Calvin as Evangelist

CALVIN AS EVANGELIST: A STUDY OF THE REFORMER'S SERMONS IN PREPARATION FOR THE CHRISTIAN CELEBRATION OF PASSOVER1 Hughes Oliphant Oid What this paper will attempt to show is that John Calvin, the Reformer of Geneva, had a very distinct evangelistic ministry and that it was thought out in its relation to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Calvin's evangelism culminated in the sacrament of Communion. Recent scholarship has thrown considerable light on the way the American approach to evangelism developed out of the seventeenth century Scottish Communion seasons.2 What this paper will claim is that the tradition goes back even further, namely, to the preparatory services for Easter Communion at which Calvin preached an evangelistic message. It is firmly based on a covenantal understanding of the sacraments, as it was developed by the High Rhenish Reformers early in the sixteenth century. Calvin's working out of the implications of this covenantal theology of the sacraments is particularly evident in the preparatory sermons he preached at Easter in the year 1558.3 Nine sermons have been preserved.4 The first was preached on the Sunday morning before Easter, the second at Vespers later that day and then one each day through the rest of the week, the ninth sermon being preached on Easter Sunday morning at the celebration of communion.5 The Scripture lessons were taken from the Gospel of Matthew as follows: 1.

Sunday Morming Matthew 26:36-39 Garden of Gethsemane 2.

Sunday Vespers Matthew 26:40-50 The Arrest 3.

Monday Matthew 26:51-66 Trial before the High Priest 4.

Tuesday Matthew 26:67-27:11 The Denial of Peter and the Despair of Judas Wednesday Matthew 27:11-26 Jesus before Pilate 6.

Thursday Matthew 27:27-44 Jesus Mocked 7.

Friday Matthew 27:45-54 Jesus on the Cross 8.

Saturday Matthew 27:55-60 The Burial 9.

Sunday Morning Matthew 28:1-10 The Resurrection In 1548 the city council specificly indicated that the pastors were to preach on the Passion narrative during the week before Easter.6 The concern of the city council in this matter may go back to the evangelistic tradition of such fifteenth century Italian Franciscans as Bernardino di Siena. The Franciscans regularly had evangelistic preaching at Easter. The 51

Seventh Colloguium on Calvin Studies 52 annual Easter evangelistic crusade was a significant feature of the devotional life of the Italian cities in the century before the Reformation.7 There is a definite pastoral integrity to these sermons. The first in the series announces that on the Lord's Day following, that is, on Easter Sunday, the Lord's Supper is to be celebrated.8 This is a tip off to the fact that the whole series of sermons is a preparation for that celebration. The conclusion of the series is the invitation to participate in the covenant meal, and, thereby, make a faith commitment. This makes it even clearer that the pastoral thrust of the series is evangelistic. What we have here is the beginning of the Reformed Communion season, the prototype of the traditional Reformed preparatory service. Let us look at the content of these sermons. Here, very clearly, we see Calvin as evangelist.9 I.

First of all this is evident when we see how Calvin presents the religious experience of those who surrounded the Cross and applies this to the religious experience of those in his congregation. In speaking of the disciples who accompanied Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane and who in that trying hour fell asleep, Calvin admonishes his congregation to reflect on how slow even the best of us are. We are too often asleep to the spiritual needs of the hour and yet Christ died to save even the sleepy.10 In this sermon preached the Sunday evening before Communion Calvin urges his congregation, "So then let each one prepare himself, knowing for what he has been called of God and what responsibility he has been given."11 The theme of preparation is sounded clearly. A bit further on in the same sermon Calvin speaks about Judas and the way he betrayed Jesus with a kiss which pretended to be a mark of affection, "But in coming to him let us be well advised never to call him master with evangelist is talking about how it is we come to Christ. In the third sermon Caivin speaks about Caiaphas the High Priest who failed in the most sacred of ministries. His example should be a warning to us. Let us not be like Caiaphas who refused to recognize Christ, but rather, “Let us receive Him as our sovereign Prince."13 The sermon on the following day takes up Peter's denial of Christ and his sorrow when he realized what he had done. For Calvin this is an opportunity to speak at length on the subject of repentance, a subject which needs to be treated when one is preparing a congregation for Communion, especially when one sees this preparation as a time for preaching a specifically evangelistic message. As Calvin understands it, repentance comes about when God reveals his love to us in spite of our sins and thereby draws us to himself. "For just as he has deciared his love for the human race by the fact that he did not hold back his own Son, but delivered him up to death for our sins, so in the same way he has declared a special love for us when through his Holy Spirit he brought us to a recognition of our sins and to a sense of sorrow for them and thereby with repentance draws us to himself.14 In other words, the preaching of the Passion narrative is a fundamental element in evangelistic preaching because it reveals both the love of God and our need of salvation.

