Scholars of Reformed covenant theology have resembled a group of friends trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle without possessing the picture on the box. They begin with the corners and straight edges of post-Reformation federal theology, such readily identifiable pieces as Johannes Cocceius or New England puritanism. They move inwards, finding adjoining pieces in the shape of Heidelberg theologians or Scottish divines. Occasionally, a scholar attempts to fit a piece resembling John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon or Heinrich Bullinger into the middle of the puzzle, trying to make sense of the overall picture. In The Zurich Origins of Reformed Covenant Theology, Pierrick Hildebrand places Bullinger and his predecessor Huldrych Zwingli at the centre.
Hildebrand’s thesis, reminiscent of Geerhardus Vos’ a century ago, claims Zurich as the origin of Reformed covenant theology and argues for its influence on Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevian. He rotates the metaphorical jigsaw piece to show that the Zurichers’ theology sits comfortably with the concept of a prelapsarian covenant. The covenant terminology usually associated with Heidelberg was adopted, he argues, from Bullinger’s development of Zwingli’s thought. Anyone schooled in the light of Richard Muller’s emphasis on the continuity of a single Reformed tradition will appreciate Hildebrand’s refusal both of a separation between Bullinger and Calvin and of an exclusive dependence of Heidelberg on Geneva. The waning thesis of an ‘other Reformed tradition’ is out of the picture.
Hildebrand begins with two chapters on Zwingli, reinforcing the traditional view of his priority over Bullinger as the initiator of the Reformed covenant tradition. Hildebrand sides against Gottlob Schrenk’s tired theory that Zwingli’s covenant theology was generated in reaction to the Anabaptist controversy. This was ‘neither the sole…nor even the principal factor’ (p. 59). Instead, Hildebrand persuasively attributes it to the inauguration of the Prophezei and Zwingli’s expounding of the book of Genesis. Following Jack Cottrell, he emphasises mid-1525 as the ‘covenantal turn’ (p. 17) in Zwingli’s theology: analogies between the old and new testaments gave way to continuity and ecclesial unity between Israel and the Christian Church; his law-grace antithesis – never so absolute as Luther’s – disappeared.
Few scholars who have read Zwingli’s Subsidium sive coronis de eucharistia (August 1525) would disagree that it displayed a new clarity in his covenant thought. Hildebrand claims that it represents a ‘paradigmatic change with respect to emphasis or priority’ (p. 17), though he allows that Zwingli was a ‘covenant-oriented expositor’ (p. 62) beforehand. Those who have traced the beginnings of Zwingli’s covenant concept to the early 1520s will reflect that continuity is the sole criterion in Hildebrand’s definition of covenant theology, but should take onboard his critique of Kenneth Hagen’s influential semantic distinction between ‘testament’ and ‘covenant’.
Hildebrand’s three central chapters offer a convincing and comprehensive account of Bullinger’s covenant theology, drawing on untouched archive material, some of which is transcribed in the appendices. He showcases the unpublished treatise Vom einigen Gott (October 1525) as the earliest evidence of Bullinger’s own ‘covenantal turn’, which was, unsurprisingly, dependent on Zwingli’s insights and independent of the Anabaptist controversy.
Covenant is reaffirmed as the overarching locus of Bullinger’s theology against alternative proposals that the church is central. Hildebrand, sharing the reluctance of recent scholars to accept a rigid dichotomy between unilateral and unconditional versus bilateral and conditional concepts, advances another approach. He argues that Bullinger integrated the ‘historical-legal’ and ‘organic-mystical’ (p. 111) aspects such that the covenant, identified as union with Christ, is ‘monopleurically established but dipleurically administered’ (p. 112). In other words, God’s unilateral expiatory action in Christ is directed towards man’s reciprocal obedience. Bullinger overcomes the law-grace antithesis without collapsing the distinction. Hildebrand finds this integration expressed in Bullinger’s sacramentology. The Lord’s Supper ‘confirms Christ as testator of a legacy, as the mediator of a communion’.
Two particularly interesting lines of argument emerge. Just as Peter Lillback discerned in Calvin’s covenant theology a mutuality consistent with Zurich, so Hildebrand finds in Bullinger’s covenant theology a monergism typically associated with Calvin: the gift of Christ’s perfection imputed to the elect by faith. This further undermines categorical opposition of the Zurich and Genevan traditions. Secondly, despite the Zurichers’ postlapsarian focus, Hildebrand proves more fully than anyone has done before that Zwingli affirmed a creation covenant, and that Bullinger shared that understanding of God’s promise to Adam. He suggests that ‘basic similarities’ (p. 183) between Bullinger’s view and the later covenant of works, though not identical, mean they cannot be regarded as discontinuous.
These strands issue in two final chapters on the reception of the Zurich tradition. Whereas many scholars who accept Zurich’s precedence still attribute the substantive development of Reformed covenant theology to Calvin, those of us who have inferred a greater degree of dependence will welcome Hildebrand’s demonstration that Calvin adopted Bullinger’s thought without significant modification. Calvin, he claims, found Zurich covenant theology ‘intrinsically convincing’ (p. 273), and he detects Bullinger’s ‘monopleurically established but dipleurically administered’ model behind Calvin’s teaching on covenantal continuity, union with Christ, sacraments and the prelapsarian state.
If Hildebrand is correct, Calvin’s influence on Ursinus and Olevian also represents a mediation of Bullinger’s theology. Hildebrand briefly sketches the likelihood of direct influence, too, without contradicting the Heidelberg theologians’ reliance on Geneva vis-à-vis church discipline. Features of the Zurich tradition regarding the prelapsarian state and the ‘organic-mystical’ aspects of the covenant were adopted in Heidelberg. Melanchthon is put in perspective. Whether or not the Reformation theologians would have countenanced the federal development of their thought is another matter; Hildebrand is persuasive in retracing its lineage. His detailed research suggests the essential continuity of a single Reformed tradition from Zwingli to Reformed Orthodoxy. Zurich’s role in Reformed confessionalisation should now receive closer attention.
Hildebrand’s monograph is well-argued and self-assured. It fills a hole in the jigsaw puzzle between several pieces already firmly placed and forces the removal of two or three anachronistic misfits. Zwingli, Bullinger and Calvin’s commitment to sola Scriptura is manifest in the nuance and complexity of their covenant theology. The significance of their scholastic formation, particularly of Scotism, remains unclear, but future studies will build on this one. Bullinger’s star continues to rise.
