The subject of passion (13)

Taking as our starting point Foucault's words, reported by Paul Veyne: "The question of the subject in the ^16th century caused more bloodshed than the class struggle in the 19th century^" , we devoted two hours of lectures to the Montbéliard colloquium that brought together representatives of the Calvinist Reformed Church and the Lutheran Church, from March 21 to 29, 1586, at the instigation of the Lutheran prince Frederick ^I, Duke of Württemberg, Count of Montbéliard, to try to reach agreement on the theology of the Eucharist. After introducing the main protagonists: for the Calvinists, Theodore de Bèze (1519-1605), Calvin's successor in Geneva, editor and translator of the New Testament; for the Lutherans or "Württembergians", Jakobus Andreae (1528-1590), the leading Lutheran theologian of the time, and Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), both among the co-authors of the Formula of Concord. The archaeological scope of the Montbéliard colloquium was set out, indicating that the analysis of the controversies between Reformed and Lutherans made it possible to tackle a series of concepts fundamental to the archaeology of the subject, in general, and that of the subject of passion, in particular, and an inventory was drawn up of the elements of the dossier tackled, presupposed or exploited in the lecture: ubiquism, the communication of idioms, kenosis, exinanition, Zwinglianalleosis, theExtra calvinisticum, the "chiasmus of properties", occultation ("veiling"), the theory of the "four kinds" and the distinction between Lutheran genus majestaticum and genus tapeinoticon. The first half of the hour was devoted to the Lutheran defense of the Real Presence through the use of ubiquity, and its drastic critique of the "figurativism" of Zwingli's partisan "sacramentaries". Zwinglians reduce the "communication of idioms" to a figure of speech:alleosis. For the same reason, they reject theopaschism. Luther callsalleosis "the mask of the devil". At the Montbéliard colloquy, the Lutherans levelled the same reproach at the Calvinists as they had at the Sacramentaries. Calvinists reject ubiquity, reject theopaschism, and thereby fall into the heresy of Nestorius: they maintain that "God suffers" only means that Christ's humanity suffers. After examining the critics, we analyzed Theodore de Bèze's response and underlined the originality of the Calvinist position: God "suffers kat'allo ", not "by Himself", but "by another" or "in another" or "in something other" than Himself. On this basis, we presented the so-called "Extra Calvinisticum" theory, based on the distinction between the expressions " totus Christus " and " totum Christi ". An initial Abstract of the Calvinist position was given: the whole Christ ("the whole Christ") suffered on the Cross, but not the whole Christ ("the whole of Christ"), because His divinity did not suffer.