.■'T^
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, N. J.
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CC B3C 9410 "-Aeei^ .
A^O] Audin, 1793-1851.
History of the life, works,
and doctrines of John
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HISTORY
OF THE
LIFE, WORKS, AND DOCTRINES
OF
JOHN CALVIN,
FROM THE FRENCH OF
J. M. V. AUDIN,
KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY
AND LITERARY CIRCLE OF LYONS, OF THE TIBERINE ACADEMY, AND
OF THE ACADEMY OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, OF ROME.
TRANSLATED BY REV. JOHN McGlLL.
"POST TENEBRAS SPERO LUCEM."
Device of Catholic Geneva.
BALTIMORE: — JOHN MURPHY,
B. J. WEBB & BEOTHEE: LOUISVILLE.
COPY RIGHT SECURED ACCORDING TO LAW
B. J. WEBB & BROrHER, PRINTERS.
PREFACE TO THE MST FRENCH EDITION.
When, in some pamphlet of Luther, Cochleus, Eck, Emser, Catharin,
had encountered, — and this good fortune frequently befell them, — some
faults against dogma, morals, history or grammar, which they immedi-
ately denounced to the Catholic world, the furious Doctor amused
himself by casting in the face of his adversaries, all the injurious expres-
sions which he found in his dictionary or his brains, and both were
equally rich in these materials. His anger being appeased, the monk
revised his work, expunged, blotted, effaced, corrected the assailed
passages, and, quite joyous, for his own justification, threw the blame
upon his printer. Of Hans Lufft he said : "My printer is called John,
and John he wnll remain. Paper, impression, proofs — every thing he
presents me is detestable. Moreover, they are all like him : what do
they care for the glory of a poor devil of an author, provided they
get money?"
We prefer the method employed, about the same period, by our Ca-
tholic writers, who thought that they had reason to complain of their
proof-reviser, when a skillful reader had discovered some typographical
error in their works.
"Friendly reader," said one of them, "the theologian to whom we are
Indebted hx ''The Antiquity of the Orthodox Doctrine,'" not having
been able to preside over the printing of our book, please excuse faults,
as an i for ij, cBrianis for arianis, garo for saxoj'
We must admit, that this formula is greatly more polite. We shall,
therefore, say, like Master John Lefebvre, cur6 of Totes, in Normandy:
we were not at Paris when our History of Calvin was printed, and
the reader will believe our word ; but, we must conscientiously confess,
that some of those errata which critics have had the signal kindness to
place to the account of typography, belong legitimately to ourselves;
this avowal costs our self-love nothing whatever.
At present, we have given the greatest attention possible to there,-
vision of our proofs, aided by skillful correctors. Should the reader
PREFACE.
have the misfortune to meet, in the present edition, the faults which had
given oflfence in the former, we know not what excuse we should be
able to allege : our publishers would be similarly embarrassed.
But a conscientious writer should not limit his duty merely to the
material amelioration of the text. A man of the world, it is probable,
that our expressions, in a book in which difficult problems of Psycolo-
gy are agitated, were not always characterized by the severity of the
language of the schools. We bad but one resource, which was to
submit our labours to masters versed in this holy science, designated,
by the sixteenth century, the mistress of all the sciences.
Our first volume, in all that trenches upon dogma, has been revised
by a member of that celebrated society of Jesuits, which, at Rome,
had so materially aided us in our historical researches. The second has
been examined by a professor of theology. How much do we regret,
not to be allowed to mention here the names of these two ecclesiastics;
our readers would perceive what a pledge of correct information, their
aid offered to the historian.
If the critics, who with such indulgent kindness gave an account of
our first labour, should deign glance at this new edition, they will see
that we have profited by the suggestions they have made us. In pursu-
ance of ancient usage, we have inscribed on the title-page of our work :
revised and augmented. This is not a vain promise, but a reality.
Our revisions have affected the literary form of the work ; our additions
consist in a certain number of documents, relative either to the Refor-
mation or to its representative Calvin, which we have procured at Rome,
from that rich collection of Theses, dissertations, pamphlets, sometimes
stray leaves, which the Cardinal Passionei, with the passion of a Savant
and Bibliophilist, had gathered together, and which he afterwards pre-
sented to the Bibliotheca Angelica. While giving insertion to these
documents, we have remained faithful to the law, to which we volunta-
rily subjected ourselves in the History of Luther, to admit, against the
memory of him whose biography we were writing, no testimony, which
was not derived either from the works of the individual himself, or from
the books of his co-religionists. Meiiage, one day, had the fancy to
inscribe on one of his publications: revised and diminished: We
might have used the formula of this writer of many books. In fact,
we have retrenched from this edition some facts, in support of which
we were not able to invoke the authority of reformed writers : this we
did, because, above every thing, we desire to merit the eulogy of an
impartial historian, awarded to us, publicly, by one of our most learn-
ed professors, in one of his lectures in the College de France.
INTRODUCTION,
We should not deceive ourselves respecting the character of the Re-
formation of tlie sixteenth century. At Wittenberg, it was a revolt of
the cloister ; at Geneva, a political movement. Under this double
form, it deluded the souls whom it bore along upon its tide. In Saxo-
ny, its destiny was to terminate in anarchy; in Switzerland, to end in
despotism. Carlstadt was the first to suffer the penalty of his faith in
the Protestant principle. In magnificent terms, the superiority of reason
over authority, had been proclaimed by the Monk of Eisleben. Carl-
stadt was exiled, and forced to beg his bread from village to village,
because he had interpreted a demonstrative pronoun, differently from
Doctor Martin. Schwenkfeld, (Ecolampadius, and other grave minds,
experienced the wrath of the reformer, for not having believed in his
infallibility. There were heresies in a church whicli had erected free ex-
amination into a dogma. But, besides this intellectual disorder, God
reserved other chastisements for Germany ; she was punished in blood.
The preachings of Luther aroused the peasants of Thuringia and Suabia,
who were desirous to fish in the pools, and hunt in the forests of their
masters, in virtue of the right which Luther had given to the electors,
to pasture their horses on the meadows of the monks, to drink out of the
cups of the convents, and to sew the precious stones of the Bishops upon
their vesture.
"Father," said they, "wq have read the Bible. It is written in the
holy book, that God makes his sun shine for all men. Our princes,
therefore, revolt against the Lord ! for we hardly ever behold this great
luminary: — we miners, — shut up, as we are, in the bowels of the earth,
and compelled daily to forge lances for our masters, iron for their
horses, and collars for their dogs. They cause us to pay for the air we
breathe, and for the light of which we are deprived ; the tythes of our
flocks and of our fields belong to them. Father, to these electors, al-
leady so rich, thou hast given croziers, mitres, ostensers of gold, the
1^
6 INTRODUCTION.
wine from the convent cellars, the carpets of the Cathedrals, sacred
vessels quite covered with precious stones ; abbeys, monasteries, pre-
bends: * We ask simply to be allowed to cut in the forests, and only in
winter, a little wood, with which to warm ourselves; in summer, to
take a little grain from the fields of our Seigniors ; in autumn, some
grapes for our newly born babes, and, once a week, to gather a little
grass on the meadows for our sheep. If, like them, we are children of
God, sons of Adam, created from the same slime, why should our con-
ditions be so different? This is not in the order of Providence. The
book, which you have recommended us to read, has told us so. We
send you our grievances; put them under the eyes of our princes. If
they will not do us justice, God has given us arms, an anvil, a hammer,
pikes; we will use them ; and, as it is written in the Bible, we will
combat for the Lord. God will send us his angel, who shall overturn
the mighty and raise up the feeble. We will strike, pink ! pank \ upon
the anvil of Nimrod, and the turrets shall tumble under our blows,
dran ! dran ! dran !"t
This is the substance of the long prayer of the peasants, which you
may read in Sarlorius,i or in our own Father Catrou,§ an historian too
much neglected.
The Princes, alarmed, asked Luther if, in the Scriptures, there were
not some texts which could be opposed to those with which the miners
had swelled their memorial. The monk was not long searching for
them : he found some at almost every page, which he collected and'
drew up, in the form of a notice or iuarning\\ to the revolted labourers.
Munzer, their leader, replied by new quotations from the Bible, and in
the name of the Lord, summoned his brethren to arms. Luther, on his
side, shouted the same cry, to which the princes responded. He main-
tained, as may be seen in his works, that a little straw or fodder is
sufficient for a peasant, as well as for an ass : that if he shake his head,
the stick must be used ; should he become restive or kick, a bullet must
whistle. 1" The princes made use of these arguments in the order indi-
cated by the reformer, and the peasants yielded. The number of dead
* Luthnr gab den ftirstcn die Stifter, Kloster und Abtein; den Priestern jjah
cr die Wuibur; deni geincincn Mannc die Frcilieit, und das that viel zur Sache,
Pred. Gasp. Brochniand, in examine politico. Conf. Aug. p. 163,
t Menzel, (Ad.) Neure Gcscliichte der Deutschen.
t Sirtoiius, Versuch einer Geschichto dcs Deutschen Bauornkriegs, Ber-
lin, 1795.
^ Histoire du fanatisme dans la religion Protestantc, depuis son origine.
2 vols, in 12mo. Paris, 1733.
11 Verniahnunor an de Fiirsten und an de Bauern.
If An. Joh. Ruhel,— Luther's Briefe. de Wcttc. p. 669, t. 11.
INTRODUCTION.
is said to have reached one hundred and twenty thousand. A new seed
of sectarians sprang from the blood of the miners. The Anabaptists
appeared, announcing, — what Eck, Miltitz, Prierias, and other Catholics
had taught, — that Luther was marching amid darkness; and they added,,
tliat they only had the light and understanding of the holy word. For-
tunately for Catholicism, Luther's gospel had given birth to a crowd-
of sects, such as those of the Sacramentarians, of the GEcolampadians,
of the Majorists^ of the Antinomists, which,, in their turn, protested, in
the name of the Holy Ghost, against the pretensions to infallibility
claimed for itself by Anabaptism. So that, as in the days of Pagan-
ism, every thing was God except God himself, and every pulpit infalli-
ble except the Chair of Truth.
At GenevcL, they had scarcely become acquainted with a single line of.
the Lutheran Symbol, when Froment and Farel appeared there, to.
preach their novelties. An unjust hatred for the house of Savoy, drove
into the ranks of the revolution, a crowd of Patriots, who foolishly im-
agined that Catholicism, in the moment of danger, would refuse its aid
and assistance. As if, in the person of its bishops, it had not already
nobly allied itself with the people, against the pretensions of the Em-
perors ! as if the city had not been indebted for its franchises to Adhe-
mar Fabri, one of the ornaments of the Genevan Episcopacy ! We
shall invoke some of those holy prelates in the present work, and you
will then see what was their worth, and wlietlier they were wanting in
courage, devotedness, charity and science ! Geneva has been able to
forget them, but it is our duty to recall them to its remembrance. Car
tholicism has not left, upon the path of its progress, even one human
glory, with which it has not essayed to ornament its crown. That
bridge of Arve, from which Froment sounded his summons to the peo-
ple to revolt against the spiritual sovereign, was erected by a bishop at
the expense of his own purse. Was it not Catholicism that, in the
middle ages, resuscitated the arts, reanimated the cultivation of the muses.,
revived industry, and gave fecundity to the spirit of association ? It
could no more leave people in darkness than in servitude ! Behold it,
at the epoch of its greatest development ! Does it not sustain the cities
and the Italian republics, in their struggles with the Germanic empire?
la the thirteenth century, does it not infuse itself into that political
movement which agitates all nations ? At Grutli, does it not come for-
ward to sanction the oath, of the three liberators, against the oppression
of the house of Austria? Was it not a Catholic hand, which planted,
at Fribourg, the Linden-tree of Morat ? And did not Byron see, groping
through the chambers of the little tower of Stanztadt, the shade of
8 INTRODUCTION.
Nicholas de Flue, as good a patriot as William Tell ? A glance at the
German nation would suffice to convince an impartial observer, that, of
all the forms of religion, Protestantism is the most inimical to the liber-
ties of the people. And let no one appeal to England, in disproof of
this fact, for there Catholicism had so deeply laid the foundations of liber-
ty, that Protestantism had no alternative but to adopt them as laws of the
state.*
At the period of Calvin's arrival at Geneva, the Reformation had
been accomplished. The line of its march could be followed, like the
soldiers of Vitellius, by the traces of disorder which it had left in its
passage. Its triumph was recorded upon the ruins of our churches,
upon the palaces of our bishops, upon the tombs of our canons, upon
our cemeteries, and even upon the walls of certain dwellings still stain-
ed with blood. A poor maiden, a nun of St. Clara, has described
these scenes of mourning, spoliation, and murder ! We shall be thank-
ed, without doubt, fo having preserved some pages of her simple but
dramatic narrative.
Certain modern historians, anxious about the destinies of the refor-
mation, have speculated about its probable fate, had not Calvin appear-
ed to seize upon it as an instrument of domination. Some think that it
w^ould have been absorbed by Lutheranism. Perhaps, fatigued by
doubts, Geneva would have obeyed its natural inclinations, and returned
to the bosom of the Catholic church. We must acknowledge that
Calvin was the most powerful obstacle to this measure. Still, it would
have been difficult to effect a reconciliation. The victors, would not,
without many pangs, have restored to the vanquished the spoils which they
had taken. We will tell you the means resorted to by the reformation
in Switzerland, to prevent all return to order ; upon the walls of the
city were affixed notices for the sale of the goods of the churches and
monasteries ; the purchasers were numerous, for the magistrates had
orders to sell at any price. Thus, the priory of Divosne, in the country
of Lausanne, was sold to the Lord of the place, for 1,000 ecus : that
of Porroy, was sold to M. de Senarchans for 1,125 francs; and the
lands of Villars-le-Moine and Clavelayre, near Morat, w^ere sold to the
advocate John James de Watteville, for 1,300 francs. f
" The Electors," said Melancthon, "keep the treasures of the church-
es and convents, and every thing else for ihemselves, and will not even
* Revue du Nord, p. 251.
t Ilaller. Histoirc de la refonne protestante dans [la Suisse Occidentale, in,
12mo. p. 320.
INTEODUCTION. 9
give something for the support of the schools !"* They consented to
break off the marriages of the priests, but they would not hear of a resti-
tution of the spoils of the clergy, upon which they had seized, and which
Luther had abandoned to them. For them, the goods of others became
a family patrimony. f
Luther, at his appearance, only found the germs of revolution. It
was his mission to make them prolific, and, to the misfortune of humani-
ty, God permitted him to succeed. But when Calvin came, the rup-
ture of Geneva with authority was a fact accomplished. Luther em-
bodies a spiritual idea: he is the apostle of reason — but of fallen
reason — opposed to faith and authority. His life is that of a theologian,
who has marked his progress with sufficient noise, style, poesy, wrath,
ruins and blood, to give interest to the drama in w^hich he played the
principal part. In the last act, the curtain falls, and the actor, still a
theologian, appears in another scene, where, in a miserable bar-room,
he exhausts the last dregs of a disordered imagination. Let him die,
and still Protestant Germany will continue each day to lose some other
rag of its nationality, some trait of its primitive imagination, some tie
which bound it to its historical and intellectual past ; for by the hand
of power it is chained to the work of the reformer.
Informed Protestants, refuse to Calvin the title of demagogue, which
they bestow upon Christ and Luther. Tzschirner calls Jesus, Luther
the first, and regards Calvin as a mere usurper, who used the people to
place the crown upon his brow 4
The Psycological life of Calvin commences at the time when that
of Luther ends ; that is, when the reformation begins to live and move. /
For Calvin, like Henry VIII., adopted the Protestant idea in order to
make himself head of church and state. In him, therefore, there is a
.twofold individuality.
As sectary, his power is greatly inferior to that of Luther, who resus-
citated, under the name of free examination, the principle of fatalism,
illumination by the Bible, justification through faith without works, and
*DieFursten reiszen die Einktinfte der Kloster und die Kirchenguter an
sich, und geben kaum was weniges zu den Bedtirfnissen der Kirchen und
Schulen.
t Die Groszen lieszeu sich guten Thiels durch die KirchengUter bewegen —
Arnold.
ij: Und den (Christus) wir, nacli Hrn. Dr. Tzschirner's Ansicht eigentlich
Luther den Ersten nennon mu:NZten. — Bermerkungen eines Protestanten in
Preuszen tiber die Tzschirner' schen Anfeindungen ect. 1824, p. 52.
See; Honinghaus, Das Resultat meiner Wanderungen, Aschaffenburg, 1835.
8. p. 349.
10 INTRODUCTIONS.
the serf.will of man; old errors indeed, but invested widi new interest
and colours by his picturesque language. Calvin was forced to receive
the Saxon symbol, in part ; what belongs to himself in the confession
bearing his name, is his hermaphrodite system on the Lord's Supper-
half Zwinglian, half Lutheran ; but his God, or rather, his Destiny,
damning at his own good pleasure, may be found in (Ecolampadius.
What providential lessons are given in the existence of these two refor-
mers! Both, if you believe their own testimony, raised up by God, to estab^
lish the Kingdom of Christ; the apostles of fatalism, w^hichitis their mis-
?ion to introduce into Christianity ; the steel-gloved knights of brute force^
which, under the name of reason, they crown king. And in order to
be saved, it is necessary to believe blindly in their word ! The Impa-
nation of Luther, and the Predestination of Calvin, are two truths of
salvation : the one devotes to eternal flames, all who refuse to accept
his eucharistic symbol ; and who refuse to believe ? (Ecolampadius,
Zwingle, Bucer, Brenz, Bullinger, Calvin himself, the glorious repre-
sentatives of religious emancipation : the other has not enough of the
fire of the eternal future to punish those who resist him. He expels
Bolsec, exiles Gentilis, burns Servetus, decapitates Gruet, because they
will not adore him as their God ! If the dogmatic life of Luther be
more dramatic, because it is passed in the presence of Popes and Empe-
rors, Kings and Electors, in the Patmos of the Wartbourg, and in the
anti-chambers of the legates of Leo X. ; upon the benches of the
taverns of Orlamund, and in the imperial cities of Worms and Augs-
burg; that of Calvin possesses a different, but far more powerful inter-
est. John of Noyon, contending with all the deserters of the Catholic
school, — with Gentilis, Ochin, Castalion, Westphal, — who exert them-
selves to expose how much of feebleness, deception and inanity there is
in his magisterial speech, is a spectacle which, in our contest with the
reformation, we have a right to re-produce. Rejected by Westphal,
cursed by Bellius, despised by Leo Judae, anathematized by Luther,
what opinion is it that he personifies? His own only. His masters,
his disciples, his predecessors, and his successors in the way of revolu-
tion;— Zwingle, on his mountains of Albis, Melancthon at the Universi-
ty of Wittenberg, (Ecolampadius at the foot of Hauenstein, Bucer at
Strasbourg, brother Martin at Marbourg, — all teach a doctrine different
from the one we shall hear in the church of St. Peter at Geneva.
While confining ourselves to our task as historian, we could not, in
our biography of Calvin, prevent ourselves from indicating the miseries
of human reason, which remains alone, isolated, and pow^erless, when-
INTRODUCTION. 11
ever it emancipates itself from the great principle of authority ; unity
or truth. And if our task be now more easy than in the life of Luther,
how much more striking shall our words be, when we shall bring into
antagonism, not the Reformation and Catholicism, as in our former
work, but two principles, having the same mother, and a common
genesis ! At Verriers, near Pontarlier, stands a habitation whose double
roof turns the waters of heaven into a twofold rivulet, which gently
conducts them off, part to the ocean, and part to the Mediterranean.
This is the image of that reformed word, which is lost in two different
rivers, whilst ours has but one source, and but one reservoir.
Calvin endeavoured to be like Luther, in building upon ruins. It is
this work of reconstruction for which we were waiting, and here we
shall exhibit him in his sterile attempts to form a liturgy, where the soul
suffers as much as the body. We shall call to our aid the Calvinists
tliemselves, to judge these forms, whose sterility sensibly afflicts them :
you shall hear their lamentations in union with our own, and you shall
judge, whether that fallen spirit has understood the poetry of our worship
better than the truth of our gospel.
M. Paul Henry recently said, that the laws of Calvin are written,
not only with blood, but with fire ; and, be it remembered, the writer
is a fanatical admirer of the Genevan reformer. We shall make you
acquainted with the legislator ; we will appreciate those institutions,
which one would say, had been stolen from Decius or Valens, — a med-
ley of buffoonery and barbarism, — where, to speak ill, ''ofM. Calvin,"
is blasphemy; where prohibition, under pain of imprisonment, is made
against wearing shoes a la mode Bernoise ; where, io cast a side-glance
at a French refugee, is an offence w^orthyof the lash. In the Calvinist
code we find every thing belonging to Pagan legislation, anathemas*
scourges, melted lead, pincers, cords for hanging up by the arm-holes,
props, a sword, faggots, a crown of sulphur. The torturer is an apos-
tate jurist, named CoUadon, w^ho continues to tear the flesh of his patients,
even after the avowal of their real or supposed crime. Those who have
cognizance of heresy, are laymen, who scarcely know how to read.*
The denunciators are judges, under the appellation of Elders, and the
.security for the denunciator, is a secretary or disciple of Calvin.
After having perused the process against Servetus or Gruet, one im-
agines himself just out of a poetic dream like those described by Shake-
speare, and says to the vision :
* Quippe illiterati homines.— Castal. Contra Calvinum.
12
INTEODUCTIO
"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? Or art thou but
**********, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
But it is not a dream. The things that shall pass before your startled
gaze, are funeral realities; but another than ourselves shall write the
recital of them ; now it shall be the Secretary of the Archives of the
State Council of the Republic, and again, Calvin himself. Did we
narrate them ourselves, we should be accused of calumny.
However, our great discussion with Calvin, shall be held upon the
political territory. Too long has the reformation made boast of having
emancipated the human intellect. It is enougli to have enjoyed for
thirty years the triumph, which it one day obtained, when the French
Institute crowned it, in the work of Charles Villers, for having saved the
world from the darkness of the Papacy. At that time, not one of the
judges had studied the condition of Saxon society, when it was invaded
by Protestantism. In Germany, they have lately translated a writing
of M. Spazier, inserted, by fragments, in the Revue du Nord, in which
the author proves that the reformation of Luther was equally fatal to
the development of knowledge, to social progress, to popular liberty,
and to Germanic unity. And M. Spazier has taken care, in a note,
to intimate, "that he must be the more above all suspicion, as he is a
Protestant, and has been educated amid all the prejudices, and even
almost in the intolerance of Protestantism ; moreover, that he has lived
in the north of Germany, and the opinion that he sets forth is the fruit
of conscientious meditation, and has, in no wise, been induced by ex-
terior influences.'^"*
We are, therefore, about to demand from Calvin an account of those
franchises which had been bestowed upon Geneva by the Episcopacy.
You will see those sacred liberties, violated, destroyed, stifled amid
blood ; the heads of the patriots, Avho imagined they had escaped from
the tyranny of a royal house, too Catholic to be despotic, will fall, one
by one. Peter Vandel, Berthelier, Ami Perrin, Francis Favre, shall
be obliged to bend before one Abel Poupin, who, in the pulpit, will
call them dogs, and ''scurvy fellows;" to appear before a consistory of mer-
chant popes, in order to render an account of their faith ; to solicit ab-
solution from some apostate monk, chased from his own country for
theft or debauchery ; to offer honorable satisfaction to some refugee, a
citizen of Geneva, by the grace of Calvin, at the same price as the ex-
* Revue du Nord, No. 2. premiere annee, Avril, 1835.
INTEO D U CT ION. 13
ecutioner, that is, gratuitously. The wives of these patriots will be
jnsulted in the temple, driven from the communion table, thrown into
prison for having danced, or for having beheld others dance : this is
written in the records : scaffolds, swords, and faggots, such is the
spectacle, which, during his theocracy of twenty-four years, Calvin will
exhibit to the city that had received him, expelled, as he had been, says
M. Galiffe, from every country "which he sought to subject to his
dominion."*
On leaving the council, the temple, the street, we shall follow Calvin
to his own lodgings, at Strasbourg and Geneva ; we will study the
private man, and we shall see if he merits the praises of Beza. Farel
and Beza — behold the only friends wlio will remain faithful ; all the
rest will withdraw, voluntary exiles, or martyrs of their opinion, to
escape this Jbillious despot, who seeks to impose his yoke upon the
necks of ail who approach him, to crush every thing that resists him, to
blast all that is opposed to him, whether men or doctrines. From this
absolute apostle of selfishness, we will demand, what he has done with
Ochino and Gentilis ?
The biographer of Calvin has a beautiful part to perform ! What
matters it that the reader peruses his work Avith prejudices, opposition,
or malevolent instincts ? The historian is not under the necessity to
say : this is a true and faithful narrative. The clerks of the courts of
justice do not lie ; and we write under their dictation. Thus Calvin,
in all the phases of his life — Calvin, a young man at the schools of
Paris ; Calvin at Geneva, with Farel and Froment, when the germ of
reform is being developed and ripening; Calvin banished, at Stras-
iDOurg, taking part in the religious discussions of the Diets of Worms,
Frankfort, and Ratisbon ; Calvin, returned from exile, theocrat, theolo-
gian, legislator, in all his contests with the representatives of free-will —
with Bolsec, Castalion, Gentilis, Servetus, Gruet ; and with the enthu-
siastic apostles of national franchises — Ameaux, Peter Ami, Francis
Favre, Berthelier ; Calvin, in fine, contending with authority repre-
sented by Paul III., the Sorbonne, and the clergy of Lyons : — This
is our whole work.
In the History of Luther, it was our idea, to vindicate the memory
of those intelligences, who devoted themselves to the defense of au-
thority. In the biography of Calvin, we have desired to prove that the
refugee of Noyon was fatal to civilization, to the arts, and to civil and
religious liberty.
* Lettre a uii Protestant.
14 INTRODUCTION.
Still, however, we must avow that we have not told the whole truth:
but it was not for the want of courage to do so. Men of lively faith
and high intelligence, among others, M. de Bonald, had blamed us for
having, in our History of Luther, reproduced certain pages, transparent
even to nudity. We imagined ourselves still in that Catholic Germany,
the land of free speech : We were mistaken. They shall not here
have occasion for the same reproach; we have been forced to show
ourselves more chaste than the reformer. When we find his language
too free, we will make him speak Latin. We shall not do violence to
the text ; Calvin has been his own translator.
W^e know not how to thank the critics, for the good will they have
ejjhibited, in their account of our first work. This work is the sequel
of the one we have published ; may it be received with the same indul-
gence! While composing the biography of the Saxon monk, we col-
lected the materials for the history of Calvin. There is not in Germany
or France, a literary depot which we have not visited. Gotha, Berne,
Geneva, have furnished us a great number of the reformer's letters, in
part inserted in the German work of M. Paul Henry. For the first
time, we reprint entire the epistle of Calvin to Farel, (1545,) regard-
ing Servetus, the existence of which has been so long contested, and
which we found among the manuscripts of the Royal Library of Paris.
Some pieces in verse and prose, published in the sixteenth century, have
been furnished us by Lyons and Dijon ; some German pamphlets, on
the dogmatic discussions of the reformation and of Protestantism, by
Mayence and Cologne. At Bale, Berlin and Darmstadt, we found
many curious facts, in the literary and scientific journals and reviews ;
and in Schroeckh, Plank and Muller, some profound estimates of men
and events.
Admiration and affection for Catholicity, the principle of all true
liberty, form the complex sentiment which has inspired this history.*
* We can affirm that, for the composition of this work, we have consulted
more tlian a thousand volumes. We have given references to these works, in
ilie progress of ourliistory.
LIFE OF CALVIN.
CHAPTER I.
FIKST YEARS OF CALVIN. 1509-1529.
Birth of Calvin. — His parents. — His Father, Gerard, destines him for the study
of Theology. — The family of the Mommors. — Calvin at Paris, in the house
of his uncle Richard. — Mathurin Cordier. — Farel. — Return to Noyon.
Ox the 10th of July, in the year 1509, John Calvin'^ was born, at
i^oyon, In the house where, at present, hangs the sign of the stag, and
which his father had purchased at the wheat-market. He was baptised
at St. Godbert's; the canon, John de Vatines, was his God-father. — "I
retain my baptism," did Calvin frequently say to Beza, "but I re-
nounce the chrism."!
••'His father, Gerard, a native of Pont-l'Eveque, an ardent spirit, and
greatly skilled in the cunning and intricacies of the law, was wanting
neither in diligence nor invention, but pushed himself forward in busi-
ness, and was very meddlesome. He was apostolical notary, fiscal
agent, scribe in the ecclesiastical court, secretary of the bishop, and
promoter of the chapter."
'•'Gerard had two wives, the first o[ whom was named Jeanne-le-
Franc, a native of Cambray, and the daughter of a tavern-keeper,
who lived retired at Noyon. She had a fine person, but was of suffi-
ciently poor reputation. By her, Gerard had six children, four sons
and two daughters. The eldest, was named Charles, the second, John,
the third, Anthony, and the name of the fourth is unknown, as he died
very young. The two daughters were married in the Catholic church,
and one of them dwelt at Noyon, and had a daughter married to Luke
* The forefathers of Calvin wrote their name Cauvin. — Calvin had several
pseudo-names.
t Beza. Life of Calvin, Geneva. 1657. p . 5.
16 , LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
de Molle, a furbisher of armour, who lived at Compeigne. From this
marriage Avere born two children ; Anthony and Mary. Anthony, who
pursued the avocation of his father, died at Noyon, a good Catholic, on
the third Sunday of Advent, in the year 1614. Mary became the wife
of a man named Bruyant, of Compeigne, and had a son, Adrien, atone
time, the landlord of the Silver Lion, at Chartres, near Mount Hery.
Anthony de Molle left tw^o children, Luke and Mary. Luke was a
surgeon in the suburb of St. Germain-des-Pres ; Mary became the wife
of John Fauquet, a baker of the city of Noyon."*
For these details we are indebted to the abbe James le Vassenr,
canon and dean of the church of Noyon, who extracted them from the
registers of the cathedral. He adds in a whisper ;
" Damoiselle Jeanne de Bure, femme d'honorable homme feumaistre
" Claude Jeuffrin; Fran^oise Maresse, mere de M. Vincent Wiard,
" president au grenier a sel, et Helene Hauet, femme de feu M. Wal-
" lerand de Neufville, orfevre a Noyon, la plus ancienne de la ville,
" naguere vivante, ont plusieurs fois declare avoir entendu rapporter a
" leur meres, qu'elles etaient presentes a I'accouchement de la mere de
'" Jean Calvin, lorsqu'elle I'enfanta, et qu'avant la sortie de Fenfant,
'■ sortit du ventre de la mere une quantite de grosses mouches, presage
" du bruit que Jean devait faire dans la chretiente."t
Nearly about this period, a child, destined to fill the world with
trouble, w^as wandering on the highway of Magdebourg, begging his
bread from door to door, and singing the song du hon Dieu,% for each
kind soul who threw him a groeshen : this was Martin Luther, son of
Hans Luther, a peasant of the village of Mserha, in Saxony. John
Calvin was not fated to undergo such rude trials.
His father, who designed him for the study of theology, § read the fu-
ture, for he was a man of foresight and judgment, jj The limpid and
prominent eye of the child, his large forehead, his nose, modeled after
the style which the ancients delighted to contemplate in their statues,
his lips curled with disdain and sneers, his leaden and billious com-
plexion, were the signs of cunning, artifice, and obstinacy. When
you meet with the portrait of Luther, beside that of Calvin, in the
library of Geneva, you immediately divine the mental idiosyncracy of
the two reformers. The first, widi his florid face, in which the blood
courses and boils ; with his eagle-eye, and brilliant tints of colour quite
* Annalos de I'Eglise de Noyon, par Jacques le Vasseur, in4to. Paris, 1623.
|). 1156. — "Jacques Desniay and Jacques le Vasseur, Doctors of the Sorbonne,
have given a very exact journal of the life of Calvin, up to the time of his de-
parture from the kingdom, and that too, taken from the registers of Noyon" —
Drelincourt.
t We must leave this curious statement, respecting the circumstances of
Calvin's birth, under its French dress. We should not know how to set it be-
fore the world in English.
ij: Mathesius: In seinem vierzehnten Jahre Kam er nach Magdeburg in die
^chule. Allda ist dieser Knabc nach Brod gangen, und hat sein panem propter
Deum gcschrien.
{ Theologiae me pater tencllum adhuc puerum destinaverat.
II Erat is Gerard us non parvi judicii et concilii homo. Beza.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
17
Venetian, personifies popular eloquence, brutal force, and lyrical en-
thusiasm;— his place is the tribune, the forum, the tavern. The other,
with his anchoret face, emaciated by vigils or disease, his faded flesh,
his unquiet air, his cadaverous hue, his prominent bones piercing the
skin,* will represent obstinate sophistry and dry argument. He is the
man of the school, of the temple, of the cabinet— the diplomatic theo-
logian,— the fox, who has assumed the monk's cap, for a disguise.
Gerard Calvin w^as a poor man. His office of fiscal agent brought
him scarcely seven hundred francs' salary, and he had to support a wife
and six children ; but the noble family of the Mommors came to his
aid, in the hour of his distress, whenever the winter was too rigorous,
bread too dear, or when Noyon was made desolate by famine. Then,
all the Calvins, — father, mother, children, — took refuge under the wings
of that subsidiary providence, which gave them food and raiment. It
w^ere to be wished, that John, in his attempts at literature, should
call to remembrance the good pastor of Noyon, with a more tender re-
gard. It is true, that when on the threshold of manhood, Calvin dedi-
cated his Com-mentary upon Seneca, "to the holy, pious Hangest, abbe
of Saint-Eloy," a member of the family of the Mommors, but this is
all ; and yet,' in this family, besides material bread, he had found the
bread of life, for which he had so great an appetite. The family of the
Mommors had taken care of the soul and body of their protegee ; for
preceptor, they had given him the master of their own children ; arid
with these, Calvin had opened his first Latin grammar, and, as he said
himself, received the first discipline of life and 1 earning. f It is then
a Catholic roof which shelters the infancy of Calvin ; it is at the hearth
of the Mommors that he warms himself, at their table that he is fed,
with their children that he plays and studies; it is, as he says himself,
from their books that he sips the first drops of "the milk" of learning.
And one day, when the images and associations of childhood shall be
blotted from his mind, when he shall have become pow^erful, exalted,
and when a whole nation shall listen to his voice, he will forget the
manna of Noyon and the hand that distributed it ; and, in his puritan
humour, he will damn all who shall have adored Baal,— Baal, that is
the god invoked by his preceptor, the abbe Hangest, and to whom, each
morning, prayers were addressed by his fellow disciples, the children of
the Mommors, in that house of charity, which, in his eyes, will be no-
thing more than "a fri.shtful nest of papists."
The teacher in the Mommor family was a skillful man, who gave to
his pupil all that he possessed himself; a phraseology, abundant, but
unrelieved; an idiom, made up of obsolete provincialisms, and colour-
ed with all the literary glories of the epoch, Greek, Latin and French; —
an instrument without edge or point, w^hich the scholar might use
♦Colore siibpallido et mg^ricante, oculis ad mortem usque limpidis, quique
ingenii sagacitatem testarentur. Beza. Hist. Calv.
t Veram etiam magis, quod domi vestrae puer educatus, iisdem tecum studiis
initiatus, primam vitse et littorarum disciplinam, familise vestrae nobilissimae
acceptam refero. Calv. prsef. in Senecam, ad sanctiss. et Sapientissimum
piaesulem Claudium Hangestium, abbatem Divi Eligii.
2*
18 LIFE OF JOHN CALVm.
against a college pedant, but never against a man of the people. Add
to this, some shreds of Latin prosody and poesy, and you have all the
literary treasures obtained by Calvin, while in this family ; yet, for a
child, this was a great deal. As we have already seen, he was intend-
ed for the ecclesiastical state : by means of some hundreds of francs,
present(id to him by his benefactors, he purchased, on the 15th of May,
1521, the prepend of the chapel of IVotre Dame dt la Gesine.
He was then twelve years old. "His body was dry and slender; but
he already exhibited a sharp and vigorous intellect, prompt at repartee,
bold in attack ; he was a great faster, whether he did so for the good of
his health, or to arrest the fumes of that megrim which continually be-
sieged him, or to improve his memory, and keep his mind more free for
study and composition. He spoke but little ; his language was se-
rious, and always to the point. He entered seldom into company, and
sought retirement."*
The task of the Noyon professor was accomplished, and Calvin de-
parted for Paris, at that time the great rendezvous of the choice spirits
of the provinces. Its learned chairs were occupied by literati, who
enjoyed an European reputation : Aleandro, having came from Venice,
with his head full of Greek, Latin, Syriac and Chaldaic — the treasures
which he had amassed in the printing-oiRce of Andrew d'Asola, where
also, with the aid of certain students, he had collected the materials for
his Greek lexicon, — was lecturing there with credit and eclat.
The Sorbonne had just come forth, glorious, from a struggle with the
apostle of German reform, after having condemned most of the propo-
sitions of the Saxon monk : but its triumph was doomed to be cruelly
expiated ! Melancthon, whose name was known to all the learned of
France, delivered the Parisian Sorbonnists over to the gross ridicule of
the Germans. His satire, which had traversed the Rhine, and which
was exhibited in secret, electrified the students. Alciati, then professor
at Bourges, wept for joy while perusing it, and compared it with the
best comedies of Aristophanes. The name of Luther had suddenly re-
sounded through the colleges of the capital. His treatise, the Captivi-
ty of Babylon, had been translated into French, by Louis B^rquin, the
friend of Farel ; and one morning, all the students 'm law and theolo-
gy, had learned that the Pope was the Anti-christ announced by the
prophets; that the monks were the acolytes of satan; the Cardinals,
the porters of hell ; the priests, debauchees ; the doctors, asses ! Now,,
imagine the dolorous sensation which must have been felt by a city like
Paris, quite full of priests, bishops, cardinals, monks and Sorbonnists !
The Sorbonne went immediately to the quarter St. Jacques, to awake an
old doctor, Jose Clitowe, a pupil of James le-Fevre, who set to work to
compose a treatise against the Saxon monk, which met with great suc-
cess. We are indebted to Beza for these details. f
* FloritTiond de Raemond oil Remond, Histoire de la naissance, progres et
decadence de rhcresic de ce siecle. Rouen in 4to. 162'2.,liv. 7. ch. io.
t "Luther having commenced to write against the Indulgences, which were
pToached in the crusade of 1517, went still farther in the chase, and published
his treatise entitled r The Captivity of Babylon. This caused the Sorbonne io
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
19
Scholasticism was at that epoch queen of the world ! To create a
sensation, she had assumed every costume : the red robe of the cardi-
nal, the cape of the bishop, the priest's soutan, the monk's frock, the
judge's ermine, the professor's square cap, the warrior's coat of mail,
and even the petticoat of the ladies. Margaret, the sister of Francis
L, in her hotel, fabricated the fashions, poesy, dogmas, and libertine
stories. She sang :
La mort est chose heureuse
Al'ame qui de luy est amoureuse (Dieu.)
O mort! par vous J'espere tant d'honneur,
Qu 'a deux genoux, en cry, soupir et pleur,
Je vous requiers, venez hativement
Et mettez lin a nion gemissement.
O heureuses -ernes, filles tres saintes, 4
En la cite de Jerusalem jointes,
Baissez vos yeux par miseration,
Et regardez ma desolation, etc.*
Having finished the canticle, she read for the duchess d' Etampes, the
adulterous or incestuous amours of certain Parisian citizens, or perhaps,
of some provincial nun, or else regaled her director, William Roussel,
with a satire against the Sorbonne, which, to the great scandal of her
daughters and chambermaids, had been bold enough to prohibit the
Miroirde'Vaine pecheresse: "A princess," says Beza, "of an excellent
condemn him as a heretic, in the year 1521, and finally to write a book against
him, entitled: Anti-Luther, the author of which was a person named Jose
Clitowe, a disciple of Jacques Fabri, but not of the same opinions with his
master." Beza. Hist. Eccl. des Eglises reformees au Royaume de France,
depuis 1321, jusqu'n 1563. Anvers, 1580. 3 vols, in 8vo. t. 1. p. 5.
* At different epochs, Margaret wrote: 1st. Les Nouvelles de la reine de
Navarre; 2d. Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, avec quatre
mysteres on comedies pieuses, et deux farces; 3d. Le Triomphe del'Agneau;
4th. Des chansons spirituelles; 5th. Le Miroir de Tame pecheresse. For her
device, she had at first chosen a marigold, with this motto: non mferiora secu-
tus: afterwards, a lilly with a daisy, and: Mirandum natura apns.
Here are some verses of a work censured by the Sorbonne.
Mary says to Jesus:
O quel repos de mere et filz ensemble!
Mon doux enfant, mon dieu, honneur et gloire
Soit a vous seul et a chacun notoire
De ce qu'il plaist a votre humilite,
Moy, moins que rien, toute nichilite,
Mere nommer: plus est le cas estrange,
Et plus en ha vostre bonte louenge. (i)
(I) Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, tres illustre royne de Na-
varre, Lyon, 1547, in Bvo. p. 34, 51, 59 68.
Mr. Genin has endeavoured to vindicate the memory of the queen of Na-
varre, from the charge of heterodoxy, brought by Beda, agaiiist the mirror of
Vie sinful sovl See the notice published at the head of Margaret's Letters..
Paris, 8vo. 1841. ie Sew^wr, a Protestant journal, claims this princess, as a
glorious conquest of the doctrines of the reformation.
20 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
understanding, and whom God at that time raised up, in order, as far
as possible to frustrate the cruel designs of the Chancellor of France,
A. Duprat, and the rest, who were urging the King to oppress those
whom they called heretics."* This chancellor Daprat, an inflexible
magistrate, and a man of profound foresight and exquisite logic, had
committed the grievous wrong of seeing through the schemes of two
ladies, the queen of Navarre and the duchess d'Etampes, who desired, as
they averred, to convert Francis I., t "because the severity of the
laws of the church, and especially the restraint of confession, embar-
rassed their consciences. "J
The court of the king of France was the asylum and rendezvous of
all the glories of the epoch, and particularly of the glories of literature,
whom this prince both loved and patronized. There, was found Wil-
liam Bude, "who, in his erudition, was so fortunate as to meet with a
king of excellent mind, and a great lover of polite letters, to whom
the writer dedicated that fine work, entitled : Commentaries on the
Greek language; at the same time persuading the prince, that the three
languages ought to be allied together, in the schools and universities of
his kingdom, and that he should erect for them a magnificent college."§
A JESUS SAUVEUR ET JUSTIFICATEUR..
O mon Sauveur par Foy Je suis plantee,
Et par amour en vous jointe et entee.
Quelle union, quelle bienheurete,
Puisque par Foy J'ai de vous seurete I
Done monseigneur, qui me condemnera:
Et quel juge jamais me damnera,
Quand celuy-la, qui m'est donne pour juge
Est mon espoux, mon pere, mon refuge?
Jesus Christ qui est mon redempteur
Qui par sa mort nous a restitue
Notre heritage, et s'est constitue
Notre advocat, devant Dieu presentant
Les merites : qui sont et valent tant.
Que ma grande depte en est si surmontee H
Que pourrien n'est enjugement comptee.
Quand vos vertus, mon Sauveur, presentez
Certes assez justice contentez,
Et sur la croix par votre passion
En avez fait la satisfaction
Moy donques ver de terre, moins que riens
Et chicnne morte, ordure de fiens,
Cesser doy bien parler de V altitude
De ceste amour.
*Bezn. Hist. Eccl. t. 1. 5.
t Und sic Sowohl als die Maitresse des KOnigs, die Herzogin von Etampes,
fUhrten den Knoig fast bis zum evangelischen Glauben. Das LebenJahariR
Calvins. von Paul Henry. Hamburg. 1835. 1. 1. p. 18.
\ Fiorimond de Remond. liv. viii. chap. iii. p. 347.
5 Theodore Beza. Hist. eccl. 1. 1. p. 5,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 21
There, too, were found John da Bellay, who cherished Horace with an
affection so ardent, that he placed him under his pillow ; and Ramus,
d-estined to perish so miserably at St. Bartholomew ; and Scaliger,
whose name is a sufficient eulogy ; and Melchior Wolmar, one of those
lawyers whom Luther, at the bar-room in Wittenberg, pursued with his
biting ironies ; "Verbal critics," said he, ''who would remake the
Lord's Prayer." You beheld there, also, William Cop, Peter de 1' Etoile,
*'who both meddled with the Greek, and slightly with the Hebrew, to the
great annoyance of the Sorbonne," says Beza, maliciously, ''which was
opposed to all progress, with so great fury, that, to listen to our masters,
the study of the Greek is one of the greatest heresies in the world." A
gratuitous calumny, this ; for most of the Sorbonnists were at the same
time versed in both the Greek and Hebrew.* Do you not admire the
ways of God, who, as Beza testifies, raises up a lady gallant to reform
religion, and withdraws understanding from men like the Sorbonnists,
who have grown gray in meditating on the Scriptures !
Theologians thronged forward to ,give further splendour to this array
of humanists, poets and literati. Especially, is to be remarked, James
le Fevre d'Etaples, who had quite recently published his commentary
on the Epistles of St. Paul, and who, in the silence of his retirement,
was then preparing his French translation of the Holy Bible, At that
very moment, Luther announced that the bible had been a proscribed
book among Catholics, until his advent ; and master John Mathesius,
a disciple of the Saxon monk, w^as uttering lamentations over the
chains by which the papacy shackled Christendom, in withholding from
it the word of God.f This is an abominable falsehood, which is suffi-
ciently refuted by Cajetan's commentaries on the Psalms, by fragments
of the sacred books, translated at Venice, Rome and Florence, and by
the version of the bible, published at Nuremberg. Among the vota-
ries of science, were distinguished William Farel, Arnold Roussel and
Gerard Roussel, whom a bishop of Meaux, Monseigneur Briconnet,
had summoned to his diocess, that they might labour to diffuse a relish
for polite learning. This prelate, animated with the best intentions,
was deceived in the selection of his instruments : the greater number of
these theologians had become infatuated at Strasbourg, with heterodox
notions, concerning liberty, grace, justification, works, and had come
forth converts, some to the Lutheran idea, others, to Zwinglianism, and
the rest to the opinions of Bucer. Not one of them possessed an uni-
form symbol, and all dreamed of a reform of Catholicism, by an immo-
lation, of authority to individual sense, of tradition to private interpre-
tation, of positive dogma to figurative meaning, of conscience, enlight-
* See Vecritde la Sorhonne^ on the subject of the dispute between Luther
and Eck at Leipsic, Luther, before his condemnation, appealed to the Sor-
bonne: the mother and nurse of learning, t.1 L of his correspondence, pub-
lished by de Wette.
t Historien vondes EhrwQrdigen in Gott seligen M. Luther Anfang, Lehre
so durch Magister Mathesius,l627. p. 28. cited in the edition of Arnim. 1^2T.
22 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
ened by the instruction of pastors, to the capricious illumination of
the Holy Spirit.
