Balserak, J. (2019). Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Simulation in
their Efforts to Reform France, 1536-1563. Harvard Theological
Review, 112(1), 76-100. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816018000354

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1 

 

 

Lies and Simulation in Geneva’s Efforts to Reform France, 1536-1563 

 

Jon Balserak 

University of Bristol 

 

 

 

 

 

Theodore Beza speaks in his 22 January 1561 letter to Ambroise Blaurer of 

Reformed churches, which he calls “colonies,” being born in France by the 

Lord’s work.1 To be sure, Geneva’s ministry to France was, from the 1540s into 

the 1560s, remarkably fecund. A census found 2,150 Reformed churches in 

France at the beginning of 1562.2 One might wonder how such impressive 

growth was achieved given the opposition Geneva and Calvinism faced from 

the country’s Catholic government during this period. This article explores this 

basic question.3 A number of answers might be suggested. I will propose that 

one likely factor behind this growth was Geneva’s use of lies and subterfuge to 

hide their ministerial activities from the French authorities and that, whether 

this was a cause of growth or not, this deception was integral to their ministry 

to the country.  

Accusations of Geneva, especially Calvin, being unscrupulous, 

dishonest, immoral—the so-called Black Legend of Calvin—are a well-known 

part of sixteenth-and-seventeenth-century polemics against the Reformed faith.4 

                                                           
 Seminar-attendees at Edinburgh University and University of Bristol 

made extremely-helpful comments on previous drafts, particularly, Jane 

Dawson, Stewart Brown, Sara Parvis, George Ferzoco, and Bob Akroyd, as 

did two anonymous reviewers. Errors remain mine alone. 
1 Theodore Beza, Correspondance de Theodore de Beze (ed. 

Hippolyte Aubert, et al.; Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance; 42 vols.; 

Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1960–) 3: 80–81. Also, Beza to Jean Wolf, 25 March 

1561 (Beza, Correspondance 3: 94); Beza to Bullinger, 24 May 1561 (Beza, 

Correspondance 3: 101–2). Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.  
2 Beza’s Histoire ecclesiastique des Églises réformées au Royaume de 

France (ed. Guillaume Baum and Edouard Cunitz; 3 vols.; Paris: Fishbacher, 

1883-89) (hereafter Hist Eccl) relates Catherine de’Medici’s request for the 

census. See the recent re-assessment, Philip Benedict and Nicolas Fornerod, 

“Les 2,150 ‘églises’ réformées de France de 1561–1562,” Revue historique 

311/ 3 (2009) 529–60. A smaller number, 1500, is mentioned in a 15 July 

1561 letter from Beza to Grataroli (Beza, Correspondance 3: 282). 
3 Jonathan Reid, “French Evangelical Networks Before 1555: Proto-

Churches?,” in La réforme en France et en Italie: Contacts, comparisons, et 

contrastes (ed. Philip Benedict, et al.; Rome: École française de Rome, 2007) 

105–24 engagingly addresses, from a different vantage-point, this same 

question. 
4 Peter Marshall, “John Calvin and the English Catholics, c. 1565-

1640,” The Historical Journal 53/4 (2010) 849–70; William Monter, 

“Witchcraft in Geneva, 1537–1662,” Journal of Modern History 43/2 (1971) 

179-204.  



2 

 

 

Yet modern scholars have generally failed to consider the possibility of 

Geneva’s employment of ethically-dubious strategies such as lying. “Calvin 

constantly promoted an uncompromising standard of honesty among the 

Reformed faithful and held himself up as a model,”5 Kirk Summers recently 

wrote in his excellent study of Beza’s ethics. Numerous researchers treating 

Calvin and Beza have likewise depicted both as profoundly honest.6 

This is not to say modern scholars have been unwilling to criticize the 

Genevans. G.R. Elton wrote, with a strong nod towards Nazi Germany: 

“Calvin’s Geneva should not be disbelieved or despised; it should be treated 

seriously as an awful warning.”7 Others have raised ideas closer to dishonesty. 

Raymond Blacketer queried “how consistent Calvin was in following through 

with his strict standards of veracity.”8 Pierre Imbart de la Tour, Vittorio de 

Caprariis, Robert Kingdon, Denis Crouzet, Scott Manetsch, and Bruce Gordon9 

                                                           
5 Kirk Summers, Morality After Calvin: Theodore Beza’s Christian 

Censor and Reformed Ethics (Oxford studies in historical theology; Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2017) 123. 
6 E.g. John L. Thompson, “The Immoralities of the Patriarchs in the 

History of Exegesis: A Reappraisal of Calvin’s Position,” CTJ 26/1 (1991) 

9–46; idem, “Patriarchs, Polygamy, and Private Resistance: John Calvin and 

Others on Breaking God’s Rules,” Sixteenth Century Journal 25/1 (1994) 3–

27. Sensu lato, Wilhelm Kolfhaus, Vom christlichen Leben nach Johannes 

Calvin (Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, 1949); Guenther Haas, The Concept of 

Equity in Calvin’s Ethics (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster Press, 1997).   
7 G.R. Elton, Reformation Europe 1517-1559 2nd ed. (Oxford: 

Blackwell, 1999) 163. 
8 Raymond Blacketer, “No Escape by Deception: Calvin’s Exegesis 

of Lies and Liars in the Old Testament,” Reformation & Renaissance Review 

10/3 (2008) 267–289, esp. 284; also, idem, “The Moribund Moralist: Ethical 

Lessons in Calvin’s Commentary on Joshua,” Dutch Review of Church 

History 85 (2005) 149–68. 
9 Pierre Imbart de la Tour, Les Origines de la Réforme (4 vols.; Paris: 

Hachette et Cie, 1905–1935) 4: 185–93; Vittorio de Caprariis, “La politica 

calvinista e gli inizi della polemica ugonotta,” in Propaganda e pensiero 

politico in Francia durante le Guerre di Religione (Naples: Edizioni 

scientifiche italiane, 1959) 1–69, esp. 39; Robert Kingdon, Geneva and the 

Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956) 

110–12; Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins 

of Radical Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965) 23, 39, 

59; Philip Benedict, “The Dynamics of Protestant Militancy: France, 1555–

1563,” in Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands 

1555–1585 (ed. Philip Benedict, et al.; Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie 

van Wetenschappen Verhandlingen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 

176; Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999) 

35–50, esp. 39–40; Denis Crouzet, “Calvinism and the Uses of the Political 

and the Religious (France, ca. 1560 –ca. 1572),” in Reformation, Revolt and 

Civil War (ed. Philip Benedict, et al.), 99–114, esp. 99–100; Scott Manetsch, 

Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France: 1572–1598 (Studies in 

Medieval and Reformation Traditions 79; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 19–20; Paul-

Alexis Mellet, Les Traités monarchomaques. Confusion des temps, résistance 



3 

 

 

inter alia alluded to dishonest conduct (pragmatism, equivocation, subterfuge) 

on the part of Calvin and Beza. 

The argument I set out below fills a gap in scholarship by exploring in 

more detail the ideas pointed to by these authors and, specifically, by elucidating 

the stratagem devised by Calvin for hiding Geneva’s French ministry. This 

article focuses on Calvin and Beza. Clearly, a more thorough treatment would 

also examine the involvement of Nicolas Des Gallars, Charles de Jonvilliers, 

Laurent de Normandy, Galeazzo Caracciolo, Nicolas Colladon, the Budé 

brothers (Jean, Louis, and François), François Hotman, Denis Raguenier, and 

other ministers, secretaries, and various assistants.10 But such ambitious aims 

are beyond the scope of this short article. Our terminus a quo is mid-1536, when 

Calvin arrived in Geneva; the terminus ad quem March 1563, the date of the 

Edict of Amboise. We will meander outside of these boundaries on occasion but 

only briefly. 

In what follows, I begin by examining Calvin and Beza’s understanding 

of mendacity. This will allow their own thinking on the topic to provide the 

standard for our subsequent analysis of their conduct. Next, I outline that 

conduct, namely, what Calvin and Beza did to spread the gospel and support 

Calvinist churches and conventicles in France. Finally, I demonstrate their use 

of lies and especially simulation (feigning or dissembling) to hide their ministry 

to France. 

Before commencing, I need to introduce early French evangelicalism.11 

Scholars have traditionally understood the growth of Calvinism in sixteenth-

century France in terms of Geneva creating order out of the amorphous 

                                                           

armée et monarchie parfaite (1560–1600) (Geneva: Droz, 2007) 62–63; 

Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 167, 321–

22. Related are: William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin; A Sixteenth-Century 

Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) 116, 141 and Sara 

Beam, “Rites of Torture in Reformation Geneva,” in Ritual and Violence: 

Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France (ed. Graeme Murdock, 

Penny Roberts, and Andrew Spicer; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 

197–219. 
10 Jeannine Olson, “The Mission to France: Nicolas Des Gallars’ 

Interaction with John Calvin, Gaspard de Coligny, and Edmund Grindal, 

Bishop of London,” in Calvinus clarrisimus theologus: Papers of the Tenth 

International Congress on Calvin Research (ed. Herman Selderhuis; 

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012) 344–57; eadem, “The Quest for 

Anonymity: Laurent de Normandie, His Colporteurs, and the Expansion of 

Reformed Communities through Worship,” in Semper Reformanda: John 

Calvin, Worship, and Reformed Traditions (ed. Barbara Pitkin; Göttingen: 

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 33–56. On some of these figures, see Émile 

Doumergue, Jean Calvin: les hommes et les choses de son temps (7 vols.; 

Lausanne: G. Bridel, 1844-1937) 3: 594–647.  
11 See Denis Crouzet, La genèse de la Réforme française 1520-1562 

(Paris: SEDES, 1996); Society and Culture in the Huguenot World, 1559–

1685 (ed. Raymond Mentzer and Andrew Spicer; New York: Cambridge 

University Press, 2002). 



