, 19,70,80.
4. The commentaries on Paul by Thomas Aquinas were available in printed editions in the early 16th century and reprinted three times between 1522 and 1532. On this and related questions see Denis R. Janz, Luther on Thomas Aquinas: The Angelic Doctor in the Thought of the Reformer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989) 105.
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I
Thomas Aquinas probably delivered his commentary on Romans as a series of lectures during his second regency at Paris (1270-72)s The exposition is divided into five Zectiones, covering respectively 9:1-5, 6-13, 14-18, 19-23, and 24- 33.6 The central theme that ties the various sections together for Thomas is the question of the origin of grace. Does grace spring from divine election alone or is it based on human merit?7 Interwoven with this theme is the question of the place of Jews and Gentiles in the history of salvation.
The first Zectio struggles to explain Paul’s astonishing wish to be
“accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of [his] brethren,” the unconverted Jews. Such a wish appears to some medieval critics of Paul to contradict the order of charity by which Christians are bound to love God supremely and their own salvation more than the salvation of any other human being. Paul could mean that he hoped to be anathema (i.e., separated from final salvation), at least for a time, if it would contribute to the conversion of the Jews and thus to Christ’s honor. At any event, what Thomas is careful to show is that Paul’s seemingly exaggerated sorrow is not irrational. The people whom Paul loves so intensely are a great people. They alone have descended from ,Jacob and the patriarchs; they alone have been graced with certain spiritual benefits; they alone have provided the stock from which Christ descended according to the flesh (a point, Thomas notes, that undercuts the Manichean, Valentinian, Nestorian, and Arian heresies).*
The second Zectio follows the sudden turn in Paul’s argument from a consideration of the greatness of the Jews as a nation descended from Jacob to a narrower consideration of a remnant among the Jews who form a spiritual seed elected by God. Paul contends that not all the natural descendants of Abraham are his spiritual descendants. Abraham’s spiritual children are the children of promise. By the grace of God’s promise they have been made Abraham’s children through faith. Jews who thought they were worthy of the grace of God because of the merit of their ancestors
5. For a discussion of the problems surrounding the dating of Thomas’s commentary on Romans, see James A. Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1974, 1983), 246-49.
6. For the text of Thomas’s exposition, see the “Expositio in Omnes Sancti Pauli Epistolas,” in Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Doctoris Angelici Ordinis Praedicatorum Opera Omniu, 13 (Parma: Typis Petri Fiaccadori, 1872), 91-102.
7. Ibid., 91.
8. Ibid., 92-94.
I
CALVIN AMONG THE THOMISTS 201could always get around the example of Abraham. After all, while both Isaac and Ishmael were children of Abraham, they were children by dif- ferent mothers. Sarah was free; Hagar was a slave. Furthermore, Ishmael was conceived while Abraham was uncircumcised and therefore still a Gentile; Isaac was conceived after Abraham’s circumcision. Ishmael as the descendant of a Gentile father and an enslaved mother was naturally ex- cluded from the blessings offered only to the Jews.9
In order to counteract this kind of subterfuge, Paul appeals to the example of Rebecca. Rebecca’s son, Jacob, was elect; her twin son, Esau, was reprobate. Unlike Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau came not only from the same father but also from the same mother. They were conceived through the same sexual act and born on the same day at the same time through an identical act of labor. In spite of the identity of their natural circumstances, God nevertheless chose Jacob as the child of his promise and rejected Esau.10
On what grounds, however, was God’s choice based, if not natural descent from Abraham? Certainly not a difference in astrological charts, as the Manicheans falsely argued, or in foreseen merit, as the Pelagians incorrectly thought! God’s choice was made before Jacob and Esau had been born and therefore before they had made any moral choices. Paul also excludes from consideration Origen’s fantasy of a pretemporal fall. Neither preexisting works in this life (Pelagius) nor preexisting works in another life (Origen) form the basis for God’s choice of Jacob over Esau. According to his own spontaneous will God elects one twin over the other, not because Jacob was already holy but in order to make him so.11
Paul’s argument has raised for Thomas important theological ques- tions that need to be clarified before he can proceed further with his exposition. To explain what Paul means by election, Thomas distinguishes three important terms (that are, of course, indistinguishable in God):
namely, love (dilectio), election (electio), and predestination (praedestina- tie). Love wills the good for someone absolutely. Election wills some good for one person rather than another. Predestination directs the preferred object of love to the good willed by the electing agent. Love therefore precedes predestination as the will concerning an end naturally precedes the direction of someone to it.12
In other words, the election of Jacob over Esau is rooted in an absolute
9. Ibid., 94.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., 94-95.
202 DAVID C. STEINMETZ
and ‘mysterious love that cannot be rationalized. God predestines Jacob, i.e., directs him to final salvation, because he has loved and chosen him.