It M^as into the midst of these theologians, agitated by doubt, incre-
dulity, the love of novelty, and pride, that the young Calvin was soon
to be thrown ! It was in the midst of religious factions of every hue
and colour, that he was one day to search for truth !
He w^ent to the house of his uncle Richard, a locksmith, near the
church of St. Germain 1' Auxerrois.* Richard Calvin was an honest
workman, who, at his own cost, fed and lodged his brother's son for
many years. The youth had a little room looking out upon the church,
whose chants roused him from slumber each morning. The two sons
of the Mommors, who had accompanied their fellow-disciple, left him
at the threshold of the locksmith's door, and went to lodge in the street
St. Jacques. They met daily at the college de la Marche, at the lec-
ture of the professor, and on Sundays and festivals, at the table of some
noble seignior, allied to the Mommor family, or else in the gardens of
the g>i'nnasium, where they walked together, and rehearsed from memo-
ry the fine things which they had learned during the week. Richard
Calvin, proud of the success of his nephew, — for the child was success-
ful,— continued to go every morning to the mass of his parish, to abstain
from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays, to tell his beads, to fast on the
ember days : practices at which the proud student scoffed and laughed.
For, at fourteen, John had already read some of Luther's books, and
doubt glided into his soul, then disquiet, afterwards, anguish. He en-
vied the repose enjoyed by the poor artisan, but this repose fled from
him. That interior peace, however, was not a hidden secret ; and his
uncle would have willingly revealed it to him : to believe, to love, and
to pray, was the whole science of the locksmith.
The professor of the college de la Marche was Mathurin Cordier,t
who, of the writers of ancient Rome, made his friends, his hosts, his
gods : — "a very good personage," says Beza, "of great simplicity, and
very exact in his profession ; he since has passed his days in teaching
children, as well at Paris, as at Nevers, Bordeaux, Geneva, Neuchatel,
Lausanne, and finally again at Geneva, where, in this year, 1564, he died,
at the age of 85, while instructing the youth of the sixth class. "J A verita-
ble revolutionist at heart, who, after having introduced a salutary disorder
into the science of instruction, would have desired to treat the catechism as
a theory. In the chair, he was elegant and flowery ; his style, slightly
familiar, savoured of the antique; a poet, after finishing his lecture, he
descended from the Greek or Roman Olympus, and began to extempo-
rize hymns to the Lord. His verses, which, perhaps, Sadolet might not
have disavowed, did not always exhale that perfume of orthodoxy,
* Haec causa fuit cur pater cum quam doctissimum fieri cuperet, mitteretque
Lutcliani, et Ricardo fratri comrnendaret, in vico divi Germani, Altissiodoren-
sis, fabro ferrario. Pap. Masso. Elogia, p. 410. Parisiis, in 8vo. 1638.
t Maturinus Corderius spectatae turn probitatis, turn eruditionis vir. Beza.
His colloquies have long been in the hands of pupils. He tried his skill in
French poetry, by writing spiritual hymns, of about the same value as the
canticles of Marot. (Lyons, 1552.)
I Beza. Life of Calvin.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 23
which the learned Italian has so well understood how to combine with
the pagan ambrosia. Cordier inclined towards the German novelties,
because they were doctrines born yesterday, and because those who pro-
pagated them were marvelously well acquainted with the language of
Homer and Virgil. As yet, he knew nothing of the works of Bembo,
of Vida, and of Sadolet : his eye paused upon Bale, where (Ecolampa-
dius, Capito, Erasmus, were resuscitating antiquity, but it never travers-
ed the Alps, to behold, at Rome, pagan statues issuing from the earth,
and their recovery chanted in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. While Ger-
many was essaying some new gloss upon a text of scripture ; while, in
the little letters of Hutten, she was persecuting monastic obscurity ;
while, at Wittenberg, she listened, in ravishment, to the commentaries
of Melancthon on Aristophanes, or, at the Augustinian convent of Er-
furth, became inflamed beneath the fiery words of Luther: — Melanc-
thon, Luther, Hutten, brilliant and fatal meteors of the revival ! —
Italy produced a Machiaval, an annalist after the manner of Tacitus ;
an Ariosto, poet like Homer ; a Guichardin, historian, often as warm
as Salust ; a Sannazar, whom Plato would not have had the strength to
exile from his republic ; a Michael Angelo, a Raphael, a Benvenuto
Cellini — a beautiful heaven of poets, painters, sculptors, historians,
jurists, orators, which each hour of the day unfolded its portals, to send
forth some divinity, like that which lighted at Bourges, under the name
of Alciati, to teach there the science of the law, or at the University of
Paris, under that of Aleandro, to diffuse a taste for Greek literature.
This spectacle was hidden from Cordier, who was unwilling to see it,
and obstinately persevered in predicting a speedy waking up of intellect,
when already Italy, thanks to the papacy, could point to her epic
poets.*
The professor of the college Montaigu, under whom Calvin studied
dialectics, resembled the professor of La Marche, in nothing : a Span-
iard by birth, he made Aristotle his idol, in spite of all the sarcasms
showered upon the stagyrite,t by the learned of Germany. Among
the humanists of doubtful faith, it was then the fashion to ridicule Aris-
totle, by whom, in the schools, authority was represented, as in the
Catholic world, it was symbolized by the papacy. Besides, Aristotle
must have been a favourite of Calvin, who was captious, fond of retort,
and of sylogisms, which Luther left behind him, "as Abraham did his
ass." The scholar of Noyon could feel no love for Plato : his imagi-
nation was too cold to be captivated by the poetic reveries of this moralist.
It was about this period, that Calvin first met and became acquainted
with Farel, that puritan of the reformation, who would have desired to
establish the kingdom of God, by aid of fire and sword, and whose lips
(Ecolampadius essayed, in vain, to tinge with honey; "a lying, viru-
* Our readers will allow us to refer them to the chapter of our Life of Luther,
entitled, Leo the Tenth, where we have shown the influence upon letters, ex-
ercised by this Pope.
tHispanum habuit doctorem non indoctum. A quo exculto ipsius ingenio, >
quod ei jam turn acerrimum erat, ita profecit, ut cceteris sodalibus in gramma-
tices curriculo relictis, ad dialectices et aliarum quas vocant artium studium
promoveretur. Beza. vit. Calv.
24 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
lent, seditious soul,"* as described by Erasmus, who had a right to know
him well. Farel, a native of Gap, and the son of a notary, called
Fareau, visited Bale. "Zwingle, the burning and shining candle of
Zurich ; Haller, the vessel of election of Berne, and QEcolampadius,
the lamp of the house of God, welcomed him warmly, and recognized
him as a brother."! He was engaged in parading his vagabond prose-
lytism through Switzerland, when he arrived at Bale, and demanded a
discussion. Louis Berus, a renowned theologian of the University, ob-
jected to this, under pretext that the principles of the stranger savoured
of heresy. Farel posted his propositions at the college gate : the grand
vicar, and the rector of the University, forbid any to assist at the dis-
pute, under penalty of excommunication. The Senate took the alarm,
imagined its authority in danger, and commanded all — theologians, cures,
students, — to assist at the religious tournament; at the same time declar-
ing, that all who should not be present, should forfeit their right to the
use of the mills and ovens, or to purchase their meat and vegetables at
the city markets. J Therefore, on the fifteenth of February, all deal-
ers in theology, at least all who dreaded a death by starvation, were at
their posts. Farel defended his thesis ; reviled, calumniated, grew an-
gry, and was compelled to leave the city, which he cursed in his wrath.
Calvin was then just entering upon his nineteenth year. On the
27th of September, 1527,§ he was invested with the charge of Marte-
ville : being only tonsured. || Some years later, his father, who was
esteemed by the bishop, succeeded in procuring for his son an exchange
of Marteville for Pont-1-Eveque, "the parish in which his grandfather
had his domicile, and where his son Gerard had been baptised. Thus did
they summon the wolf to keep watch over the sheep. "IF It is still the
good abbe Claude d'Hangest who presents him to his charge : the pu-
pil is now grown up ; he is a man ; and yet he dreams not of blessing
the hand, which thus, for the future, secures him bread. He feels no
other joy, than that of a proud child, who, by means of a single thesis,
has become cure of a parish.** Search his books or his letters, and
you will not discover one word of affection or gratitude for this new
bounty of the house of Mommors ! An icy heart, which has no me-
mory for anything but an insult or an injury. Oh! how much we pre-
fer the character of Luther to that of Calvin ! With the Saxon monk,
every thing is a passion, even gratitude itself. In the midst of his
triumphs, quite sufficient to intoxicate a youthful brain, he still cherishes
* Habetis in propinquo novum Evangelistam Pharellum quo nihil vidi un-
quam mendacius, virulentius, aut seditiosius. Er. ep. xxx. lib. xviii. p. 798.
t Ancillon. vie de Farel, p. 197-198.
I Melch. Adam in vitis Theol. exter. Francof. ad Mcenum, 1705. fol. 113
—114.
^Moreri, Article Calvin.
II Calvin never was a priest, and was not allied to the clergy, except in virtue
of nis tonsure. Bayle. Art. Calvin. Quo loco (Font-1-Eveque) Constat J. ip-
sum Calvinum antequam Gallia excederet, nuUis alioqui pontificiis ordinibus
unquam initiatum, aliquot ad pop ulum conciones habuisse. Beza.
*i Desmay, Acts of the Chapter of Noyon, cited by Drelincourt, p. 168.
** Paul Henry, lib. cit. 1. 1. p. 24.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 25
tender memories for Cotta, from whom he received his first alms. This
female image, which, now and again, glides before us, and takes its
stand between the Pope and the doctor, possesses an ineffable charm,
and seems greatly to soften down the outbursts of the reformer. Flori-
mondde Remond was right : "Calvin, after having lived at the expense
of the crucifix, forgot who had fed and educated him.*"
He returned to Noyon, and sometimes preached at Pont-l-Eveque.f
In his letters, Calvin does not tell us of his parting with his college
chums, his preceptor, Mathurin Cordier, and his uncle, the locksmith.
Here would have been a tender scene for the descriptive pen of Luther,
and the monk of Wittenberg would not have let it pass unrecorded !
About this time, we are told, Calvin entered into communication with
his relative, Robert Olivetan, who was then labouring at his French
translation of the Bible : — one of those spirits of doubt and pride,
whom Dante places in hell
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro •
Misericordia et giustitia gli sdegna.
Non ragionain di lor, ma guarda e passa.
Inferno. Cant. 3.
* riorimond de Remond, Histoire de I'heresie de ce siecle. f Beza.
3
CHAPTER II.
THE UNIVERSITIES,
The Student at the University. — Renting of chambers. — When he must pay
the rent. — His right to eject all renters who make a noise, — Is not bound tt>
render service to the State. — -Costume. — His books not seizable. — Civil rights
of students. — They cannot be excommunicated,— Student's prayer.— Re-
buffy's advice.
Calvin is about to become the inhabitant of a new world, whither
we must foUoAv him- In the sixteenth century, the students of the uni-
versities constituted a distinct society, governed at once by the canon law,
the civil law, and local customs. Collected from all parts of France,
they brought with them to the city, to which they resorted for study,
manners, a language, a costume, quite peculiar, and the form cf which
could be changed but slowly. The student of that epoch, in some things,
resembles the student of the nineteenth century : both, careless, noisy,
quarrelsome : with good hearts, but bad judgments. Religious and po-
litical opposition, which at that time could not use books and journals
as its organs, had taken refuge in the schools. The student was then a
living ballad, censuring throne and altar, monarch and Pope. In Sax-
ony, when Luther's voice resounded from Wittenberg, the students
rushed to the college, gathered up their books, and made a bonfire of
them, before the church of All-Saints, imagining themselves forever dis-
inthralled from the yoke of their preceptors. In France, they welcom-
ed with infantile joy, the first Lutheran missionaries, who preached the
abolition of the law of abstinence on Fridays and Saturdays. Pro-
tected by popes and kings, our students, in their civil and religious
life, enjoyed privileges of which they were jealous, and which could
not have been wrested from them with impunity. The picture of these
scholastic franchises has been drawn by Peter Rebuffy,* who was pro-
fessor at Montpellier, at the time Calvin went to study at Paris. The
examination of these immunities, granted to the university students,
during so many centuries, would, it seems to us, be a curious moral
study. Precious are these images, which carry us back to an epoch,
when the human mind was marching onward to utter confusion.
We are at Paris, where the student seeks for a room, nearly always
in the Latin quarter, convenient to the college which he frequents. As
* Petri Rebuff Monspessulani jurisconsulti, in privilegia et immunitates
universitatum, doctorum, magistrorum et studiosorum, commentationes enu-
cleatissimae. Anturpiae, 1583, in 4to.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
21
saoR as he has announced his title, the proprietor is compelled to rent ;
and in case of need, the student can force the proprietor to dislodge an
old renter, for his accommodation,*
The student, on giving security, can likewise compel his habitual
landlord to hire him a horse, according to this maxim : "The host, who
has put up the sign of an inn, is bound to fulfil the duties thereof. "f If
the horse, beaten with rods, and not with the stirrup-leather, dies under
the flagellation, he must pay its value : but, if for want of fodder, the
animal has become lean and lank, he is bound for no damages, accord-
ing to the text i7i Animalia; C. de curso publico; lib. 12., and the
opinion of Platea, thus ruled: — The student is not obliged to stuff a
hired horse with fodder, seeing that his income is very slight. J If he
can give no security, he must employ a guide or runner.
If the owner of a house demanded too much from the student for his
rooms, the latter appealed to the rector, who fixed the rent.§ At Mont-
pellier, in virtue of a privilege accorded to the city, in the month of
January, 1322, by king Charles IV., it was the judge of theparvtim
sigillum, who fixed the price to be paid by the student. At Paris, the
amount was decided by two magistrates, selected by the University, as-
sisted, if there was need, by two citizens, in virtue of the bull of Grego-
ry IX., given at St. John of Lateran, on the 6th of the Calends of
May, and deposited in the archives of this learned body.
But when must the student pay his rent ? If there be a contract, the
act obliges; in default of a contract, custom makes the rule.
Should the proprietor, for important motives, need his whole house,
he cannot eject the student to whom he has rented rooms, for the simple
and apparent reason — that in cities, where there are universities, it is
often very difficult for students to procure lodgings ; that they ought not,
in seeking rooms, to be made to lose their time, destined for study ; and
because every good citizen should consult the good of his country, rather
than his own private comfort and convenience.
Innocent IV., by a bull given at Lyons, on the second of the
nones of March, in the second year of his pontificate, had, under penal-
ty of excommunication, prohibited any owner of a house, to rent a room
which was already occupied by a student or a doctor.
Was the student annoyed in his studies, by the hammer of a forger,
the wheel of a turner, or the song of a w^orkman, dwelling under the
same roof with him, he could procure the dismissal of his troublesome
neighbour, as ive are informed by Barthole and Platea, 1| and as was ef-
fected by Peter RebufFy, in the case of a weaver (textor,) who lodged
near the college du Vergier, at Montpellier, and who, rising each
* Q,ui si noninveniant domos, possunt compellere habitantes ad illis locar-
dum. Gull, de Cugno.
t Nam hospes, pastquam signa hospitii erexit, cogitur hospites recipere. Joe.
Ruft'us in 1. carsura c. de curso publico, lib. 12. arg. 4.
I Nam studentes non solent equos locates avena pinquefacere, cum modicum
sit eis.
^ Panormit, in lib. de locat.
jj In lib. 1. in line. Et solut, mat. in lib. 2. ; c. qui aetate lib. 10. ; lib. 1. de
Excusat. artif.
28
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
morning with the cock, sang so loud as to deafen all the professors.*
This privilege of ejection reached also the manipulator of offensive
odours, which might impair the health of the student, according to the
precept : iVo7i licet aliciti immittere in alienum quicquam, quamvis
in suo possit facere quod libet,f and — because, were it the devil him-
self, we have the right to prevent him from troubling us, or from poison-
ing us in our lodgings, as confirmed by Barba, in C. 1. deprolat.^
provided, always, a valet could be found bold enough to announce the
prohibition to the archfiend; J and no forger, no turner, no exciter of
unclean odours, shall be able to stay the sentence, which shall be car-
ried into execution in spite of opposition or appeal.
The student's father is obliged, in the beginning of the scholastic
year, to pay at least one month's board for his son, who, at his father's
death, cannot be held to account for the sums he has received, nor to
charge the amount upon his portion of the succession, because the father
is presumed to have given this gratuitously. If, during the progress of
his studies, the student have contracted debts for the interest of science,
he is not obliged, after the death of the head of the family, to pay them
out of his own share, but only to satisfy his creditor at the expense of
the common inheritance.
The student should listen to his master in silence, and not disturb
the lecture, by making noises with his feet, hands, and voice, as, unfor-
tunately, says professor Rebuffy, too frequently happened at Toulouse
and Orleans, where the students are so turbulent, that, when two of
them have resolved to disturb the class, the professor is compelled to
leave his chair. §
Though a father may whip his son, place him under arrest, or put
him in prison for more than twenty hours, even till he solicits pardon ;
doctors, the fathers of students, cannot, however, buffet them, because,
for one blow, the students would return four |I; and moreover, for the
correction of youth, mild treatment is the most efficacious.
Under no pretext, shall the student be distracted from his studies for
the service of the state. On the 23d of February, in the year 1345,
Philip VI. enacted the following ordinance :
" That, of the said masters and students, no goods whatever be taken
for our garrisons of war, our hotel, or that of our loved companion, the
queen, or for our children, or for any others whatever of our lineage,
our lieutenants, captains, constables, or others desiring or pretending
to have care of our kingdom, under what authority soever, but that
the said masters and students be left in peaceable possession of their
goods."
The student had a right to refuse for examiner any doctor whom he
suspected : the chancellor and deans were bound to see that no precep-
* Petri Rebuffi in privilen;ia et immunitates univorsitatum, etc. p. 1 1.
+ L. Sicut ^ aristo. ff. servit., vendic,
^ Etiam si esset cUabolus qui potest prohiberi ne strepitnm faciat in domo sua
si tamen invenirctur serviens qui banc illi inbibitionem facere auderct.
^Rebuffus. p. 124.
JIQuia forte ipsi, cum sint jam magni, roJderent suis doctoribus quadniplura.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 29
for, resting under the weight of legitimate suspicion, should enter the
hall of examination. The examination must be conscientious, and
mild, rather than severe : "quinimis emungit, elicit sangidnem."
Professors, beadles, and college messengers, were prohibited to re-
ceive dinners from students who were commencing their- course, even in
those universities where a contrary custom prevailed, as at Montpellier.
In the universities, and particularly at Toulouse, Poictiers, and at
Cahors, it was the custom for masters to receive no salary from students
that were poor, and they should even remit the whole sum which such
students were required to pay. At Bourges, when a poor person had a
suit against the crown, the king was obliged to employ two advocates ,
one for himself and the other for his adversary,* that the case might be
no fiction.
The student was at that epoch compared with the poor, parurn ha-
hens, who returned to his home with an empty purse.
Non unquam gravis aere domum milii dextra redibat.
In the year 1295, on the Tuesday after Trinity, Philip the Fair ex-
empted the masters and students of the University of Paris from all state
imposts, even for the expenses of war.f
Students had the right to wear short garments, vestes hreves, and of
any colour which suited their fancy. In traveling, they could carry
arms at their side. At Avignon and Montpellier, even the clergy wore
red shoes, caligas ruhras.
"We professors," said Rebuffy, ''judge the intellect of our pupils from
their costume.
A feather in the hat, the sign of levity.
Grave dress, mark of se7ni wisdom.
Brilliant robes, sign of heedlessness.
Dirty garments, sign of gluttony."
"Do you desire now to know the fashion proper for a student ? Ask
Simachus, the philosopher, and he will tell you that his robe should not
sweep the dust, and if it trails upon the ground, the mud should not be
seen on it ; he ought therefore to choose a gray colour ; gray denotes
hope."
In case of grave offence towards a student, the judge could investigate
it officially. For the protection of students, St. Louis, in the month of
August, in the year 1229, passed an ordinance running thus:
"Let not our overseer, or officer of justice, lay his hand upon a stu-
dent, or send him to prison, unless the offence be one requiring a prompt
repression: then the officer shall arrest him without a blow, if the guilty
person do not defend himself: he shall be placed under the authority of
the ecclesiastical tribunal, which shall confine him until satisfaction be
made us. "J
* Quod si pauper habet litem cum rege et non habeat unde facial expensas,
rex administrat advocatum ut Veritas causae servetur.
t Rebuffus, 148.
:j: Et tunc justitia nostra arrestabit eum in eodem loco sine percussione, nisi
se defenderit, et reddet eum ecclesiasticae justitiae quae eustodire debet pro
satisfaciendo nobis.
3*
30 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
The books of a student, like the arms of a soldier, could not be seized.
The creditor could not take them as a pledge, but must wait until the
student had completed his course. "For," this privilege said, " it is
important for the student to have books to improve and strengthen his
intellectual faculties. Society is interested in his studies, and, conse-
quently, so is the creditor, as a member of the community. He ought
then to have patience, for the sake of the public good, and wait till the
student shall have finished his course:" &:c. VVhat is deferred is not
lost.*
The Jews, who, in many parts of the kingdom, had the right to keep
stolen goods, which had been sold to them, or placed in pawn, until
claimed by the lawful owner, who had to pay what had been advanced,
did not enjoy the same privilege where students were concerned, who
iiad been robbed of their books by some domestic. The book being
recognised, the student took it away without any compensation to the
one who had bought it, or who held it in pawn. Severe prohibitions
were made to all boarding-house keepers, against taking books as the
price for dinners or repasts.
As wives, in right of dower, had preference over every creditor, widi
regard to the property of their husbands, so in every distribution of a
debtor's e fleets, the student had the same advantage, and that in behalf
of the professors and rectors of colleges, whose pay must be assured to
them.
The student enjoyed all the civil rights of the city in which he was
studying, whether he had a domicile there or not; by this privilege it
was intended to rescue him from the acdon of the common law, which
allowed a citizen, even for the claim of one cent, to imprison a stranger,
and detain him until he had given bail.f
The student was dispensed, from standing sentinel at the city gates,
even in time of war or pestilence, from mounting guard, or from other
duties imposed on citizens, in virtue of an immunity conceded by Charles
VI., at Pontoise, on the 12th of June, 1419, and this, notwithstanding
any charter of Norniandy to the contrary.}:
During the whole time of their studies, students w^ere not required to
pay any of those taxes known under the name of excise, {gahelles.)
In the month of June, 1340, Philippe de Valois had enacted the follow-
ing ordinance: "In virtue of our plenary power, it is our will that no
layman, whatever his office or dignity, whether bailifFor overseer, should,
under any pretext, disturb or molest the students in passing to or from
college, or require them to pay any impost, under the title of toll, tax,
customs, etc." ,, This privilege was confirmed by Charles V., who , on
the 26th of September, 1369, ordered that the student should be dis-
pensed from all tax, tani in aqua quam in terra Tax-
gatherers, who exacted from a student any impost which he did not owe,
* Q,u(xl difTorotur non auferetur.
t Quo cavetur quod civis, cum Uteris clamoris unius solidi, possit debitorem
forensem etiam ad corpus non oblig ituin capi facere et in carcerea detruderc,
(ioncc dederit tidei-jussores. RebutTus, p. 305.
:j:Bar. per. Mum. tex. in. 1. 1. c. qui eetate, lib. 10.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVI». 51
were condemned to compensate to the party in damages, according to a
jjrivilege granted to the University o( Paris, by Charles VII., on the 25th
of Novea"iber, in the year 1460.
At Montpellier there is preserved a charter of Charles VIII., wherein
the monarch, — taking into consideration the services rendered to France
by the Universiiy of that city, and tlie labours and pains undergone by
those devoted to letters, who, in their studies, search for the pearl of
wisdom* at so great a cost, — frees the masters and students from all
duties of the excise.
The rector of the University of Paris, and the managers, were accus-
tomed to assemble together three times each week, — at two o'clock on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, — to exercise what they termed
jurisdiciionem in suos ; that is, to examine everything regarding the
charges of professors and beadles, the respective rights of the students
and landlords, and to regulate whatever concerned literature, as manu-
scripts, bookbinding, and the art of iJlumination or colouring. f
Neither the masters nor the students of the University of Paris could
be excommunicated. Innocent IV. had thus decreed: Let no one dare
pass or publish a sentence of excommunication against any rector, mas-
ter, manager, or student of the University of Paris, even for the crime of
murder, without an express permission of the Apostolical See.J
By the canon la-.v, the student was allowed to occupy himself in his
studies on festival days; because, if, for the good of the State, it be law-
ful on the Lord's day to repair or construct bridges, there is greater reason
for allowing studies by which the kingdom of God may be benefited.
The civil, came to the aid of the canon law, and decided that if it be
allowable to. engage in occupations, but for which men could not subsist,
there is stronger reason for allowing the study of sciences, without which
the world would cease to exist.
Here is a beautiful prayer, taken from St. Thomas, which the pious
student was wont, each morning, to recite on rising from his slumbers.
" Oh ineffable Creator, who, from the treasures of thy wisdom,
hast formed nine choirs of angels, which, in marvelous order, thou hast
established above the firmament : thou, who hast with such order distri-
buted the spheres of the universe! fountain of light, sovereign principle
of all things, deign to illumine the darkness of my understanding with
the rays of thy splendour, and to correct that twofold misery which I
inherit at my birth — ignorance and sin. Oh thou who makest eloquent
the infant's tongue, instruct my tongue and spread upon my lips the
treasures of thy grace: Grant perspicacity to my understanding, facility
to my memory, subtilty to my intellect, and grace and abundance to my
elocution : sustain my efforts, direct my progress, and complete my
instruction."
Rebuffy, the Montpellier professor, who never let a morning pass
* Margarita Sapientiae.
t Robert Goulet in compendio — Rebuffus, p. 233.
t Rebuffus, pp. 240,-241.
32 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
■without saying this prayer of tho angel of the schools, certifies that those
who will recite it devoutly, will be saccessful in their studies.*
His '' Manuel for Students,'' (scholasticis necessarium,) is a moral
code, where, in his advices to his pupils, one may study the life of a
student of the sixteenth century. It appears that it was an agitated,
tumultuous, idle life. RebufFy complains of young men, who, at college,
give very little heed to the lectures of the professor, amuse themselves
in counting the tiles on the neighbouring houses, and whose minds are
ever in the dishes. f He would wish them to stay in their rooms instead of
going forth to study in the open air, on the public promenades, where
they are disturbed by the noise of persons passing, and are tempted by
the ogling of ladies, who peep at them from the windows. He wishes
them to be laborious the first year, more laborious the second, very
laborious the third, and most laborious the fourth. Gather, during
your young days, does he say to them, collect, and keep in mind the
beautiful verses of the poet:
Ut ver dat florem, flos fructum, fructus honorem,
Sic studium morem, mos sensum, sensus honorem.
He would desire that, at each university, the student should be made
do what he had seen practised at Toulouse, where the student, before
taking a drink, had to expound a text of the Roman law, or recite it
from memory. He recommends to his pupils not to chatter at table
like women, to have only one or two dishes, and, if possible, not to eat
oftener than three times every two days.:}: "Oh shame!" he exclaims,
"in our times we not only eat oftener than thrice in every two days, but
ten times, and frequently even three times in every hour ! Oh ! how much
preferable is the rain which falls slowly and gently, to those showers
which inundate and tear the soil!"
*Et qui hoc fecerint, venient ad studiorum suorum frucrem, multamque
scientiam accipieiit, et omnia eis prospera succedent — scholasticis necessarium,
p. 270.
t Sed sunt in studio tegulas domus numerantes et animum in patinishaben-
tes, p. 276.
:{: Ter in duobus diebus comedere.
CHAPTER III.
CALVIN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BOURGES. 1529-1532.
Death of Gerard Calvin. — Letter of John Calvin to Daniel. — Bourges, Andrew
Alciati. — Melchoir Wolmar. — Calvin resumes the study of theology. — Theo-
dore Beza. — System of Predestination. — Calvin's return to Paris. — The
Civil Power deals severely with the Reformers.
The views of Gerard Calvin underwent a change. Whether he had
divined the religious tendencies of his son, or had foreseen those con-
tests to which Catholicism was destined to be subjected, and amid which
the faith of the neophyte might yield ; or, perhaps, because, in his view,
theology presented but a rude career, overspread with perils, and offer-
ing but little prospect of profit or glory, he determined to give a differ-
ent direction to the studies of his child. The paternal bosom was
agitated by worldly thoughts, as Calvin himself remarks.* At that
epoch, the law was the path to honours, to dignities, to the councils of
the prince, and to fortune. Andrew Alciati had just been summoned
from Italy, by Francis I., to teach at Bourges, for an annual salary of
twelve hundred crowns (ecus) of gold.f -'The king has made an ex-
cellent disposition of the twelve hundred crowns of gold, which he has
granted to master Alciati," said the aldermen of Bourges, "for never
before was the city so illustrious or happy; never had its magistrates so
much business. "J Gerard resolved that his son should study law.
The student submitted, without a murmur, and at first went to Orleans,
where the lectarer was Peter de I'Estoile, an able man, who afterwards
became president of the parliament of Paris, and, in his day, enjoyed
the reputation of being the most acute jurist in France. Peter de I'-
Estoile instructed his pupil to give more closeness and solidity to his
logic, to prune his rather exuberant phraseology, to be more sober in
his use of figures and ornaments, and to render his style more free and
unembarrassed in its march. John Calvin constituted the delight of
his master ; he was assiduous, docile, and full of zeal for study : already
* Cum videret pater, legum scientiam passim augere suo3 eultores opibus,
spes ilia repente euni impulit ad mutandum consilium. Ita factum est ut revo-
catus a philosophiae studio ad leges discendas traherer, quibus tametsi ut patris
voluntati obsequerer, fidelem operam impendcre conatus sum. Calv. preef.
ad Psalm.
t Paul Freherus, Theatrum virorum eruditione singulari clarorum Norim-
bergae, 1588. p. 826.
X Letter to Chancellor Duprat.
34 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
he was ranked "as teacher, rather than pupil," says one of his biog-
raphers;* Master Francis Baudoin, (Balduinus,) relates that Calvin
pursued no other occupation at college, except that of calumniating his
comrades : hence, they gave him the surname of accusativus. They
were wont to say of him : — John knows how to decline even to the
accusative, t
From Orleans he went to the University of Bourges, where his studies
were suddenly interrupted. He was hurried away to take care of his
sick father, whom God was soon to remove from him altogether. Gerard
Calvin slept in the faith of his ancestors, reconciled with the church
which he had afflicted, and praying silently for the salvation of a son,
who was about to be exposed to the temptations of the world. Calvin,
was not willing to leave a description of the last moments of his father;
most probably, because he would have been obliged to paint the hopes
of a soul, which burst its earthly ties and soared away, at this exhorta-
tion of the priest : "Depart, christian soul, from this body of clay, and
go to meet thy God." Plere are the first lines traced by the student of
Paris and of Orleans. The letter is addressed to Nicholas Duchemin.
" When we parted, I promised to rejoin you soon again, and I ex-
pected to do so ; but the sickness of my father has delayed my departure.
The physicians induced me to look for his restoration to health, and
then I thought only of you. Days have passed away; at last nothing
remains butdispair, death is at hand. Whatever happens, I shall see
you again ; embrace Francis Daniel, Philip, and all the family. Have
you enrolled your name among the professors of literature?^"
This letter is written by the bedside of a dying father, at the moment
the physician has declared that all hope is gone, and when the priest,
at the sound of die parish bell, is bringing the last consolations of re-
ligion to the dying man. . . . And Calvin has no tear to shed while
announcing this sad news to his friend ! See whether he breathes a
prayer, or solicits one from Duchemin! He narrates the scene as we
would describe an ordinary drama. "There is no more hope of recove-
ry; deatii is certain." The physician, who issues from the chamber
of the sick man in his agony, would not have spoken otherwise ; and
yet the kiss, which John has, no doubt, impressed on the lips of his
father, is the last : he will see him no more; the father and child will
never meet again. "Gerard, an impenitent papist," according to Beza,
"is now in a dwelling of flames; John, the Evangelist, the elect of
God, will see the Lord face to face." Thus has the reformation already
♦Theodore Bcza.
t Franc. Balduiuus, Apol, sccunda contra Calv.
t Manssc. ex Bibl. Gen. Quod tibi proniiseram discedens me brevi adfutu-
nun, ea mo expcctatio diutius suspensum habuit, nam dum reditum ad vos
meditor, patris morbus attulit causam remoiee. Scd cum medici spem facercnt
posse redire in prosperam valctudinem, nihil aliud visum est quam tui desideri-
um, quod me antea graviter affecorat, aliquot dierum intervallo acui. Interim
dies de die trahitur, donee eo ventum est ut nulla spes vitee sit reliqua, certum
mortis periculum. Utcumque res ceciderit ad vos revisam. Saluta Francis-
cum Danielem, Philippuni, et totum domus tuai contubernium. Jam dedisti
nomen inter rei literaree professore.s ^
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. 35
Stifled in this young heart, every throb of filial sensibility. Luther did
not have the sad consolation to be present at the death of old Hans,
He was far from his father, when he learned the news that the last hour
of the miner of Moehra had struck, and then he also wrote to a friend, but
with what bitter sadness, with what poignant sorrow !
Calvin departed from Noyon, in order to continue the study of law.
A professor was then figuring at Bourges, whose reputation was wide-
ly spread as jurist, theologian, historian, and poet : this was Alciati of
Milan, the man of all sciences,* of whom we have spoken already,
and whose great fame induced Francis I. to invite him to France. He
had received honours almost divine, from the several university cities
through which he passed. Calvin heard him, and was filled with won-
der. Alciati was as well acquainted with the Rome of the age of Jus-
tinian, as if he had then inhabited it : he might be taken for a pleader
of the Via Sacra, coming to explain the customs., laws, and usages of
Latium. When some thought vividly engrossed him, he transferred it
to verse, that his auditory might preserve the memory of it eternally.
One day, when speaking of Horace, he commenced chanting the
poet's arms :
Gentiles clypeos sunt qui Jovis alite gestant;
Sunt quibus aut serpens aut leo signa ferunt.
Dira sed hsec vatum fugiant animalia ceras,
Doctaque sustineat stemmata pulcher olor.
Hie Phoebo sacer et nostrae regionis alumnus
Rex olim veteres servat adhuc titulos.
Beautiful verses, which one of the pupils of Alciati translated on the
instant, but less poetically;
ARMOIRIES DES POETES,
D'aucuns ont en leurs armes aigles;
D'aiitres lions, serpents ou foines (fouines.)
Mais nous ne tenons point ces regies:
Ains (mais) avons trop plus nobles signes.
Nous, poetes, portons le cygne
De Phebus, oiseau bien chantant.
8a naissance nous est voisine :
Roy fut dont est le nom portant.
Calvin, among the first to come to the lecture of the doctor, took his
place near the chair, and with eye fixed and mouth wide open, listened
to Alciati, in a sort of ecstacy. On his return to his lodgings., and in
his little study chamber, he hastened to fill his note-books with all the
fine things he had just heard. "He wrote and studied till night, and
to be able to do this, he ate very sparingly at supper : then, on awaken-
ing in the morning, he was wont to remain awhile in his bed, recalling
to mind and ruminating upon all he had learned the evening before."!
* Qui omnium doctrinarum orbem absolvit. Epitaph of Alciati, engraved
on the tomb of this jurist, in the church of St. Epiphanius, at Paris,
t Beza.
36 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIlf.
His memory was thus fertilized; and without suspecting it, upon those
benche-s, filled with students of all countries, he learned the very thing
which was then taught in the convents; the mechanical process of
argumentation. There was this difference, that at Bourges, Alciati's
sylogism was coloured with profane poesy, that it might produce a more
vivid impression. Calvin would have left the convent with but one
God, Aristotle ; but from the benches of the university he brought away
a thousand, which Alciati had presented to him for his adoration. These
were the several founders of Roman jurisprudence, whom in his lyrical
enthusiasm, the Milanese compared with Romulus.
The student soon exchanged the emperors, consuls, ediles, and magis-
tracy of Rome, for the gods and poets of Greece, to propagate whose
worship in France, the king had given the mission to a German Luthe-
rari, by name Melchior Wolmar. Melchior cherished as the sons of
his own flesh, the pupils which he engendered, rather for Luther than for
Sophocles or Demosthenes : he took especial care of them, caressed
them, and, in case of need, even paid their debts. It appears that he
manifested a marked predilection for John Calvin, whose nature seem-
ed a compound of two; for he was Teutonic, in his laborious persever-
ance at «tudy, and Gallic, "in his great, promptness to apprehend his
master''^ lessons and the sallies of oral disputation."*
Melchior Wolmar made great calculations upon his pupil, to aid the
•work of the reformation. It appears that particularly did he found his
hopes of the future upon the capricious humours of Calvin : he wrote
to Farel : ''As to John, I do not fear so much as I hope from his whim-
sical disposition : for this vice is well suited to advance our cause, and
make him an able defender of our opinions ; because he will not so
easily be taken himself, as he will be able to entrap his adversaries in
still greater snares. "f Calvin did not forget this college friendship, and
let him be praised for it ! Very long after his departure from the uni-
versity, he called to mind his good Wolmar, and said to him :
" During my whole life I shall cherish the memory of your zeal for
my advancement, of your love for your disciple, of your delight in
ornamenting my mind with all the gifts of science. It was under you,
that I studied Greek letters ; and you were not content to watch over
my progress in literature, but also were kind enough to open for me
your purse. "J
Wolmar often, on finishing his lecture, would take Calvin's arm,
and, walking in the college court, discourse with him on the Greek
mythology, of which he was passionately fond. But this passion did
not blind him. He had divined that Calvin was not born to be a com-
mentator of Aristophanes, like a college pedant, or to attach himself,
like Aleandro, to some famous printer, for the purpose of illustrating,
with notes and variations, some recently discovered manuscript.
* Beza.
t De Calvino non tarn metuo ingenii sui ten Strebloten, quam bene spero, id
enim vitii aptum est rebus noslris, ut in magnum assertorem nostrorum dogma-
tum evadat; non enim facile capi poterit quin majoribus tricis adversaries
involvdt.
:t:PraBf. Comment, in Ep. ad Cor.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 37
One day, the two were taking their usual evening walk : — "Bo you
know," said Wolmar to his pupil, "that your father has mistaken your
vocation? You have not been called like Alciati to preach law, nor
like myself to spout Greek ; give yourself up to theology, for theology
is the mistress of all sciences."*
These words decided the future destiny of John Calvin, who closed
his Homer, and from that day set himself to the study of the word of
God. Now, the word which he found in the Bible, -vvas not that of the
Latin Vulgate, — still today read in the school and the church, — but the
French of Le Fevre d'Etaples, or perhaps, of John Olivetan, which,
with the zeal of a neophyte, he endeavoured to expound, as he would
have done one of those ancient comedies, upon which Melchior was
then commenting, A Catholic preceptor would not have neglected to
inform him that there existed a beautiful exegesis of the holy books,
transmitted from age to age — from Jesus to Leo X. — and against which
no human voice, were it that of Berengarius, of Arius, or of Luther,
could ever prevail — the exegesis of authority. Such preceptor would
have shown him the Bible, at that very moment a prey to the disputes
of men fond of novelties; — of Zwingk, Luther, Melancthon, (Ecolam-
padius, Capito, Hedio, Bucer, — who could not come to an understanding
among themselves, and were engaged in erecting a tower of Babel,
which still stands a monument of confusion.
Among the students who crowded round the chair of Melchior Wol-
mar, to catch, drop by drop, the dew of magisterial instruction, was
Theodore Beza, less harshly judged by Catholicism than by Protestant-
ism, which calls him "the opprobrium of France, a simoniac, and an
infamous libertine. "f An elegant young man, quite perfumed w^ith
amber and poesy, who, at the same time, made court to women, to the
muses, and to his professor Wolmar. The professor spoiled him, the
muses inspired him with chants that Catullus would not have disavowed,
and the women deceived him. It appears that the student of Vezelay
had reason to complain of the last, and that he was compelled to seek
in a suburb of Paris, for the health which he had compromised in their
service. J He is the only artist belonging to the Genevan reformation.
At that epoch, he thought little about the word of God : his whole con-
cern was to study Anacreon and Horace, and to set forth his conquests
in trochees or iambics, which, with a voice still sweeter than his lyrics,
he read to his comrades. At times, he was too antique in his fancies,
and essayed to imitate the poet of Teos, even in his shameful amours.
He sang a youth, named Audebert, whose beauty he eulogised in verses,
which formerly Rome would have applauded, but which, in France,
should have been consigned to the flames. In his later years, many a
bitter regret was caused by these libertine pages, which Beza, the minis-
ter, would willingly have torn from his book of epigrams ! But the
* Florimond de Remond. p. 882.
tGalliae probrum, simoniacus , sodomita, omnibus vitiis coopertus.
4: He led a dissolute life at Paris, and, in one of the suburbs of that city,
was subjected to a course of medicine. Bolsec. Histoire de laviede Theodore
de MezQ, Paris, in 12mo. 1582,
4
38 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIS,
scandal was without remedy, as the pages had been made impeTishable;r
by Robert Etienne, who had lent the aid of his presses. We must
quote Catullus, as witness of Beza's virtue, in default of cbsistian poets,
ancient or modern, whom we should in vain exhume to certify the in-
nocence of his verses to Candida and Audebert.*
In our history of Luther, we have exhibited the Saxon monk amus-
ing himself at the tavern of the Black-Eagle, in Wittenberg, and with
his lips steeped in the beer of Thorgau, treating of woman more like
an anatomist than an apostle of the gospel : but in his Table-talk, there
is no Corydon chanting his Alexis. We had a right, at least to expect^
from Beza a little more modesty, and that he would not put himself
forward, as he has done, to tell us of the sad state of morals at Orleans
and Bourges, previously to Calvin's arrival. It was not becoming,,
?n this poet of equivocal amours, to affirm, that the spark of faith at that
time was only kept alive in two or three hearts ;t — in those of Daniel^
* THEODORUS BEZA, DE SUA IN CANDIDAM ET AUDEBERTU2VI BENEVOLENTIA-
Abest Candida; Beza, quid morarisi
Audebertus abest: quid hie moraris'?
Tenent Parisii tuos amores,
llabent Aurelii tuos lepores;
Et tu Vezeliis manere pergis,
Procul Candidulaque, amoribusque,
Et leporibus, Audebertuloque?
Immo Vezelii procul valete;
Et vale, pater, et valete, fratres!
Namque Vezeliis carcre possum,
Et carere parente, et his, et illis :
At non Candidula, Audebertuloque.
Sed utrum rogo praeferam duorum'?
Utrum invisere mo decet priorem ?
An queniquam tibi, Candida, anteponani ?
An queuiquam antefcram tibi, Audebertel
(4,uid si me in geminas ipse partes,
Haruni ut altera Candidam revisat,
Currat altera versus Audebertum?
At est Candida sic avara, novi,
Ut totum cupiat tenere Bezam.
Sic Bezae est cupidus sui Audebertus,
Beza ut gestiat integro potiri.
Amplector quoque sic et hunc, et illani,
Ut totus cupiam vidcre utrumque;
Integrisque frui integer duobus.
Praet'erre attamen alterum necesse est;
O duram nimium necessitateml
Sed postquam tamen alterum necesse est
Priores tibi defero, Audeberte.
Quod si Candida forte conqueratur
Quid turn? basiolo tacebit uno,
tHist. Eccl. lib. 1. p. 9, and the following.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 39
(the lawyer, and of Nicholas Duchemin : — that then hope in Christ, our
Kedeemer, was extinct ; that the- merits of his blood were no longer in-
voked by sinners ; calumnies spread upon their path, by Luther, when
he appeared at Wittenberg ; by (Ecolampadius, on his entry into Bale;
by Zwingle, om his mountains of Schwytz ; and by Bucer, at Stras-
bourg.* This accusation must fill us with astonishment, issuing from
the lips of a young student, who must sometimes have entered the cathe-
dral of Bourges, were it only to listen to those magnificent hymns of
our venerable old church, in which they sang that "a drop of the divine
blood was suffici-ent to save the world." Where then did Beza pass
his time ? What ! did this poetic spirit, in visiting Strasbourg, never
cast his eye upon the portal of Munster, on which the architect Ervin
de Steinbach, has sculptured this beautiful alegory ? — On the right, a
female (the church) holding in one hand a chalice full of hosts; in the
other, a cross ; while above her head, in the form of a crown of glory,
is this motto :
Mit Christi Blut uberwind' icli Dich.
The blood of Jesus Christ makes me triumph over thee.
On the left, a female with her eyes closed, (the synagogue,) one hand
grasping a broken arrow, and the other resting on the shattered tables
of Moses, and her head surmounted by these words :
Dasselbig Blut verblindet mich.
This blood blinds me.
And was he never inside the temple ? For he would have beheld upon
the door of the tabernacle, priests vested in surplices, kneeling before
the blessed Sacrament, and murmuring : 0 Jesic qui passus es pro
nolis niiseri», misero pecatori miserere. Oh Jesus, who suffered for ixs
miserable, have mercy on a loretched sinner. "f
A comparison has been instituted between Beza and Melancthon,
two natures entirely different. In Beza it was matter poetically
organized : his musical ear would have been tortured by a limping
verse, a doubtful epithet, or a word which did not savour of antiquity ;
his brain opened, on the least excitement, to pour forth metrical trea-
sures of every sort, but his soul had little share in this mechanical la-
bour. Thus, when the reformers carried their devastation into the abbey
of Cluny, you beheld him moved, and that but feebly, at the sight of
mutilated statues, of arabesques shivered by some soldier's lance, and
of all the wonders of art effaced by fanaticism, in its ruinous march.
But on seeing the priests, who had erected those monuments, blessed
them and consecrated them to the Lord, driven forth without a shelter
and without bread, he will remain cold as marble. Melancthon is not
thus constituted. With him, it is the soul that lives and feels. Hence,
when Luther, at Cobourg, shall essay ^to break to pieces the clerical
*Christum a nobis primum vulgatum audemus gloriari. John Pappus, in der
Wid£xlegung des Zweybrttckisch-Berichts, p. 427.
t Osias Schadaus, Beschreibung des Mtlnsters, 56, 57.
40 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
hierarchy, then observe the countenance of Melancthon, and you will
surprise the tears stealing from his eyelids. He weeps over the ruins of
the episcopacy, but from human respect, and a too carnal affection for
his father, he conceals his tears. Should he, like Beza, ever visit Stras-
bourg, be assured he will listen to the concert which the very stones of
its cathedral will sing for him, and not insult the faith of the bishops
sleeping in the vaults of the church. He will not, like Beza, the
scholar of Vezclay, damn the prelates. The reason is, because his
mother, like that of Beza and of Calvin, is a Catholic, and he cannot
comprehend that God has not had mercy on the woman, who nourished
him with her milk. Calvin, in his puritanism, sent to the flames of
hell, all who did not walk in the light of the reformation. You are
mistaken, if you imagine that God placed Beza near Calvin, in order
to moderate his ferocious zeal. Beza has indeed his lyre, but he will
not use it : and, besides, would Calvin, who compares himself to a
prophet,* listen to its soothing tones ? Music or poetry can never ex-
ercise sway upon a soul as cold as his.f
Thus, the friendship which, on the benches of the school of Bourges,
brings them together, will be one entirely worldly in its character, with-
out a single holy ingredient. Both, workmen of evil, will labour for
the ruin of the papacy, or, to borroAV their language, of the papolatry,
without commiseration for the white heads of the priests, whom they
will rob of their daily bread, and of their ancient charge of souls. If
they enter the temple of St. Peter, at Geneva, and stumble over some
statue of a saint, reversed by popular fury . . . , neither of them
will stoop to gather up the fragments, because, in their opinion, this
image will recall the memory of a religion which they desire to abolish.