4 

 

 

collection of movements associated with the French Renaissance.12 More recent 

work, however, has questioned this narrative. Jonathan Reid has persuasively 

shown that the evangelical scene in France prior to the commencement of 

Calvin and Beza’s labors was quite organized. Marguerite of Navarre had 

successfully established an evangelical network of theologians and preachers—

Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Guillaume Briçonnet, Jean Du Bellay, and others—

many of whom she managed to have appointed as bishops, in which capacity 

they worked for reform within the Catholic church.13 Taking this seriously, it 

casts the growth of Calvinism in France in a different light. It suggests a 

complex relationship between Beza’s “colonies” and Marguerite’s evangelical 

community, many of whom self-identified as Nicodemites.14 We know that 

Geneva saw itself as engaged in a struggle against Nicodemism. Evidence for 

this is replete, including a 1556 lecture by Calvin on Hosea 4:15. 

 

Yet our fight is not only with the papists but also with those wicked 

scoundrels who arrogantly call themselves Nicodemites.15 

 

Thus, in addition to the French government, it seems the Genevans also saw the 

Nicodemites as an opposing force with which they had to deal—a fact which, I 

                                                           
12 Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols; The Reformation of Worship 

from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 

271; Donald Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society 

in the French Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 

89–128. 
13 Jonathan Reid, King’s Sister – Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of 

Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network (2 vols.; Studies in 

Medieval and Reformation Traditions 139; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 1: 13. 
14 Carlo Ginzburg, Il Nicodemismo, Simulazione e dissimulazione 

religiosa nell ’ Europa del‘ 500 (Turin: Guilio Einaudi, 1970); Eugénie Droz, 

Les Chemins de l'hérésie: textes et documents (4 vols.; Geneva: Slatkine, 

1970-1976) 1: 131–71; Carlos Eire, “Calvin and Nicodemism: A 

Reappraisal,” Sixteenth Century Journal 10/1 (1979) 44–69; Francis Higman, 

“The Question of Nicodemism,” in Calvinus Ecclesiae Genevensis Custos; 

Die Referate des Congrès International des Recherches 

Calviniennes . . . September 1982 in Genf (ed. Wilhelm Niesel; Frankfurt am 

Main: Peter Lang, 1984) 165–70; Olivier Millet, Calvin et la dynamique de 

la parole: Etude de rhétorique réformée (Geneva: Editions Slatkine, 1992) 

480-504; Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying; Dissimulation, Persecution, and 

Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1990) 63–82; Jon R. Snyder, Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy 

in Early Modern Europe (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012); 

Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe (ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon 

and Tamar Herzig; New York: Palgrave, 2015); Kenneth Woo, “The House 

of God in Exile: Reassessing John Calvin’s Approach to 

Nicodemism in Quatre Sermons (1552),” Church History and Religious 

Culture 95 (2015) 222–44.  
15 Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. Guillaume Baum, 

Edouard Cunitz, and Edouard Reuss; 59 vols.; Brunsvigae: Apud C.A. 

Schwetschke et filium, 1863−1900) (hereafter CO) 42: 290. 



5 

 

 

suggest, made it even more likely that Geneva might choose to engage in 

deception in order to hide their ministerial work in France. 

 

Mendacity and Geneva’s Judgement of the Nicodemites 
 

Calvin and Beza discussed mendacity in various writings and in their attacks on 

Nicodemism, which elicited from them frequent and robust examinations of 

various forms of lying and deception. 

Marguerite of Navarre and her evangelical network had been working 

for two decades to reform the church when Calvin, in the late 1530s, began 

ministering to France. Beza would join him in the 1550s. One way Calvin 

pursued this work was through a calculated assault on Nicodemism through 

tracts like Petit traicté, Traicté des reliques, Excuse à Messieurs les 

Nicodémites, Contre la secte phantastique et furieuse des Libertins, and other 

pieces16 in which he excoriated the movement and called their faith illusory. 

Calvin and Beza attacked the Nicodemites for participating in the 

“idolatrous” mass and for their rationale behind this participation, namely, 

ministry. Nicodemites like Gérard Roussel, Nicolas Duchemin, Jean Du Bellay, 

and Marguerite herself, chose to practice their faith and work for reform within 

the structures of the French Catholic church. Though some of Calvin and Beza’s 

fellow-reformers approved of this approach, including Wolfgang Capito and 

Martin Bucer,17 to the Genevans it was profoundly misguided. Calvin explained 

in a sermon on Acts preached in 1550. 

 

It is like those Nicodemites who say, “It is good to assume some cover 

(couverture); when I go to mass every day, they will think I am very 

devout, and eventually they will find some little crack and enter into 

discussion and respond in such a way that the mass will be abolished.” 

This is the pretext behind which these evil people want to hide as they 

counterfeit being Christians today. . . . the people who employ such 

tactics say, “It seems to us that the gospel will be better advanced in this 

way” . . . [but ultimately we find that] . . . they simply want to flee from 

the cross and persecution.18 

 

                                                           
16 See footnote 78.  
17 “In Consilium theologicum, Bucer would assure a Nicodemite vir 

quidam that, through diligent study of the fathers, the rites and ceremonies of 

the papal church could be adapted to a more wholesome interpretation” (Nick 

Thompson, Eucharistic Sacrifice and Patristic Tradition in the Theology of 

Martin Bucer, 1534−1546 (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 119; 

Leiden: Brill: 2005) 141). Thompson indicates that Pierre Fraenkel (Martini 

Buceri Opera Omnia, series II: Opera Latina (ed. F. Wendel, et al; Studies 

in Medieval and Reformation Thought; Leiden: Brill, 1955) 4: xv−xxix) 

dates the work to the winter of 1540−1541 and believes that the last part is 

intended to answer the anti-Nicodemite arguments of Calvin’s Epistolae 

duae.  
18 Supplementa Calviniana; Sermons inédits (ed. Erwin Mulhaupt et 

al. ; 11 vols.; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1936−) (hereafter SC) 8: 225. 



6 

 

 

Particularly noteworthy here is the fact that Calvin accused the Nicodemites of 

sinful simulation and dissimulation about which we will say more momentarily.  

But we should first consider Calvin and Beza’s treatment of lying more 

generally. When we do, we find that they were loyal Augustinians.19 Augustine 

defined lying in his De Mendacio by indicating that someone lies “who has one 

thing in his mind and speaks another with words or with signs of any kind.”20  

Augustine’s definition raised an immediate question related to its 

application. He applied it rigorously. But Christianity developed two distinct 

traditions here, with figures like Clement of Alexandria (in Stromateis) and John 

Chrysostom (in De Sacerdotio) endorsing the idea of the pious or officious lie 

(mendacium officiosum).21 These theologians insisted on the importance of 

intent in their expositions. Chrysostom mentioned Paul’s circumcising of 

Timothy (Acts 16:3; 1 Corinthians 9:20) as well as the common examples of 

army generals, parents, and physicians all of whom deceive in their work as a 

matter of practical necessity, but are excused because they do so with good 

intent.22 Jerome took a similar approach.23 Other biblical examples include the 

lies told by Rahab (Joshua 2) and the Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1), who told 

officious lies which were adjudged to be pious because of their intentions.24 

Augustine disagreed. For him, intent was focused on the question of 

whether one knowingly and deliberately spoke contra mentem. Doing so always 

amounts to lying. One who utters an untruth which she thinks is true does not 

lie, but if she knows it to be false, then she is guilty of sinfully lying. Key to his 

understanding was the eliding of Truth with God, as Boniface Ramsey has 

                                                           
19 Regarding the extent of Calvin’s dependence on Augustine on this 

topic, I am indebted to Blacketer, “No Escape,” 274−282. 
20 De Mendacio 3 (CSEL 41: 415). 
21 See, O. Lipmann and P. Plaut eds, Die Lüge in psychologischer, 

philosophischer, juristischer, pädagogischer, historischer, soziologischer, 

sprach- und literaturwissenschaftlicher und entwicklungsgeschichlicher 

Betrachtung (Leipzig:  Barth, 1927); Boniface Ramsey, O.P. “Two Traditions 

on Lying and Deception in the Ancient Church,” The Thomist 48 (1985) 

515−531; Johann Somerville, “The ‘new art of lying’: equivocation, mental 

reservation, and casuistry,” in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern 

Europe (ed. Edmund Leites; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 

159−189. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 7.8.50−7.9.53; John 

Chrysostom, De Sacerdotio 1.8−9. 
22 Chrysostom also mentioned the need to assess human intention in 

assessing a range of moral actions, lest one condemn Abraham (Gen 22:3), 

Phinees’ slaying of idolaters (Num 25:7), and Elijah’s killing of 100 soldiers 

(2 Kgs 1:9-12), PG 48: 628−632. 
23 Jerome argued Paul and Peter’s argument was feigned; Jerome’s 

Galatians commentary (PL 26: 363−367) and Augustine’s De Mendacio 8 

(CSEL 41: 422−24) and their dispute over the issue, CSEL 54: 496−503; 

666–74 and 55: 367−393. 
24 Others, from John Cassian to Martin Luther, supported the officious 

lie (e.g. Dr. M. Luthers Samtliche Werke (Erlangen: C. Heyder, 1826−1886) 

35: 18; see, Hartmann Grisar, S.J., Luther (6 vols.; trans. E.M. Lamond; St 

Louis: B Herder, 1917) 6: 513-515, cf. Calvin, Mosis Libri V, . . . harmoniae 

digesti (CO 24: 18−19). 



