Ella on Bullinger and Calvin

The following is Ella’s assessment of the relationship of Calvin vis-à-vis Bullinger (George Ella, Henry Bullinger: Shepherd of the Churches):

“It is this author’s contention that Calvin, with all his obvious abilities as a Reformer, has been placed on a pedestal which rightly belongs to Bullinger who eclipsed his French friend in almost all areas. Indeed, had it not been for Bullinger’s strong leadership over Calvin and the enormous influence Bullinger exerted on his doctrine and the fatherly and brotherly way Bullinger supported Calvin in all his battles, Calvin would never have remained in Geneva from 1541-1564 and never have been half the Reformer he was. Bullinger’s advantage over Calvin was that Zurich at that time, as Bullinger repeatedly testifies, was a City of a Hill in the spiritual sense that church and state lived in almost constant, peaceful harmony. On the other hand, the scene at Geneva was one of turbulence and strife both with each other. We never hear of Bullinger denouncing his fellow ministers, citizens and Council in the denigrating way Calvin did the ministers, Church, citizenship and Council of Geneva up to the last few years of his life. It must be also be said with equal truthfulness that the peace of Zurich was largely Bullinger’s making and the problems which arose in Geneva, which Bullinger was invariably looked upon to solve, were often because of Calvin’s lack of diplomacy and lack of control over his temper, tongue and pen.”

More on Ella on Bullinger

The following quote from Ella’s book (pp168-170) indicates quite a different view of Calvin to most scholars:

“Though many scholars have emphasized Calvin's dependence on Melanchthon, Zwingli and Bucer, few have compared Calvin’s Institutes with Bullinger’s works. Walter Hollweg in his Heinrich Bullingers Hausbuch written in 1956 devotes an entire chapter to Bullinger’s enormous influence on Calvin’s Institutes, in particular the 1550 version. He states that Calvin is not guilty of plagiarism but leaves the impression that Calvin avoids the charge merely by rewording Bullinger in the numerous passages taken from him. Hollweg points out that Calvin not included Bullinger’s themes and Scriptural proofs but even the examples Bullinger gives to illustrate them. Gillian Lewis, writing in 1986 has obviously little to say about Bullinger’s influence as Calvin is his subject. However, soon after writing of Calvin’s death, Lewis turns her (sic) gaze on Bullinger and, not surprisingly, but rather critically says that Bullinger sat like a spider in the centre of the web of the Reformation. When we turn to evidence given in the recent works of Fritz Büsser, especially his Die Prophezei of 1994 in which he compares Calvin closely with Bullinger, we find there is just cause to question the idea that is so dominant in today’s Reformed churches that Calvin, under God, was the rock on which the Reformed faith was built.

As one studies the growth of Calvin’s Institutes from the six chapters of the first 1536 edition to the eighty chapters of the last 1559 edition one is amazed at the industry of the author. However, it is a compendium of Wittenburg, Strasburg and Zurich theology with very little new thought in it. Indeed, the doctrines which are outlines in it were fixed Reformed doctrines long before the major editions of the Institutes were written. Thus any influence this work has had on the theological development of other countries such as Holland, England, Scotland and the New World, is because of the thorough-going Reforms of Saxony, Pomerania, Hessen, the Palatine and the Swiss and Upper German states which had already produced enough spiritual giants to transform Protestant world theology. Though Calvin’s name alone is on the title page, its contents proudly proclaim the names of Zwingli, Melanchthon, Bucer, Capito and Bullinger besides Calvin’s own. This goes also for Calvin’s church order which is built solidly on the Strasburg orders. The one big difference between the French-speaking Reformation and the Swiss-German Reformation is that the former viewed the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as methods of establishing church discipline whereas the latter saw them as modes of preaching the gospel to all who would receive it. Unlike Calvin, Zwingli and Bullinger never sought to discipline their people by threats of exclusion from the privileges of sitting under the gospel.”

The section of Hollweg’s book is chapter 3 of the second part: “Der Einfluss des Buches auf die Insitutio Calvins und den Heidelberger Katechismus” (pp235-238). Hollweg cites a letter dated 18 August 1545 from Leonhard Soerinus from Znaim and Bullinger’s subsequent reply concerning Soerinus’s query about Bullinger’s opinion of the Institutes.

Ella on Bullinger

George Ella has written Henry Bullinger: Shepherd of the Churches (Durham: Go Publications, 2007). As far as I can ascertain, there appear to be very few reviews of this work or even mention of it in the literature. I have referred to the work in some previous posts. Ella takes the view that Calvin was greatly influenced by both Bucer and Bullinger. This area of research deserves greater attention. Ella raises many interesting perspectives but is somewhat light on documentation backing up his conclusions.

The following is an excerpt from Ella’s book (pp167,168):

“In February 1536, whilst Bullinger was working on the Helvetic Confession, he met Calvin for the first time. At this theological workshop, Bullinger announced that the First Helvetic Confession should be a continuation of the Swiss Reformation as expressed in Zwingli’s In Expositionem Fidei ad Regem Christianum Expositio of 1531 which was re-published parallel with the Confession. This work was a systematic presentation of the Christian faith which Zwingli had given to Francis I. Bullinger’s aim was to show that Luther’s wild criticism that Zwingli was a heretic and an Anabaptist had no grounds whatsoever. It was merely because Luther was ignorant of Zwingli’s written works and confessed that he could not understand his spoken words and was basically very prejudiced. In his forward to the Expositio, Bullinger said that he was reprinting it as ‘an answer to all slanderers of the evangelical faith and evangelical preaching and to give them an apologeticum quondam absolutum. So as to bring the work up to date on Reformation issues, Bullinger added a treatise on the Protestant Lord’s Supper and the Roman Mass and a liturgy to be used at the communion service. Without needing to speculate as to whether Calvin’s work as Ford Lewis Battles says of Calvin’s Seneca Commentary, ‘a learned parroting of various classical views’, it does appear that Calvin wanted to do for French readers what had already been done for readers of the various German dialects between 1520 and 1536. Calvin’s action is most untypical of the Reformers, however, in that his Institutes gives few sources and Calvin does not acknowledge his obvious enormous reliance on the works of other, first generation, Reformers. It was as if, in seeking to support and teach the second generation of Protestants in France, Calvin wished to be seen as going entirely his own way.

It is interesting to note how scholars, in writing on one subject as a notable event, tend to close their eyes to others which occurred at the same time, and which would make their eyes to others which occurred at the same time, and which would make their subject less remarkable. M. Howard Reinstra, Director of the H.H. Meeter Center for Calvin Studies in his Preface to Ford Lewis Battles’ edition of the 1536 Institutes says, ‘1536 was not a particularly memorable year’, and he goes on to day of Basle, ‘In that year, in that city, an aging scholar dies, and a younger scholar published the first edition of his ‘little book’, as he affectionately called it.’ This reference to the death of Erasmus and the debut of Calvin as a systematic theologian leaves out the historical fact that the First Helvetic Confession was drawn up on Basle early in 1536, thus paving the way for the Reformed Church which Calvin was to join thirteen years later at the singing of the Consensus Tigurinus. It also fails to see the historical and theological importance of the drawing up of the Helvetic Confession in which the leading Swiss-German Reformers distanced themselves from the popish teaching which they saw in Luther’s attitude to the sacraments. Furthermore, it fails to appreciate the lasting importance of Bullinger’s extended publication of Zwingli’s Expositio, a work which is still highly favoured amongst Reformed scholars and still in print and which outlined long before 1536 elements of Reformed teaching on the Lord’s Supper which Calvin was not to acknowledge until 1549.”