If a pyre be raised on Champel, and a man be seen ascending it, chant-
ing hymns to God, be assured that Calvin will not even, wink in con-
templating the scene ; and should a tear come to moisten the eye of
Beza, he will know how, with the hem of his ministerial robe, to wipe
it away so completely, that his master shall not detect the slightest trace
of its presence. Perhaps, in the case of Beza at least, you will ex-
plain this entire want of human sensibility, by the creed which Calvin
has taught him : they both believed in predestination. Luther under-
stood this degrading system, which, delivering man over to despair,
would make him doubt of God ; he expressed his opinion of it to Me-
lancthon, and cursed him who first introduced it into the world. Sin-
gular destiny ! the reformation dries up the noblest sentiments of the
soul ; in the serf-will of Luther, it degrades it to a level with the brute;
in the work of the illumined Carlstadt, it deprives ii of those places of
expiation, beyond the present life, where it can still, by its tears and
sufferings, make satisfaction to divine justice ; and in Calvin's Institutes,
it nails it to fatalism, like a criminal upon his gibbet. Behold, then,
the three grand truths which the reformation comes to present to man :
the servitude of the interior self, the inutility of prayer, and the mark
of damnation upon the forehead of the new-born babe.
^Preface to the Psalms. tSee the chapter entitled : Theodore Beza,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 41
It seems that Calvin had elevated his ideas about predestination into
a system, and was frightened at his own doctrines : for, at this period,
we behold him agitated by remorses, which disturb the tranquility of his
soul. Fear is apparent in his letters.* He writes to one of his friends,
Francis Daniel : "I behold around me no secure asylum, although my
friends offer me one on every side. De Coiffart, the elder, has his
house ready to receive me." It is in virtue of the mission of his bishop,
that he preaches his desolating dogmas to his Catholic flock. Though
he has renounced the '-'papism," he still discharges the ofRce of a
*"'papist." ''Yes," he relates, "I was then at all times very far from an
assured tranquility of conscience. For, Avhenever, and as often as I
descended into myself, or lifted my heart to thee (God!) such ex-
treme horror seized me, that no purifications, no satisfactions, could, in
any manner, cure me. Ah ! the more closely I looked into myself,
the sharper stings pierced my conscience, in such sort, that no solace or
comfort remained for me, except to forget, and thus to deceive my-
self."!
Afterwards, on a sudden, this interior struggle ceased : the ''solace
and comfort" came, and usurped dominion over his soul : and the reason
was, that he no longer belonged to Catholicism. "God," if we shall
credit his own assertion, "by a sudden conversion, subdued his heart,
and made it docile; for, age considered, it had hitherto been somew^hat
too hardened in such things. "J Calvin has neglected to inform us
what stroke of Providence this was, which rescued him so suddenly
from the darkness of "papism."' Nor is there any explanation how it
happened, that God, who illumined him, did not impel him to send to
his bishop his clerical letters, renounce his benefices, and cease to live
on bread prepared by heretical hands; for he still continues to eat, and
live upon, the bread of Pont-1-Eveque. Had it not been for this bread
of episcopal charity, he would not now be at Paris, or preaching his
doctrines in the neighbouring villages ; but for this bread, he might,
perhaps, be labouring at the trade of his uncle, the locksmith ; or at
Noyon, engaged in continuing the occupation of his father. For his
mother is no more ; and, for support, he is dependent upon the liberali-
ty of the Mommors, who would, no doubt, Avithhold their contributions
did they know the use that he makes of their bounty; or upon the
revenues of his modest benefice, w^hich his bishop might still let him
enjoy, as an alms, to save him from despair and starvation, even though
aware of the new path which he is treading. His panegyrists are quite
proud because they can say to us : Observe now^ ! Calvin never re-
ceived orders, he never belonged to the Catholic priesthood, and did not
imitate the conduct of Luther. We answer them . that Luther, in
*Quoties enim vel in me descendebam, vel animum ad te attollebam, extre-
mus horror me incessebat, cui nulla piacula, nulles satisfactiones mederi pos-
sent. praef. ad. Psalm.
tOpusfr. p. 194. Geneva. 1611.
\ Deus tamen arcano Providentiae suae freno cursum meum alio tandem re-
flexit: ac primo, cum superstitionibus Papatus magis pertinaciter addictus
essem quam ut facile esset e tarn profundo luto me extrahi, animum meuna*
subita conversione, ad docilitatem subegit, Preef. ad Psalm.
4*
42 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
affixing his theses publicly on the front of the church of Wittenberg,
displayed a courage, of which the student of Noyon was destitute.
Galvin hides himself; he denies his faith, but he does so in silence, and
wrapped up in secresy and darkness. He imitates those electors of
Saxony, who, while declaiming against monkish intemperance, become
intoxicated out of the goblets which they had stolen from the convents.
If it be by a stroke from heaven, that he has been smitten while on the
route to Damascus, let him then cease to think of the morrow : God will
provide for him. When, about this time, Ignatius of Loyola knocks
at a convent gate, demanding a mission to preach to the infidel, he does
not say : Give me bread; but he asks for the staff of a pilgrim, and
sets forth upon his journey, supported on his way by the God who feeds
the birds of heaven. We connot comprehend this distrust of Provi-
dence in a man who, like Calvin, calls himself another David, "seen,
as it were, in a mirror,"* and who, upon his epistles, impresses a beau-
tiful seal, representing the hand of a youth, offering to God his heart,
around which are the letters J. C. f It was a want of confidence in
God; — a timid nature ; a soft, pusillanimous spirit,:]: (and it is Calvin
that gives this testimony of himself,) who is driven on by circumstances^
but who never could have been able to command circumstances.
Calvin had left the University of Bourges, in the year 1532, and re-
turned to Paris, for the purpose of advancing the cause of the reforma-
tion; searching for souls like his own, easily seduced, amorous of
change, whom he soon intoxicated with that wine of novelties, so sweet
to the taste, but so fatal to the brain. These allowed themselves, one by
one, to be taken in his net, seduced by his siren voice, the spell of which
could lull those, whose reason it did not disturb. To youth, he preach-
ed contempt of confession, the inutility of works, the danger of pilgrim-
ages. He poured out his ridicule upon monks, convents, and Catholic
priests. He declaimed against the luxury of' bishops, the wealth of
churches, and the ignorance of the priesthood. He preached against
the pomp and state of the successors of Leo X., the lavishment of in-
dulgences, and the revenue paid to the papacy by the court of France.
He announced a word, destined, as he boasted, to change the world,
moralize society, destroy superstition, and diffuse light. H© pointed to
a new star, which first appeared at Wittenberg, and was then gleaming
in the horizon of France. They listened to him, and his success was
fir greater than he could have anticipated. He wrote : "I was quite
astonished, that, in less than a year, all those who manifested a desire
for pure doctrine, thronged around me to learn, although I had myself
but just commenced. For my part, inasmuch as I am naturally a little
unpolished and bashful, I have always loved repose and tranquility, and
I began to seek for some lurking-place, and pretence to withdraw from
men ; but so far from attaining the object of my desire, on the contrary,
*Preface to the Ps;\lms.
t See pag'^ 24th de rAvertissemcnt des lettres a Bourgogne, with regard to
Calvin's seal.
^ Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo me esse fateor. Praef. ad.
Psalm.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 43
every retreat and private place became for me like a public school. In
short, however much it has been my wish to live retired and unknown^
God has so made me travel, and subjected me to such different changes,
that he has never allowed me repose any where ; but in spite of my
natural disposition,, he has, as it is termed, brought me to light,, and
made me take a prominent part."*
Calvin formed acq.uaintance at Paris, with a merchant^ named Etienne
de la Forge,t an ardent Lutheran, whose shop served, every evening,
as a rendezvous for his sect, and where John commonly preached.
His discourses, replete with outbursts against Catholicism, were always
terminated by the same formula : If God is with us, who shall be against
us ? By Luther it was said : If our work be from men, it will fail ;.
if from God, it cannot perish. It is the same thought, expressed in
different terms, and its truth has been disputed by Adolphus Menzel ;
as if, he says, in his preface to his history of the reformation in Ger-
many, fact, in its extreme power, can ever constitute right !
What had occurred in Germany,, now was witnessed in France : from
these nocturnal and clandestine predications, there issued forth — a host
of neophytes, quite inflamed with a fire which they called divine ; im-
promptu prophets, who imagined themselves called to regenerate the
work of fifteen centuries ; doctors without learning or study, who pre-
tended to convict our sacred interpreters of falsehood ; Levites without
soutans, transformed into apostles by the breath of Calvin ; Sorbon-
nists v.^ithout diplomas, who asked to- dispute with master and maid-ser-
vant. Artizans in the morning, disciples at noon, and preachers in the
evening, they were like the buffoon described by Walter Scott : with
an archer's head, the waist of a major-domo, and the feet of a runner.
These new men were then called Lutherans, for the name Huguenot had
not yet been discovered. These Lutherans existed in many of the cities
of France, and especially at Meaux, where they excited great disturb'
ance : the civil authority w^as more than once compelled to repress
their fanatical zeal and insolent language. Before the magistrates, they
were proud and bold ; in prison, radiant with serenity : they thought
them.selves called by God, and inspired Avith his word. At Paris, Cal-
vin had founded a little church, where he preached at night, with closed
doors, and attacked tradition, in its Catholic organs, faith, in its myste-
ries, the magistracy, in its representatives, the church, in the papacy,
and society, in its religious forms ; thus, at once, revolting against the
constitution of tlie country, its creed, and its laws. Pasquier presents
him to us, "in the midst of his books and study, with a nature exerting
its ,gi'eatest energies for the progress of his sect. We sometimes beheld,
says he, our prisons crowded with poor, abused people, whom, without
ceasing, he exhorted, consoled, encouraged by his letters ; nor did he
* Pra?f. ad Psal. Ego qui natura subrust'oas umbram etotium amavi, tunc
latebras captare coepi, quee adeo concessae non sunt, ut mihi secessus omnes
instar publicee scholce essent.
t Etienne de la Forge, deceased, whose memory (according to Calvin,),
should be hallowed among tke faithful, as a holy martyr o£ Christ,
€ontre les Libertins. cb. 4.
44 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIBf,
want messengers, to whom, in spite of all the precautions taken by the
gaolers, the prison doors were opened. It was by this process, in the
commencement, that he succeeded to secure by degrees a portion of our
France, in such sort, that after considerable time, beholding the hearts
of many predisposed for his designs, be resolved on a further step, and
sent to us ministers, — by us termed preachers, — to exercise his religion
privately, especially in our city of Paris, where fires were enkindled
against them."*
At first, the civil power had recourse to menaces : but menaces
proved useless ; it employed the prison : but the prison convert-
ed nobody. The Lutherans, in their pamphlets, circulated by night,
devoted the magistrates to the indignation of the populace, their judges
to the execration of posterity, the prince to the anger of the Lord, and
papists to eternal flames. Were they banished, they soon again re-
entered to France, with a zeal for proselytism increased by all the suf-
ferings they had endured in exile. Was a passage read to them from
the Bible, in which the apostle recommends obedience to the powers of
earth? they pointed to their father in Christ, at the Diet of Worms,
hurling his defiance in the teeth of the emperor and orders, and choos-
ing rather to obey God than men. In their eyes, Luther was a new
Paul, whose word would rescue the earth from the darkness of super-
stition. Were they told that Luther had been condemned by the Holy
See, they responded, by quoting some Latin verses which had found
their way across the Rhine ; If Luther be guilty of heresy, Christ
himself must be brought to judgment. f The magistrates, for the most
part, were ignorant of the circumstances which had transpired in the
country, which heresy had ravaged, else they could have, at that very
hour, pointed to poor Carlstadt flying from the wrath of Luther, and
forced to abandon Saxony, and beg his bread, because he had credited
the monk's word, and essayed to introduce a new doctrine into the re-
formed world.
Violence was resorted to : pyres were erected, and various fanatics
perished, whose death was transformed into a martyrdom ! Credulous
souls, and meriting commiseration rather than anger, who expected to
gain heaven by apostacy, and died joyously for the glory of a word
which they did not comprehend, and for which not one of Calvin's suc-
cessors would at this day shed so much as a drop of ink ! for the Christ
made after the image of Calvin, no longer resembles the Christ of cer-
tain ministers of Geneva in our day. The Christ of John of Noyon
possessed a double nature ; he was God and man ; and the Christ of the
reformer's successors is no more than a son of Adam, formed out of the
slime of the earth, and only a little greater than Mahomet or Alexander^
* Pasquicr, Rechcrches sur la France, liv. 8. p. 769.
t Hosrosibus si dignus erit Luthcrus in ullis,
Et Christus dignus criminis hujus erit.
Sagtman, dasz Lutherus sey schuldig einiger Ketzereven;
Ey so musz dann Christus selbst dieses La&ters schuldig seyn.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TREATISE ON CLEMENCY. 1532.
Examination of the work. — Trouble and torments of the author. — Various
letters. — Calvin sells his benefice, and his part of the family inheritance.
When the sword of the law fell upon one of his followers, the voice
of Luther was magnificent; it exclaimed, in the ears of emperors,
kings, and dukes : You have shed the blood of the just. And then the
Saxon, in honor of the martyr, extemporized a hymn w^hich was chanted
in the very face of the civil power :
"In the low countries at Brussels,
The Lord his greatness hath displayed,
In the death of two of his loved children,
On whom grand gifts he had bestowed."*
Calvin had not the courage to imitate Luther. He has told us that
he wanted courage ; he again repeats it : he says — that he, a plebian,
trifling as a man, and having but little learning, has nothing in him
which could deserve celebrity. f And yet he essayed a timid protest in
favour of certain Huguenots who had been burned on the public square :
'*The work," says Papire Masson, "of a double-faced writer, a Catho-
lic in his writings, and a Lutheran in his bed-chamber. "J
Tliis is his first book. It is entitled : De dementia, or, Treatise on
Clemency, and is a paraphrase of some Latin writer of the decline. §
Moreover, this is the first time that a commentator is ignorant of the
life of him whose twork he publishes. Calvin has confounded the two
Senecas, the father and the son, the rhetorician and the philosopher, of
*Zu BrUssel in dem Niederland
Wohl durch zween junge Knaben
HatGott sein Wunder macht bekannt.
Die er mit seinen Gaben
So reichlich hat gezieret.
tUnus de plebe homuncio, mediocri, seu potius modica eruditione prceJitus,
nihil in me habebam, quod spem aliquam celebritatis excitare possit.
:};Ediderat Calvinus Commentarios illos de Clementia, aliud agens, aliud
simulans.
^Lutetia transiens quum annum ageret vigesimum quartum, egregium ilium
commentarium scripsit in Senecse libellum de Clementia: quo scriptore gra-
vissimo, et ipsius Calvini moribus plane conveniente valde delectatum fuisse
constat. Beza, vita Calvini, at the head of the reformer's epistles. Geneva,
1576, in folio, p. 3.
46
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
both of whom he makes but one literary personage, living the ver)''
patriarchal life of more than one hundred and fifteen years.
We must pardon Varillas,* for having, with sufficient acrimony,,
brought into relief this mistake of the biographer of Seneca, the phi-
losopher, and not, like the historians of the reformation, become vexed
at the proud tone of the French historian. Had the fault been com-
mitted by a Catholic, where is the Protestant who would not have done
the same thing as Varillas ?
The literary work, which Calvin, in the shape of a commen-
tary, has interwoven with the treatise of Seneca, is a production
not unworthy a literato of the revival ; it is an amplification,
which one would suppose to have been written in the cell of a
Benedictine monk, so numerous are the citations, so great is the display
of erudition, so replete is it with the names, Greek and Latin, of poets,
historians, moralists, rhetoricians, philosophers, and philologists. Cal-
vin is a coquetish student, who loves to parade his reading^and his
memory. His workf is a gallery, open to all the ancient and modern
glories of literature, whom the commentator calls to his aid, often for
the elucidation of a doubtful passage. The young rhetorician glorifies
his country, and when upon his march he encounters some historic
name, by which his idea can be illustrated, he hastens to proclaim it^
with all its titles to admiration. He there salutes Bude in magnificent
terms : "Bude, the pillar and glory of human learning, thanks to
whom, at this day, France can claim the palm of erudition. "J The^
portrait which he draws of Seneca is the production of a practiced pen:
"Seneca, whose pure and polished phrase savours, in some sort, of his
age ; his diction florid and elegant ; his style, without labour or re-
straint, moves on, free and unembarrassed. "§ It may be seen that the
student had the honour to study under Mathurin Cordier, and to attend
the lectures of Alciati ; but, after all, his book is but a defective allego-
ry ; for what reader could have divined that the writer designed to repre-
sent Francis 1., under the name of Nero, as addressed by the Cordovan?
The treatise could produce no sensation, and, like the work of Seneca,
must be shipwrecked in that sea of the passions, which, at the two
epochs, raged around both writers. ||
Calvin experienced much trouble in having his Latin commentary
printed : he was in need of funds, and the revenues of his benefice of
Pont-1-Eveque, were insufficient to defray the expense of printing.
*Varrillas, Histoire de I'Heresie, etc. liv. x. Bayle, Art. Calvin.
t Joannis Calvini in L. Annaei Senecae, Romani senatoris ac philosophi cla-
rissiini, libros duos de dementia ad Ncronem Caesareni, commentarii, Genevse,
ex typographia Jacobi Steer, 1611.
The first edition published at Paris bears the title: L. Annei Senecae, Ro»
mani senatoris, ac philosophi clarissimi, libri duo de Clementia ad Neronem
Ceesareni: Joannis Calvini Novioduneei commentariis illustrati. Parisiis apud
Ludovicum Cyaneum sub duobus gallis, in via Jacobsea, 1532. in 4to.
:j:Rei literariae decusac columen, cujus beneficio palmam eruditionis hodie
sibi vindicat nostra Gallia.
i Sermo purus ac nitidus, suum scilicet saeculum redolens; genus dicendi
clegans ac floridum, stylus illaboratus ac sine anxietate fluens.
II Und wurden in diesem tobenden Meere von Leidenshaften tiberhSrt und
nicht beachtet. Paul Henry, p. 55.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 4^
How could he apply to the Mommor family ? Moreover, he was in
dread that his book should prove a failure, and thereby injure his bud-
-ding reputation. All these alarms of a maiden author are set forth in
various letters, which he addressed on this subject to the dear friends of
.his bosom.
*' Behold my books of Seneca, concerning Clemency, printed at my
own expense and labour !* They must now be sold, in order that I
may again obtain the money which I have expended. I must also
watch that my reputation does not suffer. You will oblige me, then,
by informing me how the work has been received, whether with favour
or indifference ?" The whole anxiety of the poor author is to lose no-
thing by the enterprise ; his purse is empty ; it needs replenishing : and
he urges the professors to give circulation to the treatise ; he solicits one
of his friends at Bourges, a member of the University, to bring it for-
ward in his lectures ; and appeals to the aid of Daniel, to whom he
sent a hundred copies. f Papire Masson was mistaken : the com-
mentary on Clemency did not first appear, as he supposes, under the
title o( Lucius Calvinus, civrs Romanus,X but under that of Calvinus,
a name ever after retained by the reformer. §
This treatise introduced Calvin to the notice of the learned world :
Bucer, Capito, (Ecolampadius, sent congratulations to the writer ; Cal-
vin, in September 15.32, had sent a copy of his work to Bucer, who
was then at Strasbourg. The person commissioned to present it, was a
poor young man, suspected of Anabaptism, and a refugee from France.
Calvin's letter of recommendation is replete with tender compassion
for the miseries of the sinner. '^My dear Bucer," he writes, "you will
not be deaf to my entreaties, you will not disregard my tears ; I implore
you, come to the aid of the proscribed, be a father to the orphan.." ||
This was sending the sick man to a sad physician : Bucer, by turns,
Catholic, Lutheran, Anabaptist, Zwinglian ! Besides, why this prose-
lytism of a moral cure ? The exile was Anabaptist by the same title
that Calvin was predestinarian, in virtue of a text of scripture : "Go,
whoever shall believe and be baptised, will be saved." The Anabap-
tist believed in the ineflicacy of baptism, without faith manifested by
an external act ; but is not Calvin, at this very hour, as much to be
pitied as the Anabaptist ? He also doubted, searched, and interrogated
his bible, and imagined that he had caught the meaning of a letter,
*LibriSenec8e de dementia tandem excusi sunt meis sumptibus et mea
opera; nunc curandum ut undique colligatur pecunia quee in sumtus impensa
est; deinde ut salva sit mea existimatio, primum velim mihi ut rescribas quo
favore vel frigore excepti fuerint. Mss. Arch. Eccl. Bernensis. — The first
book of this treatise on Clemency contains twenty-six chapters, the second,
seven.
t Tandem jacta est alea. Exierunt commentarii mei in libros Senecae de
dementia, sed meis sumptibus, qui plus pecuniae exhauserunt quam tibi per-
suaderi possit, etc. Mss. Arch. Eccl. Bern.
XCalvin, a Roman citizen., Papirius Masso, Vita Cavini. p. 412, t. lb
elogiorum.
jMaimbourg. Histoire du Calvinisme, p. 57.
II Paul Henry, p. 55. t. 1.
/
48 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
which no intelligence before him had been able to seize. And what
was this truth, the conquest of which infused such fear into his soul^
that, before he could announce it to the Avorld, he sold his charge of
Pont-1-Eveque, and even his paternal inheritance ?
In the year 1531, John Calvin presented himself before Simon Le-
gendre and Peter Le Roy, royal notaries at Paris, to invest his brothers
with powers of attorney, to sell what had been left him by his father
and mother.
" To all to whom these present letters shall come ; John de la Barre,
Chevalier Count d'Estampes, Governor of Paris, and Chief of the ju-
dicial tribunal of said city, greeting ; We make known that before
Simon Legendre, and Peter Le Roy, notaries of our Lord the King, at
Paris, came in person, master John Cauvin, licentiate at law, and An-
thony Cauvin, his brother, clerk, living at Paris, and sons of Gerard
Cauvin, — while yet alive, secretary of M. the Bishop of Noyon, — and of
Jeanne le Franc, his wife ; who jointly and severally, make, name,
ordain, appoint and establish as their general agent and special attor-
ney, master Charles Cauvin, their brother, to whom bearing these pre-
sent letters they grant, and, by these presents, do give full power and
right to sell, concede and alienate, to whatever person or persons, the
two undivided thirds belonging to the aforesaid constituents, coming to
them in proper right of succession by the demise of the aforesaid de-
ceased Jeanne le Franc, their mother, also the fourth undivided part of a
piece of meadow, containing fourteen acres, or thereabouts, sit-
uated in the territory of Noyon, and pertaining on one part to the
wood of Chastelain ; on another to the nuns and abbess of the French
Convent, the Abbey aux Bois; on another, to the monks and sisters of
the Hotel-Dieu of St. John, at Noyon, and to the chapter of the church
of Notre Dame, of the said city, and running up to the highway passing
from Noyon to Genury; to make sale and alienation of the same, for
such price, and at such costs, as the aforesaid master Charles Cauvin,
their brother, shall judge for the better ; to collect the money and give se-
curity, with lean upon all their future possessions. Done, and passed, on
Wednesday, the fifteenth day of February, in the year 1531."
Some short time after this, Calvin resigned his charge of the chapel
de la Gesiue to Anthony de la Marliere, mediante pretio converdionis,
for the sum agreed on, says the act of transfer, and also to Ca'im his
benefice of Pont-1-Eveque, for a similar consideration.*
* All the above details are grounded on the information of the late M.
Antoine de Mesle, Doctor of Law, Treasurer and Canon of the church of
Noyon, ordinary judge of the Episcopal court of the place; and further, on tlie
testimony of Papire Masson: Duo ilia beneficia vendidit, Antonio Marliero
unum, alterum Guilielmo Bosio presbytero Noviomensis ecclesiae. Papirius
Masson has taken Bosius (du Bois) for Caim. — le Vasseur.
CHAPTER V.
€ALVIN AT THE COURT OF MARGARET. THE PSYCHOPANNYCHIA
1534-1535.
Cop and Calvin fly from Paris. — The Court of Nerac. — Calvin at Claix. — Du
Tillet, — Calvin at Orleans. — The Reformation in France. — Servetus — Exile,
of Calvin. — Strasbourg. — Bale. — The Psychopannychia. — Examination of
the work. — Judgment of Calvin.
The storm was gathering : Calvin wished to expose to its fury
some other head than his own, and chose that of Nicholas Cop, rector
of the Sorbonne, at Paris. Cop was a German of Bale, who was
captivated with the student, because of his ready speech, his airs of vir-
tue, his scriptural knowledge, his raileries against the monks, and his
ridicule of the University. As to the rest, he was a man of a dull,
heavy mind, understood nothing of theological subjects, and would have
been much better placed in a refectory, than in a learned body ; at
table, than in the professor's chair. Cop had to pronounce his usual
discourse on All-Saints' day, in presence of the Sorbonne and the Uni
versity. He had recourse to Calvin, who set to work, and "built him
up a discourse," says Beza, — ^'an oration quite different from those which
were customary."* The Sorbonne and tjniversity did not assist at the
discourse, but only some Franciscans, who appeared to be scandalized
at certain propositions of the orator, and among others, at one concern-
ing justification by faith alone in Christ : — an old error, which, for many
ages, has been trailed along in all the writings of heretics ; often dead
and resuscitated — and which Calvin, in Cop's discourse, dressed out in
tinsel, in order to give it some appearance of novelty. Bat our Fran-
ciscans had sight and hearing equally good ; they detected the heresy
easily, and denounced to the parliament the evil sounding propositions,
which they had taken pains to note down in writing. Cop was greatly
embarrassed by his new glory ; he had not expected so much fame.
He, however, held up well, and convoked the University at the Mathu-
rins. The University assembled in a body in order to judge the cause.
The rector there commenced a discourse, drawn up by Calvin, in
which he formally denied having preached the propositions denounced,
with the exception of one only, precisely the worst, that concerning
justification. Imagine the tumult which the orator excited ! Scarce-
ly could he make himself heard, and ask mercy. The old Sorbonnists
* Beza. Hist. Eccl. t. 1. p. 14.
60 l.iri OF JOHN CALYIN.
shuddered on their benches. The unfortunate Cop would have been
seized, had he not made his escape to return no more.*
The student kept himself concealed at the college du Fortet, which
was already surrounded by a body of archers, headed by John Morin.
Calvin was warned of their approach. "He escaped through a window,
concealed himself in the suburb St, Victor, at the house of a vine-
dresser, changed his clothes, assumed the long gown of the vine-
dresser, and placing a wallet of white linen and a rake on his shoulders,
he took the road to Noyon."t "A canon of that city, who was on his
way to Paris, met the cure of Pont-1-Eveque, and recognized him. —
"Where are you going, master John," he demanded, "in this fine dis-
gui.se ?" "Where God shall please," answered Calvin, who then began
10 explain the motive and reasons of his disguise, "And would you
not do belter to return to Noyon, and to God ?" asked the canon, look-
ing at him sadly. Calvin was a moment silent ; then taking the priest's
hand : — "Thank you," said he, "but it is too late."
J3uring this colloquy, the lieutenant was searching Calvin's papers,
and secured those which might have compromised the friends of the
fugitive.
Calvin found a refuge with the queen of Navarre, who was fortunate
enough to reconcile her protegee with the court and the University. The
person, whom she employed to effect this, was an adroit man, who had
succeeded in deceiving the government. Francis I. based his glory
upon the patronage and encouragement which he accorded to learning,
and Calvin, as a man of letters, merited consideration. The King
needed some forgiveness for serious political faults, and, with reason, he
believed that the humanists would redeem his character before the peo-
ple. He was at once the protector and the slave of the literati.
At that period, the little court of Nerac was the asylum of writers,
who, like Desperriers, there prepared their Cymhalvm Mundi ; of
gallant ladies, who composed love-tales, of which they were often the
heroines themselves; of poets, Avho extemporized odes after Beza's
model ; of clerics, and other gentry of the church, who entertained
packs of hunting dogs, and courtezans ; of Italian play-actors, who, in
the queen's theatre, presented comedies taken from the New Testament,
in which Jesus was made to utter horrible things against monks and
nuns ; or of princes, who, like the queen's husband, scarcely knew
how to read, and yet discoursed, like doctors, about doctrine and dis-
cipline.J
It was against Roussel, (he confessor of Margaret, that Calvin, at a
later date, com.poscd his "Admrsiis JSkodcirrUas." At Nerac, he found
* Revcra Copus si:spcctse ca-pit esse fidci, ct quia pater ejus iGuiliolmus, regis
mcdicus, pp.ruui .sfinc snpcrc crcdcbatur, ct quia .cuin hfEVcticis fumiliariter
convcrsari compc rtusost. Undo post(juam rcticitum est cum fiigissc, Jolianiics
Morinus balivus Calvinum qui tunc in collcgio Fort(^tico moraI)ctur, nli(^sque
ejus fajniliarcs inquisivit ad prchf ndcudum, scd illi similiter liiga sibi codpu-
luerunt. Hist. Univ. Paiisicn. nuctoro Bulaeo t. vi. p. 239. in lol. Paris. 1673.
t Dcsmay. — Drelincourt, p. 157. Papiiius Mcsso. B(za . . . . quo do mi
non roporto. cited by Paul Henry, p. 56. t. I.
± Florimond de Rerr.ond, p. 889.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 51
ie Fevre d'Etaples, who had fled from the wrath of the Sorbonne, and
w-ho '"regarded the young man with a benignant eye, predicting that he
was to become the author of the restoration o[ the church in France."*
Le Fevre recalls to our mind that priest, about whom Mathesius tells
us, who said to Luther, when sick, — My child, you will not die ; God
has great designs in your regard. f As to the rest, James le Fevre d'-
Etaples was a sufficiently charitable and honest man, who often repeat-
ed these two verses, which have been engraved on his tomb, at Nerac ;
Corpus humo, mentemque Deo, bona cuncta relinquo,
Pauperibus: Faber heec dum moreretur ait.
He died a Catholic, and very probably without ever having prophesied
in the terms mentioned by Beza.
It does not appear that Margaret enjoined the law of silence upon
her guest of Noyon, for we find him disseminating his errors in Sain-
tonge, where many labourers flocked to hear him, and abandoned Ca-
tholicism to embrace the reformation. It was while on one of his
excursions, that the missionary encountered Louis du Tillet, clerk of
the parliament of Paris, and secretary of du Tillet, bishop of Meaux.
Louis possessed a beautiful dwelling, at Claix, a sort of Thebais, retired
and pleasant, where Calvin commenced his most serious work, The
Christian Institutes. J The time he could spare from this literary
occupation, he devoted to preaching in the neighbouring cities, and
especially at Angouleme. A vine, beneath which he loved to recline
and muse, may still be seen ; it was for a long time called CaMn's
vine.§ He was still living on the last bounties of a church which he
had renounced, and which he called, '-'a step-mother, and a prostitute;"
and on the presents of a queen gallant, whose morals and piety he
lauded, continuing to assist at the Catholic service, and composing
Latin orations, which were delivered out of the assembly of the synod,
at the temple of St. Peter. j|
He left the court of Margaret, and reappeared at Orleans.
The reformation in France, as in Germany, wherever it showed itself,
produced on all sides, disorder and trouble. In place of a uniform
symbol, it brought contradictory confessions, which gave rise to inter-
minable disputes. In Germany, the Lutheran word caused a thousand
sects to spring up, each of which wished to establish a christian repub-
lic en the ruins of Catholicism. Carlstadt, Schwenkfield, (Ecolampa-
dius, Zwingle, Munzer, Bockold, begotten by Luther, had denied their
father, and taught heterogeneous dogmas, of which every one passed for
the production of the Holy Ghost. Luther, who no longer concealed
himself beneath a monk's robe, but borrowed the ducal sword, drove
*Beza, Vie de Calvin,
t Als er krank lag, weissagte ihm ein alter Priester, er werde nicht sterben,
sondern noeh ein groszer Mannwerden. Mathesius, p. 2.
X Bayle's Dictionary, article, Calvin.
\ Das Leben Johann Calvin's von P. Henry, t. 1. p. 50.
I Florimond de Eeraond.
52 I-IFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
before him all these rebel angels, and, at the gate of Wittenberg, sta-
tioned an executioner to prohibit their entrance : driven back into the
provinces, the dissenters appealed to open force. Germany was, then,
inundated with the blood of her noble intelligences, who had been born for
her glory : Munzer died on the scaffold, and the Anabaptists marched
to punishment, denying and cursing the Saxon, who did violence to
their faith. Every thing was perishing : painting, sculpture, poesy,
letters. The reformation imitated Nero, and sang its triumphs amid
ruins and blood.
In France it was destined soon to excite similar tempests. It had
already troubled the church. It no longer, as before, sheltered itself
beneath the shades of night, to propagate its doctrines. It erected by
the side of the Catholic pulpit, another pulpit, from which its dogmas
were defended by its disciples ; it had its partizans at court, among the
clergy, in the universities and in the parliaments. Calvin's book de
Clemenlia, gained him a large number of proselytes : his disciples had
an austere air, downcast eyes, pale faces, emaciated cheeks, — all the
signs of labour and sufferings. They mingled little Avith the world,
avoided female conversation, the court, and shows ; the Bible was their
book of predilection ; they spoke, like the Saviour, in apologues.
They were termed christians of the primitive church. To resemble
these, they only needed that which constitutes the very essence of Chris-
tianity, viz : faith, hope and charity. To be convinced that their sym-
bol was as diversified as their faces, it was only necessary to hear them
speak ; some taught the sleep of the soul, after this life, till the day of
the last judgment ; others, the necessity of a second baptism. Among
them, there were Lutherans, who believed in the real presence, and
Zwinglians who rejected it; apostles of free will, and defenders of fa-
talism ; Melancthonians, who admitted an ecclesiastical hierarchy ;
Carlostadians, who maintained that every christian is a priest ; realists,
chained to the letter ; idealists, who bent the letter to the thought;
rationalists, who rejected every mystery ; mystics, who lost themselves
in the clouds ; and anti-trinitarians, who, like Servetus, admitted but
two persons in God. These doctors all carried with them the same
book, — the Bible.
Servetus, or Servedus, a Spanish physician, had left his own country^
and established himself, in 15.31, at Hagenau, Avhere he had published
different treatises against the Trinity. He had disputed at Bale with
(Ecolampadius, sometime before this renegade from the Lutheran faith
''was strangled by the devil," if we are to believe the account given by
Doctor Martin Luther. Servetus boasted that he triumphed over the
theologian. Having left Bale, in 1532, and crossed the Rhine, he
came to hurl a solemn defiance at Calvin ; the gauntlet Avas taken up
by the cure of Pont-1-Eveque, the place of combat indicated, the day
for the tournament named, but at the appointed hour, "the heart of this
unhappy wretch failed," says Beza, "who having agreed to dispute, did
not dare appear." Calvin, on his part, — in his refutation of the errors
of Servetus, published, in 1554, — boasts of having in vain offered the
LIFE OF JOHN CALVI>'. 63
-Spanish physician remedies suitable to cure his malady.* Servetua
pretends that his adversary was laying snares for him, which he had the
good fortune to avoid. At a later period he forgot his part, and came
10 throw himself into the ambuscade of his enemy. f
The parliaments redoubled their severity : Calvin was narrowly
watched, his liberty might be compromised, and even his life put in
peril. He resolved to abandon France, either from fear or spite, — if
we are to credit an ecclesiastical historian, — not being able to forgive
Francis I. for the preference manifested by tliis prince towards a rela-
tion of the constable, "of moderate circumstances," who was promoted
to a benefice, for which the author of the Commentaries on Seneca had
condescended to make solicitation. The testimony of the historian is
weighty. Soulier knows neither hatred, passion, nor anger ; he seeks
after the truth, and he believes that he has found it in the recital which
we are about to peruse : X
"We, the undersigned, Louis Charreton, counsellor of the king,
dean of the presidents of the parliaments of Paris, son of the late
messire Andrew Charreton, who was first Baron of Champagne, and
counsellor to the high chamber of the parliament of Paris; Madam
Antoinette Charreton, widow of Noel Renouard, former master in the
chamber of the courts of Paris, and daughter of the late Hugh Charre-
ton, Lord of Montauzon ; and John Charreton, sieur of la Terriere ;
all three cousins, and the grandchildren of Hugh Charreton ; certify
that we have frequently heard from our fathers, that the aforesaid sieur
Hugh Charreton, had several times told them, that, under the reign of
Francis L, while the court w^as at Fontaine-bleau, Calvin, who had
a benefice at Noyon, came there and took lodgings in the hotel where
the aforesaid sieur de Charreton was lodging, who, understanding that
Calvin was a man of letters and of great erudition, and being very fond
of the society of learned men, informed him that he would be delighted
to have some interviews with him ; to this Calvin the more willingly
consented, under the belief that the aforesaid sieur de Charreton might
be able to assist him in the affair which had brought him to Fontaine^
bleau ; that after several interview's, the aforesaid sieur de Charreton
demanded from Calvin the object of his journey; to which Calvin an-
swered, that he had come to solicit a priory from the king, for which
there was but one rival, who was a relative of the constable. The sieur
de Charreton asked him, if he thought this nothing ? He replied, that
he was aware of the high consideration enjoyed by the constable, but
he also knew that the king, in disposing of benefices, was wont ta
choose tke most proper persons, and that the relative of the constable-
* Admonui Servetum me jam ante unnos soxdccim non sine preesenti vit»
(liscrimine, obtulisse meam operam ad eum sanandum-, nee per me stetisso
quominus resipiscenti manum pii omnes porrigerent.-r-^Joh. Calvini refutatio
errorum Serveti. Amst. Oper. Calv. t. viii. p. 51K This refutation bears
the date of 1554. It was in 1538 that Calvin had defied Servetus to a discus-
sion. The scene here transpires in 1533: therefore the date indicated by-
Calvin is false.
t See the chapter entitled, Michael Servetus.
:{: Soulier, Histoire du Calyinisme, Paris,^ 1686. in 4to. p, 6-8..
6*
54
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
was of very poor capacity ; to which the aforesaid sieur de Charret©T»
rejoined, that this was no obstacle, since no great capacity was needed
to hold a simple benefice ; whereupon, Calvin exclaimed, and cried
out, that if such wrong was done him, he would find means to make
them speak of him for five hundred years ; and the aforesaid sieur do
Charreton having urged him strongly to tell him how he wo'iid do this,
Calvin conducted him to his room, and showed him the commencement
of his Institutes; and after having read a portion of them, Calvin
demanded his opinion ; he answered, that it was poison well put up in
sugar, and advised him not to continue a work which was only a- false
interpretation of the scriptures, and of every thing which the holy fa-
thers had written ; and as he perceived that Calvin remained firm in
his wicked purpose, he gave notice thereof to the constable, who de-
clared that Calvin was a fool, and should soon 'be brought to his senses.
But two days after, the benefice having been bestowed on the relative-
of the constable, Calvin departed, and began to propagate his secl,^
which, being very convenient, was embraced by many persons, some
through libertinism, others from weakness of mind. That some time'
after, the constable was going to his government of Languedoc,
and passed through Lyons, where the aforesaid sieur de Charreton paid
him a visit, and was asked if he did not belong to the sect of Calvin,
with whom he had lodged : he answered, that he would be very sorry to
embrace a religion, the father and founder of which he had seen born.
In testimony whereof, we have given our signatures, at Paris, this 20th
of September, 1682. Signed; Charreton, President; A. Charreton,
Widow Renouard; and Charreton de la Terriere. "
After having published "his Psychopannychia," in 1534, at Orleans,
Calvin left that city. He felt a desire to visit Bale, at that time the
Athens of Switzerland, a city of renown, so long the abode of Erasmus;
famous for its literati, its celebrated printers, and its theologians amorous
of novelties ; where Fjroben had published his fine edition of the works
of St. Jerome, where Holbein had painted his picture of Christ ready
for the sepulchre, where Capito taught Hebrew, and (Ecolampadius
commented on the Psalms.
He set out from Orleans in company with his friend, du Tillet. Near
Metz, their domestic robbed them, and fled with their sacks and valises,
and they were forced to seek Strasbourg on foot, nearly destitute of
clothing, and with but ten crowns in their pockets. Calvin spent some
time in Strasbourg, studying the different transformations which the re-
formed gospel had undergone, during the brief space of fifteen years.
He entered into intimate relations with some of the most celebrated
representatives of Protestantism. Any one else, who had arrived there
free from prejudices against Catholicism, would have found salutary in-
struction in the ceaseless agitations of that city, which knew not where
to poise itself in order to find repose, and which, since 1521, had be-
come Lutheran, Anabaptist, Zwinglian, and, at that very moment, was
dreaming of a new transfiguration, to be accomplished by the aid of
Bucer, one of its new guests.
At Bale, Calvin found Simon Grynaeus and Erasmus. Calvin could
not neglect this opportunity of visiting the Batavian philologist, whoser
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
55
fame was European : after a short interview, they separated. Bucer,
who had assisted at the meeting, was solicitous to know the opinion of
the caustic old man : — "JVlaster," said he, "what think you of the new
comer ?" Erasmus smiled, without answering. Bucer insisted : "I
behold," said the author of the Colloquies, "a great pest, which is
springing up in the church, against the church."*
On the next day, du Tillet, clerk of the parliament of Paris, arrived
at Bale, and by dint of tears and entreaties, brought with him his bro-
ther Louis, who repented, made his abjuration, and was shortly after
elected archdeacon : a dignity, disputed with him by Renaudie, who
was to be used by the reformation for the execution of the plot of Am-
boise.f
The Psychopannychia,J the first controversial work of Calvin, is a
pamphlet directed against the sect of Anabaptists, whom the bloody
day of Frankenliausen had conquered, but not subdued. The spirit of
Munzer lived again in his disciples, who were parading their mystic
reveries through Holland, Flanders, and France. Luther had essayed
his powers against Munzer, imagining that by his fiery language, his
pindaric wrath, his flames and thunders, he would soon overwhelm the
chief of the miners, as he had defeated, it is said, those theological dwarfs,
who were unable to stand before him. From the summit of the moun-
tain, he had appeared to Munzer in the midst of lightnings, but those light-
nings did not alarm his adversary, who Avas bold enough to face him
with unquailing eye. Munzer also possessed a fiery tongue, which he
used with admirable skill, to inflame and arouse the peasants : this
time, victory remained with the man of the sledge-hammer. And Lu-
ther, who wished to terminate the affair at any cost, was reduced, as is
well known, to avail himself of the sword of one of his electors. The
wrecks, which escaped from the funeral obsequies of Thuringia, took
refuge in a new land. France received, and listened to the prophets
of Anabaptism.
These Anabaptists maintained seducing doctrines. They dreamed
of a sort of Jerusalem, very different from the Jewish Jerusalem : a
Jerusalem quite spiritual, without swords, soldiers, or civil magistracy :
the true city of the elect. Their speech was infected with Pelagian-
ism and Arianism ; on several points of dogma they agreed with Catho-
lics : on predestination, for example, and on the merit of works.
Some of them taught the sleep of the soul till the day of judgment.
* Video matjnam ppstem oriri in ecclesia contra ecclesiann.
Con. Heim. Barkhusen, in liis historical notice of Calvin, (Historischc Nach-
ncht von Joh. Calvino. Berlin, 1721, in 4to. p. 24,) raises doubts concerning"
the saying of Erasmus, and other circumstances of the interview, narrated by
Florimond de Remond.
fFlorimond deRemond, p. 889.
I This work is entitled: A treatise, in which it is proved that souls live and
•watch after leaving their bodies : against the error oi' certain ignorant persons,
who imagine that they sleep till tlie day of judgment. — Preface of John Cal-
•vin, addressed to one of his friends of Orleans, 1343, in Latin.— Psychopanny-
chia quo refellitur eorum error qui animas post mortem ad ultimum judicium
dormire putant. Paris. 1334.
66 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK.
It was against these "sleepers" that Calvin determined to measure
himself.
The commentary on Seneca, is a philological work, a book of the
revival, a rhetorical decJamation, in which Calvin is evidently aspir-
ing to a place among the humanists, and making his couri, in sufficient-
ly fine Latin, lo all the Ciceronians of the age: this was bringing himself
forward with skill and tact. The Latin language was the idiom of the
church, of the convents, colleges, universities, and parliaments. The
Psychopannychia is a religious pamphlet, and now Calvin must expect a
rival in the first pamphleteer of Germany, Luther hinjself It is certain
that Calvin was acquainted with the writings of the Saxon monk, against
Eck, Tetzel, Prierias, Latomus and the Sorbonnists. He must be prais-
ed for not having dreamed of entering the lists against a spirit of such a
temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther's manner, lo deal in
caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words,
and conceits, did not suit a mind like his, whose fort was finesse. By
nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in
enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet in use beyond the
Rhine. Nor had he at his service those German smoking houses, where,
of an evening, among the companions of gay science, his wearied mind
might have levived its energies. In France, the monks did not resort to
taverns. Calvin was, therefore, every thing he was destined to become :.
an adroit, biting disputant, ready at retort, but without warmth or enthu-
siasm. He loves to bear testimony in his own behalf, that *' he did not
indulge his wrath, except modestly; that he always made it a rule to set
aside outrageous or biting expressions; that he almost always mod-
erated his style, which was better adapted to instruct, than to drive
forcibly, in such sort, however, that it may ever attract those who would
not be led."* One must see that, with such humor and style, Calvin
might have died forgotten, in some little benefice of Suabia, and that
he was never formed for raisins; storms, but only for using them.