7 

 

 

rightly argued.25 Augustine did, it should be noted, concede that joking should 

not be considered lying. He also allowed for deception (i.e. ambushes) to occur 

in war without sin.26 But apart from these allowances, he was extraordinarily 

uncompromising in his assessment of what constitutes mendacity. In the same 

way, Calvin and Beza linked God and Truth. Beza, for instance, commented on 

John 8:44 that Satan could not remain in the father’s presence “for the simple 

fact that he lied; God only receives unto himself what is true.”27 The same can 

be seen in Beza’s poem “In Mendaces” in his Cato Censorius Christianus.28 

Calvin argued those who espouse the officious lie “do not sufficiently consider 

how precious truth is in the sight of God.” Whatever is “contrary to God’s 

nature” cannot be right. Although the aim of the believer is good, “it can never 

be lawful to lie.” For “God is truth.”29  

Exploring mendacity further, Augustine, Aquinas, Erasmus, Calvin, 

Beza and a myriad of others examined concealment. They distinguished 

between two forms: simulatio and dissimulatio. Though similar, the two exhibit 

a noteworthy difference. To dissimulate, Calvin explained in his Petit traicté “is 

merely to hide what one has in one’s heart, while to simulate, to feign, goes 

beyond that, and is the moral equivalent of lying.”30 Thus, all simulation is 

sinful, but not all dissimulation. 

While dissimulation can represent a misleading silence it can also 

amount simply to the withholding of information. Calvin noted Jesus 

dissimulated when speaking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.31 He also 

said God was dissimulating in portions of the Old Testament such as 1 Samuel 

16:2 where God’s prophet Samuel appears to deceive Saul about a trip he is 

making to anoint David in Bethlehem.32 Dissimulation could, however, also be 

sinful and, in the case of the Nicodemites, Calvin and Beza believed it was. 

When the Nicodemite chose to conceal her Reformed beliefs from the local 

authorities and many of her friends, the Genevans insisted that she was acting 

                                                           
25 Ramsey, “Two Traditions,” 511. 
26 See Augustine’s QQ. in Hept. qu. x super Jos. as cited by Aquinas, 

Summa Theologica II-II Q40 a3 s.c.  
27 Beza, Testamentum, sive Novum Foedus, … Th. Bezae Annotationes 

(2 vols.; Geneva: E. Vignon, 1598) 2: 397 as cited in Summer, Morality After 

Calvin, 126−27. For Calvin, Inst 2.8.47 (CO 2: 300). He also explains: 

“Whatever is opposed to the nature of God is sinful” (Joannis Calvini in 

librum Josue . . . et obitu (CO 25: 440−3)).  
28 Cato Censorius Christianus (Geneva: Ioannem Tornaesium, 1591). 

Beza’s “In Mendaces” can be found in Kirk, Morality After Calvin, 128−9. 
29 CO 25: 440−3. Their line of argument resembles Augustine’s in 

Contra Mendacium. 
30 Calvin, Petit traicté (CO 6: 546). See Johannes Trapman, “Erasmus 

on Lying and Simulation,” in On the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles 

and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period (ed. Toon 

van Houdt, et al.; Intersections 2; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 33−46. 
31 Calvin insisted “Christum sine mendacio peraeque simulasse” (CO 

45: 803−8). 
32 CO 30: 147−58. Ably discussed in Zagorin, Ways of Lying, 

100−30; Blacketer, “No Escape,” 280−2. 



8 

 

 

directly against the gospel directive to confess her faith (Romans 10:9-10). This, 

then, was sinful dissimulation.  

Simulation, of which the Nicodemites were also guilty, was always 

sinful. “In short, what lying is in words simulation is in deeds.”33 It amounted 

to pretending or falsifying. Fundamental to Nicodemism was the idea that one 

must feign that she is a loyal Catholic, though she is not. She actually believes 

the major Protestant doctrines, such as justification by faith alone. She also 

often, as was the case with Roussel and Marguerite, believes the Pope to be the 

Anti-Christ and the Roman church the synagogue of Satan. Yet she sits in 

Catholic mass, feigning to pray to the saints, believe the Eucharist becomes the 

body and blood of Christ, and such like.34 

 For these reasons, Calvin and Beza were swift to excoriate the 

Nicodemites. They knew many had clear reasons supporting their choice. “We 

dissemble,” Calvin said explaining the rationale of the Nicodemite as he 

understood it, “in order to win our neighbors and produce a new seed day by 

day.”35 Nonetheless, the Genevans upbraided the likes of Roussel, Duchemin, 

and Antoine Fumée for adopting ministerial tactics which were patently 

dishonest. They accused the Nicodemites of merely toying with God, and saw 

behind Nicodemism a fundamental opposition to the gospel.  

 

There is an excuse which all of them make, both great and small, lay and 

cleric. It is even less deserving of a hearing. “What!” they say, “Shall 

we all depart and run away to an unknown place? Or, indeed, shall we 

risk our lives?” If we reduce . . . [their argument to its essence] . . . it is 

as if they were to say, “What! Can we not serve God, and follow his 

word, without suffering persecution?” If they wish to be good Christians 

on that condition, they must devise an entirely new Jesus Christ.36 

 

Similarly-harsh condemnations of the Nicodemites by the Genevans could be 

multiplied. 

It is, then, apparent that Calvin and Beza set down inflexible opposition 

to lying. Before proceeding to the next section, it is important to insist clearly 

that there were arenas within which they both were profoundly honest and 

demanded honesty of others. We might, here, point as further evidence of this 

to the establishing by Calvin in the 1540s of the Consistory, which vigorously 

enforced morality within the city and took prevarication extremely seriously. 

But be that as it may, this article will demonstrate that in ministering to France 

they behaved with far less honesty.  

 

Calvin and Beza’s Ministry to France 
 

                                                           
33 CO 6: 546. 
34 See Calvin’s accusing of Roussel in CO 5: 279−312. 
35 CO 6: 548. 
36 CO 6: 603.On his harshness, David F. Wright, “Why was Calvin so 

severe a critic of Nicodemism?,” in Calvinus Evangelii Propugnator: Calvin 

Champion of the Gospel; Papers Presented at the International Congress on 

Calvin Research, Seoul, 1998 (ed. David F. Wright, A. N. S. Lane and Jon 

Balserak; Grand Rapids: CRC, 2006) 66–90. 



9 

 

 

Calvin fled Paris following Nicholas Cop’s November 1533 rectorial address at 

the University of Paris,37 which Calvin himself may have penned. (The 

juxtaposition between his fleeing and his criticizing of the Nicodemites for 

seeking to avoid persecution is perhaps noteworthy, though our attention in 

what follows will be focused elsewhere.38) He was, by 1533, part of the 

evangelical community. He knew Marguerite and was associated with her 

network. He knew Cop, Duchemin, Roussel, Etienne de la Forge, and other 

prominent evangelicals. After his flight, he wandered, living for a while in the 

outskirts of Paris, Claix, Basel, Ferrara, and settling in Geneva in 1536. 

While in Claix and Basel, Calvin wrote his Institutio Christianae 

Religionis, on which I will have more to say later. He made his way to Geneva 

in July of 1536 from where he continued to support those in France who adhered 

to the evangelical faith. The flow of letters was uninterrupted as Calvin wrote 

to comfort, encourage, and warn believers that “those who belong to Antichrist 

rage.”39 He began literary campaigns against the “papists” and the Nicodemites. 

The next few decades witnessed a build-up of ministerial activities in France 

originating from Geneva that would be vehemently opposed by a succession of 

French kings through measures such as the Chambre Ardente and the Edict of 

Châteaubriant, both passed by King Henry II (1547-1559). (This opposition was 

in full-force in 1558, when Beza joined Calvin in Geneva).40 While in 

Strasbourg, Calvin produced Aulcuns pseaumes et cantiques mys en chant, 

together with Clément Marot, which would eventually be developed by Beza 

into the enormously-influential 1562 Genevan Psalter.41 Upon Calvin’s return 

                                                           
37 CO 10b:30−36. Jean Rott, Marijn de Kroon, Marc Lienhard, 

Investigationes historicae. Eglises et société au XVIe siècle (Publications de 

la Société savante d’Alsace et des régions de l’Est. Collection Grandes 

publications 31−32; 2 vols.; Strasbourg: Grandes Publications, 1986) 2: 266–

87.  
38 Calvin defends himself in Excuse, CO 6: 607. 
39 Inter alia, CO 10: 428−9; CO 12: 47; 342; CO 16: 629−33; CO 17: 

570−4; 17: 671−87. He also praised their death, calling them martyrs, e.g. 

CO 13: 348−9. 
40 Beza discusses his flight in a 1560 letter to Wolmar, Beza, 

Correspondance 3: 47. He also explains that persecution was intensifying 

around this time, Hist Eccl 1: 133-6. He went first to Lausanne and a decade 

later to Geneva. While in Lausanne, Beza worked to strengthen French 

evangelical churches and drafted a defence of Calvin against Sebastian 

Castellio, see De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis libellus (Geneva: 

Robert Stephanus, 1554); for more, Karin Maag, “Recteur, pasteur, et 

professeur: Theodore de Beze et l’education à Genève,” in Théodore de Bèze 

(1519−1605): Actes du colloque de Genève (ed. Irena Backus; Geneva: Droz, 

2007) 29-39. 
41 Beza took over translating the Psalms into French, following 

Marot’s 1544 death, publishing the Octante-trois psaumes in 1553. Les 

psaumes en vers franc̜ois, retouchez sur l'ancienne version de Cl. Marot & 

Th. de Beze (Paris: Antoine Cellier, 1579). See, Julien Gœury, “Les Pasteurs 

Poètes De Langue Française Des Origines De La Réforme à La Révocation 

De L’édit De Nantes,” Bulletin De La Société de L'Histoire du Protestantisme 

Français 156 (2010) 129-46.  



