Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE TRIES show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only the personal thought of John Calvin but also the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more Zurich than Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more Heidelberg than Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation Calvin simply that of disciple master, for each gave a personal nuance his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of