At this epoch the grand agitator of society, was first, society itself,
and then, Luther, that great pamphleteer, " whose books are quite full
of demons,"! who drove humanity into the paths of a revolution, for
which all the elements had been prepared years before. Luther had
sown the wind, Calvin came to reap the whirlwind. Not that the
latter does not sometimes rise even to wrath, but it is a wrath which
savours of labour, and which he pursues as a rhymster would a rebel-
lious epithet. Besides he is good enough to repent for it, as if this wrath
burned the face over which it glowed. "I have presented some things,"
he murmurs, "a little sharpl}^ even roughly said, which, peradventure,
may offend the delicate ears of some. But, as I am aware there are
some good persons who have conceived such affection for this dream of
the sleep of souls, I would not have them olTended with me." Where
Calvin is concerned, we must not allow our admiration to be too easily
awaked ; we must note, that he is speaking of an Anabaptist, that i?,
* Epistle of John Calvin to his readers, of Bale, 1536.
tLutheri scripta plena sunt dasmouii?,— Theol. Tigurihi in Confess. Germ.-,
Tiguriui, 1544.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 67
of a soul which has thrown off the ''papism." But let a Catholic ap-
pear,— a prie.st unknown to fame, who, as editor, shall have reprinted a
new edition of the work of Henry VIII., "Assertio Septem Sacramen-
toruni," — for instance, Gabriel de Sacconay, precentor of Lyons; and
you shall then behold Calvin, under the form of a diihyrambic, or con-
gratulatory epistle, without the least regard for delicate ears, throw into
the face of the Catholic filthy expressions, which one would say were
gathered in some Genevan brothel.*
Calvin has himself given a correct estimate of the value of his
Psychopannychia, and of his treatise against the Anabaptists, which one
of his historians desires to have reprinted in our time, purged of all its
bitterness of style. f He was right in saying : "I have reproved the
foolish curiosity of those who were debatirig these questions, which, in
fact, are but vexations of mind,"
One day, this question, about the sleep of souls. — one that in the an-
cient church had long since been examined, by Melito — was presented
to Luther, who disposed of it in a few words : — "These," said he, "are
picked nutshells. "t
In an epistle to his readers, serving for preface to a new edition of
the Psychopannychia, published at BrIc, in 1-536, Calvin resumes
courage. He no longer dreads lieutenant Morin, and insuhs the papa-
cy. If we believe him, France is marching in two fold darkness : he
calumniates the intelligence and the faith of his country. Let us exa-
mine if it be true, that God has withdrawn his Spirit and his Christ from
the fellow-countrymen of Calvin.
* Congratulation 6 venerable prestre etc. op. de Calvin. 1566.
See the chapter entitled : Clergy of Lyons.
t Es konnte dies klcine Werk im Aoszuge m einerUebersetzungf heut wohl
seinen Nutzen habeii, wenn man einige Harten, manch polemishes Wort
Wegliesze .... Paul Henry.
^ Some of these reveries about the sleep of souls hnve been reproduced in a
work entitled : Two hundred queries, moderately propounded, ^;c. London, 1684,
in 12mo.
See,Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Mai, 1684. p. 289, in 18, Am-
sterdam, 1686.
CHAPTER TI.
FRANCIS I .
When Calvin appeared the Reformation had already been commenced in
France. — Influence of Francis I. on Letters. — The Bishops, — Poncher, —
Pelissier, — Du Bellay. — The Literati, — Bude, — Vatable, — Danes, — Postel. —
The College of the three Languages. — Marot. — The Sorbonne. — The Poet
protected by the Prince. — Literary movement.
In the year 1802, the Institute of France proposed the following
question for discussion : What was the influence of Luther's reforma-
tion upon the political condition of the different European States, and
upon the progress of knowledge ? Charles Villers, a writer whose
talents we do not question, obtained the prize.* He sang the reforma-
tion much better than he judged it, for he made of it another muse, dif-
fusing life and colour over every thing she touched. This work was
printed. The philosophical world admired the essay of Mr. Villers,
out of hatred for the ancient faith, which the government was then at-
tempting to re-establish. It was, at that period, decided, that the refor-
mation was an idea of progress for which Providence should be blessed,
and that, had it not been for Luther, Europe would have continued to
grope her way in darkness. Some few courageous souls protested
against the book of the laureate, but they were not heard : the moment
had not yet arrived, when impartial, enlightened reason would do justice
to this manifesto against our national faith.
Still, at this day, there are weighty names, who, not impregnated
with the prejudices of the Protestant school, continue to give honor to
Germany for the intellectual impulse, which began to manifest itself
in Saxony on Luther's appearance. They are unwilling to under-
stand that this impulse, proceeding from Italy, and particularly from the
Rome of Julius IL, traversed the Alps, and, at the foot of the moun-
tains, separated into two streams, of which one flowed into Germany,
and the other into France. Had it not been for Luther, a social, reli-
* Essai sur I'influence dela reformation de Luther, par Charles Villers, 1 vol.
8vo. M. de Laverne has disputed the conclusions of this work crowned by the
Institute, in "liis letter to Mr. Charles Villers," in 8vo. Paris, 1804.— There is
an admirable refutation of the book of Villers, by Robelot, ancient canon of
the cathedral of Dijon, under this title — De I'influence de la reformation de
Luther sur la croyance religiouse et politique, et sur le progres des Lumieres;
in 8vo. Lyons, 1832. The German question is treated in the book of Mr.
Jacob Marx: Die Ursachen der schnellen Verbreitung der Reformation zu-
nachst in Deutschland. in 12mo. Mayence, 1834.
Ltre OP JOHN CALVIK. ^
gious, and intellectual reformation would have been accomplished,
without injury to faith. It had already been commenced in Germany,
when he arose to preach against indulgences ; and in France, when
Calvin's voice began first to be heard. We think, that without closing
the eyes against truth, no one can deny that the papacy was the instru-
ment which God used for the revival of letters; from Italy came the
spark destined for the illumination of the world. Luther, Melancthon,
Erasmus, Reuchlin, all marched by this light, and often profited by its
rays, and so far from having been created, it was often obscured or per-
verted by them.
Calvin, just like Luther, has said : — that he was sent by God to free
the world from the meshes of "Papism," to make reason shine, and to
moralize society. At this day, the eye of the stranger entering Geneva,
is arrested by this magnificent motto : Post Tenebras Lux^ enclosed in
the talons of an eagle : — the vain boast of a lapidary, which provokes
a smile from the Catholic traveler.
It is said that Cagliostro possessed the faculty of summoning the dead
from their graves : the historian must have this power also. We shall
therefore call before us some of those shades who gave glory to the age
of Francis I.: we shall inquire into the condition of the human mind,
when Calvin appeared. Before the tribunal of the reader, these glories
of the past shall be summoned, by a man who sleeps with them in the
tomb; for already has this been done, in his funeral oration for Fran-
cis 1., by Galland, one of the professors of the Royal College, who
"never opens his mouth without dropping honey from his lips."
Qui quotles avi.das reflcit sermonibus aurcs,
Motis blanda putes spargere mella labris.
Francis I. was a pupil of the college of Navarre, beloved by his fel-
low-disciples, esteemed by his rivals, and who, at the early age of four-
teen, received from one of them, as the pledge of scholastic fraternity,
the dedication of a Hebrew grammar, the first rudimental work in that
language known in France. The author, Francis Tissot, was a profes-
sor of the University. Thus, before he had yet attained the age of
majority, before his head was circled by any crown, but such as were
placed there by his masters, the muses pay their court to him. Castig-
lione, the author of that golden book, *'Il Cor/egiano," must have it
read to the Duke de Valois; he departs from the capital, carrying with
him the corrections indicated by the prince : admirable annotations,
which he exhibits to all his friends, and regards as one of his titles to
glory.
The Duke de Valois becomes king : but fear not that he will forget
the lessons of his masters. You shall see upon whom the favours of
the monarch descend.
Poncher, bishop of Paris, resisted the accumulated wrath of Louis
XII., and alone had the courage to oppose the league of Cambray.
Erasmus considers him an angel descended from heaven, to revive the
cultivation of letters.
To Poncher, he gives an archbishopric, with a mission to allure
60 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
to France the most renowned of the humanists. The king is not made
to wait : behold Justiniani, bishop of Nebio, comes to teach Greek,
Hebrew, and Arabic, at Paris.
Petit, the confessor of Louis XII., is a priest, who does not know
his own parents, and has all the poor of Paris for his children.* Petit
is promoted to tiie bishoprics of Troyes and Senlis.
William Pelissier, bishop of .Maguelonne, whose erudition is pro-
verbial, was devoted to antiquity, with an ardour which allows the soul,
possessed by it, neither sleep nor repose.
He sent Pelissier on an embassy to Venice, a city then the re-
sort of Greek fugitives, and whence he returned loaded with all kinds
of manuscripts, in Greek, Hebrew and Syriac, the future ornaments of
the royal library.
The names of the prelates are not yet exhausted.
To James Colin he gave the post of Royal Almoner and reader.
This is the same Colin who extemporises in Latin and French, and
whose praise has been chanted by Marot ;
*'Aussi I'abbe de St. Ambroys, Colin,
Qui a tant beu au ruisseau cristallin
Que Ton ne salt s'il est poete ne
Plus qu'orateur a bien dire ordonne.
Colin appreciated Amyot, whose fortune he was solicitous to secure.
The king also rewarded by brilliant embassies John du Bellay
Langeai; at Rome the confidential friends of du Bellay were Bembo,
Vida, Sadolet, A.scolti, and the other glories of the court of Leo X.,
who listened to him in ravishment.
The bishoric of Meaux, with a pension to be paid out of the
private coffers of the prince, was the reward of Rene du Bellay, who
liberally devotes his revenues to the relief of the poor, and to the pur-
chase of a cabinet of physics, the first possessed by the province.
Now, let Calvin declaim against the ignorance of the higher clergy
of France ! We know some of the prelates who occupied the princi-
pal sees of the episcopacy. Can any one believe that these priests
were obscure individuals, as he calls them ? Could they not, as well
as John of Noyon, boast of celestial endowments?
And in contemplating these violet and purple robes, we are not to
imagine that Francis I. sought for light only in the sanctuary : we
should be mistaken. At this epoch, the French episcopacy felt the ne-
cessity of placing itself at the head of the movement, which propelled
the minds of men into new paths. The court of Leo X. gives the ex-
ample of a passion for letters : the Pope is poet, musician, linguist ;
and our bishops, if they cannot sing under the inspiration of the muses,
with laudable ambition, will study the human sciences, learn the an-
cient idioms, — Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, — languages no longer spoken.
They will erect colleges, as did Cardinal de Tournon ; instruct youth,
as did Rene du Bellay ; surround themselves with men of letters, as did
Briconnet of Meaux ; resuscitate from the tomb the antique Roman
* Eustathe de Knobelsdorf.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 6l
Stones, as did the archbishop of Vienna ; and they will know how to
counsel and enlighten the prince, who has invested them with the
purple.
But there is a modest votary of learning, called by Lascaris,* "the
Athenian of France," who, far from court, conceals himself in an ob-
scure retreat, to pay hi^ suit to the muses. Erasmus knows his name,
but will breathe it to no one, not from jealousy, but because he regards
liim as a prodigy of erudition, philology, and skill in the languages and
sciences, and he wislies alone to profit by the hidden treasure. Unfor-
tunately for the Batavian philosopher, one day, at one of those repasts,
where Francis L gathered around him all the glories of his age, and at
times disputed with them on various topics, f the name of this poor
provincial, — lost among his books, and ignorant of any thing of the ex-
ternal world, except the road to the chapel where he so devoutly pray-
ed,— was suddenly mentioned ;
It was William Bude, or Budeeus.
The young student, summoned to Paris by the king, is forced to
abandon his retreat, but not his books, for these he brings with him,
upon a large car, in which, to be always near them, he sleeps at night,
and takes his meals by day. Behold him at length at court, after a
long journey, during which, Horace, Homer^ Virgil, and Demosthenes,
were his companions and fellow-travelers. On the very day of his
arrival, he was named master of petitions, chief judge of mercantile
causes, and guardian of the royal library. f
Now, while making his way to the capital, Bude indulged in delight-
ful reveries. If he knew by heart his subterranean Rome, he was also,
from the writings of travelers, well acquainted with the modern Rome
of Leo X., inhabited, in default of deities, by Michael Angelo, Raphael,
Bembo, and Sannazar. He had been informed that the Medici had
erected a splendid building, or rather palace, for the college of the
young Greeks, and he said to himself: — "If I see the king, I will say
to him : Sire, it is by the study of the ancient languages that we shall
revive letters ; build a college, — as Leo X. has done, as also has been
done at Louvain, by Jerome Busleidein, a simple canon, — where the He-
brew, Greek and Latin shall be taught. Then, when the building
shall be completed, invite thither Erasmus, for whom all nations are
contending; to whom Ingolstadt offers the general direction of studies ;
Louvain, its principal professorship; Spain, a bishopric; Rome, the
purple ; the Elector of Saxony, his University. You must, by all
means, secure Erasmus ; I solicit this in the name of the three Wil-
liams,— of William Petit, your bishop ; of William Cop, your chief
physician ; and of William Bude, your scholar." Erasmus was, for a
moment, tempted to yield to the entreaties of the king, not in order to
* Atticorum facundiam adaequavit.
t Galliard, Hist, de Fraacois ler, t. vii., p. 250.
t Nulla illi unquam ccsna, nullum prandium, nulla static aut arabulatio sine
colloquiis et disputationibus literariis peracta est, ut quicunque mensam ejus
frequentarent .... doctissimi et diligentissimi philosophi, scholani frequen-
tare arbitrarentur. Pet. Gal. orat. funeb.
6
62 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
enjoy the dignities which were profTered him, but that he might at Paris
refresh himself with Burgundy wine, which, it was thought, might pro-
bably aid to re-establish his enfeebled health.*
Unfortunately, Francis I. had a rival: — Charles V., who defeated him
on the listed field of the literati, as he had done at Padua. Erasmus
was lost to us.
But nevertheless, the college of the three languages is resolved on.
it shall be a royal edifice, rising from the grounds of the Hotel de Nesle.
There shall be beautiful rooms for the professors, and vast halls for the
students. The sum of fifty thousand crowns is assigned for the support
of the institution. t A chapel shall be founded, after the designs of an
architect, to be obtained from Leo X., and which shall be served by
four canons and four chaplains. The accounts shall be kept, and pay-
ments made, by Audebert Catin ; Nicholas de Neuville-Villeroy, sec-
retary of finance, and John Grollier, treasurer of France, shall deter-
mine the cost; Peter des Hotels will supervise the expenses.:]:
Death surprised Francis I., at the moment the college was about to
be erected.
But the professors were already nominated and endowed : — two for.
HebreAV, two for Greek;— whose lessons were to be gratuitous. This
college is called the Royal College ; the professors received annually four
hundred and fifty francs each, and a good abbey, which afterwards was
withdrawn from their successors, "I know not,'"' says Remus, in a bpok
dedicated to Catherine de Medicis, "by what spunger."§
But, can any one divine who it is that shall nominate to the new pro-
fessorships ? Not the king, who, however, is a good judge, but public
opinion ; which, as is justly said by the historian of this monarch, has
made its choice beforehand.
For Hebrev/ professor, they had to direct their eyes to an Italian ; a
Venetian, and convert to Catholicism, Paul Paradis, || an Israelite, who
knew the Talmud by heart. 'Paul Paradis died in 1555, lamented by
Paris, and ushered into the other world amid the hymns of Olympus :
Splendor
Musarum charituraque, qui perisll
Tota flentc Lutetia, ast olyinpo
Applaudente.?
* De Burigni, vie d'Erasmo, p. 405, etc. t. 1. Epist. Erasmi, epist. 646".
That prodigy of erudition, Bude, was a zealous Catholic. As Calvin, ob-
serves David Clement, had published his Institutes of tlie Christian religion, in
1535, and dedicntcd the work to Francis I., so Bude dedicated to the same king
his treatise, de Transitu Helhnismi ad Christiani&mum^ to induce liim to sup-
port the rights of the religion established in France, and oppose the novelties
which threatened its destruction. Cibliotheque curicuse. t. v. p. 382, note in
4to. Hanovre, 1754.
t Belleforct, Hist. liv. vi. ch. GS. — Louis Vrevin, code des privilegies, p. 630.
% Hist, de la ville de Paris, 1. 11, p. 140. Preuves, t. 11. p. 578. — Galland.
♦ Galliard, Hist, de Francois ler.
II Galliard, Hist, de Francois ler. IT Leger du Chesne.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 6B
The bishop of Apt, John Nicholai, presents us another professor of
Hebrew, Guidacerio, who was loaded with favours by Leo X., and who,
at Paris, as he relates himself, found a brighter destiny than the Medici
and all the popes could have procured him at Rome. .
But let us bow our heads in reverence ! here is a name which
eclipses all the rest : Vatable, a poor village cure of Brametz, in Va-
lois, who, at the period of the emigration of the Greeks, arrested upon
the highway a fugitive Hellenist, divided with him his bread and his
parishioners, and in exchange obtained an initiation into the Greek and
Hebrew languages. To his lectures he attracted even the Israelites,
who returned marveling at his science, and regretting that God had not
given the young professor the grace to be born a Jew.
Vatable, upon whose religious opinions there was an attempt to cast
suspicion, was a good Catholic, who, from predilection, became attach-
ed to Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius, then a pupil, was wont sometimes
to prevent his companions from assisting at the recitations, by taking
them to the church to pray. Govea wanted an example. There wa^
question of subjecting the too pious student to the aula: now, the aula was
some strokes of a rope upon the back of the criminal, administered by
the principal and the master. Vatable pleaded the cause of Ignatius,
and Govea allowed himself to relent.*
Vatable found a rival in Peter Danes, professor of Greek ;t and a fortu-
nate rival, for the poet says, "If Bude was acquainted with the Greeks,
Danes also knew all others."
Magnus Budseus, major Danesius; ilk
Argivos norat, isle etiam reliquos.
''A great orator, according to his disciple Genebrard, a great philoso-
pher, a great mathematician, skilled in medicine and theology,'' and so
disdainful of human glory, that he published, under his servant's name,,
an edition of Pliny, held in high esteem by the learned. Never was a
literary life more completely occupied. His biographer says, "that he
laboured only four hours on the day of his marriage. "{ You will find
him at the royal college, commenting a Greek historian or poet ; at
Venice, decyphering manuscripts; in the shop of Trincavel, revising
the proof-sheets of the questions d'Aphrodisie, which this printer has
dedicated to him ; at Paris, reading to Francis I., the commencement
of his learned treatise, i/ie Ambassador; at the Council of Trent; at
* Mos estParisiis in scholasticos improbos ac seditiosos ad sanciendum aca-
demiis disciplinam ad hunc fere modum animadvertere : Dissimulato consilio
ud condictam diem in aulam collegii primarius, maglstrique nudatum certo
plagarum numero singuli afficiunt: id supplicium de ipsius nomine aulavulgo
uppellatur. Bulaeus, Hist. Univer. Paris, t. vi. p. 945.
Ignatius, on another occasion, was reprimanded as a lieretic, because the
manuscript of his ir/iwaZ Exercises had been discovered in his lodging;
such fervour in a pupil astonished his professors, who imagined to discover in
it a tendency to Lutheranism.
t Ravisius Textor,
j^ Die nuptiarum quatuor tantum horas studiis impendit.
64
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the court of France, where Henry II. names him preceptor of the
Dauphin ; afterwards at Lavaur, where, forgetful at once of literature,,
of manuscripts, of his cherished annotations, and of the ancient writers,
he thinks only of, the poor of his diocess, whom he loves as a father-
does his children. The civil wars do not terrify him. He was visiting
the mountains, in order to carry succour to the poor Catholics, whose
dwellings had been burned by the sectaries, when he fell into an am-
buscade : — What is thy name ? said a Huguenot soldier to the Catholic
priest. I am called Danes, responded the prelate. God protect
thee, said the soldier, proceed; 1 know thee ; it is not I, that will kill
the father of the poor !
Hail ! exclaims GaJland, hail Postel, whose merits and virtues I
could not duly celebrate, had I a hundred mouths and a hundred
tongues, as was said of thee by one of thy colleagues, Maurice Bressieu;
Postelli virtutes et literas
Non mihi si centum linguae sint, oraque centum
Ferrea vox
Enurnerare queam
'•The man of all languages, of all arts, the epitome of all the
sciences.
"•*
The life of Postel is quite a romance. At the age of eight, he is
made an orphan; God having removed his father and mother by the pest.
He begs upon the highway. At fourteen, he teaches reading at Say,
near Pontoise. Ambition seizes him : he sets out for Paris, to seek his
fortune, falls in with some Bohemians, who maltreat, rob, and strip
liim, and he enters the first hospital which he finds, and there passes
two years of his life. He comes out cured, but without a cent in his
pocket, and devoured by hunger : he then remembers his old trade,
and again turns beggar. Travelers at that period were rare : he is on
the point of dying with starvation, when he e-ncounters a wheat-field,
from which the grain had just been reaped : he gleans it, and sells
what he has collected by the labour of a whole day, far a few farthings.
The owner of the field takes pity on the boy, and employs him in his
service. One morning, at early dawn, Postel takes his field staft', flies
to Paris, and enters into the service of the University.. He sweeps the
class-room, puts ink into the inkstands, locks up the books of his mas-
ter, lights fires in the stove during winter, and goes to market for the
college provisions. One day, the servant was transformed into master:
he could now teach all the professors of Paris ! He no longer fears
])0verty, hunger, or thirst : he has a princely treasure in his brain.
This treasure, in his notion, is not yet sufiiciently large ; by traveling,
lie will be able to procure new literary wealth. But here is the mis-
fortune ! Science has disturbed his reason. Postel becomes Rabbin,
and has visions : an angel, the angel Raziel, reveals to him the se-
crets of heaven. He dreams of an universal religion, of which he
shall be supreme Pontiff, and prints his Concord of the World, in
*" Bressieu: dc senat. Reg. profess, ct Math, erga se BeneC.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT. 65
which he salutes Francis I. with the title of universal monarch. To
the new prophet, a new land was necessary. Postel is at Rome, where
he assumes the habit of a Jesuit, "because," says he, ''the conduct of
the disciples of Loyola is the most perfect of any in the world, since
the days of the Apostles."
He abandons Rome for Venice : there he is discovered by a little wo-
man fifty years old, who illmnines him, and fills him with inspiration.*
Under the dictation of this muse in rags, Postel writes his book de
Vinculo Mundi, his treatise of mother Jane, or the very wonderful
victories of women, and the ''prime nove delValiro inondo,'' (the first
news from the other world,) in which the writer, divested of his terres-
trial envelope, and clothed with an angel's body, sees nothing but air,t
and announces to the world the apparition of a Venetian virgin, like
that woman sought for in the east, three centuries after, by the Saint-
simonians. The young maiden, inspired by God, prophesies of times,
when the sovereign Pontiff shall choose his most christian majesty, as
minister of his kingdom, and when the Turks shall believe and be
baptized. Postel, "the spiritual father of the virgin," seems in this
prodigious book, to have anticipated Mesmer ; he teaches positively
that the human eye can see locally through bodies. J
He had lucid intervals. It was during one of these intervals, replete
with all sorts of intellectual prodigies, that Francis I. confided to him
the chairs of mathematics and the oriental languages : the learned world
could but applaud the perspicacity of the prince.
This impulse of classical erudition was not the only one favoured
by the instincts of the monarch.
The convents began to be freed from the obligation to monopolize
the guardianship of literature and the sciences : they manifested a ten-
dency to secularization, and to liberate themselves from the cloister, within
which they had so long been supported and feasted. The world felt the
necessity of recurring to juridical studies, in order to ground its protest
against the feudal despotism, which, for so long a period, had weighed
upon its destinies : it needed other focuses of light and activity. Fran-
cis I. had the honor to establish in France, those chairs of Roman law,
of which Bologna furnished the model. He invited the jurist, Alciati,
* Retractation de Guillaume Postel, manuscripts of the Royal Library. —
Mem. de I'Acad. des inscriptions at belles-lettres, t. xiv.
t lo son in tal disposizione che ne satieta, ne bisogno del mangiare o bere,
non fan nulla in me, imperoche quasi tutta la natura del cibo se ne va in aria
et si disfa tal che a pena la centesima parte se ne va per la via naturale.
■\. Come sia possibile che siano talmente aperti li occhi di una personna che
lei possi vedere localmente a traverso i corpi scuri, over quello che nessuno
altro vede.
The Royal Library possesses a copy of this apocalyptic book. This is its
title :
Le prime nova deiraltro Mondo, cioe Padmirabile historia e non meno ne-
«essaria et utile da esser letta et intesa da ogni che stupenda intitulata la
vergine Venetiana.
Parte vista, parte provata et fidelissimamente scritta per Gnlielmo Postelloi
primogenito della restitution© et spirituale Padre di essa Vergine. 1555.
6*
65 LIFE OF JOHN CALVlN.
to France, who, at Bourges, on the 29th of April, 1529, opened that
school, which was destined to exert so potent an influence upon civili-
zation. Thanks to this prince,. France took the lead in behalf of other
ideas, which,, in their turn, were to control the future. It is a beautiful
spectacle, which is presented to us by the monarch, when he takes his
seat on the University benches of Bourges, to listen to the lessons of
Alciati, and when he shields his poet, Marot, from the wrath of the
Sorbonne.
And yet this wrath, was just. Marot had abandoned France, chant-
ing the praises of all the courts which eagerly granted him an asylum.
Grumbler, epigrammatist,, "pleasant in his rondos, ballads, lyrics, and
cock-and-bull stories," he aped the Lutheran,, in order to be different
from his compeers of Parnassus, who went to mass, and abstained from
meat on Fridays and Saturdays, but at bottom,, he repelled the suspicion
oi heresy, with which they sought to tarnish his muse. He said :
De Lutheriste ils m'ont donne le nom
Que droit ce soit; Je respond que non.
The duchess d'Etampes was desirous to see the poet again, who was
tired of his exile, and burned with anxiety to return to Paris.: — To her
royal lover she had exhibited a piece of verse Avherein Marot, speaking
of Francis I., said : he would recall me,
S'il savott bien comment
Depuis unpeu Je parte sobrement:
Car ces Lombards avee qui Je chemine
M'ont fort appris a faire bonr>e mine.
Marot was recalled, and, unfortunately, fell into the clutches of a
learned Hebraist, who would not let him go, till he promised to renounce
the pagan muses, and sing after the manner of King David. Marot
gave tke promise, kept his word, and without knowing a word of the
language of the Prophets^ began to turn their magnificent hymns into
rhyme. Imagine the sun darting its rays through a tuft of thorn bushes.
The Sorbonne, which did not pride itself upon poesy, but theology,
found that faith was outraged in the verses of Marot, and condemned
the thirty Psalms of the valet de chambre. Happily, the poet had a
royal mantle with which to shelter himself from the indignation of the
J earned body : he seized it, and forthwith began to sing :
Pulsque vous voulez que Jo poursuive,.0 Sire,,
L' ocuvre royal du Psautior commence
Et que tout ccBur aimant Dicu le desire;
D'y besongiier no me ticns dispense.
S'en sente done qui voudra oftensc,
Car ccux a qui un tel bion no pent plaire
Doivent penser si ja ne I'ont pense
Q,u'en vous plaisant me plait de leur deplaire.
The parliament took sides, with; the Sorbonne, insisted, and the king
wa3 compelled to listen to his counselors ; but the poet was well com-
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT, 6T
pensatedi his Psalms became the delight of the court ; Henry II., to
the air of a hunting song, sang "Ainsi qu'on 'voit un lerf braire."
Madam de Valentinois gave vogue to "diifondde ma penssee." The
queen, and the king of Navarre, danced a reel of Poitou, humming, '-re-
vange-moi, prends ta querelle."^
Now, let them cease to tell us that the reformers were the preceptors
of France. Was not the tree of knowledge flourishing there, when
Calvin came to study under Mathurin Cordier ? Calvin, says Mr.
Nisard, formed himself after the manner of Melancthon;t but this
method had not yet appeared in France, at the period when Cordier
published his dialogues; Ravisius Textor, his Specimen Epithetorum ;
Aleandro, his Lexicon; Sadolet, his de Liberis rede instituendis ; Bud6,
his treatise De Studio literarum recte instituendo ; Tissot, his Hebrew
Grammar; Fichet his Rhetoric; Martin Delphe^ his treatise on the
art of oratory. What then can the reformation cite at this epoch of
renovation ? At most, Calvin's Psychopannychia, and Beza's ode to
Audebert ; and, in truth, there is here no subject for glorying. We
speak not now of Italy, who had her historians when France was
making her essay in Latin grammar. What work of art has the re-
formation produced ? None. It was not it that inspired master
Roux, the architect, poet, musician, canon of the holy chapel of Paris,.
when he was constructing the grand gallery of Fontaine-bleau ; nor
Jules Romain, whom Francis attracted to France by his benefits; nor
Andrew del Sarto, the painter of the Madonna del Sacco ; nor Ben-
venuto Cellini, the sculptor^ so poetic ; nor Primatice, who makes a
Vatican out of Fontaine-bleau; nor Vecelli, the great Venetian colour-
ist; painters, statuaries, humanists, literati, you all belong to Catholi-
cism ! We claim your glory as hers. Doubt, says a critic, (Mr.
Planche,) is a method of investigation, and not of instruction or study;}:
he who learns must believe already ; now, Calvin did not believe. Let
him then admire himself in his pride^ compare himself to the sun, ap-
plaud himself for having brought light and truth to his country. § W^e
think that Bude, Danes, John du Bellay^ Vatable^ and those floods of
Greeks and Italians, who, at the voice of the great monarch, came to
mingle with the Parisian population, are glorious representatives of hu-
man letters ; that Nicolai, Jerome Poncher, Petit, William Pelissier,
— r-the honor of the French episcopacy, — have taught and practised the
gospel ; that the reformation, in the person of Calvin, has no more
found light than truth, both of which were of the patrimony of France
at the time he dreamed of reforming Luther, and of converting Francis
I., by dedicating to him his book of the Christian Institutes.
We must study the efforts made by Protestantism to revolutionize the
religious aspect of the country, and, for the Catholic symbol, which
was yesterday what it will be to-morrow, to substitute the thousand con-
* Florimond de Remond. t Revue des deux mondes, Oct. 1839.
:j: L'Artiste, November, 1839.
1} Superbiam illam detegunt loci mille in quibus soli se comparans, pro tene-
bris lucem, pro falso verum attulisse in patriam gloriatur^ Papirius Masso*.
vita Calvini, p. 25^
68 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
fessions of its doctors. We shall see, if, as said by Beza : "The sins
of France and of its king drew down upon the heads of our ancestors the
wrath of heaven, and if it be true that the innovators had more science
than the fathers of primitive times."*
♦ Dicere noc immerito quidem, ut opinor, consuevi, dum ilia tempora apoy-
tolis etiam proxima cum nostris comparo, scientias minus illos habubse. Beza,
cp. I, Th.
CHAPTER VII
THE LADIES.
Intrigues of the Ladies of the Court to introduce the Reformation into France..
— The Duchess d'Etampes. — The Ladies de Pisseleu and de Cani. — The
Mass of the Seven Points. — Reformation Colporteurs. — Le Coq, cure of St.
Eustache, preaches before Francis I. — An effort is made to bring Melancthon
to France. — Letter of his to the King. — Cardinal de Tournon frustrates the
conspiracy of the Ladies. — The Placards.
Who would, at this day, believe that the intrigues of women came
near robbing France of her ancient credo of Athanasius ? The chief
of this conspiracy was Margaret, the real or pretended author of the
Heptameron ; the auxiliaries were the duchess d'Etampes, her sister
Madame de Pisseleu, and Madame de Cani. At Pau, Margaret had a
fme castle, where since Henry IV. was born, a true feudal habitation,
quite thick-set with drawbridges, and impenetrable to the human eye,
were it even as sharp as that of lieutenant Morin. In this old manor
the queen's court assembled of an evening, in imitation of the christians
of the primitive church, and there read in French some prayer arranged
a la Lutherienne. When Roussel, the queen's chaplain, was absent, a
fugitive Carmelite, by name Solon, held forth the word. This monk did
not scruple heaping insults on those whom he termed papistical gentry.
These were received with loud peals of laughter, such as arose at the
jovial recitals of Desperriers, in the evening reunions. In an especial
manner, they ridiculed the Catholic mass, and resolved to displace it for
the mass of the seven points.
Now, here is the mass of the seven points.*
Mass, with public communion ; first point.
Mass, without elevation of the host; second point.
Mass, without adoration of the species; third point.
Mass, without oblation of the bread and wine ; fourth point.
Mass, without commemoration of the Virgin and Saints; fifth
point.
Mass, with breaking the bread at the altar : first, for the priest, then
for the faithful; sixth point.
Mass, celebrated by a married priest ; seventh point.
Mass, C'dthollc, Lutheran, Cavinistic.
* Florimond de Remond, p. 698.
70
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
The ladies, d'Etampes, de Cani, and de Pisseleu, grew pa.ssionatel/
fond of the mass of the seven points : had it been allowed them, per-
haps, together with the abolition of confession, they -would not have
been very exacting with regard to the other dogmas of the Catholic
church. They accepted the Pope's supremacy, purgatory, the venera-
tion of the Virgin and the Saints, the greater part of the sacraments,
and even hell itself : only it was necessary that they should have a
prayer book in French, which was found for them. Margaret caused a
French translation to be prepared of the "book of hours," by the
bishop of Senlis, the confessor of the king, whose orthodoxy was not
doubtful.
Now, this mass-book, entirely French, was a great novelty to the
little court of Nerac, which set to work to peruse it devoutly, then to
comment and explain it, in other words, to torture it, until at length it
became utterly unintelligible. As soon as it was incomprehensible,
every body wanted it. It was printed secretly, with little notes, glosses,
and explanations; and colporteurs were sent forth to distribute it in the
neighbouring provinces. These simple souls, who were ignorant of
every thing concerning the kingdom of God, imagined their trade bless-
ed by heaven, because it was successful. A historian of the revival has
described, in joyous terms, this mercantile proselytism.
" Many companions of the French and German printers, thronged
forward, allured by the prospect of great profit, who afterwards dis-
persed themselves on all sides, to distribute bibles, catechisms, — bucklers,
kettles, anatomies, and other such books, particularly the little Psalms,
when they were printed, gilt, embossed and nicely executed. Their very
elegance invited the ladies to peruse them; and as avaricious merchants,
allured by the hopes of gain, fear not to traverse the seas, and encounter
a thousand hazzards and chances from tempests, in the same sort, these
companions of the type, from the appetite of gain induced by the first
taste thereof, and to secure access to the cities and country places, and
entrance into the houses of the nobility, — some of them made themselves
pedlersof little articles for the ladies, concealing at the bottom of their
bales, the little books which they presented to the maidens, quite slyly,
as if they were things very precious, in order to stimulate a relish for
them. These postillions and couriers of contraband merchandise often
fell a prey to the flames, into which they were cast, wlien taken in the
act of violating the laws which forbid their trade. Those who have
collected the details of their history, are quite humorous, when they
represent these colporteurs before the parliament, harranguing like learn-
ed doctors. John Chapot, they tell us, the vender of books which he
had brought from Geneva, came near routing the whole parliament of
Paris, by a very learned and very holy remonstrance, which he made
to the counselors, when allowed to dispute, face to face, with three
doctors of the Sorbonne, who were never willing to come direct to the
subject matter of the controversy."
In the meantime, all this clamor of women, preachers, colporteurs,
reached even to Paris. The Sorbonne grew angry, and threatened to
end the business by a decree. The king, who wished to shield the
honor of Margaret, his darling, orders her to come to Paris. The
LIFE OF JOHN CALVTW. 71
queen arrives, attended by the lord de Burl, governor of Guyenne, and
t expect that it was to
be so well received, as God, in his inestimable goodness, has willed :
consulting brevity, t had acquitted myself ioo lightly. But havin^i:
knov/n, with time, that it has been received with such favour, as I should
not have presumed to desire, (far less to expect,) I have felt myself
compelled to acquit myself better and more fully, towards those who
receive my doctrine with so great affection, for it would be ingratitude
in me not to satisfy their desire, as far as my littleness will allow. — •
Wherefore, I have tried to do ray duty in this, not only when said book
firas printed the second iime, but every time; and whenever it has been
* . . . Familiar) us vef sari aut interiorem consuctudinem habere non licet;
clebemus tamen contendere sive exhortatione, sive doctrina, sive dementia ac.
Cfiansuetisdine, sive nostrisad Deum preclbus, ut admeliorem frugem eonvers'i
in societatem ac unitatem ecclesise so reelpinnt. Neque ii modo sic tractandi
sunt, se(STurc^ quoque, ac Sarraeeni, eoeterique religionis hostes. p. 147.
t Cseterum editio hfBc , . . . notatu digna est propterea quod loca plurima,
<^U8B de ferendis hsereticis agant, in qmbusquo Calvinus mitius senseratcom-
plcctiturs quae quideml.»ca in posteri©ribus, iisque imprimis, qua? post suppl'*
'the breach, where I will try whether you have
the audacity to kill the daughter of a king, whose death heaven and
earth would be obliged to avenge, upon yourself and all your line, to
the very babes in the cradle." ||
Renee would have done what she said : "for, although she had no
very grand exterior, because of the deformity of her body, she had,
*Manel presente anno veggendo si scoperto questo lupo, se ne fuggi aGine-
vra. — Guicciardini.
tDe Costa, memoires. Hist, sur la Maison royale de Savoie, etc. t. 1. note
70, p. 358. ^ :j:De Costa, memoires, hist. t. 1. p. 358.
jDe Ducissa Ferrariensi tristis nuncius ac certlor quam vellem, minis ac pro-
bris victam cccidisse. Quid dicam, nisi rarum in proceribus esse constantiae
exemplum? — Mss. Goth. Farello, Nov., 1554.
||Bayle, article, Ferram.
96 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIR.
however, a great deal of majesty."* The duke of Guise left her un-
molested in her castle, where death soon came to deliver her from a
more unmanageable enemy, — her husband.
Rente was unwilling to die in the faith of the paladin Roger, whose
fame was chanted by Ariosto, and from whom the house of Est claims
descent; she lived and died semi-Lutheran, semi-Calvinist, but to the
last attached to the veneration of the Saints.
Calvin wrote to her from Geneva ;
" I am aware, madam, how God has fortified you, under the most rude
assaults ; how, by his grace, you have virtnously resisted all tempta-
tions, not being ashamed to bear the opprobrium of Jesus Christ, though
the pride of his enemies swelled higher than the billows of the sea :
that, besides, you have been a nursing mother to the poor faithful, ex-
pelled, and ignorant where to seek an asylum. I am aware that a
princess, regarding the world only, would not only have been ashamed,
but have regarded it as an insult, to have her castle called aHotel-Dieu;
but I could not do you greater honor than to speak thus, to eulogize and
acknowledge the humanity which you have displayed towards the chil-
dren of God, who (ound refuge with you. I have often thought, ma-
dam, that God reserved these trials for your old age, to compensate for
the arrears you owed him, because of your timidity in times past. I
speak after the ordinary manner of men : for, had you done a hundred
limes, nay, a thousand times as much, you would not compensate for all
you owe him for the infinite benefits which he continues to bestow upon
you. But I conceive that he has done you singular honor, in employ-
ing you in such a duty, making you bear his standard to be glorified in
you, entertain his word — the inestimable treasure of salvation, — and
become a refuge to the members of his Son. The greater care should
you take, madam, in future, to preserve your house for him pure and
entire, that it may be consecrated to him."t
Before pursuing the development of Calvin's life, ^ve must consider;
the condition of Switzerland in the sixteenth century, the domination
of the episcopacy at Geneva, and the religious and political physiogno-
my of that city, at the moment the exile of Noyon made his appear-
ance there.
♦Brantome. tManuscrits fr. de Geneve. 10 Mai, 1563.
CHAPTER X.
THE EEFOEJIATION IN S WITZEEL A5D.
Commencement of the reformation in Switzerland. — Ulrlch Zwingle. — Cause*
of the success of the reformation. — The nobles. — The people. — The Coun-
cils,— The Senate. — Violent proceedings against Catholicism. — Portrait of
Farel. — His theses. — Geneva before the reformation. — Political condition. —
The bouse of Savoy. — The Eidgenoss. — Religious monuments of Geneva.
In 1516, a Franciscan friar, by name, Bernardin Samson, came to
Zurich, to preach indulgences.* Among hU auditors was a young
priest of Toggenbourg, whose name was Zwingle, and who found the
word of the missionary rather unseemly. Born in a canton, the wealth
of which consisted of mountains of snow, glaciers, and precipices, Zwin-
gle could not forgive Samson for causing the Swiss to discover some
alms, amid the slight revenues which they gathered from their fields. f
When, in justification of the zeal of the brother who made the collec-
tion, it was said to Zwingle that these voluntary alms were destined for
the completion of that Basilica, on which Bramante was labouring,
Zwingle .shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the summits of the Alps,
bathed in sunlight, and presenting a thousand artistic caprices, more
beautiful far, than anything which could either be conceived or produ-
ced by human imagination. The name of Bramante awakened in him
no emotion; by his instincts, he resembled the vulgar reformers of Ger-
many, and Carlstadt especially; with this difference, that his cold
soul would never have consented to employ brute force for the suppres-
sion of images in the churches. A man of thought, he had made some
study of the biblical books; seeking, in this commerce with the inspired
word, to satisfy the curiosity of his pride rather than the religious crav-
ings of his soul. He knew nothing of the created world, but the hori-
zons of his canton, and he thought that Catholicism, with its images
made by human hands, did not suit the contemplative soul, which, to
♦ D. Franz Volkmar Reinhard's sammtliche Reformationspredigten. Sulz-
bach, 1823, 1. 1., p. 144.
t Schrockh's Refor. Gesch. 1. 11. J. L. Hpss, vie de Zwingle. — While blaming-
the perhaps inconsiderate zeal of Bernadin Samson, we must be cautious not
to credit all the fables circulated against the Franciscan. A modern writer,
the author of Cahin and the Swiss RtformaticTu, John Scott, (London, 1838,J
exhibits to us, Simson at Baden, after the ser\'ice for the dead, exclaiming to
the assistants, Eccerolant! Behold they soar on hi^h! — an old Huguenot legend,
which he found in Mvcomius, and which should be classed witn those absurd
stories circulated about Tetzel. Quite recently, the memory of the Domini-
can has been vindicated in a work, in German, published at IJayence.
9
98 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
meditate upon the works of God, has a sufficiency of natural wonders
in the physical world. He had blamed pilgrimages to holy places, to
which at this epoch, the Swiss were accustomed to resort for prayer ;
he discovered that the cliristian who wished to journey with advantage^
•should descend into his own heart, to study himself there first, and fromtliis
contemplation to rise to the adoration of the Divinity. This was the
most beautiful sanctuary: the others were material works. Having
once entered upon this mystic way, he soon made for himself a worlds
— wherein God was to be adored according to his spirit, as contracted
as the valley where he dwelt, and of whom every emblem must be ban-
ished,— a world, where the priest's voice should have no more authority
than it could derive from the divine word, that is from the naked letter
of the text.
The declivity was perilous, and led directly to the abyss. Wliat
would he have said of the traveler, who, wishing to visit the mountains
of Albis, should be content to read the Latin description of some old
writer, and have refused the assistance of a guide?
Thas after having expunged from his symbol, pilgrimages, indulgen-
ces, images, purgatory, celibacy, the curate of Einsiedeln, — causing
ruin after ruin, — came to deny the efficacy of the sacraments, and even
the real presence. Enlightened by a dream, and some sort of appari-
tion of a being without color, he had abondoned the secular teaching
of his church, for a fantastic interpretation which destroyed the very
Jetter, whose power he desired to re-establish. Universal authority was
by him contemned, and sacrificed to a narrow and gross individualism.
In place of that beautiful Catholic heaven, — peopled with our martyrs,
ascetics, doctors, fathers, virgins, — he dreamed of an Olympus, in which
amid the same glory he placed Samuel, Elias, Moses, Paul, Socrates,
Aristides, Hercules, Theseus;* and even Cato, who tore out his own
bov/els. We comprehend why Luther has damned Zwingle.f
The reformation has some strange boasts. If we listen to it, the ex-
position of faith by Zwingle is the song of a melodious swan; it is Bul-
lingcr who affirms this. Because a mountaineer population, whose
gross inclinations are flattered, allows itself to be hurried away, almost
without resistance, by the voice of its priest, the reformation triumphs,
cries out " a miracle!" and imagines to see the luminous light of the
desert enveloping the pulpit where ZAvingle preaches, and the tongues
of fire of Jerusalem descending upon the lips of the orator.
Those who are acquainted with the condition of Helvetic society
during the middle ages, have no great difficulty in responding to Bul-
linger. During that period, feudal Switzerland was at the same time
governed by her bishops and her barons. To the first she paid tythes,
* Exposition de la foi Chretlonnc, dcdiec d Francois, lor,
flchwill disz Go/ougnusz und dicsen Riihm mit mir fQr meines lleben
Ilcrm und Heylands Jcsu Christi Richtorstuhl bring(>n, dasz ich die Schwar-
rnor und Sacraments Fcindo -Carlstadt und Zvvingli, etc., von ganzem Horzen
verdanimt und gcniidcn habe, . . , Op Luthcri, t. viii. .Ton, fol. 192. b. lOS. a
voir: Johann Eiscnius: de fugiendo Zwinglio — Calvinismo, t. I., p. 123, 124 et
alia.s. — Philippus Nicolai in seinem?kurzen Bericht von dem Calvinisten Gott.
p. 90.
LIFE OF JOHIT CALVIN. 99
to the last annual rents. Her grain, her fruits did not belong to her:
she could only dispose of ihem according to the good pleasure of her
lords. When her sons came forth from her fields, they had to take up
the lance and sword, and assume place among the retainers of the Su-
zerains. Switzerland has, at the price of her blood, achieved her
freedom, but it was only to fall back under the yoke of sovereigns,
more unmanageable than the Austrian. Those iron hands revenge
themselves, by wringing from the mountaineer population die pretended
exactions of the Roman Chancery. Delivered by the arms of their
vassals from foreign despotism, they would be glad to be rescued from
the yoke of the Roman court. Who will free them? It will not be
the people, who* have so many reasons to hate their new masters. Nor
would the sword be of much use to them, even should the people be
willing to unsheathe it in their defence. The word, is then the new
Arminius whom the lord waits for in his castle.
Let the word then resound, and we shall behold them rally around
him who announces it, although indeed attracted by mere worldly in-
terests. Luther declared, that "the golden suns of the tabernacles have
operated more than one conversion."* Now, the churches of Switzer-
land had suns, chalices, soutans, reliquaries, copes, and dalmatics of
gold and silver. Nowhere in all Christendom, could be found more
splendid abbeys. Around these convents were spread pasture grounds,
in which the seigniors would have been delighted to graze their horses.
Therefore, the immediate effect of a reformation should be to secular-
ize the monasteries, and to deliver up the riches of the church to the
covetousness of the great and powerful. Protestantism proceeded thus
in Saxony; far different from the princes of this world, who break to
pieces the instruments which they have used, it showed itself gener-
ous, and did not even forget the cellars of its protectors, which it caused
to be filled up with vt^ines stolen from the monks. In Switzerland the
example could not be lost. That the people, after all their disappoint-
ments in the war of independence against the house of Austria, con-
sented, to lend to their lord the plebeian lances which were stored
away in the arsenal, should not awaken our astonishment: the people
were once more the dupes of the promises of their masters; they ex-
pected, when the hour should arrive, to obtain part of the booty of the
monasteries, deemed sufficiently rich to satisfy the avarice of nobles
and villeins; but this time they were well determined to stipulate for a
larger share of the administration of the country.
In general, the councils were filled with the nobles or their creatures,
and in some of the cantons, the powers of the senate were really exor-
bitant. It ruled over the magistracy and the clergy. In case of need
it could prohibit fractious theologians from grinding their grain at the
city mills, or buying provisions at the markets. It had famine in its
service; the priest could only make use of excommunication, which
kills the soul but leaves the body living. The weapons were not
equal.