10 

 

 

from Strasbourg to Geneva in 1541, he replaced Geneva’s ministers with 

Frenchmen whom he knew and could trust. The Vénérable Compagnie des 

Pasteurs became a body Calvin could direct with little resistance.42 Calvin 

continued his literary campaign against Nicodemism, as well as providing 

French Calvinists with a French catechism and La Forme des prières et chanz 

ecclésiastiques.43 Geneva being an important center for printing, many of the 

books and pamphlets it produced during this period were smuggled into France. 

In fact, Geneva was “second only to Paris in the volume of religious works 

printed in French.”44 Following the removal from Geneva of the Perrinists in 

the summer of 1555, the Genevan pastors began to train and send ministers into 

France—work which nicely hints at the evolution of Geneva’s means of 

influence within France from texts in the 1540s to personnel in the 1550s and 

1560s. They had sent a few ministers before that time. Beza had done the same 

from Lausanne.45 The Livre des Habitants de Genève shows how many French 

refugees entered the city during the 1550s and 1560s.46 Many of them were 

trained and sent back as pastors. Calvin and Beza also sought political influence 

in France.47 The conversion of French nobles was a desideratum from early on. 

Antoine of Navarre and his brother, Louis of Condé, both Princes of the Blood, 

François d’Andelot de Coligny and his brother, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral 

of France,48 were all called upon. For instance, following King Henry II’s 

sudden death in 1559, Calvin and Beza pleaded with Antoine of Navarre to 

                                                           
42 William Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan 

Reformation (Louisville: Westminster, 2003) 144–66. Studies by Robert 

Kingdon, Ray Mentzer, and Philip Benedict also demonstrate Calvin’s clear 

authority over these men. 
43 His continued campaign enraged evangelicals including Marguerite 

herself. Calvin writes her (28 April 1545) regarding his attacks on the 

Libertines and Nicodemites, which had been interpreted by some, and 

apparently her, as attacks by Calvin on her, CO 12: 65–68.    
44 Gordon, Calvin, 360 n.18 notes the work of Andrew Pettegree and 

the French Book Project (St Andrews University) to support this assertion. 
45 Manetsch, Theodore Beza, 15; see Beza to Farel, 16 March 1556 

(Beza, Correspondance 2: 35); Beza to Bullinger, 27 March 1557 (Beza, 

Correspondance 2: 57). 
46 Le Livre des Habitants de Genève, Tome I, 1555-1572 (ed. Paul-F. 

Giesendorf; 2 vols.; Travaux d’humanisme et renaissance; Geneva: Droz, 

1957−1963) 1: 54−218; Peter Wilcox, “The lectures of John Calvin and the 

nature of his audience,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 87 (1996) 

136−48. 
47 See, Kingdon, “PART II: Political Activity,” in Geneva, 54−126. 
48 Calvin to Antoine of Navarre, December 1557 (CO 16: 730-734) 

and June 1558 (CO 17: 196−198); see, Francis DeCrue, L’action politique de 

Calvin hors de Genève: d'après sa correspondence (Geneva: Librairie Georg, 

1909) 42−59. Gaspard de Coligny is addressed by Beza in his dedicatory 

letter to Ioannis Calvini in Viginti prima Ezechielis Propheta capita 

praelectiones (Geneva: Francisci Perrini, 1565) iir−viiiv; see also CO 17: 

318−19; and, Junko Shimizu, Conflict of Loyalties: Politics and Religion in 

the Career of Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 1519−1572 (Geneva: 

Droz, 1970) 28−30. 



11 

 

 

insert himself into the resulting power struggle, as the new King Francis II’s 

youth (he was fifteen) meant a regency council was authorized to administer the 

government until he reached the age of twenty-five49 (Antoine was not 

interested50). Calvin and Beza also employed more radical means. As the late 

1550s witnessed the increase in plots designed to save the king from the 

powerful House of Guise, Beza and Calvin planned their own. Rejecting the ill-

fated Conspiracy of Amboise of 17 March 1560,51 they planned in September 

of 1560 to give troops and money to Antoine of Navarre to use in order 

“aggressively to assert his right to lead a regency government and then promote 

Reformed rights of worship.”52 The plot never materialized. Beza attended the 

Colloquy of Poissy in September of 1561, which was, by most reckonings, a 

disaster.53 With the war commencing in the spring of 1562, Calvin and Beza 

                                                           
49 This council would be made up of the Estates General and the 

Princes of the Blood, and could take the decision to resist Francis II’s 

government, if it felt such action were necessary. However, see Histoire et 

dictionnaire des guerres de religion, 1559–1598 (ed. Arlette Jouanna; Paris: 

Laffont, 1998) 52−3, 1067. 
50 Calvin complains about Antoine, CO 17: 594-595; CO 18: 229–31; 

CO 18: 231–32; CO 18: 254–56; CO 18: 267–69; CO 18: 97–100, esp. 98. 

Beza and Calvin continued their efforts with Antoine, CO 18: 608–10; CO 

18: 621. King Francis II’s death on December 5, 1560 brought relief to the 

Reformed. Beza described his reign with Jesus’ words: “If those days had not 

been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days 

will be shortened” (Matt 24:22 NIV) (Hist Eccl 1: 133-4); see also CO 18: 

270. The new monarch, Charles IX, was only nine when he took the throne 

and was under the regency of Catherine, Hist Eccl 1: 459–566.  
51 On which, Beza’s Hist Eccl 1: 164-74, Histoire et Dictionnaire (ed. 

Jouanna), 52−69, Kingdon, Geneva, 68−78, and further discussion below. 
52 Alain Dufour, “L’affaire de Maligny (Lyon, 4-5 septembre 1560) 

vue à travers la correspondance de Calvin et de Bèze,” in Cahiers d’Histoire 

8 (1963) 269-80. Philip Benedict, “Prophets in Arms? Ministers in War, 

Ministers on War: France 1562–1574,” in Ritual and Violence (ed. Murdock, 

Roberts and Spicer), 163-96, esp. 171 n.21. See CO 18: 177–80; CO 18: 176–

78. This plot “had Calvin’s approval (since the first prince of the blood was 

directing it). Calvin took charge even of collecting funds borrowed left and 

right, up to 50,000 pounds” (Alain Dufour, Théodore de Bèze, poète et 

théologien (Geneva: Droz, 2006) 74); also, idem, “L’affaire de Maligny,” 

269−80; Beza, Correspondance 3: 63−70.  
53 Beza, Correspondance 3: 132−3. On 1 November 1560, Calvin 

wrote to Bullinger that “war in France is inevitable” (CO 18: 230). See, inter 

alia, Lucien Romier, Les origines politiques des guerres de religion (2 vols.; 

Paris:  Perrin et Cie, Libraires-Editeurs, 1913−1914); Jon Balserak, John 

Calvin as Sixteenth-century Prophet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2014). There were still highpoints for the Reformed. For instance, 16 January 

1561 Calvin wrote to Admiral Coligny (CO 18: 316−17) who, in the wake of 

Francis II’s death, was ready to work for the Reformed cause and eodem die 

wrote Antoine (CO 18: 311−12). Yet, by the time of the Poissy Colloquy in 

September, Calvin would warn Coligny, who was present at it, of Antoine’s 



12 

 

 

supported it vigorously. Notable here is Calvin’s seeking of financial support 

for the hiring of mercenaries. 

 

Deception in Support of Clandestine Ministerial Efforts 

 

• Calvin’s Duplicitous Letter to Francis I 
 

As mentioned earlier, Calvin fled Paris and eventually France following 

Cop’s 1533 rectorial address. During his subsequent wanderings, he wrote the 

Institutio. He tells us that he wrote it in response to the events that transpired 

following the 1534 Affaire des Placards,54 specifically, the French authorities’ 

executing of eighteen evangelicals believed to have been behind the event and, 

thus, deemed agitators against King Francis I’s government. Calvin wrote the 

work to defend the faith of those who were put to death by Francis I’s 

government and to explain that evangelicals represent no danger to king or 

country. We can see this purpose worked out in at least two ways. 

First, Calvin used the preface to the Institutio,55 which takes the form of 

a dedicatory letter to Francis I dated 10 September 1535, to set out an apologia 

for the executed evangelicals (apparently a part of Marguerite’s evangelical 

network), with whom Calvin identified. Calvin protested, “we are wrongly 

charged with intentions of a sort as we have never even given the slightest 

suspicion. We,” so it is claimed by those who have the king’s ear, “are 

contriving the overthrow of kingdoms,” yet this is not so. Continuing his train 

of thought, he exclaimed: 

 

we from whom not one seditious word was ever heard and whose life, 

while passed under your reign, is known to have always been quiet and 

simple; and we now also, though exiled from our home, do not cease to 

pray for all prosperity for yourself and your kingdom.56 

 

Insisting to the French king that he and his co-religionists were not politically-

disruptive agitators, he sought to convince the monarch that their faith required 

them to honor and obey Francis and his government. This preface was reprinted 

in every Latin Institutio (1536, 1539, 1543, 1550, 1559) and French Institution 

(1541, 1545, 1551, 1560). 