The choice and direction are based on God’s absolute love and on no other cause, however plausible. Whatever good there is in Jacob is the result of God’s electing love and not its cause. The notion, therefore, that election is based on foreknowledge, even in part, is rejected by Thomas as absurd.
God predestines the elect to merit glory, but merit remains the effect and not the cause of predestination.13
The same cannot be said with respect to Esau. The choice of Jacob over Esau can be described as the nonelection, though not reprobation, of Esau. Esau is not reprobated simply because he was not chosen (though the nonchoice of Esau is almost as mysterious as the choice of Jacob).
Reprobation is based, at least in part, on God’s foreknowledge of Esau’s demerits. Esau is reprobated, i.e., destined for punishment, because he richly deserves it. The wicked deeds that Esau commits during the course of his life provide the partial ground for his reprobation. In short, the election and predestination of Jacob demonstrate God’s mercy; the repro- bation of Esau, his justice. The relationship to God of Jacob and Esau (and of all the elect and reprobate) is asymmetrical. Works are not the basis for election; they are, however, an incomplete cause of reprobation.14
Paul’s discussion of predestination, however, poses for Thomas a further question in Zectio three: what about distributive justice? If God is just, then surely God must distribute benefits to equals equally. Paul had gone to great lengths in Rom. 9:10-13 to show that at the moment of their birth there was no difference between Jacob and Esau, save for the differ- ence interjected by God through the mysterious election of Jacob. If God is just and if Jacob and Esau were, as Paul himself had demonstrated, equal in a way Isaac and Ishmael could never be, then surely the election of Jacob over Esau flies in the face of God’s distributive justice. According to distributive justice, God ought to have chosen both or neither as objects of his mercy. Tertium non datw 15
Paul proposes a solution from Exod. 33:19. He cites a translation of the Septuagint that ascribes all human goods to the mercy of God. Thomas reads this verse to mean that every benefit tending to salvation is an effect of predestination. He therefore rejects the solution found in the Gloss that the distributive justice of God can be preserved by appealing to a foreseen good use of grace by Jacob. According to this solution, God chose Jacob
13. Ibid., 95.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
CALVIN AMONG THE THOMISTS 203
over Esau because he foresaw that Jacob would make a better use of God’s grace if grace were offered to him. Thomas finds this solution inadmissible because God is the source both of the infused grace by which sinners are justified and of every subsequent good use of grace. To illustrate his point Thomas draws an analogy between the realms of nature and supernature.
Just as in nature God causes not only the forms of things but also their motions and operations, so too in redemption the will of God is the sole origin of the habit of grace and every gracious action that flows from it.
Jacob’s good use of grace is God’s gift to Jacob and not Jacob’s gift to God.16
Distributive justice has a place in ex debit0 relations, i.e., in arrange- ments in which one party is obligated to another because of contractual agreements or overriding moral claims. But no such obligations govern the realm of mercy. It is not a violation of distributive justice to forgive one of two debtors. Since all human beings are sinners, God can mercifully forgive some and justly punish others.17
In view of Thomas’s heavy emphasis on the causality of God, the question naturally arises whether sinners make any contribution toward their own salvation. As Thomas reads Paul, the primary causality in redemption must always be assigned to divine grace. However, the human will as a secondary agent is moved by God to embrace the good. God moves all things according to the mode of their nature. Therefore human beings are moved by God to will and to run through the mode of free choice. Human beings act freely when they will and run, but they do so only because God as the principal agent moves them toward ends he has chosen.18
The example of Pharaoh offers Thomas an opportunity to explain what he has in mind. While God moves human beings toward good and evil by a certain interior instinct, he does not move human beings toward what is good in the same way he moves them toward what is evil. As a principal agent God directly inclines the human will toward what is good.