* Viele sind noch gut evangelisch, well es noch katholische Monstranzen
and KlostergUter gibt. xii., Pred., p. 137.
100 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
What could the clergy answer to this order of the Senate of Bale?
** We make known to pastors, theologians and students, that they
must be present at the discussion set on foot by master Farel, in default
of which, they shall not have permission to grind their grain at the mills,
to cook their bread at the ovens, or to buy their meat and vegetables at
the markets of the city."* They were forced to obey, for the palace of
the bishop was not provisioned. Therefore, on the day indicated by the
senate, all the streets of Bale were thronged by priests of every rank, —
bishops, grand vicars, pastors, chaplains, vicars, monks of all orders,
f^anciscans, Benedictines, Dominicans, clerks, tonsurates; Counts, Ba-
rons, who scarcely knew how to read; professors of the University, mas-
ters of colleges, students, merchants, peasants; — who came, compelled
by brute force, to assist at the tournament. The theologians of the two re-
ligions were undoubtedly the natural judges of the field of combat; but
most commonly, the senate remained sovereign master. If, yielding to
party influences, governed by ideas of locality, and domestic hatred, urged
on by the noise of steel gauntlets, and the shouts of students, it decided that
the new word had triumphed over the old, then the question was adju-
dicated, and forthwith the hand of some mason attached a cord to the
jieck of a statue, and made it leap from its pedestal, amid the acclama-
tions of the laughing crowd. And in the evening, it was publicly an-
nounced that the image was vanquished, and that Moses was right in
forbidding the worship of idols, which, against the text of the decalogue,
had been invented by the papacy. But if, quite fresh from the school
benches, some seminarian took it into his head to draw a distinction
between an image and an idol, they pointed out to him the glory which
covered the Saint's head with its halo of massive gold, and the argu-
ment was irrefutable. At Liestal, the people, excited by the magis-
trates, cried out to the monks: "Discourses, and not masses!" The
monks resisted; "and they cut off their supply of provisions,"t The
historian has not even one souvenir of pity for these poor religious, and
yet they had cleared out the rubbish from the whole country of Hauen-
stein.
More than once, the episcopacy was desirous to forbid these passion-
ate contests of human speech, in which Catholic faith could acquire no
recompense but blessings; whilst error, if triumphant, marched away
with hands full of gold. But they would not even hearken to its voice,
if the prelates insisted, if they appealed to the weapons of St. Paul,
anathemas, they were driven from their sees. Then Capito (Koepflein)
and (Ecolampadius, (Hausschein) usurped their places and enacted the
office of judge, theologian, priest, and bishop. Zvvingle, who divined
the hostility of the spiritual power, had organized a religion in which,
according to his gospel,Ij] the priesthood was devolved upon every chris-
*Secus facturis, usu molendinorum, furnorum et morcatus interdicit ....
Melch. Adam in vitis thcol. extern,, p. 114.
tHottinger, p. 191. Ruchat. Hist. Reform, t. 1, p. 230.
^ Zwingli war entschieden republikaniseh, wie Calvin; darum wollten beide
die apostolische Gleichheit unter alien Geistlichen ohne Aufseher. Paul Henry,
t. I, p. 138.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 101
tian: so that senators, who yesterday performed the part of theologian,
would waken up to-morrow, priests according to the order of the pastor
of Einsiedeln.
The religious form of the country was soon changed in Switzerland:
Bale, Neuchatel, Zurich, and Coire embraced the reformation. But
Luther's work had been spoiled: he no longer recognized it, so profound
was the transformation! At each theorem, from some new evangelist,
the Saxon monk roused himself, in order to condemn the indocile soul.
When OEcolampadius died, he caused the devil to intervene, to account
for the sudden death of the theologian. When Zwingle fell at CappeJ,
in his struggle with the lesser cantons, the doctor returned thanks to
God, for having removed from this earth that enemy of the holy name
of Jesus;* whilst Besa sang:
Zwingle, homme de bien, sentant son ame esprise
De raniour du grand Dieu, de I'aniourdu pays,
A Dieu preniierement voua sa vie, et puis
De mourlr pour Zurich en son coeur fit emprise,
Qu'il s'en acquitta bien, tue, reduit en cendre,
II voulut le pays et verite defendre.f
(Ecolampadius and Zwingle, having abandoned the doctrines of the
Saxon reformer, were desirous to constitute a distinct apostolate for
themselves. In fact, (Ecolampadius did not believe in the enslaved
will of Luther, and Zwingle rejected the impanation of Wittenberg.
Both, then, had reason to expect, if they died impenitent, that they
would fall into Luther's Hell, and suffer in those lakes of fire, in which
he had already cast Prierias, £ck, Miltitz, and Leo X. Had he known the
theses which Farel had just affixed to the door of the Cathedral of Bale,
he would have banished him from his paradise.
These were thirteen in number: the tenth, quite revolutionary in its
character, was thus conceived:
"Persons who are in good health, and not entirely occupied in preach-
ing the word of God, are obliged to labor with their hands. "J
Now, at Bale, the persons, who were not occupied in preaching the
word of God, were in part, the monks, the bishop, the prebendaries,
the great, the rich, the magistrates. Judge, if such a thesis was not
* Pislorius may be consulted, im zweyten bosen Geist Luther Azoara vi. p.
163, and the following, where are found numerous passages extracted from the
works of Luther against Zwingle and the Swiss. — Lavather, in hist. Sacram.
p. 32. — Surius, in comra. ad annum 1543, fol. 350. — Ulcnberg, in vita Lutheri,
cap. xxxii, n. L
t Zwingle, a good man, feeling his soul absorbed with love for the great God,
and love for the country, vowed his life to God first, and then in his heart re-
solved to die for Zurich, of which he well acquitted himself, being killed, re-
duced to ashes, he was desirous to defend the country and truth.
X Hist, de laRef. de la Suisse, par Ruchat. 1. 1, p. 234.
A modern historian thinks it extraordinary that the Catholic clergy used
their influence to have Farel banislied from Bale, and Avith great simplicity
says: "Leaving Strasbourg he visited Bale; but as the hosiility of the Roman
Catholic clergy did not permit him to continue in that city, he removed, by tho
recommendation of CEcolampadius and other friends, to the neighboring prin-
cipality of Montbelliard." — JohnScott's Cahin^andthe Swiss Reformation, p. 184.
9*
102
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN,
calculated to inflame the whole city, and if Schnaw, the episcopal vicar,
was right in making opposition to its discussion in full assembly?
The reformation can boast no more ardent soul than that of FareL
Under the kings of Israel, Farcl would have acted the part of priest of
Baal; in Franconia. that of Munzer or Bockold; in England, in case of
need, he could have taken the place of Cromwell or of Knox.
He was born for the popular drama, with his eye of fire, his com-
plexion scorched by the sun, and his red and badly combed beard.
Were you to hoist this half dwarf upon a post, concealed amid his thick
tufts of hair, he would attract the people as they passed along the street.
Garry him down into the mines of Mansfeld, and the workmen
would quit their anvils to hear and follow him. If you were to trans-
port him into a prdpit surrounded by images, he would seize a knife or
hammer, to deface and break what he calls idols. One day a proces-
sion was moving through the streets of the little town of Aigle; the
priest was carrying the holy sacrament: Farel pierces through the
crowd, marches up to the canopy, seizes the sun of gold, casts it upon
the ground, and saves himself by flight. Falsehoods, violence, sedi-
tions, all things seemed to him proper for the destruction of "the papism,"*
He imagined that he heard a voice from heaven crying to him, march 1
and he marched, like death, without disquieting himself about robes,
red or blue, about mantles of ermine or silk, crowns of dukes or kings,
sacred vessels, pictures or statues, which he considered mere dust and
rubbish. He insolently scoffed at history, christian art, traditions, and
forms. Had not Froment, Saunier, or some other moderated this hot
southern head, of our holy edifices, there would not remain a stone upon
a stone. To chastise the world, God would not in his wrath, want
more than two or three fallen angels, kneaded out of the slime of which
Farel was composed, and society would relapse into darkness.
He was in Switzerland, at the time that Calvin was vainly trying to
reform Italy. Montbelliard, Aigle, and Bienne, agitated by his preach,
ing, had expelled their monks, and instituted a new religion. He die?
not pass through a city or town, without causing the inhabitants to
measure arms. "Heaven suffers violence," he said on these occasions:
and he accomplished his mission of noise and destruction without mis-
giving or remorse. The magistrates themselves, frightened by the stran-
ger's attempts, did not dare keep him but a moment: the revolt accom-
plished, they opened the city gates for him, and Farel, satisfied, took his
pilgrim-staff, and set forth on foot across the mountains, in quest of ano-
ther city where his voice might excite another tempest. The horse of
Attila cut the grass under his feet: Farel's staff laid low, on the high-
way, the crosses of Christ and the images of the Virgin.
Ho was at Geneva, in 1536, where, like a skillful workman, he had
profited by the intestine divisions which agitated the city, in order to
spread his gospel, which, moreover, in nothing resembled the gospel of
Luther.
To estimate and understand the success of Farel's preaching, we
need not, after the manner of the historians of the reformation, call in
* Erasmi Epistolse. Ep. xxx, lib. 18, p. 798.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 103
the intervention of the Deity. It is sufficient merely to glance at tho
social condition of the city, and the unceasing contests of parties, whit;h,
for so long a time, had tormented it. We are then convinced that a
great prospect of success awaited the man, whose soul w^as of a teniper
sufficiently stern, to enable him to control with his voice the dissen-
sions, the hates, and the rage, to which the city was a prey.
On the banks of Lake Leman, — which by Voltaire was preferred to
all the other lakes of Switzerland, — set in the midst of a basket of ver-
dure, illumined by the rays of light which glanced from the summits of
the surrounding mountains, and from Mount Blanc, covered with its
snows and ices, and, in the distance, lifting high its gigantic crest,
arose Geneva, a Celtic city, as is indicated by the name it bears, and
for which, in the ninth century, it exchanged that of Gabennum.*
This was the capital of the Allobrogi, which Caesar called the strong
city.f It preserves its republican organization under the Romans, who
are found frequently descending the Alps, traversing it, and there leav-
ing traces of their passage. Under Marcus Aurelius it perishes by a
conflagration. Aurelian rebuilds it, and there establishes fairs, which,
at a later period, become for the nation an abundant source of riches ;
and, through gratitude, it assumes the name of the emperor. In the fourth
century, it is a christian city, and has its saints, its doctors, and its
bishops. Republicanism there facilitates the establishment of Chris-
tianity. Dionysius, driven out of Venice, comes there to preach the
gospel. When that German tribe, the Burg-Huns, organize a mon-
archy, Geneva becomes the capital of the new state. Gontram, in
585, lays the ffi-st foundation of a Catholic temple ; the erection is
prosecuted by Otho, and under Choldwig it is completed, and dedicated
to the prince of the Apostles. J This is the church of St. Peter, des-
tined to be profaned and despoiled by the reformation.
It is Gondebaud who causes the Gombette law to be digested ; an
ancient code, presenting a view of the manners and customs of the
German people, and of the Roman Allobrogi. Gondebaud makes
vain efforts to introduce Arianism into Geneva; Catholicism Avas des-
tined to triumph ; Clovis, king of the Franks, had just embraced it.
The Burgundian kingdom, — torn to pieces, dismembered, dissolved, —
soon passed under the dominion of the Franks, but still preserved its
laws and its franchises. To the Burgundian city, Charlemagne accord-
ed new franchises, for it had welcomed him with lively sympathy,
when he was waging war in Lombardy. The office of count of the
Genevese must have been an institution of this prince. It seemed,
however, to have been limited to the territory which enclosed the city.
Geneva, under the Franks, had neither lord nor prince. § The form of
the government was, at this epoch, entirely republican ; the people
named their bishops, who were confirmed by the Pope. At the death
•Geneva, which signifies 'outlet of the river.' Some of the names of the
mountains, rivers, and. towns, seem to be derived from tlie Celtic.
tExtremum oppidum Allobrogum est, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus
Geneva. — Cessar, de bello Gallico, lib. i. cap. 6 et 7.
:j:Spon. t. i. p. 28.
jFazy, Essai du precis de Thistoire de la Republique de Geneve, t. ler.
104 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
of Charlemagne, the destinies of the Genevan country are changed;
it becomes, for a time, part of the kingdom of Lorraine, and then part
of the kingdom of Aries ; afterwards, for more than half a century,
part of transjuran Burgundy, — an epoch of glory, in which the histori-
an delights to point out the generous efforts of its princes, Rodolph and
Conrad, to embellish the city. With Rodolph III. terminates that fine
line of kings of little Burgundy, whose names have remained popular.
It was at the death of Rodolp^h, the last king of Burgundy, in 1032,
that Geneva came under the Empire, and was made capital of the
Genevese : a governor, in the name of the emperor, administered jus-
tice ; the bishop, as well as the governor, was dependent on the house
of Austria. Then arose the contests between the priesthood and the
empire. Germany and Italy became vast battle-fields, on which the
tiara and the German eagle contended for the sceptre of the world. The
eagle, triumphant, would have strangled christian civilization with its
talons. During these afflicting contests, the two powers, at that time
distinct at Geneva, — the one represented by the governor, the other by
the bishop, — conceived the thought to throw off' the yoke of the Em-
pire. The moment seemed propitious. The Council of Lateran had
just excommunicated Henry V. Then, says Chorier, the prelates, and
after their example, the counts and seigniors, ceased to render to the
Teutonic monarch the devoirs due to the lord paramount, and proclaim-
ed themselves independent : revolution became an act of religion.*
At this moment, — thanks to this usurped emancipation, — Avere seen
to spring up a host of counts and barons, of grand and noble person-
ages, the possessors of a few acres of land, which they erected into prin-
cipalities. The historian of those distant times, at each step he makes
in this enclosure of a few leagues, encounters a man mailed in steel,
who calls himself prince, and places the arms of the Genevese upon
his escutcheon. These noble barons are at war with Savoy, which dis-
putes the corner of land that they have appropriated to themselves ;
they are at war with the German empire, which contests the title they
have usurped; with the common people, who demand a restoration of
thsir curtailed franchises ; with the bishop, who desires to be temporal
prince, and carry the sword as well as the mitre. This struggle is long.
It is terminated in the commencement of the fifteenth century, by a
treaty, in which Villars, count of Geneva, cedes his rights to Amedee,
duke of Savoy : from this epoch, the dukes of Savoy, vicars of the
Roman empire, stamp money at Geneva, there convoke the assembly
of the States General of Savoy, remit capital punishment, and exercise
all the prerogatives of sovereigns.!
In the midst of all these contests, the common people were not idle ;
they laboured for their emancipation, organized themselves, and daily
conquered new liberties; the bourgeoisie, or citizenship, was in pro-
gress of formation.
Soon, Geneva had a tricephalous power. The bishop's head, the
*Histoire du Daupliine, t. 11. liv. 1. ch. 21, 22.— Spon. t. 1, p. 57.— Chron.
manusc. citee par Ruchat.
t De Costa. Memoires, p. 315, t. L
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 105
duke's head, and the head bourgeois, or citizen's head; — a fantastic
being, whose acts cannot be more easily traced, than its rights can be de-
termined ; manifold elements, resulting from the same thought, the need
of independence.
An ancient historian, whose work was never published, has shed
great light upon the political constitution of the country : it is a work
of which Ruchat made use, and which we will reproduce in an abridg-
ed form.
The bishop of Geneva, was, in right of regale, at once prince, spirit-
ual and temporal. He was designated by the people, and elected by
the canons. The temporal prince had lay-assessors; first, a count,
"who was not, as it is thought, above the bishop, but under him, as his
officer," to execute what had been resolved upon, by the the secular
counselors, regarding temporal affairs. The people, that is, "the
heads of families", assembled twice a year;— on the Sunday after St.
Martin's festival, — to regulate the sale and price of wine ; on the Sun-
day after the Purification, to elect the syndics and council. The mem-
bers of the council were four syndics, whose powers were for one year;
a treasurer and twenty counselors, who had the administration of
the municipal police. — The bishop, the count, his lieutenant, who was
called the Vidomne, (vice domini,) swore, on entering into office, to
maintain the liberties and franchises of the commune. The council
caused watchmen to patrole the city by day and night, and kept the
keys of the city gates, which, at its pleasure, it caused to be opened and
closed : If an evil-doer was found at night, he was seized, and, on
the next morning, shut up in the prisons of the bishop.*
The counselors directed the process, and sat in judgment upon all
crimes; after the sentence, the count or the vidomne was charged with
its execution. The bishop had the pardoning power. None but gen-
tlemen, or the graduates in some science, "or wholesale merchants who
sold nothing by retail," could be elected members of the council.
There was another council, elected by the people, and consisting of
fifty members, who were assembled, when any affair of importance
presented itself, and who were trade-wardens during the continuance of
the fairs. — Finally, the grand, or general council, in which the canons
represented the clergy, and whose statutes and regulations the bishop
was obliged to confirm. Each new ordinance was proclaimed, at the
sound of trumpets, through the streets and crossways of the city, in these
terms :
" You are informed, on the part of the very reverend and our much
respected lord, the lord bishop, and prince of Geneva, of his vidomne
and syndics, the council and honest men of the city, that," &c.
Behold the pre-eminence enjoyed by the duke of Savoy, at Geneva.
He had an office called the Vidomnat, which he discharged by means
of a lieutenant, called the vidomne ; this 'vidomne, who had a lieute-
nant called the governor or castellan, swore fidelity to the bishop and
the syndics, and promised to protect the liberties and franchises of the
city. Cases of appeal were carried from the vidomne to the episcopal
♦Francois Bonnivard, prieur de St. Victor de Geneve. Chronique manuscrite.
106 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
council, and not to the duke ; — from the bishop to his spiritual superi-
ors in ecclesiastical matters, viz ; to the archbishop of Vienna, and to
the Pope.
At a quarter of a league from Geneva, — towards the south, — the
dukes of Savoy possessed a small fortified place, named Gaillard, where
ducal justice executed those criminals, who were condemed by the syn-
dics to capital punishment. The syndics transmitted their sentence to
the vidomne, in these terms : "Sir vidorane, w^e send to you, and
command that you cause our sentence to be executed.". . . The vidomne
caused the culprit to be conducted to the gate de I'lsle, where stood a
castle which had retained the same name, and there an archer cried
out, three times : "Is there any one here on the part of the duke of
Savoy, lord of castle Gaillard?" At the third demand, the castellan
of Gaillard advanced, and then the vidomme read the sentence passed
against the criminal, and commanded the castellan to have it executed.
The castellan summoned the executioner, and the sentence was execut-
ed, and not on the lands of the duke, but at the place Champel, which
was under the bishop's jurisdiction.
The duke of Savoy held the castle de ITsle at Geneva, of which the
vidomme Avas governor, and in it were the prisons.*
"Now, the dukes," says Bonnivard, "only held this castle and other
rights of pre-eminence, as a pledge for the payment of certain sums of
money, which, in the wars, they had advanced to the bishop and syn-
dics of the city. The city often wished to return their money, but the
dukes refused to receive it, because they did not wish to resign the
pledge." Well, one day, the money was expedited to Rome, and
placed in the hands of justice, and a decree of excommunication was
fulminated against those who should pretend to hold the castle de ITsle
for the duke of Savoy. "When this was done, and by what counts
and bishops, I have not discovered, because many rights of the church
and city have been lost. But I have heard it said, by persons worthy
of belief, who saw the process at Rome."
The account of prior Bonnivard is sufficiently probable ; also, when
the procession passed before the castle, the clergy ceased singing, and
the cross was reversed, to indicate that this castle was under interdict.
They would never have administered the sacraments there, to any one
who might have fallen sick.t
" Charles, the third of this name, duke of Savoy, who lives at this
day, still possessed the above named rights of pre-eminence, and that
too without any contradiction ; he should have been satisfied with right,
and with having more than Geneva owed him, for both he and his pre-
decessors were better served by Geneva, not subject to him, than by any
city on this side the mountains in subjection to him, whether in regard
*"The governors of cnstle de I'lsle depended only on the duke of Savoy,
and, in the name of their master, collected various taxes from clerks, Jews,
Lombardians, and from the markets; they granted or sold to foreigners per-
missions of residence, and placed these tributes in the coffers of the chamber
of the counts of Chambery." — Guichenon.
t Bonnivard, Chron. Mss. — Fazy.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 107
to honor, to magnificence, or profit. For when a duke or duchess made
entry into the city, God knows what festivity, what triumph there was,
when he came to lodge the court ; not a citizen, not an inhabitant of
Geneva, who did not exert himself more through courtesy, than his
subjects, by constraint. If there was question of war, the companions
Avere ready to serve with their persons : the magistrates to furnish
money, even to fortify their city, to aid him against those, whose aid
they must themselves demand against him. In brief, the only differ-
ence between him and them was of word, not deed ; for he wished them
to be his subjects, which they did not oppose in fact, but in word only,
for they, of good will, rendered him as many services, as his subjects
did from restriction ; but he wished to make them call themselves such,
and they would not do so : wishing to take in Geneva more than his
predecessors had, he lost what he had, and even some of his own be-
sides."*
During a space of twenty-five years, from 1610 to 1635, there w^as a
warm struggle between the house of Savoy and the patriots of Geneva,
The duke, not daring to employ open force, had recourse to stratagem,
and caused an annual tribute to be offered to the citizens, on condition
that the Savoyards should be allowed to guard the gates of the city, at
least during the fairs. The citizens refused. About this time, John of
Savoy, named bishop of Geneva by Leo X., thought that exile and
confiscation would shake the courage of the inhabitants. He was mis-
taken. Geneva had sent some of its citizens to Fribourg, in general
poor enough, but of tried patriotism, and who, on beholding the ban-
ners conquered on the field of Morat, knelt down devoutly, and kissed
the fringes, stained with Burgundian blood. They were feasted, and
even allowed the rights of citizenship. When the envoys returned to
their own country, they were saluted with acclamations. They were
hearers of a treaty which the duke's partizans were unwilling to accept.
Then Geneva beheld herself divided into two factions, with their co-
lours and distinctive appellations. Those, who solicited and received
the alliance of Fribourg, were called Eidgenoss, or Eidgenots,t that is,
"the confederated," a name which directly called to mind the drama
of Grutli.
The Eidgenoss, or the confederated, to revenge themselves, designated
their adversaries by the name of the Mammelus, or slaves. This was
a falsehood and an insult, because the Mammelus, loved Geneva like
good children. But they were zealous Catholics, and foresaw that the
alliance with Berne, sought for by the Eidgenoss, would prove fatal to
the national religion, and that, for the sake of the independence of the
commune, their adversaries would sacrifice the faith of Ardutius ; the
Mammelus read the future.
They were driven out of the city, as partisans of the duke. The
*We should not blindly confide in the testimony of Bonnivard, who has
often calumniated Charles III., a prince, who was'the friend of justice and
order, of a mild and amiable character, pious, regular in his habits, but desti-
tute of those qualities so essential to sovereigns, courage and firmness of soul,
tEidgenoss, in German, the confederated.
108 LIFE OF JOHK CALVJK.
Eidgenoss feared that they would not be strong enough to resist the
house of Savoy, and therefore formed an alliance with Berne, which, a
long time since, had received the reformation. The ducal nobility then
constituted itself into a confraternity, under the title of The Confra-
ternity of the Spoo?i. Berne regarded the moment as propitious ; it
came to the aid of its ally with a powerful army, bringing along twenty
cannon, for the subjugation of the ducal partisans, and William Farel,
for the conversion of the Catholics. To show that it had received the
new gospel, Berne, upon its way, broke to pieces our holy images, and
made its horses drink out of the holy-water pots of our churches.
Undoubtedly, Geneva would never be able to forget the names of
Besanszon Hugues, of John Baud, of Ami Girard, of John Philippe,
of the Lullins, the Vandels, who nearly all made part of the society of
the Eidgenoss. But the historian, while contributing to pay homage to
these patriots, should not dissimulate the fact, that they embraced
the reformation, not from conviction, but policy, and to preserve the
only thing which they esteemed more than faith, — liberty. The field
of Morat was not far distant from Fribourg : the Eidgenoss, in travers-
ing it, might there have seen the scattered bones of some of those no-
ble confederates, who died for their God and their country. At Fri-
bourg, the linden tree, planted in commemoration of the victory of the
Swiss Catholics, still threw the protection of its shade on some child
of a soldier, wounded at this other Marathon ; this was a great lesson,
but it was utterly lost on the confederates.
While Berne was thus moving on with floods of missionaries and
soldiers, to aid the Eidgenoss, Geneva, in her monuments and customs,
was still entirely Catholic ; — a city of the arts and of charity, open to
the learned and to the poor. Three nations seemed to defile through
it without intermission, leaving there some germs of their distinctive
characters; the Savoyard, his probity; the Italian, his love of forms;
the Frenchman, his reckless gaity.
Its bishops had frequently opened their palace, to give welcome to
the painters, of Germany, who, in the middle ages, went in pilgrimage
to Rome; or to the Italian artists, who traversed Switzerland, for the
purpose of visiting France. Both of these were accustomed to repay
episcopal hospitality, by leaving with their hosts some work of art, — a
Christ in ivory, a little statue cut from the hard oak, a Madonna paint-
ed on canvass, — with which the prelate would enrich some church or
convent, Vv^ith the sole condition of praying for the traveler. These
prayers were still recited at the time that the reformation came to drive
away the bishops, and to burn the statues and pictures; thus, at once
proving itself cruel, sacrilegious, and ignorant. At that period, Gene-
va possessed a fine museum, not imprisoned within four walls of parget
stone, but open to the air and to the Alpine sunlight, or in the vast
nave of some basilica. With pride, it could direct the stranger's atten-
tion to six statues of saints, which ornamented the grand entrance to
the church of the Gray Friars ; to the two angels, whose outspread
■\vings overshadowed the cemetery of the Magdalen ; to the stained
glass of St. Anthony, whose colours were fresh and beautiful as those
of Cologne ; to the stone arabesques, of the convent of the Jacobins ;
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 109
the crucifix of the cathedral, a work of some unknown master, and to
many other wonders of art, which the fury of the reformers broke into
pieces, to prove, without doubt, the truth of that prophecy of Erasmus:
"Every where that Lutheranism shall obtain the ascendency, the culti-
vation of the arts will be extinguished."*
The city was divided into seven parishes, thus designated : the first,
the cathedral of St. Peter,t under the title of the Holy Cross ; the se-
cond, JSolre Dame la Neuve, near to St. Peter's ; the third, the Mag-
dalen ; the fourth, St. Germanus; the fifth, St, Gervaise ; the sixth,
St. Legier ; the seventh, St. Victor.
In the interior of the city, could be counted three monasteries, th«
Gray Friars, or Cordeliers, at the convent de la Rive ; the nuns of St.
Clair ; the Jacobins, on the street la Corraterie, at the palace where
was the clock of Pont du Rhone, which was burnt down in the
year 1670.
Outside the city, were the monastery of St. Victor, of the order of
Clugny, with a prior and nine monks, the convent of the Augustinians,
near Pont de I'Arve, and styled Notre Bame de Grace, and another at
St. John des Grottes, opposite la Batie.
Geneva also boasted seven hospitals, sustained by their own income
or by tha alms of the charitable.!}: There was one destined for the
poor traveler, who might have fallen sick upon his journey. He was
cared for and nursed, until he was able to resume his travel ; as soon
as he could rise and walk, a brother came and warned him to yield his
bed to another pilgrim. The restored wayfarer set out, after having
received a loaf of bread and a gourd of wine, but he was obliged for
three days to recite an Ave Maria for the hospital.
After the reformation, nearly all these institutions of prayer and
charity fell; only two remained. §
♦Ubicumque regnat Lutheranismus, ibi literarum interitus. — Ep, p. 636-637,
tGeneva has retained the church of St. Peter. The interior still exhihits
traces of the ancient church, in its stained glass, where the saints and histori-
cal scenes are represented : and those who were unwilling to pardon an image
of Jesus Christ, have shown favour to that of one of their bishops, which is seea
behind Calvin's pulpit, attached to a column. There are also some seats, abov«
which still remain six images of the Apostles, in alto relievo, with their names
carved upon scrolls. The tombs of Catholics, with the prayer for the dead
and the requiescant in pace, are also to be seen. — Florimond de Remond,
:}:Four of these hospitals had been founded by princes of the house of Sa-
voy. The duchess Yolande founded that for old men; Amedee, that for luna-
tics; Anne of Cypress, that for pilgrims; John of Savoy, that for foundlings,—,
De Costa, mem. hist. t. i. p. 357. . .
iSpon. hist, de Geneve, in 4to. t. ii, p. 212.
10
CHAPTER XI.
THE BISIIOFS AND THE PATRIOTS.
A picture of the services rendered to the material and religious interests oi
Geneva by the Episcopacy. — Ardutius, — Adliemar Fabri. — Jolm do Coni'
pois. — Struggle of the Patriots and the Episcopacy. — Berthelier, Besanhed and ironed, and some even went to put their fine.
iinens in the Rhone.
" Also, while the procession was moving on, some persons snatched
the distaff from a fat Lutheran lady, and with it gave her a smart blov/
on the head, then threw it into the mud.
" After St. Anne's day, which was Sunday, a prohibition was made
to ring the bell for mass,, lest it should disturb the pitiful preacher.
And, after listening to this cursed sermon, his hearers broke to pieces seve-
ral beautiful images, and laid utterly prostrate the altar of the chapel of
La Royne de Cypre; they broke the statue of our Lady, which was
large and exceedingly rich and beautiful, cut from alabaster stone.
" During the first week of the following August,, the monastery of
St. Victor was thoroughly pillaged, and fifty florins were given to some
poor labourers to take off the roof of the church, for the purpose of
destroying it entirely, together with the priory. I do not know, can-
didly, where it was said, that when persons passed by there, they heard
the poor dead complaining, and lamenting audibly, day and night; for
many persons were there buried.
*' On the 17th of July, 1535, at Molard, within the city, the sieur
James Malbosson was decapitated, a great well-doer, and a truly good:
Catholic. When he was at the place of his martyrdom, he asked li-
cense to speak, and went on to say : 'Gentlemen, behold me here about
to die, purely for love of my God, for I have never committed any of-
fence to deserve death, and had I wished to be an evangelist, I would,
not have died yet, but I protest that I die in the faith of my worthy pre-
decessors I confess that I have exerted all my influence and
power to bring back my prince, Monsieur de Geneve, into the city, that
by his means, all heresies might be expelled from the city. ... i
entreat my christian brethren to have regard for my wife, and to tell her.
that I recommend my children to her, and that she should give my
confessor a tessoon,* and that she should satisfy my servants and all to,
whom 1 am in any wise indebted.'
" Then a rank heretic advanced, and said to him : *You owe me a
sum.' H-3 replied : 'I do not remember that I owe you a single sous;
but that my soul may be embarrassed by nothing, I recommend that the
s^id sum be given you ;' and then commending his soul to God, he had
his head struck off.
"After the lapse of a short time, on the head which avds elevated at
Molard, a beautiful dove, white as snow,, was seen descending suddenly
froiu heaven, at the beautiful day-break, and coming, it flew round the
head, then perching on it, and fluttering its wings in a joyful manner, it
afterwards returned to heaven suddenly
*' On the feast of St. Dcnys,. the parochial church of St. Legier, out-
*An old coin*.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN, 127
side of the city, was unroofed, and afterwards entirely razed and de-
stroyed, and all the altars were broken into pieces : some of them brought
pieces thereof to make baths in their houses.
*' On Christmas day, the Lutherans had no solemnity, but clad them-
selves in their worst garb, as for work-days, and caused no white bread
to be baked, because the christians did so; and, in mockery, they said:
'The papists are keeping festival ; they v;ill eat so much white bread,
that they will burst.'
" In the month of April, 1535, the pitiful preacher, William Faret,
and Peter Verret d'Orbe, took possession and residence at the convent
of St. Francis : and inasmuch as they were near to the convent of the
poor nuns of St. Clair, they caused to these a great deal of annoyance,
by means of their adherents, recommending them to their hearers in
their sermons, saying that they were poor ignorant women, erring in
faith, and that in order to save them, they ought to let them out of their
prison, and that every one ought to stone them; since it was all cor-
ruption and hypocrisy, for they cause it to be believed that they preserve
virginity, which God has not commanded, inasm.uch as it would not be
possible to do so, and they are feeding those hypocrites, the Francis-
cans, with good partridges and fine capons.
" On Friday, within the octave of Corpus Christi, at five o'clock
at night, the sisters being all assembled in the refectory, for their colla-
tion, the syndics came and said to their portress, that they had come to
announce to the ladies, that on the next Sunday they must all be pre-
sent at the disputation upon different articles, which Peter James
Bernard, the guardian des cordeliers, would maintain on his life. The
mother abbess and the assistant made their appearance immediately,
and replied to the syndics : 'Gentlemen, you must excuse us, for we
cannot obey this summons, having vowed perpetual enclosure, and this
vow we wish to keep.'
" The syndics replied : 'We have nothing to do with your ceremo.
nies, you must obey the commands of these gentlemen ; good people ail
are summoned to this disputation, in order to prove the truth of the
gospel, for we must arrive at union in faith.'
" 'And how is this!' said the mother abbess and the nssistant, 'it is not
the office of women to dispute, for this is not enjoined on women, and
never was v/oman called upon for disputation and testimony; and for
this we are not willing to commence.'
" Then the syndics replied to them : 'All these reasons are worth
nothing, you shall come there with your fathers, -willing or not.'
*• The mother assistant said to them : 'Gentlemen, we beseech you
in the name of God, to give up the idea of forcing us to this thing. . . .
We de not believe that you are the syndics.'
" The syndics said to the lady assistant : 'Do not think to sport with
us; open your doois; we AviJl enter within, and then you will see ivho
we are.'
" 'Very well,' answered the assistant, 'but at this hour you cannot
enter within, because our sisters are at complins of the divine office,
and we also wish to go there, wishing you good evening.'
" The syndics responded to the lady assistant : 'These sisters are not
128 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
all of your sentiments, for some of them you keep within by force, and
these will soon yield to the truth of the gospel.'
" 'Gentlemen,' said the sisters, 'we have come here, not from con-
straint, but to do penance, and to pray for the world ; and we are not
hypocrites, as you say, but pure virgins.'
" 'Then,' responded one of the syndics: 'you are sadly fallen from
the truth, for God has not commanded so many rules, which men have
devised, to deceive the world; and under the titles of religion, they are
the ministers of the devil.'
" 'How now,' said the mother assistant, 'do you, who call yourselves
evangelists, find in the gospel that you are to speak evil of others?'
" The syndic said : 'I have been a robber, a brigand, a lover of luxu-
ry, ignorant of the truth of the gospel, until now.'
" The mother assistant replied : 'AH these works are wicked, and
contrary to the divine commands ; you do very well to amend.'
'"Lady assistant,' said the syndic, 'you are very arrogant; but if
you make us angry, you will repent it.'
" 'Gentlemen,' said the mother assistant, 'you can only torture my
body; it is this which, for the love of God, I most desire.'
" On Sunday, within the octave of the Visitation, the syndics came,
with their pitiful preacher, whose name is Farel, and Peter Verret,
and a Franciscan friar, who more resembled a devil than a man, and it
was ten o'clock in the morning, when the nuns were about to take their
breakfast ; and they called themselves our fathers and good friends.
" The syndic said : 'We are the lords of justice, we desire to
enter.'
" The mother assistant replied : 'Gentlemen, my heart tells me that
you bring with you your diabolical preachers, whom, in no wise, we
wish to hear.'
" The syndic answered : 'We are good people, and we are not re-
sorting to any tricks, and we come for your consolation; and therefore
open your doors.'
" 'Gentlemen,' rejoined the mother assistant, 'now, declare, if you
please, the motive for which you desire to get inside.'
'• The syndic replied : 'By the Lord, we will enter, and if you will
not open, we will break dow^n your doors.'
" On seeing this, the mother abbess, and the other sisters said ; 'It is
better for us to open the doors, for fear they do us other harm.'
" Afterw^ards, they went straight to the chapter, and the syndic said :
♦Mother abbess, cause all your sisters to be assembled here.'
" All the sisters being collected, the younger ones were placed before
this accursed Farel, Silence was commanded, and Farel began hisdis-
course : 'Maria ahiit in montajia, saying that Mary had not led a solita-
ry life, but was diligent in assisting and doing service to her cousin, and
on this passage, he degraded the holy cloister and religion, the state of
holiness, of chastity and virginity, in a vituperative manner that pierced
the hearts of the poor nuns. Then ihe mother assistant, perceiving
that the seducers were chatting with and flattering the younger sisters,
arose amidst the more ancient, saying : 'Sir syndic, since your people
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 129
do not keep silence, I shall not keep it either, but I shall know what
they are there saying to my sisters;' and she went and placed herself
between the young sisters and these gallants ; on this they were indig-
nant, saying, what devil of a woman is this : lady assistant, have you
a devil, or are you crazy ? Return to your place. No, I will not do
so, she said, except these gentry be removed from near my sisters.
" The syndics being troubled, furiously commanded that the lady
assistant should be turned out.
''- Then, a preacher resumed his deceitful discourse about the tie of
marriage and liberty, and Avhen he spoke of eternal corruption, the
gisters commenced to exclaim ; 'it is a falsehood,' and they spit in con-
tempt against him. . . . The mother abbess, who w^as outside, could
not restrain herself; she came to the preacher, and, striking with her
two fists against the partition wall, with great force she exclaimed :
'Pitiful and accursed man' you entirely lose your deceitful words; you
w^ill gain nothing by them here.'
" Now, the heretics, perceiving that they gained no advantage, but
only great reproaches, withdrew, and in descending the steps, the ac-
cursed Franciscan, quite covered with scars, was hideous to be seen,,
and not being able to descend, was lagging behind ; and one of the
sisters going after him, struck him between the shoulders with both
hands, saying : 'pitiful apostate, hasten, and take thyself from my
presence.' . . .
" On the day of Sir, St. Bartholomew, apostle, there came large com-
panies, well armed, having clubs and all sorts of weapons, and quite
deliberately they came to strike at the great door of the convent of St.
Clair. The poor brother Convers, with good intentions, opened the
door then the lieutenant proceeded to say : 'Now, there, good
ladies, you are very blind, not to know the truth, and to be so obstinate
in your errors, but I enjoin on you, on the part of the authorities of the
city, not to say any office, either high or low, and never again to hear
mass.'
" The mother assistant, inspired by our Lord, answered : Gentle-
men, I am of opinion that we should demand permission and safe con-
duct from the city authorities, and then abandon the city.'
" 'Well, then,' said the syndic, 'my good ladies, fix the day on which
you wish to depart, and tell us how you think of doing so.' 'Certes,'
responded the mother assistant, 'let it be to-morrow morninsj, at break
of day, and do you please grant us only our garments and mantles, to
protect us from the cold, and to each one a coif, that we may be able
to have a change for washing. 'We are agreed,' replied the syndic.
"After midnight, the sisters all assembled in the infirmary, around
the mother abbess, who was very feeble, sick, and old, who blessed
them all devoutly, with tears, saying : 'My children, be of firm cour-
age and obedient to the mother assistant, whom I pray and beseech to
take charge over you.' The mother assistant encouraged them, saying:
'My dear mother and sisters, let us have good hope in God, and think
only of saving our souls. Place yourselves in good order and devotion,
ready to set out when these people shall come; and place yourselves
two and two, holding each other by the hand firmly, and quite near
each other, that none may separate you.'
130
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
'•' Behold, the others now arrive : seeing which, the mother assistant
threw herself on her knees before the syndic, saying ; 'Gentlemen, we
have determined to go forth in silence, without saying a word to any'
one; please you to give strict orders to all persons that no one be bold
enough to speaiv to us, to touch, or approach us, whatever may be his
quality or condition.'
'' 'Certes, lady assistant,' replied the syndic, 'you give us very good
advice, and it shall be executed, for we will conduct you, with the
guard of the city, which consists of about three hundred men, well
armed; and I will myself go and make the publication.' He went
and commanded, under penalty of having the head cut off on the in-
stant, and without mercy, that no one should say a word, either good or
bad, on the departure of the poor nuns of St. Clair, whereupon the
good creatures came near losing strength, from grief and sorrow.
" When the convent door was thrown open, several of the sisters
were stricken with fear ; but the mother assistant took courage, and
said ; 'Onward, my sisters, make the sign of the cross, and have our
Lord in your hearts, and do you, sir syndic, keep good faith and
loyalty.'
" The syndic, seeing that several were unable to proceed, caused
them to be aided by strong men, to support them. And then before, and
by their side, there marched at least three hundred archers, well armed,
to guard the syndic, which was well thought of; for, w^hen the wicked
persons of the city, who had determined on the night following, to rob
the convent and violate the inmates, perceived their departure, they col-
lected together hastily, to the number of five hundred, and placed them-
selves in the street St. Antoine, through which the sisters had to pass,
and one of them drew near to a poor simple nun, (whom the mother
assistant had placed near herself, that she might not be led off on one
side or the other,) and whispering in her ear, he said : 'Sister Jacquemine,
come along with me, I will treat you as my own sister.' The mother
assistant responded; 'Ha! you wicked boy, you have told a lie:'
then calling out to the syndic : 'See here, how poorly you are obeyed,
make this youth withdraw to the rear, from our path.' Saying this,
she stood firm, and when the syndic beheld this crowd of rabble, by
the divine permission, he was greatly stirred with indignation, and with
a furious and horrible voice, he swore by the blood of his followers,
saying : 'If a man stirs, he shall have his head struck off on the in-
stant.' Then he addressed his archers : 'Gentle companions, be bold,
and do your duty, if need be;' whereupon, by the divine will, the
mob recoiled, alarmed, and gnashing their teeth with anger.
" And they arrived at the bridge, and all the company bid farewell
to the sisters, saying : 'Now adieu, good ladies.' And when all were
upon the bridge, the syndic struck his hands together, saying : 'It is all
done ; there is now no remedy, and we must speak no more of this
affair."
CHAPTER XIII.
CA.LV1N AT GENEVA.— FAREL. VIRET. — -1536.
Calvin's arrival at Geneva.— He is discovered by Viret.— Farel's adjuration.-^
Calvin consents to remain.— Character of the three reformers: Farel, Virct
and Calvin.-— 'Preparations for the conference of Lausanne. — Shifts and
tricks of the reformation.— Its outrages against the Papacy.
It was amid these civil disorders, that a carriage of slender pretensions
drew up, in the month of August, 1536, before a taverniin Geneva,
from which was seen to descend a young man of about twenty-seven
years of age, simply clad, with a pale countenance, beard cut a Id,
Francois premier, and with an eye black and brilliant;* this was Cal-
vin, who only thought of passing one night in the city. The stranger
was to rise early the next morning and take the road to Bale;! but he
was discovered: Viret had observed him, and Farel come to seek him
at the hotel.
Farel had somewhat indisposed the population by meins of his im-
petuosity. At the least noise, he was seen to appear, and throw him-
self into the midst of the dispute, seize the monk who was passing, as
if he were his prey, and in open day-light, commence a controversy ex-
tremely choleric, and replete with abuse. The crowd assembled, struck
the monk, and pursued him even to the neighboring tavern, whither the
unhappy man had fled for refuge against popular fury. But Farel ran,
urging the multitude on like a wild beast, until the syndics had to in-
terfere to appease the mob, and protect the prisoner.
The authorities w^-re disquieted, because of the authority exercised
by Farel over the people. They began to perceive that Geneva had
given herself a master, more intolerant than the counts and vidomnes,
and who had only snatched his crozier from the bishop, and their sword
from the canons, in order to gird on the belt, and strike with stock and
edge at the Catholics and the reformed.
Farel, under pretext of publishing a religious formulary, had drawn
up a confession of faith, in which he had elevated to the power of a
dogma, the excommunication at which Luther had laughed so heartily.
"We hold," said he, "the discipline of excommunication to be a holy
and salutary thing among the faithful, as for good reason it has been
*Life of Calvin, for the use of Protestant schools, by E, Haag, in 18mo.
1840, p. 80.
t Ilac celeriter transire statueram, ut non longior quam unius noctis mora in
ttrbe mihi foret. — Praef. ad Psal.
132 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Instituted by our Lord. It is to the end that the wicked, by their
damnable conversation may not corrupt the good, or dishonor our Lord,
and also, that having shame, they may return to penance; and, how-
ever, we understand that it is expedient, according to God's ordinance,
that all manifest idolators, blasphemers, murderers, robbers, the jech-
erous, false witnesses, the seditious, the quarrelsome, detractors, strikers,
drunkards, spendthrifts, after having been admonished, if they do not
amend, should be cut off from the communion of the faithful, until they
shall have known repentance."
The Roman church was not so severe. In her holy justice, she did
not confound "the drunkard and the murderer, the quarrelsome and
the thief."
At this moment Luther had left Wittenberg. Let him come to
Geneva, chanting his German stanza of four lines, which the students
of Heidelberg love to trill;* and the guard which excites factions at the
gate of castle de I'lsle will arrest him, and, on the morrow, Farel
will drive him away, as a drunkard or debauchee, from the territory
of Geneva.^ It is Farel, who murmured between Jiis teeth: "it is
better to obey God than men,' when the lance of a Catholic soldier
threatened to punish him for his outrage on the image of the Holy
Sacrament in the great street de VAigle. It is he, who shed tears
for the fate of all those marplots, whom the authorities drove out of
Paris, because, at the same time, they outraged the divine and human
laws which governed the country.
Moreover, this formulary was not the only outrage committed by
Farel against the liberties of the city.
He had organized a band of Iconoclasts, who, quite inspired by his
spirit, made war upon beads, medals, crucifixes, and images. Say not
to these Vandals that this crucifix is a family heritage, that this medal
is a dief (Cccuvre; to preserve this little statue of the Virgin, invoke not
the name of the Florentine artist, who had made it a marvelous work
of beauty; to save this picture, appeal not to Erasmus, who, with such
eloquence has pleaded the cause of matter, inspired with the very breath
of life, by the painter's genius; if you would protect them, repeat
not the words of Luther, thundered forth in the pulpit of Wittenberg,
against Carlstadt, the illuminated: Farel does not understand aesthetics,
and cannot comprehend art as an element of civilization. He would
not give a single hair of his badly combed beard, for a Virgin of Cima-
bue.f In Erasmus, be .admires nothing but his satirical laugh at the
monks; and in Luther, his father, he will imitate nothing but his intol-
*Morgen] etc.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 169
pie ran through the streets of Geneva, crying : Death to the ministers!*
The city was in great consternation : there was but one voice, which
was to demand vengeancej for the insolence of the orators. In the Ca-
tholic church, we sometimes see the priest drive from the holy table,
some great criminal, covered with innocent blood, but never a whole
people, asking to partake of the body and blood of their Saviour. Be-
sides, our bishop has a right, which Calvin could not arrogate ; the
bishop can say to the unworthy christian ; "withdraw, and do pen-
ance," But Calvin could not thus reject from the Eucharistic table,
the man who had sinned, because, to such a sinner, there was no need
of exterior tears, or of a visible amendment, to show his repentance.