 Calvin was not, we might briefly note, haranguing the French king in 

this prefatory letter. His language was not vituperative but respectful; almost 

obsequious. He addressed the king with a form of what appears to have been 

the standard greeting: 

 

                                                           

unreliability (CO 18: 732−34) and by December, Calvin and Beza would 

write a denunciatory missive to the king of Navarre (CO 19: 198−202).  
54 For subsequent developments, William Monter, Judging the French 

Reformation: Heresy Trials by Sixteenth-Century Parlements (Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 
55 CO 1: 9−30. 
56 CO 1: 25, italics mine. 



13 

 

 

TO THE MOST POWERFUL AND ILLUSTRIOUS MONARCH, 

FRANCIS, MOST CHRISTIAN KING OF THE FRENCH57 

 

By comparison, Ulrich Zwingli’s greeting to Francis I in his 1525 De vera et 

falsa religione reads:  “To the most Christian king of France, Francis, the first 

of that name.” Likewise, the Senates of Strasbourg and of Zurich both adopt 

essentially the same greeting in their missives to the French king.58 

Second, Calvin set out in the body of the Institutio the character of the 

obedience owed to the king. He said authority over the civil realm is God-given 

(Romans 13) and, thus, compels obedience to the civil ruler. “One cannot resist 

the magistrate without simultaneously resisting God.”59 Calvin acknowledged 

that God had ordained an office of government, namely the popular magistrate 

who had been given a duty, having “been appointed to curb the tyranny of 

kings.” But Calvin insisted that that duty belonged solely to the holder of that 

office and private individuals must not engage in such activity or in any forms 

of active disobedience.60 The one occasion when individual Christians can 

(indeed, must) disobey a ruler’s command is when it requires them to violate 

God’s law. On such occasions, Calvin insisted active resistance was forbidden. 

The individual’s disobedience must be passive, taking the form of prayer, 

petition to the ruler, suffering persecution, or flight.61 

 What are we to make of all this? When we consider that after his flight 

from Paris in 1533, Calvin continued writing to encourage evangelicals in the 

country and that within a very short time—less than a year after signing the 

prefatory letter in September 1535—he was writing to Nicolas Duchemin and 

Gérard Roussel demanding in vehement language that they separate from the 

French Catholic church (in Duae Epistolae)62 and that in October 1536 he was 

                                                           
57 “POTENTISSIMO, ILLUSTRISSIMOQUE MONARCHAE, 

FRANCISCO, FRANCORUM REGI CHRISTIANISSIMO” (CO 1: 10−11). 
58 Ulrich Zwingli, De vera et falsa religione, Huldrychi Zvinglij 

commentarius (Zurich: Froschower, 1525) n.p.. CO 10b: 57−61; 10b: 61−62. 

The Genevan Senate’s greeting to the Zurich senate is less effusive, CO 10b: 

221−23. 
59 CO 1: 243. 
60 CO 1: 244−46. 
61 CO 1: 246−48. For a good summary, John Witte, Jr., The 

Reformation of Rights; Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern 

Calvinism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 49−54. Most 

acknowledge Calvin’s later position on resistance changed somewhat but 

retained the restriction against active resistance; however, cf. Willem 

Nijenhuis, “The Limits of Civil Disobedience in Calvin’s Last-Known 

Sermons: Development of his Ideas on the Right of Civil Resistance,” in 

Ecclesia Reformata: Studies on the Reformation (2 vols.; Kerkhistorische 

Bijdragen 16; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 2: 73−94. 
62 CO 5: 233−312. See, Cornelius Augustijn, Christoph Burger, Frans 

Pieter van Stam, “Calvin in the Light of the Early Letters,” in Calvinus 

Praeceptor Ecclesiae. Papers of the International Congress on Calvin 

Research, Princeton, August 20-24, 2002 (ed. Herman Selderhuis; Geneva: 

Droz, 2004) 139−57.  



14 

 

 

telling François Daniel that he was busy translating the Institutio into French63 

(presumably to smuggle into France)—when, I say, we consider these things, 

we begin to see that Calvin wanted to present himself and his city as France’s 

obedient neighbor and to set up a system that allowed him to hide behind that 

presentation. This impression is only strengthened when we remember other 

works Calvin was soon to be engaged in, such as preparing Aulcuns pseaumes 

et cantiques mys, aimed (one can only assume) at supporting separate 

evangelical communities in France. I will go on to outline this system in a 

moment, but should comment first on a matter arising here. 

An obvious question that arises at this point concerns timing. Earlier, I 

outlined the character of Calvin and Beza’s ministry to France; a ministry that 

involved them in what can only be described as active disobedience; it goes 

beyond prayer, petition, persecution, or flight. I have also shown that Calvin 

insisted to Francis I in September 1535 that he and his fellow evangelicals were 

committed to never engaging in active forms of disobedience. But we may 

wonder here about timing. Am I suggesting that all the activities that Calvin 

(and later Beza) involved themselves in from 1536 until 1563 were actually 

being planned by Calvin when he was writing his 1535 preface? That would 

likely be impossible to demonstrate, and is (in fact) not what I have in mind. 

Yet, the short amount of time between his 1535 preface and his Duae Epistolae 

which he likely began writing from Ferrara in the first-half of 1536 (though not 

publish until early 1537)64 suggests the possibility that he may have had some 

ministerial plans for France in his head when writing his preface to Francis I in 

September 1535. But whether he did or not, he would proceed quickly to engage 

in active forms of disobedience once he had settled in Geneva. Stam contends 

Calvin’s views changed following the Lausanne Disputation (October 1536), 

and he may well be right.65 Whatever the case, the change was rapid. Let us now 

turn to examine the system Calvin designed and he and Beza implemented to 

hide Geneva’s clandestine French ministerial activities. 

 

• Geneva’s System for Hiding its French Ministry 

 
Calvin designed a system aimed at hiding Geneva’s French ministry. It sought 

to establish: 

 

Invisible (inconspicuous) communities 

Invisible communications 

Invisible movement of people 

                                                           
63 CO 10b: 62−64; Calvin to François Daniel, 3 October 1536 

(Correspondance des Réformateurs dans les pays de langue française (ed. A. 

L. Herminjard; 9 vols.; Geneva: H. Georg, 1864−1897) 4: 86-91). 
64 That Calvin began writing Duae Epistolae in Ferrara is persuasively 

argued by Paul Wernle, Calvin und Basel bis zum Tode des Myconius, 

1535−1552 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1909) 8; see Alexandre Ganoczy, Le 

Jeune Calvin; genèse et évolution de sa vocation réformatrice (Wiesbaden: 

Franz Steiner, 1966), 311−14. 
65 Frans Pieter van Stam, “The Group of Meaux as First Target of 

Farel and Calvin’s Anti-Nicodemism,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et 

Renaissance 68/2 (2006) 253–75. 



15 

 

 

 

Invisible (inconspicuous) communities.  Geneva sought to cloak the presence of 

Reformed conventicles in France, particularly in areas of high tension. One may 

legitimately assume that neither Calvin nor Beza wanted Calvinist communities 

to be completely invisible. Not only would that have been impossible, but it 

would also have been undesirable. They wanted true Christianity to spread in 

the cities, towns, and villages of France and this would necessitate contact with 

and ministry towards the local populations.66 Thus, they wanted not complete 

invisibility but French Calvinist communities to be unobtrusive; inconspicuous. 

Still, Calvin counselled some, apparently many, Calvinist conventicles 

to meet in secret in private homes.67 He spoke of the need to congregate, but 

warned vigorously against doing so openly. Of course, as it grew, the Reformed 

church became bolder. For instance, it petitioned the crown for the right to 

assemble. One such petition was made in response to the crown’s 16 March 

1560 declaration of the king’s willingness to listen to one or several obedient 

subjects who brought their request to him (a declaration which effectively, 

according to Romier, granted permission to assemble, whether that was its 

intention or not).68 Nevertheless, as late as 1560, Geneva was encouraging 

Reformed bodies to meet in secret.69 The extent of this secrecy is difficult to 

assess, though it would seem to have been widespread. Calvin reported in 1558 

that the number of the faithful in France was increasing “and in many places 

(plurimis in locis) secret meetings are held.”70 

                                                           
66 Reid discusses the factors that contributed to the forming and 

strengthening of evangelicalism and perceptively notes the detrimental role 

of Calvin’s leadership for the growth of Reformed churches in France, Reid, 

“French Evangelical Networks Before 1555,” 105-24. 
67 On this, Kingdon, Geneva, 57; Henry Heller, The Conquest of 

Poverty: The Calvinist Revolt in Sixteenth Century France (Studies in 

Medieval and Reformation Thought 35; Leiden: Brill, 1986) 27-69; Herman 

Speelman, Calvin and the Independence of the Church (Göttingen:  

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014) 143-208. Tensions within France predate 

Calvinism; see Denis Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu. La violence au temps 

des troubles de religion, vers 1525 - vers 1610 (2 vols.; Seyssel: Champ 

Vallon, 1990) 1: 103−236; 2: 330−60, 428−64, 464−539. On clandestine 

Huguenot worship, Natalie Davis, “Printing and the People,” in Society and 

Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975) 

201−3 cited in Olson, “The Quest for Anonymity,” 35−36.  
68 Lucien Romier, La Conjuration d'Amboise (Paris: Perrin, 1923) 167 

as cited in Philip Benedict, “Qui étaient les députés? An Unknown Group of 

Protestant Leaders on the Eve of the First War of Religion,” in Social 

Relations, Politics, and Power in Early Modern France: Robert Descimon 

and the Historian's Craft (ed. Barbara Diefendorf; Kirksville, MO: Truman 

State University Press, 2016) 158−83, esp. 161.  
69 CO 18: 64−66. Also letters to churches in Poitou (CO 15: 222-4 (3 

September 1554)), Angers (CO 15: 756-58 (9 September 1555)), Loudun (CO 

15: 758−60 (9 September 1555)). Calvin complains to Bullinger (CO 18: 

175−77 (6 September 1560)) that French churches were not following 

Geneva’s instructions in this regard. See also, Beza, Hist Eccl 1: 66−7. 
70 CO 17: 311−2. 