Calvin develops his ideas on repentance by contrasting the repentance of Judas which led to despair and the repentance of Peter which led to forgiveness.15 In the sermon on the trial of Jesus before Pilate Calvin brings up the Roman official's supercilious taunt, "What is truth?"' and warns his congregation, "And if today there be many Pilates who refuse to be taught in the school of God and thereby render themselves unteachable, as though they were already sufficiently wise, let us not fail to take a stance of obedience and of faith so that we

53 Calvin as Evangelist accept that which our Lord shows us and proposes to us."16 In the sixth sermon our preacher takes the story of the two thieves crucified on either side of Jesus as emblematic of two kinds of humanity. There are those who in the troubles of life become ever more contemptuous of God and go from mockery to mockery and there are those who like the penitent thief experiencing the same troubles recognize their faults and reverently appeal to the mercy of God. Just as Calvin contrasted Peter and Judas so now he contrasts the two thieves to show his congregation the way of salvation.17 In the sermon on the burial of Christ Calvin points to the example of the women who were steadfast in their faith even in the darkest hour. He even goes so far as to say, "The truth is that Saint Matthew has more faith in the constancy of the women than that of the men."18 Then a bit further on he says, *But when women have been led by the Spirit of God there is more boldness in them than in men..in that we recognize God's special care and it is to him therefore that the glory should be given.19 The steadfast faith of the women should teach us that God by his Holy Spirit can strengthen us in our darkest hour. In the same sermon the faithfulness of Joseph and Nicodemus is held up as well. The two of them could so easily have been like the other eminent men of their day, but God worked a change in their hearts.20 It was a change that needs to be worked in the hearts of all of us, a change which the ministry of evangelistic preaching is supposed to help bring about. Throughout the course of these sermons Calvin gives careful attention to the disciples who could not stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter's failure of faith, the despair of Judas, Pilate's agnosticism, the blindness of the Scribes, the repentance of the thief on the cross, the devotion of the women, Joseph of Arimathea's piety, and the final faithfulness of Nicodemus. As Calvin preached he was aware that each one of them was sitting in his congregation. Before him sat those whose faith had failed just as Peter's had, those who, as Nicodemus, had come to Jesus by night but might now be ready to come to him in broad daylight, those whose lives had been changed by Christ, as had Mary Magdalene's, and would come to 'Christ faithfully wherever he might be and do his bidding wherever he might send her. There were those who had betrayed Jesus as had Judas and to such Calvin wanted to make clear the way of repentance was open, just as it had been to Peter. There were those who like the thief on the cross would in the preaching of Christ's Passion come to see Jesus as the Lamb of God and pray that he would remember them when he came into his kingdom.21 In fact when one reads Calvin's treatment of the repentant thief, one realizes most clearly that that was just how Calvin understood his preaching ministry during the week before Easter. It was his job to present the Passion so that those who were in the congregation would recognize Christ as their Savior and so come to the Lord's Table and pledge their faith in him by participating in the covenant meal. For Calvin the preaching of the Cross meant to present Christ's sacrifice as the revelation of God's atoning love for the humanity he had created, and to present it so clearly that those who heard it would believe it. That, if we would follow the example of Calvin, is how we ought to preach at the Christian celebration of Passover. Second we notice that for Calvin it was very important to present the cross as vicarious atonement.22 That was of the essence of Calvin's evangelistic message. Christ suffered for us and for our salvation. The preaching of the cross is, after all, Gospel. It is good news. The cross is far more than an example, far more than something for us to do; it is something that has been done for us; something we could not do for ourselves.23 Apparently it was Calvin's