Calvin never ceased to teach that works proceed from faith, and that
faith does not proceed from works ; he was, therefore, here unfaithful to
his own doctrines.
The syndics called the people together, and the exile of the factious
(ministers was voted, almost unanimously. The sentence imported that
Farel and Calvin should retire within three days,t since they had been
'Unwilling to obey the magistrates.
''Very well," says Calvin, "it is better to obey God than men."
This speech is old. When uttered by Luther, at the Diet of Worms,
in face of the emperor, archbishops, and other dignitaries of the empire,
it produced effect ; but here, in the presence of a senate of merchants,
which has in its prerogatives, the government alike of the church and
of taverns, we remain cold and unmoved ; the drama, the actors, the
tribunal, — every thing is mean and contemptible.
At the commencement of his Institutes, Calvin had written : " I
■have come to give the sword, and not peace," and he kept his promise.
It was truly a sword, which the city broke to pieces in the hands of the
preacher ; and a sword, too, which cut away even the curls of a poor
woman, and struck the back of a card-player. He has told us that
the voice of God, by the mouth of Farel, forced him to remain at Gene-
va. Two years have glided away, and behold the spectacle presented
by this city, as described by a Protestant, M. Galiffe. " Families are
divided ; one cannot take a step without meeting with a murderer, a
sharper, a pickpocket, a bankrupt; the national character, so expan-
sive, has become morose, restless, suspicious; to devote to popular ven-
geance, citizens who did not believe in the formulary, they invented
new terms; a sect, which is named the sect of libertines, a collection,
according to Calvin, of dissolute men, of quarrellers, and blackguards,
boldly insults the gospel ; it is forbidden to laugh at the red beard of
Farel and the hollow cheeks of Calvin, under penalty of spiritual and
corporeal chastisement; the magistracy has been outraged in the pulpit,
by ministers of the gospel, who have combined to preach, in spite of
the order of the senate, whose sovereignty they had recognized; a fright-
ful scandal has been given in the temple, by the refusal to admit the
*Haag, life of Calvin, p. 92-93.
t23d April, "Farel and Calvin are ordered to withdrav/ in three days.'* In
May, they caused the baptismal stones for baptising to be replaced, according
to the synod of Lausanne. — Registers of the city.
15
170 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN*
faithful to communion." This is history which we write, and not a
romance, after the manner of* Bonnivard, in his memoirs.*
The religious revolution was accomplished at the epoch of Calvin's
arrival. Sister de Jussie has caused us to assist at all the phases of
this drama, played at the expense of all that man holds sacred; of his
individuality, his moral and physical liberty, and his political creed.
The reformation slept upon ruins. Calvin awakened it, and innocu.
lated it with his cunning, his vanity, his wrath, his intolerance, and his
hypocrisy. If no longer it overturns images, as it did when guided by
Farel, it chants their downfall as a hymn to the Lord; if it does not
pour out Catholic blood, it is because there is no longer any Catholicism
in Geneva. And then, in default of a religion to make way with, it
endeavours to slay liberty.
Whilst Catholicism remained immutable as truth. Protestantism un-
derwent new transformations at each hour of the day, because the first
represented God, and the last, what is, of all things, the most incon-
stant, mam Thus, the reformation, in traversing Thuringia, in order
to become incarnate in Zwingle, left at Bale, where it scarcely had a
moment's time to pause, two witnesses of its instability, (Ecolampadius
and Capito ; then, passing round the two Mythen, which barred its pro-
gress on the road de Sc/iwytz, it came to Berne, to teach doctrines which
no more resembled those of Luther, than the Saxon country resembles
the soil of Oberland. At a later period, dragged along after the arms
of Berne, it made use of the pickaxe of the pioneer, to force open the
gates of Lausanne, where Caroli reproached it with having assumed the
robe of Luther, and the large hat of Munzer, the Anabaptist. Like
those waters of lake Leman, which change their hues five several times,
it was no longer at Geneva, what Farel and Viret had made it at Orbe
and Liitry, when Calvin, in his turn, came to subject it to a new trans-
formation.
♦Letter on the history of Geneva, by M. GalifFe PicteC
CHAPTER XVII.
PAMPHLETS OF CALVIN. SADOLET. 1537-1539.
Examination of two pamphlets against Catholicism, published at Geneva, by
Calvin. — The reformer judged by M. Galiffe, — The Catholic priest. — Sadolet
at Rome, — At Carpentras. — Conduct of the bishop, — His letter to the Gene-
vese. a monument of charity and eloquence. — Calvin's Reply. — Twofold ap-
preciation of this letter,
Calvin, on departing from Geneva to go to Berne, left two works,
which he had just delivered to the press, and which were destined to
introduce trouble into France. When he had returned from Italy, to
arrange his affairs, he studiously concealed himself from public view,
and no one could have divined that he belonged to the reformation, had
he not forgotten to go and pray at his father's tomb. But, at Geneva,
he has fear no longer, and would even dare encounter martyrdom itself.
In his treatise de Idolatria fugienda, dedicated to Nicholas Duche-
min, he wishes that every christian, washed in the blood of Jesus Christ,
should confess his faith without dread of punishment ; that he should
not hide himself in catacombs, but announce the truth from the house-
tops : for, says he, "true piety engenders true confession, and what is
said by St. Paul, should not be esteemed as light or vain. As we be-
lieve unto justice with the heart, so is confession made unto salvation."
And as if his words were not sufficiently powerful, he opens the heav-
ens, and displays to our gaze amidst eternal glory, our holy doctors
inviting France to embrace the reformation.
"It will be greatly useful for us here to recall what St. Augustine,
in some passage, recounts of St. Cyprian. After he had been con-
demned to have his head amputated, they offered him choice and means
to redeem his life, provided he would, by word only, renounce the reli-
gion for which he was doomed to die ; and not only was license allow-
ed him to do so, but after he had arrived at the place of punishment,
he was affectionately solicited by the government, to consider if he had
not better provide for the safety of his life, than to suffer the penalty of
a foolish and vain obstinacy ? To which he answered, in one word :
" That in an affair so holy, there was no room for deliberation." When
torments were paraded before his eyes, and the executioner, with a look
awry, cruel and malignant, stood near him ; when the edge of the
sword already lay on his neck, and horrible imprecations Avere heard
from the infuriated mob; if any one marvels how this holy personage
lost not courage, but even joyfully presented himself to the torment.
172 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
let him reflect that he sustained, to the end, this constant grandeur of
courage, by a single thought : that he had his heart fixed upon the com-
mandment of God, who summoned him to make confession of his
religion."*
It is manifest, that in this appeal to France, Calvin preaches open
revolt; revolt against the prince, revolt against the national religion.
And that christians may know by what sign they are to be recognized,
he wishes them to renounce images, the veneration of saints, abstinence,
celibacy, the exterior forms of worship, extreme unction, baptismal
water, and, particularly, the mass, that diabolical invention, as he terms
it. In order to blast this last, he sets to work to decry the sacrament, the
priest who celebrates, and the faithful who receive it. A person would
imagine that he wa.^ giving a description of one of those nocturnal sup-
pers of the street des ChaTtoines, at Geneva.
** The people assist, f persuaded that every thing said and done is
holy, amid whom, you dissemble and feign to be of the same religion.
After this sorcerer and juggler has approached nearer to the altar, he
commences to play his part and farce, now moving to one side, now to
the other; again he is without budging ; then he lisps out some mur-
murs, by which he imagines to draw Christ from heaven, and desires
others to believe this After having descended from heaven, he
places himself to make the reconciliation of God with men, as if he
had substituted himself in place of Christ, dead and immolated."
Then, behold him outraging history, representing to us that Catholic
church as eating the bread of the poor, making good cheer, and pros-
trating herself before gold, her god of heaven and earth.J
" Calvin to his former friend, at present, bishop. Now, every body
declares that you are very happy, and, as the saying runs, the pet of
fortune, because of the new dignity of bishop which has fallen to you.
For, besides the honorable title of prelate, the majesty of which is every
where revered, it brings you also a large revenue of money, with which
not only you can keep up your house, but also assist the poverty of
several, and exercise liberality towards others. Behold what men say
of you, and, perchance, also make you believe it. But as to myself,
when I think a little about the real value of all these things, generally
so greatly esteemed by men, I experience a great compassion for your
calamity. "§
What a reproach cast upon the episcopacy by a man, who probably
has not yet worn out the last garment with which the Catholic church
has clothed him; a man who has eaten the bread of our poor, spent
the money of our widows and our orphans, and who still reads in the
bible purchased for him at Noyon, by the charity of the abbe of St.
Eloy!
*De fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris. Epistola Nicholao Chemino. — Cal-
vin has translated this pamphlet into French.
tOpusculos, Geneve, 161 1, p. 710.
:|:De papisticis sacerdotiis vel administrandis, vel abjiciendis. — ^Gerardo
Ruffo.
^Opuscules, 113, 118, 123 25, 43.-— Paul Henry : Das Leben Jah. Calvin's U
VI. p. 185-191.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. VJ3
He now pretends that his bishop is lolling in idleness, has no care for
the salvation of souls, of the poor sheep, whom he only thinks of shear-
ing, in order to vend their fleece, and make good cheer.
** Tiiy trumpet, shepherd ! seize thy arms, thou who art to stand sen-
tinel!" did he say; "What dost thou wait for? Of Vv'hat dost thou
dream ? Is this the time to sleep ? Wretch ! thou art to render an
account to the Lord for the death of so many souls I How many times
art thou a homicide ? How many times guilty of blood, for every drop
of which the Lord w^ill demand an account at thy band? And being
so horribly smitten, art thou in no wise moved? hast ihou no fear? But
I treat thee too mildly, when I call thee homicide and traitor
Behold a crime, unfortunate man, above all others, Avhich is, that every
day thou dost sell and crucify the Son of God, as far as lies in thy
power.
" This is an evident jugglery and deception, the boldest robbery
which can be seen, that he who has never put his hand to the work,
should come to demand payment;
" When being far from their churches during the Vi^hole year, they
(the bishops) have their vicars there, who are so many little villains
and brigands, by whose means they commit an infinite variety of ex-
actions, extortions, robberies, and thefts.
'-' And your great brigand has so little shame, that he has introduced
into his tyrannical edicts this poor saying of St, Jerome : 'That the
goods of the church are the goods of the poor; from which, whosoever
takes more than is necessary for an honest and sober life, he steals so
much from the poor.'
*' Those whom the Lord appoints pastors over his church, he declares
that he establishes as sentinels and guards, for the defence of his peo-
ple They are called salt of the earth, light of the world,
angels of God, and power of God Reply, then, to me ; on
thy conscience, chief and superintendent of religion, with what fidelity
dost thou labour to restore what is fallen ?"
But the shade of the bishop has awakened. It has spoken in words
furnished by a Protestant : "What dost thou want, Calvin ? Is it ta
convert France to Calvinism, that is, to hypocrisy, the mother of all
vice ? Thou wilt not succeed in this. Let Beza, at his pleasure, call
thee the prophet of the Lord ! This is a falsehood. i)riven out of
France, thou shalt be received at Geneva, where they shall heap upon
thee all imaginary honors; aye, upon thee, who speakest of poverty !
Thou shalt there, by all sorts of means, acquire an unlimited authority,
and as soon as thou shalt be sure of a powerful party, thou shalt for thy
own profit, confiscate the reformation, thou shalt procure the banish-
ment of the founders of Genevan independence, the exile of men who
sacrificed their possessions and their blood for liberty; thou shalt, from
the pulpil, cry out against theso patriots souls, and call them scum,
scoundrels, dogs ; thou shalt cause those who wish to resist thy tyranny
to be burned, decapitated, drowned and hung. Thy reign shall be
long, and thy barbarous institutions shall survive thee a century and a
half."*
*M. GalifFe, Lettre d un protestant, 2 pages, 4to.
15*
174
LIFE OF JOHN CALVltf.
I desire to contrast a Catholic priest with the reformed minister, and
I will search for him precisely in that court of Leo X., which Calvin
names the cavern of satan.
Leo X., on his elevation to the papacy, had chosen, for his secretary,
a young man named James Sadolet.* This was a post, which brought
the person selected to it, into relations with the glories of the known
world, with Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Henry VIIL, Thomas
More, Reu'.;hlin.t The secretary must be able to write in Greek,
Latin, and Italian ; and Sadolet knew all these languages, which he
spoke with extreme facility. The sum of three hundred Roman dollars
was the ordinary salary attached to this much envied dignity : but, in
compensation, the incumbent beheld Leo in all his pomp, and stood
beside the Pope, when, in the saloons of the Vatican, the prince gave-
one of those audiences, at which epic poesy was represented by Ariosto;
eloquence, by Accolli ; painting, by Raphael; sculpture, by Michael
Angelo; and hermeneutics, by Cajetan. Well, perhaps in all Rome
there was not a more poetic soul than that of Sadolet. Judge, then, of
his joy ! With his three hundred dollars, he found means to feed and
clothe himself, and to buy from the Jews some Greek manuscript, which
the Israelites estimated admirably, purchased for nothing and sold for
its weight in gold; or, perhaps, some little statue which had been found
in the excavations of Campo Vaccino. By the time the year had
elapsed, the museum and library of the young votary of letters were
rich in masterpieces of art, before which he might be found in perpetu-
al contemplation. Leo, who knew the tastes of his secretary, made
him presents, at times, at the great solemnities of Easter or Chri?tmas,
of a cameo, a ring, or an article in bronze, and that day was a festival
which James celebrated in beautiful verses. Each of these relics cost
the poet a Latin ode, which afterwards he recited to Bembo, or to the
Pope himself.
One day, in the year 1506, under Julius II., the workmen came to in-
form Sadolet that they had discovered a group in marble, from some admi-
rable Greek chisel, Sadolet hurries to the gardens of Titus, and, imagine
his rapture; he has recognized the Laocoon, such as it has been described
by Pliny. In the evening, all the church bells rang, to announce the for-
tunate discovery. Bembo had drawn up the programme for the festival
of the next day. On that day, the group, ornamented with flowers and
verdure, was to traverse the city, at the sound of music, and make its
triumphal entry into the Vatican. The poets slept not a wink through
the whole night ; they prepared sonnets, hymns, ca?i2:oni, in order to
hail the resuriection of the Laocoon; the streets were garnished, in
token of joy. Sadolet dreamed, became inspired, and after the space
of a few hours, extemporized a Latin poem, which Bibbiena had asked
from him.
The ceremony finished, and the marble having been placed safely
upon its pedestal, the Pope withdraws to his own apartments; and then
•Excerpta ex tomo III. Florum histoiiae S. R. E. cardinalium a Ludovico
Domino d'Attichy epis. ^Eduensi, Lut. Paris, 1660. in folio.
fHier. Niger, Ep. ad Paul. Rhen.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 175
begins a new festival, a festival quite pagan, in which Sadolet repre-
sents the poet of old, Virgil or Horace, and sings with his head crown-
ed with ivy. He wanted to exhibit a drama : reptiles, with flaming eyes,
were seen coming, twining round, and strangling the three bodies in
their sinuous folds.
Prolixum bini spiris glomerantur in orbem
Ardentes colubri, et sinuosis orbibus oram
Ternaque multiplici constringunt corpora nexu.
They first bite, and tear to pieces the father.
Laocoonta petit totumque infraque supraque
Implicut
The spectators heard the cries of the old man, at each stroke from the
fangs of the serpents; they beheld the eye and the arm upraised to heaven
to implore aid ; the serpent, now stooping its crest, now rearing it on
high, unfolds its fearful length, and amid its lubricious evolutions, begins
to gnaw the stomach, breast and thighs of the unhappy man ; the veins
swell, the flesh quivers, a driveling slaver streams forth and mingles
with the gush of black blood Exclamations of admiration
peal forth on every side : they shout, live Sadolet ! live Virgil ! the
Laocoon was forgotten. In the evening, on returning to his chambers,
James found a beautiful manuscript of Plato : this was a present from
the Pope.
The successor of Julius II. had come to regard his secretary only as
an artist, who, in order to live, must content himself with glory and
incense. He forgot that Sadolet had a body to feed. When the end
of the year had rolled round, James was in debt, and was compelled to
have recourse to the ever open purse of one of his friends. At last,
Bembo solicited the Pope for a new robe for Sadolet. Medicis nobly
repented. Some days after, Sadolet was nominated to the bishopric of
Carpentras. We have forgotten to remark that the secretary was a
great theologian, a skillful commentator, a christian of the primitive
church, simple in his manners, meek of heart, with a confidence in
God truly infantile, and no more thoughtful of the morrow than the bird.
For, like the bird, he loved to build his nest in the open air, in the folds
of the robe of some Roman statue, but half disinterred.
Sadolet, for a long time, resisted; and any other would have done
the same, who had lived in that Rome of the revival, in company with
all the gods of ancient mythology, and the artists, who, each day, resus-
citated some forgotten image. He, however, at length yielded, and
obeyed in the spirit of a christian and a poet.
To decorate the episcopal residence of Carpentras, he intended to
carry with him manuscripts of the Egyptian papyrus, statues of Athens,
bronzes of Corinth, Venitian editions of Cicero, Demosthenes, St.
Thomas, Aristotle, Virgil, Horace, and paintings of Guirlandajo, of
Perugino, of Ciraabue. The ship, containing all these wonders, had
set sail from Ostium, accompanied, as, of old, was the vessel which bore
176 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Virgil, by tiie best wishes of all the literati of Rome. But, see the
misCortune ! hardly had the vessel touched the waters of the Mediterra-
nean, wlien the pest began to rage among the crew ; nearly all the sail-
ors perished ; the captain and mate only survived, and made sail for the
coast of France, whence they were unpityingly repelled. Farewell to-
the manuscripts, which Sadolet had collected with such affection !
Farewell to the divine Plato, the gift of Julius II. ! Adieu to the trea-
sures of archeology and the numismatics, amassed by Pontanus ! Adieu
to the missals, sparkling with gold and cinnabar, thi=i works of monastic
patience! Adieu to the beautiful designs which Raphael had executed
expressly for his friend ! You no doubt expected some ode, in which
Sadolet bewails the cruel disaster. I was in the same expectation:
■we were mistaken. The poet has left his wings at Rome; at Carpen-
tras we shall find nothing but the priest, submissive to the decrees of
heaven, "resigned to the loss of all these fine Greek manuscripts, which
had cost him so much difTicuUy to collect, and so much trouble to pre-
serve."* For our part, we could easily have pardoned the lamenta-
tions and regreis of the proprietor.
We forgot one circumstance of the voyage. At Carpentras, Sadolet
sets to counting his money, and he finds that the Roman cliancery has
paid him for the whole year. Now, it was then the month of October.
The bishop sends back one hundred and fifty beautiful dollars, which
he has received more than his due, and roundly rates the treasurer for
this error of calculaLion.
We should now need a whole volume, as did his biographer, to repre-
sent the guest of the most brilli-int court of Europe, in the midst of his
flock of mountaineers, whom he loved as he formerly loved his books.
He had studied the law : he desired to be the first magistrate of his
flock, or of his children, as he called ihem. Carpentras was then the
seat of fairs, greatly frequented; when a quarrel originated among the
merchants, the two parties came knocking at the doors of the bishop's
house. — What do you want ? We want your decision, bishop. — Sado-
let conducted the pleaders into his garden, under the shade of a fine
spreading chcstnut-trec, made them seat themselves by his side, and, in a
summary manner, judged the cause. His decree was in the last resort,
and wiilioul appeal.
At the epis:jopal cattle, there was a wood-house, filled with fuel,
which, in winter, he distributed to ihe poor of his diocess. When the
sheep suffered hunger as well as cold, he added bread and clothes to the
wood. During a year of scarcity, he thus nourished several thousand
unfortunate beings. f vSadolct sometimes said : "I know not how this
is done : I look into my wood-house, not a branch is there; I search
my purse, not a cent in ii : a poor person presents himself, and lo ! I
find a Slick in a iililc corner, and a piece of gold in the lining of my
robe ; it is .some good angel that plays me this trick." He spoke the
*Meire'lqui. illi tot labo'cs quos imprndcramus graecls priEsertim codicibus
conquirondis undiquo ct colligjndis, rnei tanti sumptus, mcse curae, oraaes-
iterum jam ad nihiium rccidorunt. — Ep. Sadolcti.
tDurioro anno magnum hominurn egentiam numerum alebat.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 177
truth. His diocess, and especially Carpentras, was full of good angels,
in the guise of magistrates, of soldiers, of merchants, of fine ladies,
•who replenished the purse, the wood-house, and even the library of the
bishop. That library at length was garnished with the works of hu.
manists, jurists, doctors, by the aid of which he found means to begin
again his life of artist. It was there the bishop wrote b'ome of his
works, and, among others, his Latin treatise concerning the primary in-
struction of children; de liber is rede insiituendis ; and his excellent
commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans ; a commentary
against which the whole Lutheran school arrayed itself, and which
Sturm attacked so grossly. Sturm was^a Strasbourg humanist.* Do
you know of what he accused the Catholic bishop? Of having lied,
in speaking of the reformation. Sadolet was not moved the least in the
world. He answered Sturm, who had sent him his last manuscript : —
"You accuse me, my dear sir, with having, in my commentaries, given
false testimony concerning your doctrines, for this is the very expression
you use, falsum testimonium. You should have left all these abusive
words to Luther ; they are not becoming an intelligence like yours.
But you are mistaken ; you will, I am sure, recover your politeness,
and your habitual style. Should ever you, Bucer, or Melancthon need
my assistance, I am disposed to serve you, and not merely in words, "t
Not a week passed that he did not receive a letter from some one of
his friends. Sometimes, it was from his neighbour, the bishop of Apt,
who had instituted a school of theology in his palace ; J sometimes from
Cochlaeus, to whom he answered : *' I approve your temperate and mild
manner of writing : let us not exasperate the heretics. "§ Erasmus,
with whom he became acquainted at Rome, consulted him concerning
some obscure text of scripture, or a doubtful word ; Melancthon sent
him all the works he published. Sadolet said : *' Had I to deal only
with Schwartzerde, peace would be restored to the church to-morrow ;
but with Luther, that is another affair !" He added :
" I know not how nature has created me : but I cannot hate a per-
son because he does not agree with me in opinion." |1
Here is the subject of a beautiful picture.
Francis 1. was at war with the house of Savoy ; the count of Furs-
temberg, under the orders of admiral Biron, was in the neighbourhood
of Carpentras, where his German foot-soldiers had committed grave disor-
ders. The inhabitants had armed themselves and driven the Germans
away. Furstemberg. on receiving news of this, set forward with his troops
and cannon, to chastise the city, when Sadolet, in his episcopal robes,
presents himself before the advance guard : — Who art thou ? the
♦See chapter xix. Calvin at Strasbourg.
tEp. Sadoleti Joh. Sturmio, 1536. Equidem quod ad me attinet si quid
forte accident quod d
three times intimated to him an order to submit. The Genevan min-
isters yielded, *' for fear," they said, " lest their obstinacy should
afflict the good."
The council decided that two legates should accompany the exiles to
within a short distance of Geneva, and then should proceed and nego-
ciate for their recall ; in case of success, they were to return for the
ministers, and see that they were reinstated.
But the exiles asked for a new message ; for, they said, it will ap-
pear as if we came imploring our restoration like guilty persons ; and
why also should not some minister of the gospel be joined to the depu-
tation ? The council granted their request. The legates and the ex-
iles were to enter the city; Erasmus Ritter and Viret were to be mem-
hers of the deputation.
The rumour of Calvin's return had thrown Geneva into commotion;
the people loudly manifested their anger ; the deputation was only
about the distance of one league from the city, when a courier arrived
to prohibit its entrance. This, said Calvin, was an outrage on the law of
nations and on political liberty, against which the exiles were deter,
mined to protest, by entering Geneva with uncovered heads. But the
deputies did not deem fit to brave the sovereign order, and very fortu-
*An verum putaremus quod narrabatur a quibusdam, tantam esse in certis
fratribus scvcritatem ut eos lupos vocarent et pseudo prophetas, qui in locum
nostrum irrepsissent : rcspondiraus nostrum non esse aliud de ipsis judicium
— Calv. Bulliagero.
tMegander and Leo Judee labored for the translation of the holy scriptures in-
to German ; their translation was published at Zurich in 1529, and 1531.
John Scott's Calvin and the Swiss reformation, p. 116.
^Sed quid aliud potest quam suis deliramentis invertere Evangelii purita-
tem 1 Calv. Bucero. I2tli Jan.
188 LIFE or JOHJf CALVllT.
nately it was, says Calvin, ** for twenty banditti watched in ambus-
cade at the gates of the city."*
In face of these very energetic manifestations, the authorities decided
that the people should pronounce definitively upon the lot of the exiles^
The people were assembled. Louis Anriman and Viret pleaded the
cause of the ministers with so much ardour, that the plebeian wrath
seemed about to become extinct. But after their departure, one of the
syndics began to read the charges against the exiles, amid murmurs of
indignation, exclamations of surprise, laughter, and cries of rage.
They were accused — with having called the church of Berne our
church; — with having named the Bernese without their ordinary quali-
fications ; — with having erected excommunication into a dogma.
Then did the public place in Geneva become another forum. See !
exclaimed a thousand voices ; our church ! as they would speak of a
field or a house If To the Rhone ! to the devil ! ! with their excom-
munication, we wish to hear no more of it ! Exasperation was at the
utmost height ; and if, at that moment, Calvin or Farel had shown him-
self, the people would have proceeded to violent extremities : they
had ready two open tombs : the Lake and the Rhone.
The deputies had with them articles, which they were to read to the
people only in presence of the ministers. But it appears that Calvin
was betrayed by Conz, who made use of Peter Vandel to spread them
secretly among the people; a thing quite frightful, says Calvin, but
worthy of a man who had exclaimed at Noyon : " They desire to re-
call the exiles ; but I swear that I would sooner abandon the ministry
and Switzerland, than behold the return of such marplots, who have
done me so much evil."
Calvin and Farel resumed the road to Berne.
Calvin then deceived us in giving an immoral motive to his banish-
ment. It was not a debauchee, who revolted to drive away an impor-
tunate witness and an inexorable judge ; he was banished because he out-
raged the liberties of the city, because he wished to invest his despotism
with the cap of a bishop, and to arm his tyranny with a sword and cro-
zier. He has himself taken care to absolve the people, by causing
them to assemble, at the grand assizes of April, to ratify the sentence
of the commune.
The recital which we have just read cannot he suspected ; it was
written by the hands of Calvin and Farel, and was reposing in the ar-
chives, where it was allowed to sleep in quiet, till exhumed by a Pro-
testant historian, perhaps with more imprudence than love for historic
truth ; for Calvin had from the first condemned it to oblivion, by wri-
ting at the bottom of the narrative : — " Remember well, that I confide
all this to your discretion."
But why has M. Paul Henry in his translation, given to the German
reader only some informal fragments of these babblings, and why has
he placed the Latin account among the justificatory pieces, where as-
suredly the reader will not go to hunt for them ?
*Nam postea constitit non procul mcGnibus collocatas fuisse insidias ; in ip-
sa autem porta considebant arrnati viginti gladiatores — Calvin. BuUingero.
tEcce ut ccclcsiam ausint vocare suam quasi in ejus possessionem vener-
int Ecce ut ad tyranaideni aspireut.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 189
But in this letter of Calvin there are other revelations.
When Sadolet gave a picture of the disorders introduced into Gene-
va by the reformation, Calvin responded to the bishop : Thou art a ca-
lumniator ;t and he added :
*' As to myself, Sadolet, I am very desirous you should know, that I
am one of those against whom you speak with such great wrath and fu-
ry. And although the true religion was already arranged and estab-
lished, and the form of their church corrected, before I was called there,
nevertheless, as I have not only by my vote and opinion approved, but
also exerted myself to the utmost, as much as was in my power, to
preserve and consolidate the things before instituted by Farel and Vi-
ret, I cannot be foreclosed nor separated from them in this cause.
Had you taxed me individually, without doubt I could easily have for-
given all, because of your learning, and for the honor of literature.
But when I behold my ministry (which I know to be founded and con-
firmed by the vocation of the Lord) wounded and injured by the blow
you inflict on me, it would be disloyalty and not patience, if, by my si-
lence, I should dissimulate in this matter."
Now, let us listen to Calvin, whispering quite low into the ear of
Bullinger, who is not to breathe a word to any person of what he
learns :
" It is satan who has driven us from the city, in order, afterwards, to
deliver it up to disorders still greater than those under which it was
groaning. One could not imagine in what a slough of licentiousness
all these impious persons are floundering ! their petulance in offering
insult to Christ, their mockery of the gospel, their fury and tlieir folly !
Woe to those who have been guilty of this scandal ! This Conz, who
could not ruin us without ruining the church, has betrayed this holy
church, in betraying us. Better it were widowed, than live under such
men who conceal themselves under the garb of pastors !"
Calvin and Farel undertake to trace for us the character of those
who had their places :
" First there is the guardian of the Franciscans, who at the aurora of
the gospel, obstinately rejected the light of truth, until the Christ ap-
peared to him under the form of a young maiden, whom he seduced
and corrupted ;{ a filthy monk, who does not even take pains to hide
his infamies, and goes on teaching that St. Paul does not require that
the bishop should have lived in chastity, but that he should amend
when he desires to have the charge oi^ souls ; a heart, destitute of all
fear of God, and of every pious sentiment Then, there is that
other priest, steeped in hypocrisy, and who struts about in his leprosy of
sin; both of them ignorant preachers, brawlers, and venders of silly
things : behold the third, a known debauchee, who has been indebted
for his absolution to the favour of certain wicked good-for-nothings.
tDabo operam ne qua vox asperior a me exeat. . . . simplex et moderata
innocentias meae adversus calumniosas tuas criminationes eril defensio.
ijiDonec christum aliquando in uxoris forma contemplatus est, quam simul
atque habuit secum, modis omnibus corrupit. — Calvin, BuUingero.
190 LIFE OF JOHH CALVIN.
Oh ! beautiful office which they have stolen, and which they adminis-
ter as they have usurped it ! Not a day passes, in which they are not
convicted of some felony, by men, by women, and even by children I
Now, this letter raises a very grave question.
If the ministers, who occupy the place of Calvin at Geneva, be ' de-
vouring Avolves,' what is he, then, himself? From whom does he hold
his mission ? who has imposed hands on him ? who has conferred on
him the sacrament of orders ? If he has received his mission from re-
volt, revolt could confer the same on others. M. Vinet pretends that
" the man, whose office it is to repeat the message brought by infalli-
ble men, has no need of any other mark of his mission, than his fi-
delity in the exposition of his message known to all and within the-
reach of all." Very well. But, in order that he should efface from
their brows the sacerdotal sign, the faith of his successors must have
perished. " The imposition of hands," says Calvin,§ "which is used
for the installation of new priests, is not vain, it is a sign of the spiritu-
al grace of God." And why, then, does he withdraw this grace from
the guardian of the Franciscans? Should it be doctrine which must
distinguish the legitimate pastors ? Then let him inform us what is the
rule of the doctrine of the church. Is it the confession of faith?
Who drew up this confession ? the pastors : thus it is the doctrine
which shall judge the pastors, and the pastors who judge the doctrine.
What a chaos ! What an abyss ! But the Franciscan has sworn to the
formulary of Farel. With what, therefore, does Calvin reproach him ?
With notorious debauchery ; and with Avhat does he reproach the se-
cond ? with refined hypocrisy ; and the third ? with proverbial silliness.
But of what use, then, to him, was that terrible weapon, excommunica-
tion, which he has usurped as the choice of spoils ? Instead of driving
from the church that young woman whose curls drooped too low on
her temples, he should have reserved his wrath for that ancient Francis-
can, who came to the temple bearing his leprosy of impurity. In
place of making war upon the Eidgenoss, he should have instructed
his ignorant colleague in sacred learning. In place of refusing the
Lord's supper to poor labourers who played cards, he should have
snatched the serpent's skin from his hypocritical preacher. Yet he
continues at Geneva, living with these devouring wolves, preaching the
holy word in conjunction with them, adoring God in the same temple,
and kneeling at the same communion table. And, it is only when he
beholds them clothing themselves with his ministerial robe, that he de-
nounces them to the indignation of christian souls.
Thus repelled by the Genevan population, Calvin returned to Berne^
which soon after he abandoned, in order to take the road to Strasbourg*
ilnst. lib. 4. cap. 2»
CHAPTER XIX.
CALVIN AT STRASBOURG. HIS MARRIAGE. 1539-1540.
Religious physiognomy of Strasbourg. — John Sturm. — Capito. — Hcdio. — Bu»
cer, — At what price the marriages of priests were effected. — Calvin arrives
at Strasbourg. — He is named professor of theology. — He undertakes to get a
wife for Viret. — He espouses Idelette Steerder. — He loses his first born, and
sheds no tears.
Strasbourg, in the middle ages, — a city of painting, of sculpture, of
philosophy and the liberal arts, — by the urbanity of its language, repre-
sented Athens ; by its love of letters, Venice ; and by its theological
disputations, Wittenberg.
At each hour of the day, they were there disputing upon all kinds of
psycological questions ; upon free-will, justification, grace, the divine
concurrence with the action of the creature, and other intimate phe-
nomena, about which the schools have ever been occupied. The work
of Erasmus, de servo arbitrio, was looked for there with great anxiety;
one of Lather's pamphlets agitated every mind; and even Carlstadt, with
his lucubrations on the Lord's Supper, was certain to meet with some
there to sympathise with him."-'^ All religious opinions were in that
place represented. There were Lutherans, Anabaptists, Zwinglians,
CEcolampadians, Munzerians. It was a sort of pantheistical Olympus,
where each sectary could have his altar and his God. It frequently
happened that these men of noise, from misunderstandings with each
otlier, threw the city into commotion by their discussions. Then the
Stettmaster was forced to intervene, and to preach peace. Peace,
meant silence, and none of these theologasters was willing to be silent;
the municipal council was therefore obliged to conduct the refractory
preacher politely beyond the walls of the city. Plato did not treat
poets with greater respect. Soon, the sectary came back by another
gate, his lungs refreshed by the perfumes of the Vosges, or by the
waters of the Rhine, and he relapsed again into his habitual malady :
loquacity.
Moreover, these magistrates, men of the people, with admirable in-
difference, passed from one god to another. Every new tongue had the
art to seduce them. When a disciple of Zwingle, descended from the
mountains of Schv.-ytz, had appeared to announce to them the word of
his master, they had listened to him, feasted him, and welcomed him as
•Carlstadt, driven away from Wittenberg, published his opinions about tho
real presence, at Strasbourg: his doctrine was adopted by the Protestant
preachers. Nouvelle description de Strasbourg, 1538. p. 231.
192 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
an apostle. On that day, Strasbourg ceased to believe in the dogma of
the real presence, and Zwingle was adored, and his teaching enclosed
in the catechism for the use of children.* Bucer, reconciled with the
doctrines of Luther, comes, preaches impanation, and Strasbourg aban-
dons the curate of Ensiedeln for the monk of Wittenberg, and from its
catechism retrenches the dogma of a figurative Lord's Supper :t it is
no longer the blood and body which the child drinks and eats spiritual-
ly, but the very reality, under the material appearances. But Bucer
has returned, and arranged the Lutheran confession ; a new angel has
come down from heaven, to whom Strasbourg listens, until an Anabap-
tist of the sect of David, cuts away from the seraphim his wings, and
puts them on his own shoulders. Then Strasbourg has not a sufficien-
cy of water to have itself rebaptized. Each sectary, who comes to ask
the right of citizenship from the hospitable city, brings to it, in ex-
change, a lamp, which it lights up in order to make new studies, and
to each of these literary pilgrims, of these apostles of the liberty of
thought, of these religious propagandists, Strasbourg offers a roof to
shelter him, a bed for his repose, and food for his support.
We must make acquaintance with some of these erratic intelligences,
who said, on beholding this city : *'We are well off here, let us build
here a lent."
John Sturm inhabited, near Luxhof, a small castle, which almost
touched the skies : an airy habitation, where the bird could sing at his
ease, without having his concerts troubled by the noises of the city.
Sturm, after having made good studies at Liege, had set up, at Louvain,
a printing press, in company with Rutger Rescius,^professor of Greek in
the University of that city. On beholding the first copy of a beautiful
Homer, which he had printed with type expressly cast in Italy, he had
been seized with a real transport of the brain, and fled from Louvain,
carrying with him several trunks quite filled with his chef d'(£uvref
which he sold for high prices at Paris. J
While in Paris he had associated with the humanists, whom Brico-
net, bishop of Meaux, had attracted there from Germany, and he was
injured by contact with these disputatious gentry ; he had embraced Lu-
theranism, when heresy had but one representative : afterwards, he
made himself Zwinglian. He was passionately fond of old books ; it
was his joy to sift manuscripts, to compare their texts, and discuss their
variations. When he had found out a new sense for explaining some
rusty word, he felt himself uneasy, and deafened all ears with his good
fortune : it was Archimedes turned vender of second-hand books. The
introduction of the Lutheran idea into Strasbourg, came to draw him
down from his sun and his muses. John Pappus§ had presented him-
^''Isagogc, de puecris institucndis ecclesiee argentinensis, an. 1527. Mense
Augusto. **
tSuum corpus cdimus, sanguinemque bibimus, sed spiritualiter cum ingenti
commodo.
^Bailct, jiigt, dcs Savants, t. VI. p. 313.
^ John Pappus tried to prove that St. Augustine was a frank Lutheran, whilst
Whitakcr maintains that lie was a Calvinist, and Andrew Volanus, the Socini-
an, that ho was quite simply an idolator. — Weislinger, Frisz Vogel, p. 297,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 193
self, after the manner of Francis de Sickingen, quite barbed in steel,
and with lance in hand, to sustain the Saxon dogma, in a book entitled :
De Charitate Christiana questiones duce, a pamphlet in which there
is no sign of charity, except in the title. Sturm had opposed to him
his Anti-pappus, a little book which we should say had escaped from
some antique street-porter, metamorphosed into Calvinist. Pappus had
found means to displace his rival from the post of rector of high studies,
(hochschule,) and he boasted of this victory as of an argument beyond
reply. The victory would have been more complete, had Pappus been
able to apply to his enemy the decree of excommunication, which the
church of Strasbourg still kept in its catechism :* but Sturm had ren.
dered to the city too important services to allow his being struck so
violently.
Capito (Koepflein) was one of those souls, of whom there existed
many in the learned world of the sixteenth century, resembling the
children of Plato, that wished to leap over their own shadows. He
had tormented himself to find truth beyond the limits of authority, and
he had traversed all those neologies of the reformation, in his effort to
throw off the burden of doubt, when he might have been so happy,
living under the benefits of Leo X., who had bestowed upon him a
canonicate in the cathedral of Bale If Fatigued, harrassed, he had
fallen on the way, and allowed to escape him these sighs : "All, then,
is going; all is lost; every thing disappears; ruins on every side! The
people say to us, behold, you want to establish a new tyranny, another
papacy ; God has made me know what a charge the office of pastor is,
and how much we have injured the church, by rejecting the authority
of the Pope, with so much imprudence and precipitation. The people,
fed upon licentiousness, say to us : we know enough of the gospel ;
what need have we of you in order to find Christ ?" J
Capito slept at Strasbourg, in the bed of the ancient cure of St.
Pierre le Jeune, the pastor of which he had driven away, and he was
living in the midst of the numerous children whom he had by two wives,
the widow of (Ecolampadius, and a young nun. He was a learned
Hebraist, an astute theologian, a skillful physician, and above all, an
ardent missionary of matrimony. His sermon against celibacy had
gained over some vicars, who, by marrying, were certain of obtaining a
rich prebend. It was by preferring marriage to burning, that Bucer
had obtained the living of Aurelia, Thibault le Noir, that of St. Pierre
le Vieux, and an apostate of the order of St. John, that of St. Nicho-
las. § With a wife, the incontinent priest secured a parsonage, lodging,
*Excommunicantur quidam ut ab eorum et vita et doctrina alii cavere pos-
slnt. Ad Hiaec ut excommnnicatus pudore snffusus, ciiret et Deo et homini-
bus vitos emendatione reconciliari sese. — Beitrage zur GeschicJite der Reform.
t. I. •*
tLeo X. had formed so high an opinion of Capito, that he, unsolicited, con-
ferred on him a provostship or deanery, probably that of the cathedral of Bale.
— John Scott's Calvin and the Swisf; Reforviaiion, p. 33.
:j:Ep. ad Farel. ep. Calv. p. 5. — The book of the Roman Catholic churcB,
by Charles Butler.
^ History of the Province of Alsace, Histoire de la •province d' Alsace, t. II. p.
6, and the following.
17
194 LIFE or JOHN CALVIIf.
fire for winter, a little garden, and a good cellar of Rhenish mnt.
Medio, another married priest, had left Mayence, and withdrawn to
Strasbourg, where the magistracy had nominated him preacher of the
cathedral; a function which he continued to discharge sweetly, until
the Lord summoned him to the supreme tribunal. In giving up this
life, he slipped into his papers this little testament :
" God has left me without care, until this hour, by giving me his well
beloved Son, Jesus Christ, as a certain pledge of eternal life. Go forth,
then, my little soul ; thy Saviour waits for thee^ to bear thee away in
his arms."*
But the most illustrious, of all those intelligences, which Strasbourg
at that hour boasted, was Bucer. Reared, fed, instructed at the con-
vent of the Jacobins of Selestad, he had apostatized, and married a
nun, byname Lebenfeltz, who, for dowry, had brought him nothing but
a doubtful virginity. He was one of those adroit, cunning natures,
who do nothing without calculation ; who change faith as they do a
garment, according to the season ; who appeal to God for justification
of every one of their transformations, and have always at their service
a good blade to defend the dogmas which they present to the world.
His protector was Frank de Sickingen, who hated a monk almost as
much as he did temperance. Luther knew Bucer well. One day, the
Saxon was amusing himself by shooting with a cross-bow; at the fir&t
shot, he pierced the heart of a bat ; the night-bird shuddered and fell
dead : — Thou shalt see, says Luther to Vitus, that this conceals a myste-
ry : I have transfixed the heart of a bat. On the next morning, he
was at his window, looking out upon the fields, when he perceived
Bucer approaching from a distance. Vitus, come here now, says he,
leaping for joy, behold my bat; was I mistaken ?t
It was, in fact, Bucer, who came to Cobourg to treat concerning re-
ligious matters. The monk arrived, infatuated with Zwinglianism, and
went away converted by Luther, whom he was to deny again at the first
breath of a new doctrine, to abandon it, or confess it anew, as his Holy
Ghost should illumine him. Of all the reformers, there is not one^
who could have been able to institute so many suits, as Bucer, against
the Holy Ghost ; happily, to gain them, he had the coat of mail of
Sickingen.
Calvin had left Berne without taking leave of the senate, his soul
irritated, and exhaling wrath against his enemies in every one of his
letters. It appeared that God's malediction accompanied him on the
road. Storms had, in one moment, barred up the way to Bale. The
torrents, rushing from the mountains, were so furious, that he came near
being swallowed up by them.
"But," says he, recounting his travels to Viret, ''the waves were
•Gott hat niich ohnc mcinc Sorg lebcn Ir.sscn bis auf clicse Stund, dazu mir
seinen lieben Sohn Jesiim Christum zum gewissen theuern Pfand des ewigen
Lebens geschenckct; darum fahre hin, meine liebe Seele, du hast einentreuen
Heiland der dich zu seinen Handen aufgenommen hat. Cited by Freherus.
tPfizpr, Luther's Leben.— See, regarding Bucer, Melancthon^s Epistles, 1. 1,
op. fol. 24.
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 195
more merciful than men."* The men drove hhn away, the waves
spared him. Calvin has none but bitter w^ords to speak of the injustice
of his fellows; every where the same spectre haunts him. He finds it
at Berne, under the mantle of Conz : he beholds it in the senate, vest-
ed in grand livery ; he meets it at Geneva, in the council of the two
hundred ; at the tavern of the rue des Chanomes, at the temple of St.
Peter, and even on the public place, it appears brandishing the popu-
lar sword-
At length, he can find repose at Bale, where he may forget the in-
gratitude of the Genevese, seated at the table of Simon Gryneus, who
regarded his bosom friend, "as the ornament of their common church."!
At Bale, Farel lived for more than a month in the house of Oporin,
which he left to go to Neuchatel, where the people and senate confided
to him the administration of their church. Bucer ceased not to in-
vite Calvin to Strasbourg, and at length induced him to bid adieu to
Bale, and take up his w^ay on foot for the imperial city.
The scene played at Geneva on Calvin's arrival, was to be repeated
here; J only, that Bucer, instead of causing God to descend, in person,
to retain his friend, called to his aid the prophet Jonas : and Calvin
allowed himself to be persuaded, and consented to remain at Strasbourg
to preach the gospel there : *'So that," says the exile, "being frightened
by the example of Jonas, which that excellent servant of God, Martin
Bucer, had proposed to me, 1 continued the office of teaching theol-
og7*"§ Sturm, in his Antipappus, has furnished us with some details
concerning the literary life of the reformer at Strasbourg : " After three
years' abode in that city," says he, "I saw Calvin come, who was, by
the magistrates and theologians, appointed lecturer of the academy, and
preacher at the French church of St. Nicholas. The gospel of St.
John was the first book that he expounded. He disputed in the gym-
nasium. He had a dispute with the dean of Passau, who maintained
that works engender faith. James Sturm had been selected to preside
at the discussion, assisted by other professors. He here revised his book
of the Institutes, completed his work, chastened his thought, and ex-
punged those antilogies or contradictions with which he had been re-
proached." ||
Calvin led a laborious life at Strasbourg. He preached in the even-
ing, gave lessons in theology in the morning, and laboured till late in
the night, to prepare a new edition of the book of his affection. In the
first edition of ike Institutes, he had interjected, so to speak, some few
phrases of pity in favour of the heretic, whom he did not exile from
christian society, but allowed to dwell in quiet in the midst of the evan-
*Epist. Petro Tiret. sub, fine Mail. 1538. MSS. Gen.
+Nos enim te fratrem in Domino Ubenter ac cum gaiidio agnoscimus, ac pro
«ximio ornamento ecclesise amplectimur. — Epist. 23. 1540.
:{:Er ffihrte sogar das Beispiel des Jonas an, und das erschreckte mich so,
idasz ich von Neuem das Lehramt ubernahm. — Paul Henry, i. I, p. 212.
^ Calvin's preface to the Psalms.
flJoh. Sturmii Rectoris Arg. Antlpappi tres 1579.— Quarti Antipappi, Nea-
poli Palatinorum, 1580. p. 20, 21.
196 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
gelical flock.* His exile from Geneva had rendered him cruel, and in
his revision, some passages relative to innovators are remodeled. He
foresees the future; he fears, if ever he shall condemn a heretic, that
they will be able, by opening his book of Institutes, to reproach him
with the blood which he will shed.f He has even put his inflexible
dogma into practice. Strasbourg had excommunicated a christian,
named Alexander ; Calvin having been consulted, forbids his brethren
to receive him ; he will not even have an interview with him ; he
drives him away, when he comes to knock at the door of his dwelling. J
Moreover, he was imitating the Saxon monk, who at first invoked
the word only against his adversaries, when he was in his nest of Wart-
bourg, and who, at a later period, threw far away this blunt weapon, to
seize a sword with which he smote, with edge and hilt, all who troubled
him. The reformation has always begun by the word, and ended with
the sword.