God’s relationship to evil, however, is more occasional and indirect. God proposes to the human will something that is good in itself, but which human malice perversely abuses and turns toward evil ends. Pharaoh was aroused by God to defend his realm; he abused this legitimate impulse from God when he repressed the Israelites through gratuitous acts of cruelty.19
16. Ibid., 96.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 97.
19. Ibid.
204 DAVID C. STEINMETZ
In his relationship to Pharaoh, God partly ordained and partly per- mitted what transpired. God ordained that the wickedness of Pharaoh should demonstrate God’s glory. But while God ordained such wickedness, he did not cause it. Pharaoh, taking the occasion of sin from the various goods God proposed to him, merited the punishment God’s justice imposed.
God hardened Pharaoh, not by prompting him to sin but by interposing no grace. To say anything else would make God the author of evil in a direct and unqualified sense.20
The fourth Zectio begins with Paul’s objection to his own solution:
why does God show pity to Jacob and not to Pharaoh? Can any reason be found except the will of God alone? Is the will of God simply irresistible?
If so, why does God hold human beings responsible? As Thomas under- stands Rom. 9, Paul wants to assert both that there is no explanation for the electing activity of God except God’s will and that the electing will of God can, to a certain limited extent, be explained and defended.21
Thomas provides two examples to defend God from the charge of arbitrary injustice. The first example is teleological and appeals from specific cases to the overall plan that directs the whole. A builder who constructs a house out of stone may place some stones in a place of prominence, while relegating other stones, equally durable and attractive, to the lowly task of buttressing the foundation. The artisan is guided by his vision of the end, the perfection of the house he intends to build. So, too, God in his providential care of the universe exercises both mercy and justice, election and reprobation, to achieve the ends his wisdom has or-
dained.=
The second example is anthropological and is built on Paul’s image of the potter and the clay. The image seems particularly apt to Thomas because human beings are descendants of Adam, who was created by God from the dust of the earth. Like clay, human beings are vile in their origin.
Their natural vileness was made even viler by Adam’s fall into sin. If God leaves some human beings in their weakness and sin, he undoubtedly appoints them to ignoble use, but does them no injury about which they could justly complain. God has the free power to make from the corrupt matter of humankind, as from clay, men and women prepared for glory.
He has the same freedom to abandon others to the misery they have merited.23
20. Ibid., 97-98.
21. Ibid., 98.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.. 99.
CALVIN AMONG THE THOMISTS 205
The fifth and final Zectio returns to the second main theme of Rom.
9, the relationship of Jews and Gentiles. After Paul shows that the grace of God is given by divine election, he demonstrates that election pertains to Gentiles as well as to Jews. Although the Jews received privileges denied the Gentiles, salvation is nevertheless offered to each on the same terms.
The true children of the covenant are the children of Abraham by faith.
The people of God are constituted, not by circumcision and law keeping, but by the electing grace of God. The mysterious love and justice that distinguished Ishmael from Isaac, Esau from Jacob, broke down the wall of separation that divided Jew from Greek, Isaac and Jacob from Ampliatus and Urban. While such a message is offensive to unbelieving Jews, it repeats themes that run throughout the whole Bible, OT as well as NT.
Thomas ends his lecture by amplifying the catena of quotations Paul pro- vides to demonstrate this point.%
Bucer, like Thomas, divides Rom. 9 into five sections, breaking the first two sections at w. 5 and 13.25 However, unlike Thomas, who divides the chapter at w. 18 and 23, Bucer breaks sections three to five at vv. 21 and 29. Furthermore, whereas Thomas separates Rom. 9 into five Zectiones without further subdivisions, Bucer subdivides each of his five enarrationes into an expositio, an interpretatio, and a series of concluding observationes.
Bucer uses the word enarratio to mark the major subdivisions of his commentary. The expositio is a running commentary that summarizes and clarifies the passage as a whole. The interpretatio explains individual words and phrases, while the concluding observationes repeat theological or devotional themes important for the life of faith. The enarratio of section four has five observationes, while enarrationes of the other sections have four each. In addition there is one conciliatio, in which Bucer tries to harmonize that statement of Paul that God hardens some sinners with the statement that God wills the salvation of every person, and one quaestio, in which Bucer explores the role of human free choice.
Aside from differences in form, three things strike the reader of Bucer’s commentary: (1) that Bucer is concerned with several questions and themes posed by his contemporaries that do not occur, or do not occur in the same way, in the earlier Zectiones of Thomas Aquinas; (2) that Bucer
24. Ibid., 100-102.
25. Bucer, Metaphrases, 381-412.