Until relatively recently the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum was occasionally mentioned and rarely studied. By contrast, the last two decades alone have delivered at least four monographs and three times that many journal articles. Given that the shape of this doctrine depends upon the answers to foundational questions of the Christian faith, including ‘Who is Jesus’ and ‘Where is Jesus?’ this is a welcome development. Drake's study represents a generous contribution to this rapidly growing literature.
The volume seeks to address two central issues. First, when and why did Reformed theologians develop the extra, and second, how did these theologians support and defend it. Whereas previous studies centred the story on Calvin, the first half of the book sheds welcome light on other reformers, and in particular the foundational role of the Zurich theologians. Calvin remains a figure of significance, but Drake brings Zwingli's role in formulating the doctrine to the forefront and traces the development in his works with great care and nuance. After Zwingli, Bullinger's collaboration with Calvin in producing the Consensus Tigurinus also receives much deserved attention. The second half of the book traces the codification of the doctrine in the latter years of the sixteenth century through a careful reading of the works of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Antoine de la Roche Chandieu.
Drake not only widens the lens to bring into view a fuller cast but also a more expansive doctrinal landscape. His definition of the extra Calvinisticum begins with the central notion of the Son's existence extra carnem after the incarnation (pp. 15–16). In addition to this foundational aspect, he also carefully considers the related development of conceptions of Christ's ascension and session at the right hand of the Father, the presence of Christ to the Christian between the first and second advent, and the Reformed notion of the communicatio idiomatum, which locates the communication of properties ‘within the hypostatic union’ so that it ‘terminates on the person of Christ’ and ‘excludes a sharing of properties between the divine and human natures themselves’ (p.16). The sensitivity to the spectrum of views within the Lutheran and Reformed traditions and the care given to trace the continuities and discontinuities along this spectrum is a chief strength of the book.
The study evinces a strong sympathy for the Reformed figures in the conversation, and like-minded readers will welcome the rebuttal to the caricatures of much previous historiography. The extra originated in a polemical context related to debates regarding Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper, but it was not developed solely as a response to these eucharistic concerns. Zwingli at times transcended merely memorialist categories, and with the broader tradition could affirm that Christ was present ‘spiritually, in the Lord's Supper’ as he did in his Fidei expositio (p. 109). As the doctrine was codified, its mature expression grew organically out of a desire to connect Christology with soteriology, perhaps most importantly out of the desire to protect the genuine humanity of Christ. The doctrine was not driven primarily by the ‘rationalistic’ deployment of Aristotelian logic but rather by engagement with scriptural principia and in conversation with patristic and medieval theology. At the same time, readers outside the Reformed tradition may occasionally wish that the same charity was extended to non-Reformed interlocutors (for example, the reading of Brenz on p. 149).
In the conclusion, Drake offers helpful case studies illustrating the implications of the extra Calvinisticum that move beyond Christology (pp. 276f.). Of course, different understandings of Christ's body contributed to a diversity of eucharistic practices, but two other implications are perhaps less widely known. Reformed commitment to the finitude of Christ's humanity shaped the tradition's understanding of the work of theology itself as theologians reflected on the knowledge of God accessible to Christ's human mind. In addition, reflection on the nature of Christ's body intersected directly with the confessionalisation of physics in early modern universities. These latter two issues beg for further engagement, so readers will finish the book hoping that Drake's study will inspire more work along these lines.
Similarly, the closing pages of the book invite further reflection on the implications of the extra for the configuration of the relationship between nature and grace. This call also is helpful, for just as Drake draws greater attention to the deeper Christological and soteriological ramifications of the doctrine, additional attention needs to be given to its ecclesiological and political valences. For example, English theologians paid careful attention to (Chandieu's mentor) Theodore Beza's application of the extra to the kingly office of Christ. The distinction between Christ's rule as essential son of God and Christ's rule as mediator, safeguarded in large part by the extra, allowed Beza to argue for a sharp distinction between spiritual and temporal authority. Thomas Cartwright and his Presbyterian heirs in England made considerable use of this distinction, much to the chagrin of Richard Hooker and other defenders of the royal supremacy. Historians of both contexts would benefit from a closer connection between these conversations. That Drake's study provokes observations regarding further connections and implications is a testimony to its strengths, and it also suggests that much more work on the extra Calvinisticum is yet to be done.