The sermons of Calvin were fortunate; he had converted to his doc-
trine, concerning the Lord's Supper, some of those christians who re-
sembled the Hecebolics of Erasmus, and changed religion as they did "a
shirt." The senate, to testify its gratitude to the French preacher, con-
ferred on him the rights of citizenship. § The oral lectures of the theo-
logian had the power to assemble the crowd, and to attract from France-
numerous pupils, and some humanists who were desirous of becoming
acquainted with the Calvinistic doctrines. \\
But all the thoughts of the exile stiJl reverted to Geneva; it was a
cherished image which haunted him day and night. In each of his
letters to Farel, we perceive the spite of a vain nature, who found pre-
ferred before him men without science, such as those who were preach-
ing the evangelical word at St. Peter's ; the wrath of the theologian,
who delights to ferret into their private lives, to justify his murmurs and
complaints ; the malignant joy of the exile, who is pleased to display
the miseries of the church which has driven him away ; the hope of the
despot, who beforehand is making arrangements in turn to oppress his
oppressors. We have no need to read his epistles, in order to lander-
stand all the gall there is in him, all the bitterness and hatred ; the super-
scription by itself shows the state of his soul. He writes to the Gene-
*Quibus (Institutionibus) nihil post addidit quod eum primis pugnet., — Joh.
Sturmius.
tSee chapter concerning the Christian Institutes, in this work.
:j:Epist. Far^Ho, 27 Oct. 1539.
^In the archives of Gotha, fol. 738 and 739, we find the passages relative to
the right of citizenship conferred on Calvin. — "Johannes Calvinus, hatt das
burgerecht kauff't, vnnd diedt zun schneidern. Dd. Dinstages des 29ten July
An. 1539. Jo Beyer, v. Thomas. Heinrich von Dacxstein Rentmeister." —
Vff. den 30 tag July 1539, ist Johannes Calvinus vfF vnnser Herren dcr statt
Strasburg Stall erschienen vnnd sich angeben let der ordnung vnnd vill dienen
mit den schnydern. Die drin vcrodnete Herrn vff der Statt Stalle."
II Placebet enim turn sanatui quod ecclesia Gallorum apud nos quotidie magis
atque magis augeretur, et quod ex Gallia multi propter Calvinunv accedeBeja,6»
studiosi adolescentes, atque etlam literati viri. — Antii>app. IV.. pv 2ll«
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIl^. 197
vese : — "To the faithful of Geneva during the dissipation of the
church."*
For Calvin, there is at Geneva no more church, no more ministry, no
more gospel, no more religion ; Geneva has relapsed into papism, and
into that idolatry wherein it was waiting for the light. Bonnivard,
in his manuscript history, affirms to us, that ''the city had opened its
eyes to the rays of the gospel, in 1535." What, then, has become of
these rays ? they are obscured since the exile of Calvin. Geneva, how-
ever, has no more Catholic priests ; it has proscribed images ; it has
overturned statues, prostrated the cross, demolished monasteries, driven
away the nuns ; does it not behold the signs of evangelical resurrection?
Its church is dissipated, because it has exiled one of its pastors ! This
is the crime which Calvin did not know how to pardon. He makes out
that "it has been by the vocation of God that he was joined to the Gene-
vese, and for which it could not be in the power of men to dissolve
such a tie." — Admire the logic of passion. Calvin refuses to his church
the right to drive away one of its members, and at that very moment,
he introduces into his new edition of the Institutes, a chapter on eccle-
siastical discipline, wherein he divides, between the magistracy and
the priesthood, the charge of correcting abuses,] and confers upon the
minister the power of banishing from the table of communion, "the
pagan sufficiently bold to approach it." He does not repent for having
refused the Lord's Supper to the faithful at St. Peter's ; he believes
that he fulfilled the duty of a good pastor, and obeyed the discipline of
the true church. Behold, then, he writes to Farel, the sad condition
of a society, which should not have the power to repulse unworthy
men, branded with infamy, and who bear shame written on their fore-
heads!:):
Of all the ministers, Calvin was the only one at Strasbourg not
married. Erasmus laughs at this carnal fury, with which the reformed
society was tormented. In Saxony, they gave as definition for a preach-
er, "a man to whom a wife is more necessary than daily bread. "§ At
Strasbourg this malady already dated far back. In 1525, some priests,
after having perused the writings of Zwingle, had got married. The
bishop was desirous to cite them before the tribunal of the official, but
the magistrates invoked the privileges of the commune, and enjoined
on the married priests to decline the episcopal jurisdiction. The bish-
op had summoned them to Hagenau. During this struggle between
the two powers,. these priests published their memoirs; a real confes-
sion, written in some bad place, in which they accused themselves of
multiplied infractions of the sixth commandment of God, in a style
which would bring blushes to the brow of the reader. The magistrates
thought well of this courageous effrontery, and rewarded them by driv-
ing away some old vicars, whom they divested of their livings, in order
^Strasbourg, October 1st., 1538.
t In corrigendis vitiis mutuee debent esse operae. p. 440-444.
iMSS. Gen. May 1540.
i Prsedicans Lutheranus est vir, uxore magis necessario instructus quara
pane quotidiano. — Laurentius Forer, cited by Weislinger. Frisz Vogel, oder
Stirb. p. cclxxxvi.
17*
198 LIFE OP JOHX CALVIBT.
to give them to these men of scandal. Celibacy was no longer regard-
ed as any thing but an impure state, which the christian soul has not
sufficient strength to sustain. Power had turned theologian : did it
come across a young Levite, it quoted to him the text of St, Paul : "It
is better to marry than to burn," fortified by certain glosses^ stolen from
Capito, Bucer, Hedio, or John Sturm. When power had not the gift to
convince, it resorted to force, and drove the disobedient priest from his
charge. There were at Strasbourg some great falls : the church de-
plores them.
The Catholic priest was then living by the altar ; when he was
driven out of the presbytery, he had no resource for nourishaient but the
charity of the faithful. At that time, the sympathising christian was the
poor labourer, whom the pest, common at that epoch, whom sickness
and misery often prostrated upon his couch. The rich man, was then
generally a great vassal, who coveted the treasures of the abbeys, the
coffers of the church, the chalices of the sacristy, and who laboured
with all his might for the emancipation of convents. By each secula-
rization of a monastery, he gained a meadow, a vineyard, a house, for
which, hitherto, they only paid him rent. When the poor man's door
could no longer be opened to him, the dispossessed priest had only one
of two parts to take : either to address himself to the magistrate, that
IS, to deny his faith and to marry, or to set forth on the way of his exile.
Now, this way, infested by robbers, who, perhaps, might have let him
pass, was guarded by the armed men of great seigniors, who killed him
as an accusing victim. Sickingen, who had vast possessions, reaching
to the very gates of Strasbourg, delighted to use this expeditious justice.
When the way of controversy had not been successful, he resorted to
water and the sword.* You can now understand the fallings of the
Catholic priests. These were more numerous at Strasbourg than any
where else, because the feudatories of the empire had enveloped the city
as with a net. The more remarkable was the fall, the richer was the
reward given by the magistrate. The richest living of the city was
bestowed upon a vicar, who had published the bans of his own marriage
at the Sunday sermon. f The reformation should not show itself so
proud of these apostacies, purchased at so high a price. Beza and
Laplace have seen in these forced marriages nothing but the finger of
God; had they wished, they might have found, at the nuptials of the
priest, a knight, quite cased in steel, with gauntlet sharp as the claws
of the eagle, first witness, and gentleman of honor to the bridal parties.
The marriage of Calvin was a cause of joy to Strasbourg ; at Gene--
va it occasioned no surprise. Calvin had been for a long time meditat-
ing this measure. In the midst of his literary labours, absorbed by his
books, with his head full of his commentary upon the Epistle to the
Romans, and of his treatise upon the Lord's Supper, he occupied him-
self with his bosom friends about the choice of a wife. He traces ta
Farel the portrait of her, whom he desires for a companion.
* Sickingen had a tliird means of converting the traveler Uy the gospel—^
Etnasculabat virum.
t History of the proviEce of Alsace,, t. IL
LIFE or JOHN CALVIK. 199
The form is not for him a matter of consideration ; the young maiden
will be deemed a pearl of beauty, if she be chaste, modest, economical,
a good housewife, patient,* and above all, if she love to wait on the
sick. Calvin had frail health, an enfeebled stomach, a brain of fire,
the ardours of which could not be moderated by sleep, and also he had
dispositions to the gravel. Pie added, laughingly, that his friend should
procure him such a treasure, as soon as possible, that he would be hap-
py to possess it.f Farel did not find this treasure.
He was offered a person of good family, who would have brought
him a fine dowry; but Calvin objected: he dreaded lest the child
should be too proud of her birth; lest^ into his household, she should in-
troduce a pomp and display, which would have been in marked contrast
with the simple tastes of the husband. Besides, she did not know
French, and Calvin, in marrying, Avould be very glad to get a person
who might serve him as secretary, as nurse, and as cook. The father
and mother were urgent with the refugee, who did not dare give an ab-
rupt refusal, but ended by making it the condition of his consent, that
their daughter should learn French. The lady, on her part, feeling her
pride wounded, asked time for consideration. Calvin was saved. He had
despatched his brother to Geneva, who was to bring back for him a
Swiss girl, without fortune, but endowed with all the virtues dreamed
of by the reformer, who, beforehand, had arranged the nuptials, deter-
mined their celebration for the 10th of March, and invited Farel and
the ministers of Neufchatel, in case his friend could not come to Stras-
bourg ; and Calvin leaped for joy, like a child, at the risk of appearing
very ridiculous if his dreams were not realized, which, in fact, occurred.
For, some days after, at the moment when every thing for the nuptials
had been arranged, he wrote : "Do you know, Farel, if you wait for
my marriage, before coming to visit me, you will wait yet a long time ?
Nothing is wanting to me but a wife, and I do not think that I ought to
hunt one any longer. J Claudius and my brother had lately made
espousals for me; but three days after their arrival, I was informed of
certain particularities which forced me to send my brother back, and the
marriage has been broken off."
Calvin was not more fortunate in behalf of his friends. Viret, who
was anxious to get married, was seeking a wife on every side, and no
one would have him. At last, he resolved to address himself to Cal-
vin, who, in his turn, undertook to search out a companion for the pas-
tor of Lausanne, and found one immediately; good news, which he
hastened to announce to Viret : "I have found what you asked for ; I
*Hsec sola est quae me illectat pulchritudo, si pudica est, si morigera, si non
fastuosa, si patiens, si spes est de mea valetudine fore sollieitam. — Epist. Fa-
rello, 19 Maii, 1539.
t Quanquam ridiculttm me facia si contigerit me ista spe decidere; sed quia
Dominum mihi adfuturum confido, perinde ac de re certa delibero. — 6 Februa-
rii, 1541. MSS. Gen.
:t:Sed vereor ne si expectare velis meas nuptias sero veuturus sis. Nondum
inventa est uxoret dubito an queerere amplius debeam. Nuper mihi puellam
desponsaverant Claudius et frater meus. Triduo postquam redierant, delata
sunt ad me nonulla quae me coegerunt fratrem remittere quo a eonyentione ilia
nos expediret. — Farello, 21 Jun, 1540. MSS. Gen.
200 LIFI OF JOHK CALVIN.
have the best information concerning the maiden ; I am now sounding
the father, and when I shall learn something, I will tell you : be ready
for the affair. I dine to-day with the family. I have seen the young
person; a modest air, fine countenance, and something noble and
beautiful in every feature, and in the whole person ; they say that she is
wise ; the little John is desperately in love ; adieu.'"'*
But Perrin and Corneus, who were desirous of marrying Viret to the
daughter of Ramee, spoiled the work of Calvin, who was left at a loss
to explain the matter to the father and mother. He wrote to Viret let-
ter after letter, and the responses always arrived too late. We are cer-
tain that his system of predestination cost him less anxiety than the
marriage of his colleague. It is manifest that he is at the end of his pa-
tience, and weary of that part of go-between, which he played so badly;
a part not suitable for him, a young man of sententious phrase, of aus-
tere forms, and whose lips are not more accustomed to a smile than is
his style. In Germany, all important matters are disposed of at table,
between two pots of beer ; now, Calvin loved neither beer nor bar-rooms.
Viret had selected a poor matrimonial agent. If there was ever in this
world, a man who did not understand how to marry off young ladies, it
was Calvin. Luther, the pamphleteer, orator, poet, musician, would
not have failed in such a mission. He would have summoned the fa-
ther, and poured down his throat, in copious draughts, Rhenish wine,
stolen from the cellars of some monastery, all the time plying the ears
of his boon companion with sallies against monks and celibacy, against
the Pope and the bishops ; and the last bottle would not have been un-
corked before the father would have pledged his hand to the match.
Calvin repeated to Viret : ''Come, then, come and arrange all that for
yourself." Viret could not budge. The father at length grew angry,
declared that he would marry his daughter only at Geneva^ and not at
Lausanne. Calvin would not yield but in the last extremity. He said
to the father : '*lt would not become us to abandon our churches to fol-
low our wives : an unfortunate hymen, formed under such oaths ; an
impious compact, which would be displeasing to both parties ; a bad
example, which you would give to the city ! And, besides, Lausanne
is not so far from Geneva, that you could not easily visit it when you
might wish.''t
The father would not listen to reason.
Calvin tried to console Viret, by offering him, as wife, a widow of
whom much good was spoken.:}:
Farel had not, like Calvin and Viret, time to wait. His back was
bent by age, his hair was quite white ; his fine red beard had assumed
the colour of snow : he sought less for a wife than a nurse; he found
one in his servant.
Calvin finally succeeded to meet with the wife he desired, a little dark,
*Bis earn vldi : moclestissima est, vultu et toto corporis habitu mira decora.
De moribus ita loquuntur omnes, ut Johannes parvus mihi dixerit se esse in ea
captum. MSS. Gen.
t Ostendi quam foret absurdum nos relictis ecclesiis, sequi quo uxores voca-
rent, infelix fore conjugium quod hac lege sancitum foret. MSS. Gen.
:j:De quadam vidua locutus est quam tibi asserit mire placere.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. 201
as to the skin, says the chronicle, bat beautiful and well.formed ; the
widow of an Anabaptist, whose house he frequented at Strasbourg, and
whom he had converted. She was called Idelette, or Oudelette de
Bures; her husband was named Stcerder. If we are to credit the ac-
counts of Protestant writers, all these wives of the reformers were an-
gels of meekness, of modesty, of virtue, whom God seems to have
created expressly to be the ornaments and happiness of their husbands.
Lucas Cranach has left us a portrait of Catliarine Bora, the wife of
Luther, with her cheeks covered with burning vermilion, with auburn
tresses, with an eye surmounted by a soft silky brow ; a true beauty of
Bubens. Beza represents Idelette as a grave, honest, agreeable wo-
man. *
The nuptials of Calvin were celebrated enfamilU; the consistories
of Neufchatel and Valengin were represented by their most distinguish-
ed members. At the festal board, they sang German and French
verses. Idelette was a good manager, very careful, very neat, and for
dowry, brought her husband several children, whom she had by Stcer-
der, and whom she loved with a mother's true love. Calvin renders
her this fine testimony ; and he adds, that she gave an example of all
the domestic virtues.}
Papire Masson and James Desmay have written, 'that '^Calvin never
had a child," and Florimond de Bemorid said, that "iiis nuptials were
condemned to perpetual barrenness, notwithstanding that Idelette was
still young and beautiful." This is an error which Beza has removed.
It is certain that he had a son, who died at his birth. Calvin supported
this loss with a courage rather too pagan. The godfather was selected,
but the mother had received a hurt, and was delivered before her term :
two lines directed to Viret inform us of this misfortune : "My brother
will tell you of my grief; my wife was delivered of a dead infant :
may God watch over us !"J And in another place, he says : "God
has been pleased to strike us by the death of this child; but he is a
father who knows well what is best for his son ; may God assist you.
I would be glad it were permitted you to come here. We should 'chat*
together for half the day."
And this is all ! not a word more about this child, whom God had
taken from him; about this first-born, whom he was not allowed to
embrace, and in whom he was to centre all his joy, and all his hooes
for the future. Is this the language of a father ? God did not forbid
him to w^eep, to pour forth his sorrows into the bosom of his friend, to
tell him of his tears, and of those of the poor mother. Calvin is rio-ht ;
God does well all that he does ; he does not permit John of Noyon to
become a father a second time.
While God thus smote Calvin, the city of Geneva presented to the
view a sad spectacle . The word of God was delivered up to certain
preachers of the lower rank, who scarcely knew how to read, and who,
*Gravis, honestaque foemina, et lectissima.
fSingularis exempli foemina.
ifUxor enim parturit nonsine extreme periculo, quod nondum uterus partui
maturus erat; sed Deus respiciat nos. — Ep. 308, Lausanne edition.
202 LIFE OF JOHM CALVIIf.
in their sermons, as often assaulted doctrine as they did grammar. As
their symbolism reproduced the contradictory teachings of Luther and of
Zwingle, of Osiander and of (Ecolampadius, of Carlstadt and of Me-
lancthon, the idiom which they used was a medley of German, Italian,
French, Latin, and of Savoyard patois. The commune, which had
laid a greedy hand upon the goods of the clergy, left these ignorant
ministers in a state of destitution. Calvin, in his correspondence with
his friends, often finds occasion to blast the imbecility of his successors,
but he would not wish that they should cause them to die by famine.
At a later period, he had an opportunity, as well as at this moment, to
explain himself with regard to the alienation of church property. He
does not comprehend how the civil power could appropriate to itself
what did not belong to it by any title, to give it away, or to sell it at a
low price.*
"It is a spoliation," he writes to Viret, "which they to-day attempt.
What belongs to Christ and the church, belongs neither to the commune
nor to the magistrate; when the church shall be despoiled, it will re-
main u^aste and solitary. The reformation has no other rule to follow,
than that established by king Josias : 'Inspection belongs to the magis-
trates, administration to the deacons.' "f
*Hac conditione emit Petrus Vendelius prioratum mille quingentis corona-
tis, alii vites, alii agra, alii domos. — Ep. Vireto. MSS. Gen.
tNon esse niagistratus, quod christo et ecclesiee semel fueri consecratum. ,.
Fieri posse ut, cum nihil ecclesiee reliquum fuerit, ea occasione relinqua-
tur deserta ac solitaria.— Vireto. MSS. Gen.
CHAPTER XX.
DOCTRINES OF CALVIN.
PREDESTINATION FREE WILL— 1539 1540.
The Sacristan of St. Pierre-le-Jeune at Strasbourg. — Dispute at the tavern of
the Green Tree. — That with God, the only motive to save or reprobate is his
own a^ood pleasure. — There is no innocent man. — The Lord does not per-
mit, he ordains.— The horrible decree.' — God wills the salvation of the elect
only. — He commands sin. — The work of the sinner is the work of God. — In
man there is no liberty. — Concupiscence. — An exposition of Calvin's system
of predestination. — The reformed church vs. the Protestant church. — The
Sacristan's tomb.*
In 1524, when the reformation drove away the cure of St. Pierre-le-
Jeune, at Strasbourg, the sacristan of the church was involved in the
disgrace of the pastor. This sacristan was an ancient enfant du
ch(Eur, who, in the convent of the Dominicans, had received a monas-
tic education, and had studied the scholastics with a kind of passion.
His memory was happy. He easily retained all that he heard or read.
The scholastics had infused into him a taste for disputation. Often,
after having served the mass, he would, upon the church pavement,
engage in a discussion, with any passer by, upon some point of dogma,
or of Catholic discipline. On the day on which the Lutheran min-
ister, by order of the magistrate, had taken the keys of St. Peter's
church, Gerard Kaufmann attended the intruder to the sacristy, in
order to engage with him in a regular disputation concerning the mis.
sion of the new comer. The Lutheran, for his only response, order-
ed that Gerard should be driven away, who, as he departed, mur-
mured to himself against the ignorance of the prebendary. Gerard
had an aged mother, whom he was supporting; the magistrate had
pity upon the son, to whom he offered the post of guardian of the
cemetery of the city. To prevent his old mother from perishing with
hunger, Gerard accepted the place. It was, besides, a post much cov-
eted in the city, which was often visited by the pest. In 1541, so
cruel was this scourge, that they were forced to double the number of
grave-diggers. It had raged on the Rhenish banks, where it struck,
as if designedly, the most illustrious heads of the reformation. The
*■! must inform the reader that this chapter, in which Calvin's doctrines are
exposed so dramatically, is translated from a Latin work, published in 1743, at
Strasbourg, under this title : Joh.s Calvini de predestinatlone s]/ste?na, in 12.
containing 144 pafyes, which I met with in the library of Mayence, under no.
26. 160. A. B.
204 LIFB OF JOHN CALVIN.
cemetery was common to the two religions ; but each denomination
had there a separate corner of earth.
In 1540, on the vigil of the feast of St. John the Baptist, two
coffins entered this asylum of peace at the same moment; the one
belonged to a Lutheran ; the other to a Calvinist. Each minister
recited the liturgical prayers; then the grave-digger took his shovel,
threw in the earth, and covered up the coffins one after the other.
This accomplished, Gerard shut the gates of this city of the dead.
It was summer. The cemetery was sufficiently distant from the city.
At the entry of the suburb, there stood a public house, whose sign
was a green tree, and where on Sundays persons assembled to drink,
and especially beer ; the best, it was said, of the whole city and neigh-
bourhood. The two ministers were seated at the same table to rest,
having each before him one of those enormous pewter pots, which
/boast the faculty of keeping the liquor long fresh. Their glasses
were full, and the conversation was animated, when Gerard Kaufmann
entered. He had recognised the heretics.
*' Brethren, your health," said he, swallowing at one draught a full
glass. The ministers made a slight sign with the head.
" Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuniur,'^ said Gerard.*
Nobody answered.
Then Kaufmann, casting on the table some pieces of copper :
" Gentlemen," said he, *'are your two souls worth these three gr(es-
chen ?"
*' I hope firmly," said the Calvinist, without emotion, " that the soul
of my brother has seen the face of the Lord."
** And yours ?" said Kaufmann to the Lutheran, smiling.
" God is faithful to his word," said the Lutheran, " and I also hope
that my brother is in the glory of God."
"Truly !" added Kaufmann, "and what then must one believe in
order to gain heaven ? Let us know ; teach me, if you have any
concern for the living."
It was easy to perceive that the tavern was about to be transformed
into a school of theology. The assistants had drawn near.
<* What must one believe ?" said the Calvinist : " Master John
teaches thee, each day, at the French church. Listen then !
PREDESTINATION.
" In drawing his creatures out of nothingness, God had a double
will ; to save somef and damn the rest. Open the holy books; does
he not predestine Jacob to life without regard to the works of the pa-
triarch ? Esau to death, who was soiled by no sin ?"}
" Behold," cried Gerard, " a word which seems to me very hard :
durus est hie sermo.'^
*' And, however," added the vicar of the French church, " It is a
■word of truth, which thou findest hard, because thy priests have not
♦Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.
tCalv. Inst. lib. 3, c. 21, no. 5. ijiCalr. Inst, book 3d, c. 22, no, 11.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 205
taught this to thee. How could they have comprehended it; they,
from whom the Lord has taken away understanding ?"
" Very well !" said Kaufmann, " Master Bucer has devoutly al-
lowed to be adjudged to himself the charge of the pastor of St. Aure-
lia, with the presbytery, the garden, the furniture, the cellar, and the
soutans out of which he has fitted a garment to his own stature, and
made a bonnet larger than that of Storch the Anabaptist ; and behold,
you now speak evil of the priests whom you have driven away, pillaged,
robbed, probably to accomplish the divine precept : " Thou shalt not
take the goods of another." But proceed then : Master Andrew,
proprietor of this establishment, who, I think, has been re-baptized
and is a re-baptizer, has made more than one grimace while listening
to you."
" What does it matter !" said the Calvinist. '' What I say, I hold
it from the Lord, whose word I preach, in spite of all papists and
Anabaptists, even should they have three crowns on their heads. I
continue :
" The good pleasure of God, is the sole motive of the grace which
he gives to his elect, as of the punishment with which he strikes the
reprobate."*
Kaufmann arose, quite angry. " Thou calumniatest Master
John Calvin," exclaim-ed he, striking his glass on the table where he
had been seated; "I have often listened to the preaching at the
French chapel on Saturdays, and never did my ear listen to such a
doctrine."
" It is," responded the Calvinist, " because thou hast ears to hear,
and dost not understand. The rest of you, papists, are all thus ;
you have not the understanding of the divine word."
" Luther, the ecclesiastes of Wittenberg, has often reproached you,"
interposed the Lutheran, " with being nothing but blockheads, moles,
hogs, dogs, asses. "t
" Gather these," said the grave-digger, bowing to the Calvinist ; " it
is to you sacramentarians, that Master Martin addresses these soft
words."
" But, by what right," he added, still speaking to the Calvinist,
*' does the good God thus damn creatures from whom he has received
no offence ? He is almost as unjust as Sickingen, who judges the
faith of a man by the dress he wears. He is a capricious tyrant,
senseless, whom I deny for my Lord."
"It is thou, that art senseless," responded the minister. "Who
has permitted thee to measure God by man ! to cry out : 'Why ! why !'
It is because he has willed it ; because out of himself there is no de-
termining cause ; he wills because he wills ; dost thou well under-
stand ? Life arid death, suffering and joy, hell and paradise, every
thing is just, since he has willed it. Thou insistest ; take care, thou
tryest to fathom an abyss impenetrable to thy eye and to mine."f
*Inst, book 3d, c. 22, no. 11.
tAuscuUa tu, porce, canis, asine ; Contra fanaticos sacramentariorum
errores. t. vii. p. 379.
lUbi ergo quaeritur cur ita fecerit Dominus, respondendum est, quia yoluit,
18
206 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
Gerard, while listening to the orator, was seeking in his head for
a text which might close the Calvinist's mouth ; on a sudden, his eye
lighted up with joy, his lips smiled, and seizing the hand of the dis-
puter, he said: " Thou hast not then read St. Augustine : — 'Thy
God is unjust, who condemns the innocent.' "*
" And who has said, that 1 was speaking of the innocent ? There
is no one innocent. Man has sinned. It is original sin which is
the cause of his damnation, or of his predestination."!
" I have thee there, bad scholar," rejoined Gerard. " Therefore, it
is no longer as creator, but as judge, that he saves or damns, that he
gives life, or kills ! Therefore, out of himself, there is cause of sal-
vation or of reprobation ! This is clear !"
*' Not so clear as thou thinkest ; for, before original sin, the repro-
bate had been already predestined to damnation, by a divine decree;
a decree which from all eternity is in God. If they perish, it is be-
cause they bear the pain of the fault, into which Adam fell, by the
order of God. Therefore, as Master John has said and taught, glori-
fication or fall, life or death, happiness or misery, every thing flows
from the good pleasure of God ; God has willed all."}
" Shouldst thou exclaim louder than Capito ; shouldst thou make
finer gestures than Bucer, I would still answer thee : Thou enclosest
thyself in an argument for which I would not give thee a glass of
beer. For, if Adam has been condemned because of his sin, there
was then in his punishment a determining cause out of God. But
tell me, does thy Master believe in angels ?"
" In good and bad angels ; the former, servants and messengers of
God ; the latter, fallen natures, whose chief .is the demon, who has
resisted the will of his creator, the sovereign master and regulator of
that resistance; a demon who can do nothing but evil, but who
could not do this without the will of the Lord ; able to torment the
good, but not to overcome him. If the faithful angel has persevered
in the love of his creator, it is because God has sustained him ; if
the bad angel has fallen, it is because God had abandoned him. He
has abandoned him because he had been reprobated. § Dost thou de-
mand why ? Because that fall and that glory were in the eternal de-
crees of providence." ||
" Master, take care ; thou resemblest a man who by night should
have fallen into one of the ditches of the city ; he may turn, and
turn again, as he pleases, he swims there and finds nothing but mud.
Quod si ultra pergas rogandocur voluerit 1 majus aliquid quaeris et sublimius
voluntate Dei, quod inveniri lion potest, lib. 3. c. 22. no. 2.
♦Quemquam vero immeritum et nulli obnoxium peccato, si Deus damnare
creditur, alienus ab iniquitate non creditur. — Ep. 106.
tinst. lib. 3, c. 22, no. 3. • ilnst. lib. 3. c. 23, no. 4,
tAngelos qui steterunt in sua integritate Paulus vocat electos : Si eorum
constantia in Dei bene placito fundata fuit, aliorum defectio arguit fuisse
derelictos. Cujus rei causa non potest alia adduci quani reprobatio q use in
arcano Dei abscondita est. — Lib. 3, c. 23. no. 4.
yConsilio nutuque suo, ita ordinat ut inter homines nascantur ab utero
certae morti devoti, qui suo exitio ipsius nomen glorificent. — Inst. lib. 3, c.
«3. no. 6.
LIFK or JOHW CALVIir. 207
The argument crawls in blood as soon as it ceases to repose in the
mud ; my why erects itself against thee still, like the crest of a ser-
pent."
" Why ? God wills it because he is the master of his creatures ; has
he not produced them in the plenitude of his power ? could he not
have left them in nothingness ? If he has destined them to life in
this world, to death in the next, it is because he has willed that
life, as well as death, temporal or eternal, should serve for the glori-
fying of his name ; heaven or hell equally sings the Lord's glory."*
" Dost thou mean," resumed Kaufmann, "that God permits the
soul to lose itself in its way ? Then I am ready with the school to
repeat : concedo, I grant it,
" No, I tell thee, dull intellect, thy soul does not perish permissive,
by permission ; for God does not permit, he ordains ; his will is ex-
istence, necessity, irremediable fatum or fate. How then does it
happen that so many generations have been enveloped, as with a
winding sheet, in the fault of their first parents ? I know nothing
about it. Be silent tongue of a magpie, be silent, and cease to inter-
rogate me Thou wishest that I should answer thee ; I, worm
of the earth, clay formed by the hand of God, unclean dust ! What
am I, to fathom God ? Pious ignorance is worth more than rash
knowledge."!
" Then, why dost thou dogmatize ?" demanded Kaufmann. *' Why
dost thou make appeal to scripture ? Why then dost thou, mere dust
of the earth, set thyself up for doctor in Israel ? Oh man, who glo-
rifiest thyself in thy misery ; who goest forth to teach the nations,
who treatest as rash and senseless all science, that seeks to give
thee an explanation of the mysteries which God has hidden in the
abyss of his supreme justice. J But, in my turn, I urge thee, I press
upon thee, I seize hold of thy robe and ask thee, if God has not sent
his Son for the salvation of that man whom thou hast just laid in the
sepulchre, and who, in two days, will be tlie food of worms, as also
thyself and thy master will be in your turn."
*' Thou hidest thyself under the robe of Pelagius, a worn out
robe, old even to the thread. St. Paul has never spoken of the in-
*=God has predestined the reprobate not only to damnation, but also to the
causes of dananation. — Beza.
titerum qusero unde factum est ut tot gentes una cum liberis eorum in-
fantibus aeternae morti involveret lapsus Adae absque remedio, nisi quia Deo
ita visum est. Hie obmutescere oportet tarn dicaces, alioqui linguas. — Lib.
2. c. 23.
Tu homo expectas a me responsum, et ego sum homo. Itaque ambo
audiamus dicentem : O homo, tu quis es } Melior est fidelis ignorantia
quam temerariascientia. — Lib. 3, c. 23.
:|:To day the Protestant school recognizes the value of Gerard's argu-
ment ; it accuses Calvin of formal contradiction in the deduction of his
system concerning foreknowledge. Die letzen Worte melior est fidelis
ignorantia. . . . Sind eine kritik Calvins selbst — Demi er geht hartnackig ge-
gen seinen grundfatz, so weit, dasz sein Wissen auch venoegen ist, U7id er stellt
als nolhwendige Glauhens Regel in den coufesslons-Schriften auf, was nuT
angedeutet, und sehr gefarlieh ist, fur die gewohnliche Gemuther.—Faul Hen-
jy, p. 319, t. i. Life of Calvin.
208
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
dividual, in persona, but of the individuality ; of the genus and not
of the species : non singulos generum, sed genera singulorum.''*
"Master," rejoined Kaufmann, "this is a distinction which smella
singularly of the school, and I imagine that, on entering here, thou
hast left at the door the girdle of some monk, whom thy predestined,
Francis Sickingen, has robbed, being no more a lover of monkery
than of monks, of the variety than of the species ; singulos gene,
rum et genera singulorum. Thy God appears to me to be made .
to his likeness, and I do not compliment you in his regard."
" My God," responded the minister, " hates no one."
" How then," resumed Gerard, emptying a large glass of beer^
"is it not hating, to predestine a poor creature to eternal punish-
ment ?"
" Thou dost never distinguish, thou bad Thomist; to predestine to>
death is not to hate, but to destine unto hatred, which is something:
very different."!
"Again," said Gerard, " like thy Frank de Sickingen, who con-
ceals his armed men, true wolves, upon the route from Bale to Wald^
shut, rushes upon our monks, robs them, mutilates them out of love
for chastity. I say and maintain that thy God is a wicked gauntlet
of iron, whom I neither love nor could love. His decrees are hor-
rible decrees."
" My God," said the minister, " has no form, and thou desirest tc*
give him one, and to judge him by an image created in thy brain :
I say, like thee, a horrible decree, for we could not deny that the Lord^.
by his foreknowledge, knew the fall of Adam beforer he had created
him, and that he foresaw it only because he had ordained it by his.
decree. "f
*Inst. c. 23 and 24, concerning eternal predestination.
fExitio prsedestinare non est odisse, sed odio destinare.
:|:Decretum quidem horribile fateor, inficiari tamen poterit nemo quin praes-
civerit Deus quern cxitum habiturus esset homo, antequam ipsum conderet,
et ideo preesciverit quia decreto suo sic ordinavit. Inst. 1. 3. c. 23. no. 7.
"It is said that Calvin here utters a blasphemy in using the word horrible
in this passage. It is pretended that he calls all the decrees of God horri-
ble, as if he spoke in general. It is certain that this remark is very mali-
cious, and it is used only with a view to render Calvin odious, but very un-
justly : For Calvin, by these words, has pretended to say nothing else, but
that this decree ought to till us with dread. Rivet t. 3. in his treatise :
Apologeticus, contra Hugonis Grotii votum, &c. — Ancillon Melanges Cri^-
tiques, p. 87.
Rivet, Ancillon, and Morus the panegyrist of Calvin, in translating rfe-
crehan horriMle, by the words " which ought to fill us with dread," give
proof of profound ignorance of the Latin language, or of very bad faith.
The embarrassed annunciation of Calvin, decretum quidem horrihile fateor j.
sufficiently shows that the translation or meaning given by Catholic writers^
is that which Calvin designed to express. Beausobre, author of "The de-
fence of the doctrine of the reformers on providence, predestination, grace
and the Eucharist," does not understand the passage differently from Cath-
olics.
In more than one place of his writings, Lu 355, 357, in resp. ad. lib. Amb. Catharini.
L1F2 OF JOHN CALVI?. * 213
" Whosoever has heard of my Father, cometh to me." Does not the
Saviour say this ? Whence it follows that this delectation necessarily
produces faith."
" Thou flayest the text," said Gerard. " If it be true, as Erasmus
has said, that thy brethren have never yet been able to cure a lame
horse, we must avow that more than once they have lamed and crippled
a text like this, which, before, marched perfectly straight.
" In St. John, chap. 6, v. 45, we have : Omnia qui audivit a patre
et didicit, venit ad me. A double operation : the Creator, who gives
his grace, the creature, who consents to receive it ; omnis qui audivit a
patre, behold the gift of grace ; et didicit, behold the act of fiee-will ;
the father, who manifests himself; the child, who consents to hear him.
But in spite of thee, I come with the whole force of my argument, and
I say to thee : if, sinner and reprobate, thy grace flies from me and
escapes, because I am marked with the seal of reprobation, I have an
excuse to alledge ; I could not do otherwise than I have done ; I would
say this to thy God, did he summon me before him."
" But my God would reply to thee immediately : Israel, of what
dost thou complain ? whence has come to thee this impotence for good,
if not from thy corrupt nature ? and what gave thee that nature, but thy
sin ?* Now, allow me to explain to thee the whole economy of Cal-
vin's system.
" God, in creating man, foresaw the fall of Adam, from all eternity.
Among his descendants he chose a small number, whom the apostle
calls the elect of the Lord, for eternal felicity ; the rest, for an endless
reprobation ; that the salvation of the blessed might manifest his mercy,
and the fall of the damned, his justice. He took away his grace from
the first man who fell. He has willed only to save the elect; it is for
them only that he came down upon earth, that he was crucified, that he
died. It is the blood, poured out by the word made flesh, which is the
pledge of the salvation of the elect ; the grace infused in this blood
cannot be lost : it is inamissaUe. This grace consists in the non-im-
putation of sins, and it is by faith only, that it is communicated to the
creature. Baptism and the other sacraments are but signs only. The
justice of God being infinite, the creature to wliom it is imputed has
nothing to expiate, either in this life or in the next. Therefore, in the
other life, there is no purgatory ; therefore, in this world, ihere are no
suffrages for the living. Every action is sovereignly good or naturally
evil. Without grace, man can do nothing but sin, — sin is not imputed
to the elect. To the elect, God gives an efficacious grace, which inces-
santly operates good. He refuses this to the reprobate, who unceasing-
ly commits sin, by the instigation of God, of satan his minister, of con-
cupiscence, the fruit of death, and itself an unceasing death.
"This reprobate had been destined to damnation, antecedently to the
foreknowledge of all sins, even of original sin, and without any other
•Si quis cum eo disceptare velit ethoc praeteitu judicium subterfugere, quia
aliter non potuit, habet paratam responsionem : Perditio tua Israel. Unde
enim ista impotentia, nisi ex naturae vitiositate? Unde porro vitiositas, nisi
quod homo defuit a suo opifice. Inst. lib. iv.
214
LIF3 OF JOHH CALVIIT.
motive than the good pleasure of the Creator. He has sinned in the
iiist man, sinned in the womb of his mother, sinned at his birth ; ha
sins unceasingly during this life, even till the moment he falls into the
hands of his inexorable judge."
" Behold," said the minister, *«the theological system of John Cal-
vin, preacher at the French church of St. Thomas, and which thou
canst read in his Christian Institutes, the finest work, as thou knowest,
which ever came from the hands of man."
'* Let it sleep there," replied Gerard, "till the day of the final judg-
ment, when the trumpet shall summon the dead before the tribunal of
the Lord. Glorify thy master as much as thou pleasest, chant him as
the king of the schools. I know him, even I : and I tell thee that his
cloak is made up of shreds, stolen from the princes of heresy, who ex-
isted before him, from Wickliff, Godhescalc, John Huss, and Luther :
but this Calvin, or Cauvin, has no personal life ! He is an automaton
fashioned upon a dry carcass, a carcass Avhich the worms have pierced
to the very heart, and into which, in a short time, the eye of his ov/ii
disciples will not dare gaze."
And they separated.
An age later, the Lutherans attacked and pulverized the system of
predestination.*
And an age and a half later, Jurieu, the Calvinist, wrote : *'We re-
ject all those dogmas of predestination ; we reject them as destructive
of ail religion, and savouring of Manichoism : J. say with regret, and
in spite of myself, none of ouis, at this day, any longer uses those modes
of speech fit to cause scandal. "f
And yet Beza had said : that "the theological system of Calvin v/as^
founded on truth. ":|:
" The shade of the old sacristan of St. Pierre-le-Jeune, must more
than once have leaped in its sepulchre at the noise of the intestine dis-
cords of Protestantism. The tomb of Gerard still exists, (1743,) in
the cemetery of Strasbourg. What religious revolutions have come to
expire at the base of this stone, which covers the remains of a poor
creature, who, before the church to which he had so often summoned
the faithful to prayer, slept in the Lord, in the year 1560, full of years!
It is a popular belief among the Catholics of Strasbourg, that Gerard
died in the odour of sanctity. Also, during the time of great tempests,
menacing the faith, they are wont to pray to him, as to one of the bless-
ed. The tomb of the sacristan has been preserved by a kind of miracle.
We were desirous to behold it. He, who acted as our guide, knew
nearly all the inmates of this valley of tears. After having walked for
*Anii Calvinianus Elenchus, wherein is examined how Calvinists are repro-
bated or prcdcslined to liell by the immutable decree of God, according to tho
Lutherans; by Christopher Seldiiis, superintendent, minister of Cobourg.
Ami Calvinianus Speculator; by Christ. Althoser, professor of Altorff, su-
perintendent of the churcli of KuhTibach. Altorff. in quarto. 1636.
Anti Calvinianus Paulus; by Ananias Weber. Leipsick, 1644, in quarto.
t Jugt. surles methodes, etc. p. 143. Consult, de ineund. pace. £14.
^ At Genevee collegium ministrorum in publico ccEtu veram de preedestina-
tione doctrinam asseruit, publicoque scripto a Calvino comprehensam, coiji-
probavit, caput hoc christianee religionis. Beza, vita Calvini, ad ann. 1532.
Lira OF JOHN CALVijr. 115
some time through the cemetery, we perceived at the eastern angle a
little grove of mallows, quite fresh, from the midst of v/hich arose a
funeral monument, eaten by the tooth of time, but on which the eye
could still read these words distinctly : Melior estfidelis ignoraniia,
quatn temeraria scientia. We felt moved; this stone, which arose out
of the flowery tuft, presented us an image of our church, erect after so
many ages of combat, and to-day, as lovely in her eternal youth, as
when she first defied the doctors of the reformation."*
♦Calvini de Praedestinatione systema, p 37.
The question of predestination in the several systems of Wickliff, Luther,
and Calvin, has been profoundly examined by the Jesuit Du Chesne, in a trea-
tise in 4to., which appeared in 1724, under the title, Du Predestinatianisme,
Du Chesne is a skillful and polished controvertist.
CHAPTER XXI.
CALVIN AT FEANCKFOET, AT HAGENAU, AT WOEMS, AT EATISBOK.— '
1540— 154L
Double labour of the reformation. — Appeal to a council with a resolve be-
forehand to reject its decision. — Calvin at Franckfort. — His opinion on th»
Lord's supper ; — On the ceremonies of worship. — His discord with Melanc-
thon.— Calvin at Hagenau. — Desires of Rome for peace. — Eck, Bucer and
Calvin. — Accusations brought against the Genevan reformer by his co-re-
ligionists.
At the period of which we speak, the reformation was engaged in
a twofold work ; a work of proselytism and a work of concord.
To accomplish the former, it had need of human aid ; to effect the
latter, it was seeking for some voice able to still the waves which it
had excited. It was by an abuse of the holy word, that the reforma-
tion had entered the world ; by an abuse of the same word, it de-
sired to settle itself down and consolidate its dominion : for the
struggle which it had maintained had been ardent and protracted.
It had neither feared the tripple tiara of Leo X. and his successors,
the iron crown of Maximilian, the long sword of Charles V., nor
the devil himself, that grand knight of the reformation, whom Luther
caused to intervene in all his combats, with Cajetan and Carlstadt,
Eck and Schwenkfeld, Munzer and the Anabaptists. We have, else-
where, invited you to be present at the hatching of that new word,
concealed in an egg, which, it is said, Erasmus had opened with the
point of his pen ; a word which at Wittenberg, invests itself with a
monk's cowl, to affix its theses on the walls of the church of All-
Saints ; assumes the robes of a doctor, to speak to emperors at Worms ;
then disguises itself with the beard of a knight, at the castle of the
Wartburg, to escape the eye of Charles V. ; and finally, seizes the
lance of Sickingen, on the plains of Thuringia, to contend with the
revolted peasants ; and after all these transformations, again becomes
monk and doctor, in order to achieve the rights of German citizen-
ship, sometimes, by means of free discussion, and at other times, by
fraud and artifice. We have beheld the electors hiding their faces
and wrapping themselves in the mantle of their fears in presence of
this word, and to appease its rage, casting before it the soutans of our
priests, the capes of our canons, the purple of our bishops, the os-
tensers of our altars, the precious stones of our sanctuaries, and even
the crops newly gathered from the fields of our convents. But gold
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 2l7
was not sufficient to sate the appetite of this new word. It desired
to be recognized as the legitimate daughter of the word incarnate.
There are moments when Charles V. might be supposed to carry a
distaff instead of a sword : he amuses himself in disputation with
revolt ; to discuss, was to parley.
The new religion had drawn up a formulary of faith which it had
named its confession. After having set forth its symbol at Augsburg,
it had expressed itself in the following terms ;
'' If our discussions cannot be amicably terminated, let your ma-
jesty (it was addressing the emperor) convoke a general council ; we
will be present there, w^e will there plead our cause in the name of
God. We appeal to a council."*
The reformation here was trifling with the emperor, the Pope, and
Christendom. It had spoken sincerely by the mouth of its apostle.
In more than a hundred places of his epistles and books, Luther
had rejected all compact with Belial. Search for the word Belial
in the protestant dictionary : you will find it synonymous with Pope.
But at Augsburg, it was the interest of the reformation to deceive the
emperor.
In the mean time, it was acquiring cities, provinces, kingdoms,
crowned heads, even bishops. So that when the court of Rome had
taken it at its word, it falsified its oath, and rejected every species of
council.
At Smalcald, in 1539, the reformation threw aside the mask,
changed its character, and resorted to open force, calling to its aid
all its partisans, who were found in every part of Germany. Cath-
olicism became aware that its very existence was menaced, and, con-
voking its allies at Nuremberg, prepared for the combat. The em-
peror, occupied with the triumphs of his arms, could not leave his finest
provinces a prey to doctrines, which threatened the quiet of the whole
world. Moreover, enough of blood had already been poured out
in Franconia and Swabia. He had recourse to his ordinary remedy ;
he convoked a diet at Frankfort. Calvin appeared there by the side
of Melancthon.
Luther was growing old; God had smitten him prematurely with
all those maladies, which afflict men towards the end of a protracted
life. He had become deaf; his brain, as he tells us himself, was full
of tempests and thunders; his hand, as if struck with palsy, could not
^Histoire du protestantisme par M. Roisselet de Sauclieres, t. 2. p. 378.
Luther did not content himself with protesting in his writings against the
holding of a council, he amused himself by ridiculing it in caricatures,
which may sometimes still be met with on the stalls of the venders of old books,
or, as they are called, of the German antiquaries. In one of these images, the
Pope is represented seated on a hog, and holding stercora fumida in his hand,
the odors of which women and old men are smelling In another, the Pope
is represented surrounded by devils of every colour and shape, whom he is in-
voking with joined hands, but who, without mercy are breaking to pieces
bis crown, and collecting the wood, with which he is to be burned in hell.
Sleidan has given the description of these two caricatures, lib. 16, fol. 365 ;
edit, of Strasbourg, 1608. WelsUnger has re-produced them in his FrLss
Vogel, Oder stirb, p. 94, 97.
