Loci communes, and the Role of Ramism in the European Diffusion of Calvin's Reformation

pp: 233 DOI: 10.7376/70351

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Keywords

Calvin qualified the Institutes as a collection of disputationes and loci communes already in 1539. He intended his work to be just that: a collection of doctrinal commonplaces or themes which would save him lengthy digressions in his biblical commentaries. By doing this and by calling the work Institutio (â€
œ
Instructionâ€
) he indicated that it was a handbook for teaching Christian doctrine. Calvin used the term locus communis as synonymous with disputatio or subject put forward for consideration.
This was the standard meaning of locus communis (topos) and so relegated it implicitly to the realm of rhetoric
as Melanchthon
Agricola
Cicero and Aristotle had done. For these writers the division of a text into loci communes was primarily a rhetorical procedure. Ramism
however
conflated rhetoric and logic and there was nothing stopping Ramist theologians and writers generally from imposing their own framework on the Institutes or on any other text. This article examines the method of Johannes Piscator in his digest of Calvinâ€
™
s Institutes which he derived from Olevianusâ€
™
work and its extraordinary success throughout Europe.
It seems as if Calvinâ€
™
although as much of anti-Ramist as Calvin himself
did not object to the use of Ramism if it served to promote Calvinâ€
™
s key-work