Seventh Colloguium on Calvin Studies 54 regular practice to preach through the Passion Narrative during the week before Easter. That was what he understood by preaching the cross. And the point of preaching the cross for Calvin is not to exhort his congregation to take up their cross and follow Christ, especially if by taking up the cross and following Christ was meant the performing of the ascetic disciplines so popular in the Middle Ages.24 That was the message of Lent and had been ever since Pope Leo the Great. Calvin was never shy about preaching self denial. Although that theme is not absent from Calvin's preaching, it is not primary.2s The primary theme is that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." Christ's declaration on the cross, "It is finished, is the key word for understanding the Passion. It means the sacrifice has been accomplished, the atonement has been made. Evangelistic preaching for Calvin was to preach the Cross. It was to tell the story of how Christ made atonement for our sins. Several different dimensions of the vicarious atonement are brought out with particular clarity in this series of sermons. That the sacrifice of Christ was a vicarious atonement rather than simply an heroic example was made clear as Calvin saw it when Jesus stood trial both before Caiaphas and Pilate. Jesus made no defense because he willingly offered himself as sacrifice for those who were guilty, that he might suffer in their place.26 Pilate recognized the innocence of Jesus and yet sent him to death just the same. As Calvin sees it, Jesus could have established his innocence just as he could have escaped except that he knew that the Father had sent him to offer the expiatory sacrifice which could be offered only by one who was innocent. For Calvin all this is implied in that Christ is called the Lamb of God.

From the very beginning of the series Calvin wants to make clear that the suffering of the Passion was the experiencing of God's rejection of sin.27 "But when it was necessary that our Lord Jesus Christ endure such struggles it becomes a sign of his love for us. He loved us so much that he forgot himself, letting the full force of the storm fall on his head, so that we might be delivered from the wrath of God."28 This becomes clear when we hear Jesus Calvin sees it this shows that Jesus bore the full weight of God's rejection of sin. The agony was quite real. It was the agony of knowing that God had turned away. And yet Jesus never lost faith. He still claimed God as his God. He knew his God would be faithful.29 The suffering was the experiencing of God's anger at sin, the experiencing of God's wrath at injustice and unrighteousness in all forms. Christ died, Calvin tells us, that he might sense the curse of God.30 That is the divine curse which rests upon sin. But he experienced it for us, that experiencing it, he might atone for it. The imagery here comes from the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. As the Lamb of God he took the curse for us.31: In another of these sermons, Calvin tells us that Jesus took upon himself the ignominy which we merited and as the scapegoat he bore it away.32 The rite of the scapegoat was a distinctly different image from that of the passover lamb. Both are figures of vicarious sacrifice. While the passover lamb is a figure of the redemptive power of innocent suffering, of the sin. These are two important dimensions of the concept of vicarious sacrifice. There is a third dimension of this concept and that is the concept of ransom. When a prisoner was captured by an enemy, that prisoner could be recovered by the payment of a ransom. This is another biblical figure for Christ's sacrifice (Mark 10:45). Calvin uses it to convey the urgency of the demand for the offering of a sacrifice.33 The figure of the paying

55 Calvin as Evangelist of a ransom also conveys another dimension of this complex mystery of vicarious sacrifice and that is that the captive is powerless to save himself. He is in the power of the enemy and must be saved by someone who has not been overpowered by the enemy. A fourth biblical figure of vicarious sacrifice which Calvin uses is that Christ's obedience on' the cross paid back to God the debt which man owes to God for his disobedience. Man's disobedience is an offense to God, and reparation needs to be made. The obedience of Christ, an obedience even unto death, pays the debt that is owed and repairs the ruptured relationship between God and his creation. That this member of the human race who suffered the cross was the incarnate Son of God makes his obedient suffering so exceedingly precious to his Father that it abundantly covers the whole debt of human sin.34 These four themes are sounded again and again in this series of sermons.35 For Calvin evangelistic preaching is far more than telling the congregation' what they must do to win Christ. It is at a far deeper level telling the congregation what Christ has done to win them. For Calvin the preaching of the cross witnesses to the supreme revelation of God's Iove. This is both the first point and the last point that Calvin makes in this series of sermons. "As Scripture explains, three things are to be recognized in regard to our salvation. The first is the inestimable love which God has for us."36 God's love for his fallen creatures is so great that he sends out his unique Son, his beloved Son, to make the ultimate sacrifice that they be restored to fellowship with him.37 So precious are human souls to God!38 In the final sermon of the series the invitation to the Lord's Supper is' presented as a call to the children of God to gather around the table of their Father, for it is at this table that the children of God experience the fraternity of the household of faith and the infinite goodness that we might have access to God, let us seek him and come to him quite openly, being so warmly invited."40 We are well aware of course that there are those who tell us that Calvin has nothing to say of the love of God, or that the love of God does not seem to have any function in Calvin's theology. We will let others worry about whether this rather harsh judgment is justified elsewhere in Calvin's writings. One thing is clear when Calvin enters the puipit to preach the cross; that is, at the heart of his ministry, we hear quite a bit about the love of God. For Calvin there is no understanding of the cross without seeing it in terms of the relation of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father. This is a relationship of love and it is the type, or pattern, of our relationship to God and through faith in Christ we are brought into this relationship of love.41 Faith, for Calvin, is the means of entering into communion with God and that communion is nothing other than a love relationship. Faith is the means; love is the end.