16 

 

 

The surprise here, of course—and one of the things that intimates that 

Calvin’s actions and decisions were being governed by a deliberate and crafted 

plan rather than a principled conviction—is that he lambasted the Nicodemites 

for doing precisely what he was instructing French Calvinist communities to do, 

namely, hide. “Our Lord is not content,” he said to the Nicodemites, “if we 

acknowledge him secretly and in our hearts, but he strictly requires us to confess 

him publicly by an external profession that we are his.”71 Meanwhile his word 

to the Reformed church in Montélimart was that he and Beza had learned:   

 

that you are considering establishing the public preaching of the word. 

We ask you to put away that idea and not to think about it until God 

provide you with a better opportunity. . . . When you hold your meetings 

peaceably in private homes, the rage of the wicked will not be easily 

enflamed.72  

 

To the faithful at Poitiers: 

 

I wrote to you a while ago pointing out the means I approve of for 

defeating the malice of your enemies:  it is that in order not to expose 

yourselves needlessly you should plan not to gather the whole 

congregation together, but instead assemble in small groups, now in one 

place and now in another.73 

 

Continuing, he urged the believers in Poitiers to make their homes available for 

this purpose. Such instructions provide a glimpse into Calvin’s mind and 

ministerial machinations. 

This desire for a kind of invisibility for the French Calvinist conventicles 

also seems, I would contend, to have been part of what was behind Calvin and 

Beza’s dissuading of them from engaging in iconoclasm, rioting, and 

vandalism. The fact that Les Eglises réformées en France were involved in such 

behavior could only have been viewed by Geneva as frustrating and 

problematic. Here I concur with Kingdon’s comments on Calvin’s “political 

shrewdness” in relation to Geneva’s constant decrying of riotous activity. 

Kingdon asserted that “here we see again, . . . that Calvin’s scruples had a 

practical base.” In other words, Calvin and Beza’s disapprobation of such 

practices was founded on the fact that such practices “may inflame public 

opinion without profitable result.”74 To be sure, Calvin and Beza may have also 

considered such behavior ungodly. Yet when their encouragement to meet 

secretly is considered along with their word against rioting, we begin to see 

                                                           
71 CO 6: 544. 
72 CO 18: 66. 
73 CO 15: 754−6. 
74 Kingdon, Geneva, 111−2. E.g. to the church of Paris (CO 18: 376-

78 (26 February 1561)); the consistory of Sauve (CO 18: 580−1 (July 1561; 

date disputed)); Beza (CO 19: 120−2 (19 November 1561)). Eire, War 

against the Idols; Olivier Christin, Une revolution symbolique. 

L’iconoclasme Huguenot et la reconstruction catholique (Paris: Minuit, 

1991). 



17 

 

 

more clearly that they earnestly desired the Calvinist communities in France to 

keep a low profile, flying (as it were) below the government’s radar. 

 

Invisible communications: Taking up the subject of communication, we find a 

division of labor at work. Beza visited France, but did not write French 

Reformed communities.75 Calvin wrote them, but did not visit. Communications 

were, it seems very likely, orchestrated by Calvin. Beza and others were sent as 

emissaries from Geneva and did not visit French churches of their own accord. 

When communicating with an array of individuals associated with the 

French Reformed conventicles (both members of the nobility and private 

citizens), Geneva put in place measures designed to minimize risk by cloaking 

identities and other sensitive pieces of information. Regarding communications 

through books, this cloaking took a particular form. Calvin helped establish a 

book smuggling venture, which he supported without being involved on a day-

to-day basis.76 He was friends with Laurent de Normandy, one of the most 

important men in French publishing through whom Calvin influenced 

significant portions of the French market. Geneva funded Normandy’s 

publishing, illegal trade, use of colporteurs, and suchlike through the Bourse 

française, a fund established around 1550 to cover a wide array of expenses 

related to the poor.77 Through this mechanism, Geneva was able to provided 

French Calvinist communities with treatises, tracts, scriptural commentaries, 

and other pamphlets without detection by the authorities.78  

The Genevans used emissaries to convey messages to members of the 

French nobility sympathetic to the Reformed cause. In writing to Sulzer in 

October of 1560 to say that the King of Navarre remained silent, Calvin added 

“our Beza is with him.”79 A letter of Calvin to Sturm, written in November 1560, 

explains that François Hotman had gone to visit the King of Navarre to urge 

                                                           
75 Between 1558 and 1563, Beza wrote a myriad of individuals 

including French noblemen and women. He also wrote from France back to 

Calvin. But he did not write to Églises réformées.  
76 On the European publishing industry, Jean-François Gilmont, John 

Calvin and the Printed Book (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 

2005) 275-6; Andrew Pettegree, “Books, Pamphlets, and Polemic,” in The 

Reformation World (ed. Andrew Pettegree; London: Routledge, 2000) 120−1.  
77 Henri Grandjean, “La bourse française de Genève (1550-1849),” in 

Etrennes Genevoises (Geneva: Atar, 1927) 46−60; Jeannine Olson, Calvin 

and Social Welfare: Deacons and the Bourse française (Cranbury, N.J.: 

Susquehanna University Press, 1989) 70−91; 168−82; eadem, “The Mission 

to France,” 344−57; eadem, “The Quest for Anonymity,” 33−56. It is 

mentioned in letters, CO 13: 149−52 and CO 14: 723−4. 
78 E.g. Duae Epistolae (CO 5: 239−312), Petit traicté (CO 6: 537−88), 

Traicté des reliques, (CO 6: 405−52), Articuli a facultate sacrae theologiae 

Parisiensi … Cum antidoto (CO 7: 1−44), Excuse à Messieurs les 

Nicodémites (CO 6: 589−614), and Contre la secte phantastique et furieuse 

des Libertins (CO 7: 145−248). On the circulation of literature, Lire et 

découvrir: la circulation des idées au temps de la Réforme (ed. Francis 

Higman; Geneva: Droz, 1998), 131−54. See as well e.g. Calvin writing about 

a French translation of his De Scandalis being produced (CO 13: 654−7).  
79 CO 18: 202–4, esp. 204. 



18 

 

 

him to do more for the gospel in France.80 Beza, moreover, travelled to Nérac 

in the summer of 1560, staying three months and preaching and counselling 

Antoine and his younger brother, Louis of Condé. Beza journeyed to Paris in 

1561 to appear before the young Charles IX and Catherine. Beza also, as already 

mentioned, attended the Colloquy of Poissy. Beza’s travels during these years 

resulted in his becoming acquainted with important noblemen and women, 

including the young Henry, prince of Navarre, who would become king Henry 

IV, and also Henry’s mother, Jeanne d’Albret, the wife of Antoine. Beza 

exchanged letters with her for years.81 Given the nature of personal contact, this 

communication could be accomplished without leaving dangerous paper-trails 

behind, thus preserving the secrecy of the ministry. 

Epistolary correspondence with French churches belonged to Calvin. He 

employed trusted messengers for delivery. His missives are punctuated with 

remarks about distrusting a messenger or awaiting a trustworthy one.82 Of 

course, the letters could have proven extremely damaging and dangerous to their 

addressees if they fell into the wrong hands. To provide just one example:  

Calvin wrote to the King of Navarre on 16 January 1561, urging him to use his 

influence to sway the regent, Catherine de’Medici.83 Thus, safe delivery was 

essential. 

In their correspondences, Calvin (and Beza too) employed code words, 

nicknames, and innuendo. Early nicknames used include “Megaera” (Roussel) 

and “Pylades” (unknown).84 This practice can be seen in greater detail, for 

instance, in relation to the Amboise Conspiracy of 17 March 1560 proposed by 

La Renaudie. Both Calvin and Beza showed interest in it.85 Calvin wrote 

Bullinger about it in a letter dated 5 October 1559, speaking about Beza having 

                                                           
80 CO 18: 231–2. See also CO 17: 576−8. 
81 Beza, Correspondance 4: 91; 4: 243; 6: 313; 7: 281; 8: 32, 34, and 

218; 10: 72; see Manetsch, Theodore Beza, 20.  
82 E.g. CO 14: 27–8; CO 17: 652–3. 
83 CO 18: 311–12. 
84 CO 10b: 27, Calvin to François Daniel, 31 October 1533 

(Herminjard, Correspondance 3: 106–11, esp. 107), see the explanatory note 

in John Sturm’s mid-October 1533 letter to Martin Bucer, Herminjard, 

Correspondance 3: 93–95, esp. 94 n.7. CO 12: 295, Calvin to François 

Daniel, 27 June 1531 (Herminjard, Correspondance 2: 346–8, esp. 347 n. 5). 