II.

Finally, we notice a third characteristic of these sermons. The Passover of the Law is the type of the celebration of the Christian Lord's Supper.

And this then is why St. Paul says that our paschal lamb has been crucified and immolated and that now there is nothing left for us to do than that we keep the feast and that we participate in the sacrifice. And just as in ancient times under the Law, when the sacrifice was offered one ate so, now, it is for us

Seventh Colloquium on Calvin Studies 56 to take our food and spiritual refreshment in this sacrifice which has been offered for our redemption.42 For Calvin the preaching of Easter is therefore the preaching of the Christian Passover.43 It is not two celebrations, a celebration of Christ's death on Good Friday and a celebration of his Resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is one celebration, the Christian celebration of Passover.44 It presents to us the story of how Christ made the passage from this life to the life to come. The Gospels are of course already permeated with this thought.45 That Calvin should preach nine sermons during Easter and have only one of them deal with the Resurrection seems a bit unbalanced. It is only. to be explained by the fact that the Gospels themselves are written that way. They give much more space to the Passion than to the Resurrection. There is something else, however, and that is Calvin aims in his preaching to show us that the way is open for us to make the same passage. The passage is made by faith, the faith that receives the message that the Christ who died for us is risen for us. The good news of the Resurrection announces to us that the Father is waiting for us, too. The risen Christ has made the passage to the Father, to his Father and our Father and this good news is addressed to the whole multitude of the faithful. It is because Christ is risen that we have communion with the Father.46 The Resurrection appearances as Calvin presents them have the function of assuring us that indeed the passage was made. In this sense these sermons reflect the Gospels themselves. The sermon concludes with an invitation to the Lord's Supper. The table has been prepared for us that we be united to Christ as he is united to the Father. This union is a union of love, the covenantal love which binds together the family of God's people. It is for this reason that we are called Christ's brethren. He would have us participate in the sacrifice which he has once and for all made for our salvation. He would bring us from death to resurrection. The gate of heaven is open so that we may come before our Father, presenting ourselves to him, knowing that he always receives us as his children.47 Here then is how today we should benefit from this holy Supper which has been prepared for us. This Supper conducts us to the death and the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and to his resurrection as well, that there we find faith for life and for salvation. And since by the victory of his resurrection he has therefore present ourselves before him, knowing that always he receives us as his children.48 Calvin, of course, never used the word "Easter." That word is unique to Germanic languages. Calvin used the French word Paques, or Passover. In the sermon he preached for the Christian celebration of Passover in the year of our Lord 1558, he reminded his congregation of the words of the Apostle Paul that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed and that we should therefore keep the feast by leaving sin behind us and uniting with Christ in the Supper set before us, That, of course, is a very ancient evangelistic message.

57 Calvin as Evangelist NOTES 1 This study is based on the preparatory sermons found in the Corpus Reformatorum XLVI, pp. 833-954. An English transation has been given us by Leroy Nixon, Sermons on the Saving Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1950). These preparatory sermons were originally published by Conrad Badius in Geneva under the title, Plusieurs Sermons de lehan Caivin touchant la divinite, humanite, et nativite de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ: Item touchant sa passion, mort. resurrection, ascension et dernier advenement: Puis touchant la descante du S. Esprit sur les Apostres, et la premiere predication de S. Pierre...M.D. LVI. A second edition of these sermons was published by Michel Blanchier at Geneva in 1563. Other preparatory sermons are found in Supplementa Calviniana (Neukirchen: Verlag der Versleungsverein, 1936, 1961-), vol. VII. 2 Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scotish Communions and American Revivals in the Eariy Modern Period (Princton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, c. 1989). 3 On the covenantal doctrine of the Lord's Supper found among the early Reformed theologians, see my The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992) as well as my Themes and Variations for a Christian Doxology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 111-137. Among more recent works on various aspects of Calvin's approach to the Lord's Supper, see, B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, the Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993): Paul Rorem, Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord's Supper (Bramcote, Nottinghamshire: Grove Books, 1989); Joseph N. Tylenda, "The Ecumenical Intention of Calvin's Early Eucharistic Teaching" in Reformatio Perennis, Essays on Calvin and the Reformation in Honor of Ford Lewis Batles, edited by B. A. Gerrish (Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1981), pp. 27-47; as well as my paper for the 1992 Calvin Colloquium, "*Biblical Wisdom Theology and Calvin's Understanding of the Lord's Supper" in Calvin Studies VI, edited by John H. Leith (Richmond, Virginia: Colloquium on Calvin Studies, 1992). (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), pp. 65-75, and Bernard Gagnebin, "Histoire des manuscrits des sermons de Calvin," Supplementa Catviniana (Neukirchen, 1936), vol. I. 5 Among the more recent works on the preaching of Calvin in general, see the following: John H. Leith, "Calvin's Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and its Significance for Today," John Calvin and the Church, A Prism of Reform, edited by Timothy George (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990, pp. 206-229); Pierre Marcel, *Une lecture non-Calviniste de Calvin," Supplement a la revue Reformee 4 (1979); T. H. L. Parker, Calvin's Preaching (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992); Rodolphe Peter, "Jean Calvin prédicateur," Revue d' histoire et de philosophie religieuse Calvin (1972), as well as his article, "Rhétorique et predication selon, Revue d' histoire et de philosophie religieuse (1975); Richard Stauffer, "Un Calvin Méconnu; le predicateur de Geneve" Bulletin de la Societe de I' histoire du Protestantisme francais (1977). 6 On Calvin's attitude toward the celebration of feast days, see Leith, "Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word," Pp. 213 ff.; Jean-Daniel Benoit, "Weihnachten in Genf im Jahre des Heils 1550," Regards Contemporains sur Jean Calvin (Paris, 1965).

work, The Reading and Preaching of Scripture in the Worship of the Christian Church. On the evangelistic preaching of Bernardino di Siena, see: Quadragesimale de Christiana religione, found in the nine volume edition of his works published at Quarachi, 1950-1965, Le prediche volgari. Predicazione in Siena, edited by Ciro Cannarozzi, 2 vols. (Florence, 1958). See as well, M. Sticco, Il pensiero di S. Bernardino da Siena (Florence, 1924); V. Facchinetti, San Bernardino da Siena, Mistico

Seventh Colloquium on Calvin Studies 58 sole del secolo Xv (Milan, 1933); Iris Origo, The World of San Bernardino (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962).

8 Calvin does not seem to have developed a special term for what we have come to call the "Easter Sunday." In fact he spoke of- Dimanche, literally, the Lord's Day. Rather than Easter he spoke of Paques, literally, Passover. I suppose if one were to be a purist one would call these sermons "Paschal Sermons."

9 On the place of evangelism in Christian worship, see my Themes and Variations for a Christian Doxology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992). The point we want to make here gives another dimension to the question by Robert S. Paul in his excellent article, "The Reformed Churches and Evangelism" in Major Themes in ihe Reformed Tradition, edited by Donald K. McKim (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), Pp. 354-360.

10 CR XLVI, 851 ff.

sa charge." CR XLVI, 851 ff.

12 "Mais en venant a luy, avisons de ne le point appeler nostre Maistre du bout de la langue, et que nous luy soyons ennemis cependant." CR XLVI, 856. 13 "Et recevons le comme nostre Prince souverain" CR XLVI, 872. 14 "Car comme il a declare son amour envers le genre humain, quand il n'a point espargne son Fils unique, mais I'a livre a la mort pour les pecheurs: aussi il nous declare une amour qu'il nous porte specialement, quand par son S. Esprit il nous touche de la cognoissance de nos pechez, et qu'il nous fait gemir, et nous attire a soy avec repentance." CR XLVI, 88l. 15 CR XLVI, 881-883.

de Dieu, et se rendre dociles, comme si desia ils estoyent assez scavans, que nous ne soyons point et propose." CR XLVI, 892.