Plyades may be a family name. 
85 Calvin’s opposition appeared quite late, see May 1560 letter to 

Bullinger, CO 18: 83–85; see also, CO 18: 425–31. Henri Naef, La 

Conjuration d’Amboise et Genève (Geneva:  Jullien, 1922) 462–3; Kingdon, 

Geneva, 68-78; idem, “Calvin and Calvinists on Resistance to Government,” 

in Calvinus Evangelii Propugnator, 54–65. See also, a letter dated 16 April 

1561 from Calvin to Admiral de Coligny, in which Calvin, speaking of the 

Amboise Conspiracy, says that “if the Princes of the Blood wished to be 

maintained in their rights for the common good and if the Parliament joined 

them in their fight, then it would be lawful for all good subjects to support 

their efforts (prêter main forte, given the context likely means something like 

“give them armed support”)” (CO 18: 426). DeCrue interprets Calvin too 

cautiously; see DeCrue, L’action politique de Calvin, 47–52. Sensu lato, 

Beza, Hist Eccl 1: 164-74, Histoire et Dictionnaire (ed. Jouanna), 52−69. 



19 

 

 

gone to Strasbourg on a work “of great significance” that concerns us and “is 

being undertaken by certain persons.”86 In another example, when speaking of 

their September 1560 plot involving Antoine of Navarre, Calvin and Beza spoke 

of Antoine as “Fervidus.”87 In a third example, during 1561 and into 1562, the 

Reformed churches experienced enormous growth which Calvin mentions in 

several letters to inter alia Georgio Tammero and Bullinger.88 In these letters, 

Calvin is still complaining about Antoine of Navarre, whom he and Beza are 

now referring to as “Julian;” a reference to Julian the Apostate.89  

In addition to these measures, Calvin employed a number of 

pseudonyms90 throughout his life. Here I am not thinking of the time Calvin had 

a 1545 work entitled Pro Farrello et collegis eius adversus Petri Caroli 

calumnias defensio Nicolai Galasii published under the name of Nicolas Des 

Gallars91—something which he did (he explains in letters to Pierre Viret) in 

order to produce the impression of greater objectivity so that it would appear 

Des Gallars was defending Calvin and Farel in their ongoing dispute with 

Caroli.92 Rather, I am thinking of the many times Calvin signed a contrived 

name to one of his letters. Beza, incidentally, would employ pseudonyms 

occasionally in the 1570s:  “Wolfgang Prisbach” when publishing Responsio ad 

orationem habitam super in concilio Helvetiorum and “Nathanael Nesekius” in 

his work Adversus sacramentariorum errorem pro vera Christi praesentia in 

coena Domini homiliae duae.93 Calvin, however, employed them for the 

majority of his life.  

Calvin used numerous pseudonyms including: Charles D’Espeville 

(with variations on the spelling of the surname), Martinus Lucanius, Carolus 

Passelius, Alcuinus, Lucanius, Deperçan, and Bonneville. A fine discussion of 

this is found in Doumergue.94 He employed a pseudonym when writing to those 

in France far more often than to those living elsewhere. In fact, when sending 

letters into France, pseudonym-usage was a fairly-consistent pattern for him. 

                                                           
86 CO 17: 654–6. 
87 CO 18: 177–80, a letter to Beza of 10 September 1560; also CO 18: 

176–78 and Beza, Correspondance 3: 63–70. 
88 CO 19: 325–6 and CO 19: 326-9, respectively. 
89 CO 19: 297–302; letter of 26 February 1562 from Beza to Calvin. 
90 James Daybell, The Material Letter in Early Modern England; 

Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practice of Letter-Writing, 1512-

1635 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Visual Cultures of 

Secrecy in Early Modern Europe (ed. Timothy McCall, et al.; Kirksville, MO: 

Truman State University, 2013). 
91 CO 7: 289–340. 
92 CO 12: 100–1, 107–8. 
93 See Beza, Correspondance 14: 88, 95. I am grateful to Scott 

Manetsch for this information. For more see, Manetsch, Theodore Beza, 57–

8. 
94 Doumergue, “Pseudonymie de Calvin,” Jean Calvin, Appendices 

VIII, 558–73. Also; Christian Sigismund Liebe, Diatribe de pseudonymia Jo. 

Calvini (Amsterdam: Apud Wetstenios, 1723); Blacketer, “No Escape,” 284–

5; Kate Tunstall, “‘You’re Either Anonymous or You’re Not!’: Variations on 

Anonymity in Modern and Early Modern Culture,” Modern Language Notes 

126/4 (2011) 671–88 and the literature cited therein. 



20 

 

 

The frequency with which he employed them is too great to demonstrate here. 

He seems to have preferred Charles D’Espeville over other names. He also 

received letters addressed to his pseudonyms. For instance, during his travels, 

Beza wrote back to Geneva on March 31, 1563 to Monsieur Desperville.95 The 

earliest appearance I have found of one of Calvin’s pseudonyms is in a letter 

from Wolfgang Capito to Martianus Lucanius (i.e. Calvin) which Herminjard 

reckons was written towards the end of 1534.96 He published some versions of 

the 1536 Institutio anonymously and the 1539 Latin Institutio under the 

pseudonym Alcuinus, but overwhelmingly the focus of his use of pseudonyms 

was France. 

What is particularly impressive here—and what carries us some way 

further towards seeing the deliberate craft and planning behind his ministry 

model—is the fact that the contents of many of Calvin’s pseudonym-signed 

letters reveal no clear reason why he should wish to withhold his name from 

them. Quite frequently these missives simply discussed spiritual matters. He 

wrote to encourage some; to warn others; to counsel and direct. He did not, in 

many of these letters, discuss things that were provocative. But he withheld his 

name, nonetheless. Calvin used false names not only when writing to the Queen 

of Navarre, the Duchess of Ferrara, or French Calvinist ministers but also when 

addressing Madame de Cany or Madame de Pons—individual believers with 

whom he was friends.97 

 When these cloaking measures did not work, as was apparently the case 

with some of Calvin’s letters on which he had signed his actual name rather than 

a pseudonym, the letters would need to be culled. Beza was forced into doing 

this after Calvin’s death, with the aim of removing potentially compromising 

details which could be seen by others if the letters in question were published. 

The precise character of the material—whether it was legal, moral, or political 

matters—that Beza wanted to hide, we do not know. But Beza sought, after 

Calvin’s demise, to remove compromising letters from the public domain. He 

wrote to Bullinger in 1565 requesting that he send back missives which Calvin 

had written to the Zurich minister. He then wrote again on 16 March 1568 

offering to send someone to go collect these letters from the Zuricher. Then, in 

a letter from 5 April 1568, Bullinger wrote to Beza explaining that he had 

dispatched the letters of Calvin which Beza had requested.98 The effort was 

perhaps an exercise in reputation-protection or perhaps something more—but 

whatever the case, it reveals to some degree the level of secrecy they felt they 

required for their work. 

 

Invisible movement of People. Calvin and Beza employed various measures in 

order to send the preachers they trained into France in a way that would ensure 

their safety and minimize the likelihood of detection and capture. They sent 

them into France under assumed names, carrying false identities, forged papers, 

                                                           
95 Beza, Correspondance 4: 132–3. 
96 CO 10b: 45−6 (Herminjard, Correspondance 3: 242−5). 
97 E.g. CO 15: 193−5; CO 15: 144−7. See Charmarie Jenkins 

Blaisdell, “Calvin’s Letters to Women: The Courting of Ladies in High 

Places,” Sixteenth Century Journal 13/3 (1982) 67−84.  
98 Beza, Correspondance 6: 142; Beza, Correspondance 9: 57. On the 

incident, Benedict, “The Dynamics of Protestant Militancy,” 39−40. 



21 

 

 

clandestine meetings. They took obscure mountain passages in order to avoid 

the authorities along the border. Kingdon describes those who could still 

identify the network of paths for pastors coming into France used more recently 

during World War II. An alternative to using these paths was to attempt to pass 

oneself off as a merchant when confronted by the authorities through the use of 

fake documents. Estimates of the number dispatched between the years 1556 

and 1562 vary between 88 and more than 200.99 

 

 So, then, Calvin and later Beza established a system which sought to 

cloak the presence of Calvinist communities in France, mask communications 

between them and Geneva, and hide the movement of people between France 

and Geneva. They did this to conceal their ministry to France behind the crafted 

image of Geneva as France’s obedient neighbor. In fact, Geneva was during the 

1540s, 1550s, and 1560s becoming less and less obedient. They were, in 

addition to what we have been considering, growing increasingly critical of 

French kings. One finds Calvin (for instance) declaiming, in his lectures, that 

they are “gross and stupid”100 they “think they are exempt from the law.”101 

They are self-indulgent,102 “inhuman tyrants” and “madmen.”103 They “despise 

everything divine” and wish to be worshipped in God’s place.104 They “rage 

against the church.”105 “We know that wherever there is cunning in the world, 

it reigns especially in the palaces of princes.”106 These are all quotations from 

Calvin’s praelectiones about which J. T. McNeill has rightly noted, “we may 

sometimes discern an allegory of French affairs of the times.”107 Thus, the 

                                                           
99 Kingdon, Geneva, 5, 33, 38−40, appendices 1-3; Didier Boisson 

and Hugues Daussy, Les protestants dans la France moderne (Paris: Éditions 

Belin, 2006) 61; Jon Balserak, Establishing the Remnant Church in 

France; Calvin's Lectures on the Minor Prophets, 1556-1559 (Brill’s Series 

in Church History 50; Leiden: Brill, 2011). See the excellent summary in Ray 

Mentzer, “Calvin and France,” in Calvin Handbook (Grand Rapids: 

Eerdmans 2009) 78−87. This was discussed in letters, e.g. CO 18: 467; and 

19: 224−6. On the question of whether Geneva kept a list of French churches 

needing pastors, see Peter Wilcox, “L’envoi des pasteurs aux Eglises de 

France: trois listes établies par Colladon (1561-1562),” Bulletin de la Société 

de l’histoire du protestantisme français 139 (1993) 347−374; also, Karin 

Maag, “Recruiting and training pastors: the Genevan model and alternative 

approaches,” in Revisiting Geneva: Robert Kingdon and the Coming of the 

French Wars of Religion (ed. S.K. Barker; St Andrews Studies in French 

History and Culture; St Andrews: University of St Andrews, 2012) 10−22. 