17 CR XLVI, 909-914.

CR XLVI, 929.

hardiesse qu'aux hommes, voire en ceux qui avoyent este eleus pour publier I'Evangile par tout le monde, en cela cognoissons nous que Dieu a besongne et que c'est a luy que la louange doit estre attribuee. CR XLVI, 929.

20 CR LXVI, 931.

21 CR XLVI, 912.

Substitutionary Character of Calvin's Doctrine of Reconciliation (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957). For a more general presentation of the doctrine of the Atonement, see D. M. Baillie, God Was in

59 Calvin as Evangelist Christ, An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (New York, 1948); Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith, translated by Olive Wyon (New York: 1934); G. C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ, translated by Cornelius Lambregste (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965); Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4 vols., edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas T. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1939-69), see vols. IV/1-3; H. D. McDonald, The Atonement of the Death of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985). 23 CR XLVI, 858.

Century Portrait (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Pp. 134 ff. 25 CR XLVI, 858 and 906. 26 CR XLVI, 870 and 899. 27 CR, XLVI, p. 840. signe qu"il nous aimoit, tellement qu'il s'est oublie soy-mesme, et a souffert que tout I'orage tombast sur sa teste, afin que nous fussions delivrez de I'ire de Dieu.* CR XLVI, 840. 29 CR XLVI, 920ff. 30 CR XLVI, 920-923. 31 CR XLVI, 900.

32 CR XLVI, 903.

33 CR XLVI, 905.

34 CR XLVI, 858: this particular series of lectio continua sermons on the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Matthew. A systematic presentation of his doctrine of the Atonement is found in The Institutes of the Christian Religion II, xii-xvii. 36 "Quand il nous est parle de nostre salut, I'Ecriture nous propose trois fin. L'une c'est que nous cognoissions I'amour inestimable que Dieu nous a porte. CR XLVI, 883. 37 CR XLVI, 881.

38 CR XLVI, 840 and 895. 39 CR XLVI, 954.

que nous ayons acces a Dieu, cherchons-le et venons a luy d'un franc courage, estans si humainement conviez. CR XLVI, 952. Gerrish, Grace and Gratit ude, the Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin, pp. 22-31, and 116-123.

Seventh Colloquium on Calvin Studies 60 et qu'il ne reste maintenant sinon que nous en facions la feste et que nous communiquions au sacrifice. Et que, comme anciennement en la Loy, quand le sacrifice estoit offert, on mangeoit maintenant aussi il nous faut venir prendre nostre viande et refection spirituelle en ce sacrifice qui a este presente pour nostre redemption." CR XLVI, 953-954.

43 CR XLVI, 953.

3rd edition (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), there has been a renewed appreciation of the Christian interpretation of Passover, and especially its significance for the celebration of the Lord's supper. Cf. the following: A Baumstark, Nocturna Laus (Minster: Aschendorff, 1957); L. Bouyer, Le Mystere pascal, 5th edition (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 19s7); A Chavasse, "Le cycle pascal" in A. G. Martimort, L'Eglise en Priere, Introduction a la Liturgie (Paris and Tournai: Desclee, 1961), pp. 695-726; Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1986), pp. 1-70; Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., The Paschal Liturgy and the Apocalypse (Richmond. Virginia: John Knox Press, 1960).

Doubleday, 1966 and 1970), I, Pp. 231-304 and II, pp. 445-480; Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, A Critical Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), pp. 178-214; A. J. B. Higgins, The Lord's Supper in the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1952); B. Gartner, John 6 and the Jewish Passover (Lund, 1959); J. Jeremias, "PASCHA," Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament V, pp. 895-903.

46 CR XLVI, 951-953.

47 CR XLVI, 954.

est apprestee: c'est qu'elle nous conduise a la mort et passion de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, et puis a sa resurrection, et que la nous ayons fiance de vie et de salut, d'autant que par la victoire qu'il a obtenue en ressuscitant la iustice nous est donnee, et la porte de paradis nous a este ouverte, tellement que nous pouvons hardiment approcher de nostre Dieu, et nous offrir devant luy, sgachans que tousiours il nous recevera comme ses enfans." CR XLVI, 954.