On dangers these ministers encountered, CO 42: 296; CO 44: 226. 
100 CO 41: 3. 
101 CO 44: 16. 
102 CO 38: 385. 
103 CO 38: 387. 
104 CO 41: 7. 
105 CO 44: 151. 
106 CO 40: 540. 
107 John T. McNeill, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Calvin; On God and 

Political Duty (New York: Macmillan, 1950) xx. Also see Max Engammare 

(“Calvin monarchomaque? Du soupçon à l’argument,” Archiv für 



22 

 

 

depiction of obsequious deference and obedience on the part of Geneva towards 

France was, in reality, a façade.  

 

• Lying as a Fail-Safe 
 

But sometimes the smokescreen did not manage to hide all it was supposed to. 

Though the Genevan system hid much of its ministry to France, there was at 

least one occasion when more desperate measures needed to be taken. 

On 27 January 1561, a special courier of the new king of France, Charles 

IX, was sent to Geneva to deliver a letter from the young king.108 It aimed to 

inquire about two matters; first, the fact that preachers had been entering France 

having been sent by Geneva; and second, the problem of dissension and sedition 

which had been troubling France recently—a concern related specifically to 

plots like the Amboise Conspiracy. The king wanted all the preachers to be 

recalled and no more to be sent. He also wanted an end to the dissension. He 

requested a reply to his demands. Geneva’s reply was penned by Calvin. It 

spoke for the Genevan government and ministers.  

The letter notes the “smallness of our state” and speaks of the 

devotedness which Geneva has “always and for a long time displayed” to the 

king and to “your predecessors.” It speaks of their persistence in working for 

“the tranquillity and prosperity of your kingdom.” The Genevan’s letter then, 

somewhat self-consciously, asserts:  “But in case it should seem, sire, that under 

this general expression of our sentiments we wish to conceal anything, we 

protest . . .”109 after which the letter goes on to answer the two concerns.  

On the first count, Calvin protested “in truth before God” that Geneva 

has “never attempted to send persons into your kingdom.”110 Explaining matters 

further, the letter declared: 

 

that never with our knowledge and permission has someone gone from 

here to preach except one individual who was requested from us for the 

city of London.111 

 

At this point, the missive becomes somewhat opaque. Adopting much more 

deliberately the voice of the Syndics and Council of Geneva, the letter explains 

that some of the language in the king’s communication was slightly ambiguous 

but may have been referring to “our ministers and pastors.” Therefore, the 

Genevan letter continues, these ministers were summoned and asked about the 

charges. The letter then reports that they:  

 

do not deny that some persons have made application to them, and that 

on their part, when they have found that those who had recourse to them 

were persons possessing instruction and piety, they have exhorted them 

                                                           

Reformationsgeschichte 89 (1998) 207−26) and Balserak (John Calvin as 

Sixteenth-century Prophet, 152−65) on Geneva’s harshness towards French 

kings. 
108 For the king’s letter, CO 18: 337−9. 
109 CO 18: 343. 
110 CO 18: 343−5, esp. 343; also note, Kingdon, Geneva, 35. 
111 CO 18: 344. The man was Nicolas Des Gallars.  



23 

 

 

to exercise their gifts wherever they should go for the advancement of 

the gospel.112 

 

So then, the Genevan ministers say they encouraged some people to exercise 

their gifts everywhere. There is, however, the clear implication that that was all 

they did. The explanation would appear to wish to persuade the king that what 

he has heard of as Geneva sending ministers into his kingdom is actually a 

simple case of free preachers and godly men wandering of their own free will 

into the king’s territory. One presumes that Calvin inserted this into the letter 

because it both offers a more believable explanation for the presence of 

preachers in France (more believable than if Calvin had simply said Geneva had 

no idea what the king was talking about) and also exonerates the Genevan 

ministers of wrongdoing.  

On the second count, the letter explained that the Genevans “protest 

against having ever entertained any such intention” to stir up dissension and 

sedition. They “have never given advice to make any innovations or attempted 

anything criminal with respect to the established order of the state.” Further, 

they insisted, “we have given orders and forbidden on pain of rigorous 

punishments any of our citizens from taking one step in such proceedings.”113 

 The answers to both concerns are, according to Calvin and Beza’s own 

Augustinian understanding of lying, plainly speech contra mentem. They did 

send preachers into France and they were involved in dissensions of precisely 

the kind about which the king was asking. 

 Their lying is less egregious but still discernible in another portion of 

the missive. In one part of it, a specific note is struck about Geneva’s work of 

spreading the gospel and also about the boundaries within which Geneva 

believes it must confine itself. After indicating that the Genevans, of course, 

wish and hope for the gospel to be spread everywhere, the letter states: 

 

But we know well also what is within our compass, and we do not 

presume even to wish to reform extensive kingdoms.114 

 

The accent on desire (“we do not presume even to wish”) appears throughout 

this letter and was seen in Calvin’s Institutio preface too. What is fascinating 

here is the apparent renouncing, on the part of the Genevans, of any connection 

to the evangelical movement within France or anywhere else. They would seem 

to wish for the king to believe that Geneva stays resolutely and quietly within 

its own geographical border and does not meddle in the work of reforming other 

parts of Europe, let alone France.  

 In all of this, Geneva kept up a near-constant state of deception in 

regards to the French king and his government. In some ways, Charles IX’s 

query appears all the more intriguing because it was raised so late (1561) 

relative to the amount of time during which Geneva had been ministering in 

France—a fact which would seem to give credence to the idea that Geneva was 

extremely effective at feigning obedience to French kings.   

 

                                                           
112 CO 18: 344. 
113 CO 18: 344. 
114 CO 18: 344. 



24 

 

 

Conclusion 
 

In Beza’s letter of 22 January 1561 to Ambroise Blaurer, he spoke about the 

Lord’s blessing in the growth of Les Eglises réformées en France. Without 

wishing to challenge his asseveration, this article explored other ostensible 

sources of that growth. What it discovered was that one such source may well 

have been calculated trickery. It argued that Calvin designed Geneva’s ministry 

to France in such a way that it systematically employed falsehood and 

dissembling to hide what they were doing from the French authorities and 

probably from the Nicodemites as well. Indeed, their ministry was, by their own 

standards of honesty, as mendacious as that of the Nicodemites.  

Why would they do this? It is very tempting, at this point, to speculate 

that part of their willingness was related to the presence of Nicodemism in 

France. Being in the country, the Nicodemites were at a distinct advantage 

compared with Calvin and Beza. They had a level of contact with the French 

population of which Beza and Calvin could only dream. The Genevans, 

therefore, employed subterfuge as a way of getting their gospel past the French 

authorities and into France. Had they not, they would potentially have had to 

watch from the outside as the Nicodemites gained greater control over the 

French evangelical church. This reading of the matter would also help explain 

the harshness of Geneva’s treatment of the Nicodemites. They wanted to make 

sure Christians in France did not see Nicodemism as a viable Christian option, 

but because they were not in the country they felt compelled to raise their voice 

and speak with unmistakable vehemence and intensity about the unacceptability 

of the Nicodemite gospel—this would likely have only been accentuated by the 

relative kindness shown the Genevans by the Nicodemites.115 Thus, Calvin and 

Beza pursued morally-opprobrious methods because they felt they had no other 

option if they were to overcome the obstacles to evangelizing France. These are, 

I must reiterate, speculative reflections and require more attention if they are to 

be confirmed. What we can say with a stronger degree of certainty is that 

Geneva established a system designed to hide their ministry and that, thus, 

Geneva’s impact on France and the French Reformation was founded, in no 

small measure, on deception during the period from 1536 to 1563. 

 Can one comment on other reasons? Given their Augustinian views on 

mendacity, it still stands as something of a mystery why Calvin and Beza would 

ever employ deception. Musing, we might, for instance, consider whether their 

use of deception was motivated by a belief that the French government was 

illegitimate116 (and therefore could be lied to with impunity). Taking a different 

approach, we might wonder to what extent their motivations are explained by 

lines from Bertolt Brecht’s A Measure Taken. 

 

What meanness would you not commit, to 

Stamp out meanness? 

If, at last, you could change the world, what 

                                                           
115 Nicodemites expressed hurt and frustration at Geneva’s harshness 

but generally exhibited a desire for cooperation; Reid, King's Sister – Queen 

of Dissent, 1: 30; 2: 563.  
116 See Balserak, John Calvin as Sixteenth-century Prophet, 152–65. 



25 

 

 

Would you think yourself too good for?117 

 

The sentiment expressed in these words cannot, to be sure, be applied to this 

situation without caveat, and yet I wonder if there is not something we can glean 

from it. Might it have possibly been that Calvin and Beza were driven by a sub-

conscious or semi-conscious conviction that their gospel was simply too true to 

be allowed to remain outside of their homeland. This intense conviction, if that 

is what it was, could have moved them to set aside moral norms, hence 

preparing the way for their use of deception. Whatever the case, Geneva’s 

systematic employment of falsehood and dissembling far from making Calvin 

and Beza harder to understand would seem to me to make them more 

comprehensible; or, at the very least, more profoundly human. 

                                                           
117 Cited from Zagorin, Ways of Lying, vi.