19
218 LIFE OF JOHN CALVllf.
pen two lines without causing his head to glow and ache. And as
if these physical sufferings were not sufficient chastisement, the wratb
of God, according to the just remark of a writer, had come to visit
him in his very household. During the lapse of a few years, he had
lost two children, one of them a cherished daughter, the model of
beauty and innocence. Henceforward, his part, upon the world's
theatre, is over ; but in dying he left a disciple, Melanctlion, who
was to continue his master's work, to extend it, symbolize it, and pro^
tect it against the just wrath of the Catholic princes, and the caprices of
the Protestant electors. The task was great, and far above the
strength of a single man. How could he hope to give unity to that
word, which changed its signification in each mouth that announced
it ? Thus, the reformation was, at Frankfort, represented by three
men, Bucer, Melancthon, and Calvin ; Bucer, that bat whom Luther
had already so often pierced to the heart ; Calvin, whom he had damn-
ed in the person of Zwingle ; and Melancthon, a poor traveler in
search of a star which constantly fled from before him.
Calvin, before leaving Strasbourg, had developed his system on the
Lord's supper, in a letter to Melancthon. Philip had not time to
reply. "Master John," he said to Calvin, on seeing him for the first
time at Frankfort, " I think as you do concerning the Eucharist."*
Calvin, with joy, records this avowal of Melancthon, in a letter to
Farel.f He did not yet know the nature of the man, weak even to
cowardice, who would not have dared offend, face to face, any one
devoted to the common cause. In the evening, when returned to his
lodgings, Melancthon resumed courage, hastened to reassure and con-
sole his father, promising to remain faithful to him even unto death.
And Luther, quite joyous, summoned Justus Jonas, showed him the
letter, and drank a large glass of beer to the perseverance of Philip,
and to the fall of the papacy.
The imperial legates had come to Frankfort, in quite a bad humour.
In the name of their master, they threatened to destroy the reforma-
tion in blood, if it refused to recognize the voice of reason. The em-
peror consented to allow the Protestants to keep the churches which
they had seized upon by violence, but he wished to constrain them to
make restitution of the goods of the convents and presbyteries. Me-
lancthon, had he only consulted his own conscience, would have yield,
ed willingly ; but in presence of the reformed princes, who, accord-
ing to an old historian, "suffered cruel pangs, when mention was
made of regorging what they had too greedily swallowed,"^ he hesi-
tated, asked for time, advised his friends " to brail up the sails amid the
tempest, and wait till God should make his sun shine, when by its
light they could labour to destroy the germs of discord, generated in the
bosom of the reformation, and to reunite all minds in one faith and a
common symbol !" — A carnal soul ! said Capito, who did not dare
. ♦Illos enim ad cum miseram quo 'explscarer, an aliquid esset inter noa^
dissensionis. Antequam responderet conveni eum Francofordiae ; testatus
est mihi nihil se aliud sentire quam quod meis verbis expressissem.
tEpist. Farelio, Mart. 1539. |Florimond de Reraofid.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIJJ. 219
avow his God before men, who dreaded the princes of this world ! My
God ! take me from this earth, for I call the Lord to witness, that our
poor church is lost, if it continue to march upon this path ; if all those
whom the Lord has called to the light, afflict his eye by their intestine
quarrels.* Calvin's apparition at Strasbourg, had no other success
than to introduce new disorders into the evangelical church, for
he brought to the reformation a dogmatic word, which he was deter-
mined to cause to prevail. His figurative sign, his emblematic bread,
his symbolical flesh of the Lord's supper, had wrested from Lutheran-
ism many wavering souls, who began to be revolted, at the miracle of
the real presence, and who believed that reason alone, was the shortest
way for arriving at the truth.
Each diet was like a halt in the movement : the repose, which they
essayed to establish, soon became burdensome to minds so divided :
(hey recurred to oral disputation, which, if we are to believe them, is the
only means of terminating religious controversies. At Frankfort, a truce
of some months was decreed, during which some king of the two camps
was to be selected, who should impose his yoke upon all rebellious minds.
The monarch of the reformation was Luther, whom God then held
upon a bed of suffering, and whom Germany in vain summoned to
each of its assizes, where his voice might have commanded silence.
Melancthon, the vicar of Luther, had not sufficient influence to recall
the dissenting disciples to unity. He wanted not, as was desired by
Calvin, a worship, without life, without light, flowers, and reflectors,
despoiled of images, of priests, of bishops, and of liturgies. When
Calvin said to him, that all the ceremonies, which the Saxon church
had preserved, savoured of Judaism, Melancthon did not dare contra-
dict the preacher of Strasbourg; but he represented to him that too
many blows had been struck at Catholicism ; that the abolition of all
those external forms which had the power to address the imagination^-
Ai'ould arouse the complaints of the canonists ; and he appealed to
time and to Luther.f who approved the pomps of the Catholic service
no more than he did the nudity of the reformed worship. Bucer uni-
ted his voice with that of Melancthon. While contemning our beau-
tiful Latin chants, the splendid images of our temples, the gold of our
sacerdotal vestments, the precious stones of our tabernacles, he was,
like Luther, disposed to defer to some future time the consideration of
liturgical questions : the thing most important for the reformation was
to provide itself with a symbol. J
Calvin departed from Frankfort, surprised at the science, in rap-
tures with the mildness of Melancthon ; but believing in the danger
arising from visible forms, the last trace of which he would have
desired to efface, that the wall of separation, erected by the Saxon
monk between the reformation and Catholicism, might be completed.
The position of the two theologians was not the same ; their opinions
ought to be different. Melancthon had assisted at all the phases of a
♦Epist. Farello. Mart. 1539. fEpist. Farelo, Ap. 1539.
:J:P. Henry, p. 243, and the following t. i.— Hess, t. i. p. 367, and the fol-
iawing-i^EpistolaB Calvini,
820 LIFE OF JOHN CALVl^-.
revolution, commenced by the word, and prosecuted amid blood. Cal-
vin, since his arrival at Strasbourg, had as yet only witnessed tourna-
ments, in which on both sides, ink alone had flowed. The
professor of Wittenberg was aware that no one can, with impunity,
sport with popular convictions; the shade of Munzer incessantly reared
itself before his view, to testify that a fanatical spirit, desirous of tri-
umph, is restrained by no consideration, not even by the peril of his
life. Besides, at the appearance of each neology, he had a vision of
new ruins, and already too many fragments encumbered the path of
his progress, for him to consent, with gaiety of heart, to march the
same route. He wrote to one of his friends : " All the waters of the
Elbe would not furnish me with tears, sufficient to deplore the miseries
of the reformation. The people will never submit to the yoke, which
the love of liberty has induced them to cast off. We are contending,
not for the gospel, but for our own interests. Ecclesiastical discipline
is ruined."* Towards the end of his career, he would have wished to
cheer his eye with a view of material reconstruction in worship. He
sought, before dying, to leave a symbol based upon palpable forms,
which would nourish the intellect and imagination. Hence, his de-
sires for a priesthood, modeled after the Catholic priesthood, having its
spiritual hierarchy, its pontiffs, its priests, and its altars.
Melancthon was unable to assist at the diet of Hagenau, which
was opened in the month of June, 1540. He was retained at
Weimar, by sickness. Calvin had set out from Strasbourg to take
share in the conference; his part was destined to be only secondary.
He was recognized to possess science, dexterity, cunning, but not the
slighest shadow of eloquence. He was not the man for popular as-
semblies : his word could not agitate the souls of men. Involved
but recently in the movement of religious ideas, he had but a false
notion of men and things. In a letter, which he wrote to Henry de
Taillis, he manifests complete ignorance, as to the part which each
personage was desirous to play in the great drama of Germany.
"The intention of adversaries," says he, "is to augment their
league, and diminish ours; but we hope that God will turn aside this
fortune. However this may be, ours seek to extend the reign of
Christ as much as is in their power, and have in no wise thought of
relenting. We do not now know what it will please the Lord to send
us. A portion of our adversaries ask only for war. The emperor
(Charles V.) is so much embarrassed that he dare not undertake it.
The Pope, on his part, would not scruple to engage in it, for he has
already, through his ambassador, made offer of three thousand ducats
for its commencement. Should all those who refuse to receive our
religion, be willing to assail us, the emperor would make no difficulty
to lend his name, were this only for the purpose of breaking to pieces
the strength of Germany, that he might the more easily subject it.
But there is a grand obstacle ; which is, that all the electors, with
common accord, are anxious amicably to appease all dissensions,
without a resort to arms. The duke of Saxony and the uaarquis of
*Ep. 1. iv. ep. 100, 129.
LIFE OF JOHN CALTIS. 221
Brandenbourg are ours, and therefore they can do nothing else but
prosecute their cause."
Calvin was mistaken ; Rome desired peace. The Catholic depu.
lies, little jealous of the student of Noyon,* were solicitous for repose.
*' Eck and the papists," says a historian whose testimony will not be
refused,! " desired that they would not agitate those questions which
had been decided at Augsburg, in 1.530, in the confession subscribed
by the Saxon church." But the Protestants wished to remodel a work
which included doctrines formerly admitted, but now rejected by them.
They withdrew, one by one, all the concessions which their fathers
had made to the Catholics. Had not Eck reason to say to them :
" At Augsburg, you gave us your exomologesis as if inspired by the
Holy Ghost, why to-day do you seek to revise and correct a divine
revelation?" They could not agree. They separated, appointing
Worms as a rendezvous for another meeting. Luther had foreseen this
result, and found means to amuse himself with it : "We are in for
our expenses, said he : they did worse than nothing at Hagenau."J
Tile conferences, opened at Worms and Ratisbon, seemed destined
to be more successful than those of Hagenau. The two communions
had their representatives there : Melancthon, Calvin, Capito, and Bu-
cer represented the reformation, Eck the theologian, Cropper and
Pflug, Catholicism. Calvin has sketched the portraits, or rather the
caricatures of these last : "Pflug is an eloquent man, a skillful politi.
cian, a vulgar theologian, a courlier, an ambitious man, but of exem-
plary morals. Gropper§ is one of those natures divided between God
and the world, witli whom no one could hold a discussion for the ac-
quisition of glory. You know Eck, that marplot, who spoils every
thing he touches If we come to an understanding with such
men, I shall be greatly mistaken."
Calvin here employs the ordinary formula of his master ; he calum-
niates. Eck was an enlightened spirit, who read the very thoughts of
his adversaries. This intuition was the result of long experience in
the human heart. If he had not the radiant fire of that other Eck who
so often disputed with Luther ; if he knew not how to poetize a theo-
logical question, or to transform an argument into a drama, he had a
different gift, which was the talent to set forth a question in an admira-
ble manner. The theologians of Strasbourg, had prepared themselves
beforehand for an ardent struggle ; they had come with their heads
teeming with fine discourses, by the aid of which they expected to fas-
cinate the diet ; but they found themselves taxed with the costs of this
work of memory, when Eck said to them : " The Protestant school
*Fateor ipsum neque docentem, neque scribentem in ornatu verborum et
humana eloquentia exiruium.— David Claude.
tHosplnianus, Historiae sacramentarise. t. ii. p. 310, and tlie following
:t:Es ist mit dem Reichstage in Hagenau Dreck ; ist meine MQhe und
Arbeit verloren, und Unkosten verarebliche. — Luth. an seine Fran • D/^
Wette, t. V. p. 298, 299, Paul Henry,^p. 260. t. i. '
♦Gropper, in reward for his services to the Catholic cause, received tlie
kftt of a cardmaL
19*
022 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK.
has its symbol, as we have ours ; this formulary of faith is th&^ one
they brought us, ten years ago, at Augsburg, which has since been
obstinately retained, published, and spread, by thousands, through Ger-
many. We have combated this formulary, as we propose still to
combat it, with the exception, however, of some of its articles, for
example, those relative to the Lord's supper, which in part we admit.
Do you wish to dispute ? We are ready. The papacy has manifested
to you how great a desire for peace animates it, in sending to you car-
dinal Contarini, whose mildness is sufficiently known to you."
Eck said the truth : Catholicism desired peace even at the cost of large
concessions, not in doctrines, but in various points of ecclesiastical
discipline. Contarini, the friend of Sadolet, and one of the glories of
the Roman purple, admitted the necessity of religions reform ; the
organ of an enlightened pope, Paul III., who was unwilling to de-
scend to the grave, before he had assisted at the reconciliation of his
children in Jesus Christ.
The emperor Charles V. thought with the Pope ; Melancthon and
Bucer were disposed to moderate their language and their pretensions.
A reformed historian has signalized the benevolent dispositions of the
two communions. Who then will explain to us that sudden transi-
tion from hope to deception, from charity to wrath ? Calvin, who had
received from the church which he represented a special mandate, and
who, as he declared, would have sooner preferred to be buried
beneath the ruins of his temple at Strasburg, than to be reconciled
with Rome. It was necessary then to recur to those disputes, in
which, according to the expression of Melancthon, the Lord, who de-
lights in silence, finds his cause so little advanced. The order of the
discussions was arranged. The first, the most important, regarded the
Lord supper. At Augsburg, the reformation had recognized the real pres-
ence ; it now maintained its word, and, by the mouth of Melancthon
and of Bucer, it confessed — that with the Catholic church it held
firmly, that after the consecration of the bread an^ wine, the body
and blood of Jesus Christ are in the Eucharist, truly and really; that
the faithful receive them, not enclosed in a material substance, or by
a carnal manducation, but spiritually, and by faith.*
Catholicism could not be satisfied widi such a confession of faith,
in which, by torturing it, could be found two opposing terms, negation
and affirmation. Hence, cardinal de Granville rejected this confes-
sion, as hostile to the doctrine which it appeared willing to recognize.
9ut during the interval of the dispute, Bucer and Melancthon had
eissayed to draw up another formula, less ambiguous, it is true, but
which pleased the Catholics no more than it did the deputies of Strae-
*Nam et illi decent vere et realiter corpus in coena preesens esse et dari
svimentibus ; at non in pane noque ori preesens esse, sed lidei et omnibus
quidem cum pane et vino sumendum ofTerri, sed solis fide sumentibiis com-
municari.
Nam perspicue testati sumus nos amplecti et tueri omnem eonsensum ec-
clesige catholicee, quod in coena Domini, consecrato pane et vino, realiter
adsint et sumantur corpus et sanguis Domini. Testati snmus nos improbare
eos qui negant adosse et vere sumi corpus christi. — Hosp. Hist, sacra.* t. ii. 314.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVm. 223
hourg. Calvin bitterly censures Bucer and Melancthon for this timid
conduct towards a creed, which he stigmatizes as idolatrous.* As they
were unable to come to an agreement concerning the enunciation of
the dogma, they deferred, with common consent, to some future time,
a question which each communion regarded as fundamental.
Eck defended the Eucharistic dogma with a splendour of language
which moved the whole assembly. In the evening, he went to bed to
rise from it no more. Some days after, he died from a stroke of apo-
plexy. For a moment, the Catholic world entertained the hope that
God would preserve a man of such fine talents : whilst the reforma-
tion, watching, with unquiet eye, every symptom of the malady, so
licited the Lord, by the mouth of Calvin, that he would deliver it from
" that ferocious beast. "f How does it happen that Calvin's last his-
torian, M. Paul Henry, has, from his hero's letter to Farel, effaced
this death-wish ? Did he think it would remain forever buried there,
and that no hand would come to drag it from the tombs ? Already, in
another history, Ave had surprised Luther, on his knees, with his hands
lifted up towards heaven, and beseeching God to deliver him from
another Eck, '' a hornet, which troubled and importuned him, by its
stings."
The blood of Luther, prematurely frozen by diseases, coursed
through his veins, as it did at the age of thirty years, when he learned
the sad issue of the diet of Ratisbon. — God had heard him, he said,
and spread darkness over the eyes of the papists. — Courage, he wrote
to Philip, thanks be rendered thee ! thou hast stript from the mass its
finest gem, the title of sacrament, a thing which I should never have
attempted to undertake.!
Melancthon, in various letters, and among them, in his letters to
Luther§ has given long details in relation to the conferences at Ratisbon
and Worms. We no wherein them see mentioned the name of Calvin.
If, however, we shall credit certain historians, the Genevan reformer
had a dispute at Worms, with Robert Mosham, at which Luther's dis-
ciple was present, and felicitated the sacramentarian, on whom he be>
stowed the name of theologian, jj Melancthon has during his whole
life preserved secrecy in regard to this triumph. Nor do we find, in
Philip's correspondence, the least word concerning the interviews
which he should have had with Calvin. W^hat then becomes of that
symbolical fellowship with the Wittenberg professor, which Calvin
with such joy proclaims to his friend Farel^ when yesterday he was
♦Philipus et Bucerus formulas de transsubstantiatione composuerunt axr-
biguas et facosas. — Calv. Ep'si 12 maii.
tEckius, ut aiunt, convalescit. nondum meretur mondus ista bestia liberari,
—12 maii 1541. Farello.
:j:IVIacte virtute et pietate, mi Philippe, tibi debetur gratia qui missae potuisti
sacramentum adimere, quod ego tentare et aggredi non fui ausus.— Hospin,
Hist. Sacr.
iDe conventu Ratisbonee. D. Martino Luthero 1541,— Epistola ad lectorera
de colloquio Wormaciensi, 1540.
IJAderat enim Melancthon Wormatiae in ea disputatione, qua Passaviensem
decanum Calvinus percelluerat, territum a Calvino, primo Argentinensi con-
gressu.— Antip. iv. p. 21, 22.
224 LIFE or joHir calvin.
still talking to us, concerning the lying opinion (fueosa) of Melanc-
thon on the Lord's supper ? *' It was immediately after their inter-
view at Ratisbon." says Sturm, "that a friendship, which nothing
could trouble, was established between these two souls."* We avow
that we cannot comprehend the possibility of a union between two or-
ganizations so different ; the one, pliable and affectionate, the other, chol-
eric and vindictive ; the one, a generous combatant, who seeks his adver-
sary, but in the closed lists, in open air, beneath the twofold sunlight of
earth and heaven ; the other, skulking like a mole in his lodgings, cries
out to God : '* Lord, deliver us from this wild beast." A long time
after Melancthon's death, Calvin recalls the image of him, whom be
had beheld at Ratisbon full of life, and he invokes this shade
" Philip, thou who art in the bosom of thy God, where thou art wait-
ing for me in thy happy repose, come, my voice invites thee. How
often, when tliou wast oppressed by chagrin and lassitude, and sweetl)^
reposed thy head upon my bosom, didst thou say to me : Ah ! would to
God I might die upon this cherished bosom ! A thousand times, have
I, on my part, desired to live with thee : I would have cheered tliee on
to combat ; I would have taught thee to despise envy and calumny ; I
would have placed a check to the wickedness of thy enemies, whose-
feebleness augmented their insolence."!
Calvin, in eternity, beside the theologian who believed in the real
presence ; in the same glory with Melancthon, who so often exclaimed
anathema, against the sacraraentarians !
Whence happens it that Calvin has so sedulously concealed fromus-
Melancthon's marks of affection for his person and his writings? I open
the correspondence of the professor, I discover therein abundant effu-
sions for Sadolet, who is calumniated by Calvin; for cardinal Contar-
ini, whose character Calvin tarnishes; J for Bucer, whom Calvin de-
picts as having the nature of a fox; for almost all our Catholic glo-
ries of the epoch of the revival, whom Calvin either knows not, or
else whose talents he denies. Heaven had given him a true friend in
Orynaeus, who died suddenly. With what tenderness does Melancthon
speak of the labours, the science, and the zeal of the minister of Bale !
And yet, Calvin announces this great loss, as if it were a mere ordi-
nary event; his eye had even no tears to deplore the death of his first
born. Never do you find him, with some glow and affection of soul,
recounting the labours of his coreligionists; his was a soul, jealous of
all glory not dependent upon his own ! Let him then cease to talk
to us about the tenderness of Melancthon, Avho, during the space of
several years, writes to him seven or eight times, and terminates a little
♦Etiam in colloquio ita inter Mclancthonem etCalvinum constituta notitia
est, ut dum viverent ambo nunquam interrupta fuerit charitas. — Sturmius,
in Antip. iv. p. 21, 25.
tO Philippe Melancthon ! te enim appello, qui apud Deum cum Christo
yivis, nosque illic expectas, donee tecum in beatam quietem colligamur, etc.
De V. part. chr. in ccena contra Heshusium. — Op. 724.
IQuod Contarenus mallot, si potest, nos sine caede reprimere. Calv. F&-
rello. MSS. Gen,
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 225
note with this very dry formula : Bene vale : Philipjms Melanc-
thon.
Moreover, it was not Calvin who bore the brunt and glory of the
tournament at Ratisbon. The Senate of Strasbourg knew full well,
that the French refugee could not measure arms with Eck ; but it
calculated on the theologian, who, a cypher in the pulpit, might,
in this conference, take his revenge at his own lodgings ; and truly it
is there that Calvin might have been able to combat with some eclat.
But Bucer ambitionod all the honours for himself, he wished to dispute
in public and to lecture at the academy. Nature had lavished upon him,
as upon Luther, those exterior gifts, which seduce and bear away the
multitude ; slie had given him a large forehead, above which sported
his jet black hair, teeth of showy white, a smile most fascinating, a
brilliant eye, a lofty and noble stature, and a woman's hands. His
voice distilled honey, or, in case of need, fulminated thunder ; but lan-
guage was the most precious instrument he had received for fascinating
his hearers ; it flashed like a diamond ; a real solar spectrum, in which
all colours were produced, so that after having listened to him, each
person could acknowledge his word, because he found reflected in it,
his own opinion ; it was a word, tinctured with Judaism, Lutheranism,
Zwinglianism, and even Catholicism itself! His friends would have
been puzzled to say to what religion he belonged.* There were some
who loudly accused him of Papism. f Never was a student of Co-
logne or Leipsic more refined in scholastic subtilties. Luther said,
that as Abraham, before sacrificing Isaac, had left his ass at the foot of
the mountain, so before disputing, should we tie up Aristotle : Bu-
cer had not followed the precept of his master. At each discussion,
he appeared always with the same ass, burdened with relics of the
school, that is, with enthijmemes and distinctions, hunting nets, which
he spread out under the feet of his adversaries, but in which Eck was
not the man to allow himself to be caught. Unfortunately, when
Bucer made no impression on his judges, he had recourse to calumny.
One day, at the diet, he made his whole auditory laugh, by represent-
ing the grave Eck, running like a veritable student to all the princes,
to conjure them to reject the articles of conciliation proposed by the
Protestants.
— Am I, said Eck on the next day, a light-footed solicitor, who quite
recently have had three attacks of fever ; I, who am afflicted with
dropsy, and compelled to keep close in my room !"{ Eck got the
laughers on his side.
In vain did Bucer seek to take refuge in his thicket of sonorous
words, Eck pursued him there, muttering : — poor hydropic as t am, de-
*Bucerus ambiguis et obscuris loquendi formulis sententiam suam pro-
posuit, ut in utram partem magis propenderet colligi non potuerit. — Lavater.
tTraducebant amici Calvini Bucerum quasi novum papismum erigere. —
Vossius. Ep. 437, p. 103.
|Qui ter febre correptus, aurigine laesus, proxima dispositione ad hydropisim
timidus, qui tot septimanis, nunquam eedes exire potis eram, cucurri per aulas
principum et eis suggessi ne acceptarent articulos pro conciliatis eis vendi-
tosl — Apologia pro rever. et illust, princip. catholicis, etc. Parisiis» 1543.
226 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
voured by fever, bedridden, whom you seek to transform into a student,
quite hale, rosy, with the legs of Atlas, and the lungs of Stentor ; I
ask no better than to believe in the miracle : it will be the first of
your miracles.
Calvin at last recognizes the Protean clay, out of which the soul
of Bucer had been kneaded. It was in one of those moments of inti-
mate confidence, when every thing in the heart is poured out, though
afterwards repented for, when it is too late to extract the shaft from the
wound.
"You are truly right," said Calvin to one of the friends of his whole
life, "in censuring the obscurities in which Bucer loves to envelop
himself."*
When he perceived the fault he had committed, he endeavoured to
pour a little honey into the wound. Bucer was not the man to for-
give : in a moment of humour, he said, but it was to Calvin himself :
— Thou ! why thou judgest, as thou lovest or hatest ; and thou lovest and
hatest without reason.f
Calvin, at the diet of Ratisbon, seemed to have modified his opin-
ions concerning the Lord's supper and the forms of worship : he had
hid himself in clouds, where the human eye could scarcely recognize
him. His friends themselves censured his wavering phrase and ambigu-
ous language. Know, said Lavater, that Calvin was not forgiven by
many for his tergiversations regarding the Lord's supper.J Others cen-
sured him for his ideas on con-substantiation. §
Thus, that grand organization, which the prospect of exile could not
cause to bend at Geneva, diminishes before the representatives of the
Saxon church. The reason was, because Calvin, like all the other
reformers, dreaded the wrath of Luther.
*Tu Buceri obscuritatem vituperas et merito, at nihil est in Bucero adeo
perplexum, obscurum, flexiloquum, atque ut sic loquar, tortuosum.
fjudlcas pro ut amas vel odisti ; amas antem vel odisti pro ut lubet..
^Multi offendebantur, quod Calvinus diversum quid de coena Domini tra-
dere videbatur a Tigurince ecclesiae ministris. — Hist. Sacr. p. 98.
^Multis videbatur Calvinus diversum quid a Tigurinis de ccena tradere ac;
consubstantiationi non nihil favere. — Adam : BuUinger's Leben, p* 489»
CHAPTER XXII.
DE CCEKA DOMINI. 1539-1540.
fi>ivergence of Protestant symbols regarding the Lord's Supper. — Opinion of
Carlstadt, — Of Zwingle,--'Of Luther.---System of Calvin exposed by Bos-
suet, and refuted and condemned by Luther and the Saxon church. — The
Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation, defended by various Protestants.
I am desirous to exhibit to you all the misery of that word, which
announced itself to be a ray from the eternal sun, a shadow of the word
made flesh, a drop of the infinite ocean; you shall hear it, in all its
splendour, from the mouth of its apostles, and you shall adore it, if you
dare. Let the reformation proceed with its work, for it has just im-
plored the Spirit of God, in order to explain these very clear words :
This is my body, this is my blood.
And, first, here is Carlstadt, whose old German shines admirably in
the translation of our Bordeaux counselor, Florimond de Remond.
" This sentence, hoc est corpus meum, is full and perfect, which the
Lord has used elsewhere, without making mention of the sacrament.*
For this pronoun Hoc, has a capital letter PL Now, a large letter indi-
cates the commencement of a sentence. These words have been in-
scribed in the words of the last supper, as sometimes various expressions
are interlaced, and yet the sense is preserved entire. It would have
been well, had the interpreters left the Greek pronoun iouto, and inter-
woven it with the Latin, saying thus, touto, hoc est corpus meurn : then
it would have been known what this word iouto signifies : it is a Greek
pronoun, which shows a neuter noun. Now, the Latin word panis is
masculine ; therefore the pronoun touto cannot agree with it, and can-
not support the opinion of those who say that the bread is the body of
Christ, for the Greek phrase will not allow it any more than the Latin:
istud panis est corpus meurn. ks, to myself, I have always thought
that Christ, showing his own body, said : this is my body, which shall
1)6 delivered for you. For Christ does not exhibit bread, and does not
say : this bread is my body; afid those lie, who say that the bread is the
body of Jesus Christ. These words, hoc est corpus meurn quod vobis
tradetur, are included by points, both at the commencement and end,
showing that the sense is not attached to what precedes or follows, but
is separate and distinct. Therefore, of necessity, it must be confessed
that Christ, in saying : this is my body, showed his own body, and not
the bread As to myself; I as little believe that Jesus Christ is
corporally in several places, as I believe that St. Anne had five heads,
♦"Carlstadt, in dial, de Coena.
228 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
and that the poor little innocent, of whom all Germany speaks, was born
with a beard on his chin twelve cubits long."*
Now, Carlstadt was archdeacon of Wittenberg, a wretched Hebraist,
who was the first of the reformers to take a wife, to the great joy of the
Saxon church ; Luther's second, at the dispute of Leipsic, and who
boasted that he had obtained the secret of the great Eucharistic myste-
ry from a familiar spirit, that had appeared to him. Carlstadt entertain-
ed a very poor opinion of the science of Luther. t
When the doctor read the singular interpretation of his disciple, he
rubbed his eyes, and shook his long locks, as if the mists of Witten-
berg had prevented him from reading. Then he began laughing, and
with him, Justus Jonas, Aurifaber, Pomeranus and Melancthon, with
such loud peals, that the archdeacon heard him, but without being mov-
ed the least in the world ; for he believed himself favoured with a divine
inspiration : a good fortune, of which all the chiefs of the reformation
made boast. Carlstadt set himself to commenting upon his commenta-
ry, in the pulpit and in his writings, until master Martin had stifled the
author amid floods of Bavarian beer. Carldstadt, driven away, went
from city to city, with this writing, which Melancthon had stuck upon
his back :J "A barbarous man, without intellect, without science, des-
titute even of common sense, who lives, like drunkards, amidst pots
and glasses." Poor Carlstadt, who drank nothing but water, and who,
at the time of his marriage, had been transformed by Luther into a saint
of Paradise !§
In 1524, an angel appeared to the cur6 of Einsiedeln, whilst he was
sleeping in the arms of his maid-servant, and this aerial visitant, whose
colour Zwingle was never able to remember, revealed to him the signi-
fication of the words of the Lord's Supper. Luther resumed his
homeric laugh, which, in the reformed world, never after left him, and
Zwingle wrote :
" I think that Carlstadt has had a glimpse of a ray of light : but he
has not, like myself, beheld the sun of truth ; he has not comprehended
the mystic meaning of the words of Christ. The body of Christ can
neither be under the bread, nor with the bread : the bread is only the
sign of an absent reality. 1| A sacrament is an image, and nothing
more ; if you make a reality of it, the sacrament becomes God ; then,
* . . . . Ut innocentem infantem habuisse barbam duodecim cubitis pro-
lixam.
t Langseus in vita Carlostadii, — Schlusselburg, de Ccena Dom. p. 87. For
the dispute de Cana Domini, consuli: Marheinecke: Geschichte derdeutschen
Reformation, t. II. 1816, p. 236 and the folloiving:
tHist. de Ccena Aug., fol. 42, in2 Conf. Resp. ad Lutherum.
i At the mass for Carlstadt's marriage, the celebrant recited a prayer which
began thus: Deus qui post longam et impiam sacerdotum tuorum caecitatem,
beatum AndreamCarlostadium ea gratia donare dignatus es, ut primus, nulla
habita papistici juris ratione, uxorem duceie ausus fuerit," etc.
HSi sacramentis fidendum est, jam sacramenta Deum esse opportet, ut non
tantum Eucharistice sacramentum, sed et baptismus manuumque impositio
Deus sit. Sacramenta veneramur ut signa et symbola rerum sacrarum, non
quasi res ipsas sint quarum signa sunt. — Christianee fidei a Huldrycho Zwin-
glio, ab ipso Zwinglio paulo ante mortem ejus ad regem christianum scripta,
Tiguri, 1536.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 229
of the Eucharist, of baptism, of the imposition of hands, you will say:
a God, another God, a third God. What, then, is a sacrament ? A
sign, a symbol. In the Lord's Supper, we do not carnally, but spirit-
ually, receive the body of Christ, who suffered, died, and now sits at the
right hand of his Father,"* The humanity of Christ is neither eternal,
nor infinite ; therefore, it must be finite : if it be finite, therefore it is
not every where. Therefore, the sacramental words should be taken
in a symbolical, figurative, metonymic sense. Let us say : — this is my
sacramental or mystical body, the symbol of that which I have assumed
and offered in death. "f
Suppose the reformation had been registered at parliament, and ac-
cepted as a lettre de cachet, behold in what embarrassment the ladies of
the court, — the duchess d'Etampes, and queen Margaret, — and perhaps
also Morin, the life-guard, would have found themselves, standing be-
tween the figure of Zwingle, the impanation of Luther, and the objec-
tiveness of Carlstadt ! The prince, then, did well, not to allow himself
to be ensnared by the new word ; for, at each royal levee, they would
have announced some antique dogma, revised and corrected. The an-
cient faith of his ancestors was worth more than these semblances of
doctrine. Honor, then, to Francis L! Let him, and, especially, let his
people be praised, for the rude war which they waged against error, al-
though Zwingle had closed his heaven against them, in case "they did
not accept his angel and his metonymy.
When the Zwinglian exegesis was thrown into the Wittenberg
cavern, the Saxon lion arose, with his mane erect, he lashed his flanks
with his undulating tail, and sent forth a roar which resounded even
to the mountains of Toggenbourg, and Zwingle was goaded and cut
by it,
*' Come, now, my good friends of Switzerland," said Luther, roaring,
''where have you found that, this is my body, signifies : this is the
figure of my body ? Ask the meaning, then, from the little children,
who have not yet reached iheir seventh year, and who, at school, are
learning to say : c, e, ce, c, i, ci, ceci. There are bibles in Greek, in
Latin, in German : come, now, show us where it is written : this is the
sign of my body. You cannot do so. Therefore, silence ! simpletons,
peasants !"
Ml ! had Melancthon been acquainted with Zwingle's bible, printed
at Zurich, in 1525, by Chris. Froschauer, what fine food he would have
presented to the teeth of Luther ! A bible, in which the mountaineer
cure has translated the Greek toutOf the hoc est corpus meum, by these
•T. IL de subsid. Eucharist., fol. 249. a, b.
t In Coena Domini naturale ac substantiale istud corpus Christi quo hie pas-
sus est et nunc in coelis ad dextram patris sedet, non naturaliter et peressenti-
am editur, sed spiritualiter tantum. Christi humanitas non est seterna, ergo
neque infinita; si finita, jam non est ubique. Mens reticitur hac fide quam
symbolis tesiaris. Igitur verba sacramenti non naturaliter ac pro verborum
proprio sensu, sed symbolice, sacramentaliter, denominative, metonumikios,
captanda sunt. — Christianee fidei expositio.
20
230 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
words; das bedeutet mein Leib, das bedeutet melnBlut;* this is the
image of my body, this is the image of my blood. Oh ! three times
Avoe to the angel of Zwingle ! his wings would have been torn to pieces
by the Saxon monk.
Is it not for the soul a melancholy spectacle, to behold these lovers
of novelty, coming, one after another, to seize upon some grand Catho-
lic truth, in order to subject it to their fooli&h curiosity, to their mole
vision, to their nocturnal reveries, and proclaiming the imbecility of
our great doctors, the blindness of our faith, and the obscurity of our
tradition ? Luther himself did not always dare laugh at the folly of
his disciples; his eye pierced the future, and saw the work, which ho
had commenced at Wittenberg, abandoned to disordered intellects, who
would destroy its whole economy. Then, how sad were his lamenta-
tions. " Poor human reason," said he, who had himself proclaimed
its omnipotence ; "how feeble art thou, when listening only to thy own
inspirations! Of these holy words, "this is my body," Carlstadt has
miserably tortured the pronoun hoc (this); Zwingle torments the verb
est (is); OEcolampadius applies the torture to the substantive corpus
(body). There are some who flay the whole phrase, who translate :
take and eat the body, which is given for thee, it is this here. Others
crucify the half of the sentence, and say : take and eat, this is my
body, which I give thee, not really, but symbolically, and commemo-
ratively. Behold, how the devil mocks us !"t
Then, a moment after, the whim again seizes this man, whose laugh
kills. He recollects himself, draws his hand across his brow, and,
with the comic volubility of a student, commences to recite all the glo-
ries of these modern interpretations.
This is my body, — that is to say, the use of my body and of my
blood. — This is my blood, — that is, the glorification of my passion and
my resurrection. — This is my body, — that is, the quality of my body. —
This is my body, — that is, the mystery or symbol of my body. — This is
my body, — that is, the form, the rite, the external representation of my
supper. — This is my body, — that is, the participation of bread and wine
obtained by entreaty. — This is my body, — that is, the communion and
society of my body. — This is my body, — that is, the testament of my
will. — This is my body, — that is, this body, which I have created.!
Then, at the church of All-Saints, the hour of judgment sounded.
The souls of all these doctors appeared before the tribunal of Luther,
♦Conr. Schlussclbnra:, prsed. Luth. in tlieol. Calvin., lib. 3, act. vi, p. 79.
In 1549, the same Froschauer sent Luther a translation of the bible by Leo
Juda, or Judse ; the reformer, in a polite letter, entreats him to desist, for the
future, from sending him the works which were printed at Zurich. — Mart. Lu-
ther's Briefe, t. V. p. 587. Ed. de Wette.
t Op. Luth., Jen. t. VII, p. 192.
:j:Hoc est corpus meum, id est: hie est usus in corpore et sangfuine meo. —
Hoc est meriiurnet gloria passionis, mortis et resurrectionis corporis mei. — Hoc
est qualitas propria mei corporis. — In hoc Sacramento mysterium mei corporis
designatur, — Heec est forma, ceremonia et actio cxternee me£B Coenae. — Panis
et poculi impetrata participatio. — Ha3c est communio etsocietas mei corporis. —
Hcec est extrema voluntatis meee contestatio. — Hoc est corpus quod creavi.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 231
who did not even take the trouble to hear them, but drove them from
before his face, and cast them into hell.*
Some of them appealed from this sentence, ordinarily pronounced in
the bar-room, at Wittenberg ; and tliey summoned before their own tri-
bunal Luther himself, with his God impanated, and made by the pastry,
cook, and they condemned them to eternal fire. The reformation then
acted the part of Catholicism, and Rescius, the Sacramentarian, took the
Dominican's girdle, and exclaimed to Luther : "God has withdrawn
from thee, and abandoned thee to the spirit of darkness. "f That poor
Prierias, the ardent antagonist of the Saxon monk, was not allowed,
before dying, to enjoy the pleasure of plucking from his enemy's brow,
the crown which had been placed upon it by his disciples ; this triumph
was reserved for doctor Eck, who lived long enough to see him, who
had been called the angel of Eisleben, transfigured into a spirit of
the abyss.
After the lapse of three centuries, we are astonished at the influence
which the apparition of a new heresy was able to exercise upon the
christian society of the sixteenth century; we smile, when they inform
us that an insolent or comic interpretation was hailed with acclamations
and peals of laughter, by a whole people of false doctors, because it
called into doubt the infallibility of the church. We are unable to esti-
mate the terror of simple souls, on the appearance of a commentary,
often extravagant, upon a dogmatic word, which they believed without
examination. At that time, theology reigned supreme over all domina-
tions, as does the sun over the other planets. There was but one focus of
truth for all : tradition. What deception for the poor centenary, when
they came to whisper in his ear, that the light which had illumined the cra-
dle and tomb of his father, was a false light ; that the words, murmured
over the head of the new-born babe; that the manna of the desert, dis-
tributed to the adult, at the table of the Lord ; that the peace, imparted
by the priest in the confessional ; that the prayers, chanted by the church
for the repose of the dead; that the holy oil, with which a sacerdotal
hand anointed the members of the agonizing christian, were gross
fancies, false and impotent practices, jugglings, invented during the
ages of darkness ! He must overturn all that he had adored : the light
of his doctors, the glory of his martyrs, the halo of his saints, the dia-
dem of his popes. At each hour of the day, some one came and told
him : "A star has beamed forth at Eisleben, at the Wartbourg, on the
Hauenstein of Bale, at Geneva; ye nations, arouse from sleep ; this is
the star of the Lord."
Below this theological world, gravitates another world, — that of the
arts and of poesy, — to which the first is, what the sun is to the rays of
light, and which has a right to be agitated, for commotion in one must
extend to the other, and communicate its trouble. Behold what tie
imites them together. Has Carlstadt convicted the veneration of images
of idolatry, painting loses all material personifications, the enchant-
• ♦ Hospinianus, Hist, sacram. fol. 344. Lutheri op. contra fanaticos sacra-
mentariorum errores, t. VII, fol. 379, et seq.
tSchlusselburg, in lib. contra Hessium de ccena Domini.
232 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
ments of interior life. Does (Ecolampadius expunge from our liturgy,
ail its ancient chants, there is left no more music to delight the ear.
Has Zwingle broken our censer into pieces, prayer no longer ascends
before the throne of God, amid clouds of perfume. Does Bucer con-
demn the invocation and intercession of the saints, the eye of faith can
no longer traverse space, in order to contemplate the blessed, beside the
eternal ihrone, presenting to God the tears of the mother or the child.
Therefore, awake thyself, fool,, that thou art, poor imagination ! Thou
kneel est before the image of the Virgin; knowest thou not that the Virgin
is nothing more than a privileged creature ? Do not longer, at the ter-
mination of the evening vigil, murmur, while invoking Mary : mysti-
cal rose, morning star, comforter of the afflicted ; thou art deceived :
Mary is but a daughter of Adam,, purer than his other daughters, but
unable to hear thy prayers. Come, take away the flowers which thou
hast sown before the door of thy dwelling; it is no longer a God made
man, that is to pass before thee, as formerly Jesus proceeded through
the streets of Jerusalem ; dost thou not see, that there is nothing in the
host but a symbol and an image ? Formerly, every thing touched by
Catholicism became a rose, quidquid calcaveris rosa Jiet : now, all
things touched by the reformation, become briars and thorns.
Hence, therefore, you will understand, we trust, the lively emotions
which swelled in the Catholic soul, when informed that Calvin was
coming, in the wake of so many other innovators, to attack one of the
doctrines of the church : the real presence.
What, then, was the new word, which Calvin appeared to preach ?
Neither that of Luther nor that of Zwingle, but a word producing the
realism of the first, and the symbolism of the last; figurative andsensi-
ble, in which matter and spirit amuse themselves ; in which man, hav-
ing become God, changes visible appearances, by means of faith, and
operates the miracle of the Catholic priest at the consecration.
Bossuet has admirably exhibited Calvin's system :
" Calvin," says he, "teaches a presence quite miraculoiis and divine.
He is not like the Swiss, who become angry when you tell them that
there is a miracle in the Lord's Supper : but on the contrary, he grows
angry, when you tell him there is non€. He ceases not to repeat, that
the mystery of the Eucharist surpasses the senses ; that it is the incompre-
hensible work of divine power, and a secret impenetrable to the human
understanding ; that words are wanting to him to give expression to his
conceptions, and that his conceptions, far superior to his expressions,
are still far below the elevation of this ineffable mystery. In such sort,
he says, that he rather experiences than understands this union : which
manifests, that he feels, or believes that he feels, the effects, but the
cause is above his reach. This also, it is, which causes him to say, in
the confession of faith, that this mystery surpasses in its elevation the
measure of our senses, and the whole order of nature, and that, be-
cause it is heavenly, it can be apprehended, that is, comprehended, only
by faith. In his efforts to explain in his catechism, how Jesus Christ
can make us participators of his own substance, whilst his body is Id
heaven and we are upon earth, he answers, that this is effected by tb^
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
233
incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit, which can easily unite things
separated by distance of place."*
Calvin, who represents body and soul as the elements of the hu-
man being, and affirms that the scripture confounds the mind and soul
in the same attribute, teaches, that in the Lord's Supper, the soul, or
mind, is, by means of faith, nourished with the flesh, and refreshed with
the blood of Jesus Christ ; whilst the body receives nothing but sym-
bols, that is, material bread and wine. He wishes the flesh and blood
to leap, by the power of the Holy Ghost, over the space which separates
them from earth, in order to identify themselves with the soul, if the
soul be elevated, on the wings of faith, towards Jesus Christ, who reigns
in heaven. But before communion, we believe, either a Christ cloth-
ed with a body, or a Christ who cannot come under the senses : if we
believe a Christ, dead, resuscitated, seated at the right hand of God his
Father, what does faith operate in communion, that it has not accom-
plished before receiving it? Thus, the philosophic system of Calvin
floats between the reality and the symbolical, between spirit and matter.
Calvin objects : the flesh must be flesh, and the spirit, spirit : now, his
definition is defective, precisely on account of the absence of realism or
of symbolism, or rather, because of the confusion of the ideal, and the
absolute; and notwithstanding all his perspicacity, the reformer was
never able to reconcile these artificial contradictions.!
We perceive that Calvin in his symbolism, has broken with the school
of Zwingle, while seeking to conciliate it; for he admits a real pres-
ence, and a subversion of the order of nature, as does the Catholic
school ; his miracle surpasses that of the Catholic church, as is remark-
ed by Pelisson.J Every manducation supposes a substance, and every
substance a place which it occupies : therefore, the miracle he operates
is greater than that of the Catholic priest : idealism elevated by faith to
the condition of body. In vain, to make his idea comprehensible, does
he have recourse to the image of the sun, which strikes our eyes with
light, for this light is itself a reality : the sun operates by the effusion
of its rays, and Calvin rejects the eff'usion or impression of the sub-
stance. Claude, therefore, said truly, when, on the principles of the
reformation, he maintained that the Calvinistic dogma could no more be
sustained than Catholic transubstanLiation.§
A political idea governed Calvin, in his interpretation of the words
of the Lord's Supper. He hoped, should it be adopted, to reunite the
Zwinglians and the Lutherans in the same faith; this idea did not
escape the notice of the two communions, who censured it as a degra-
dation of spirit to matter. Planck has acknowledged, that the Calvin-
istic word was aiming, in this gloss of the sacred text, to please the
theologians of the two schools. Down to the year 154&, the Luthe-
rans, who were unacquainted with the book, de CcEiia Domini^ thought
* Bossnet's Variations.
tDie Gegenwart Leibes und Blutes Christi im Sakrament. — Allg. deutsche
Real-Encyclopedie.
:|: Pelisson, Traite de I'Eucharistie, in 12mo. 1694. {Pelissan, p. 95»
20*
234 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
that Calvin had not ceased to belong to the Saxon church.* The des-
tiny of this theological work was by no means brilliant in Germany,
since Luther, who must have been acquainted with it, mentions Calvin's
name but once, and then only to salute it with an ordinary formula of
esteem, t
Moreover, the monk of Wittenberg has done even still better than
Bossuet : his words, with the reformed, must possess an influence which
Avould be denied to those of the bishop of Meaux. Luther, to refute
the opinion of Calvin, has seized the pen of a father of primitive Chris-
tianity, of the Sieur Bossuet, as Jurieu terms our great bishop.
Calvin said, that all miracles are perceptible to the senses, and that
the priest at the altar cannot enact the part of the Divinity. J
" But who has told thee," replies Luther, '*that Jesus Christ has re-
solved in his counsels to operate no more miracles ? Has he not been
conceived by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of a virgin ? Hast thou
seen this miracle ? Has not the Divinity dwelt in the flesh of Christ ?
Hast thou seen this miracle ? Thou sayest that he is seated at the right
hand of his Father ; dost thou see this miracle ?"§
Calvin entrenched himself behind the verse of St. John : the flesh
profiteth nothing.
Capharnite, exclaimed the doctor, with what right darest thou
affirm that the flesh is useless ? It is of the flesh, fashioned from the
slime of earth, of fermented mud, of unclean clay, that Christ speaks,
and not of that flesh which gives eternal life.
Calvin imagined that his doctrine would re-unite divided minds.
But Luther rejects the concord offered by Calvin : Cursed, he ex-
claims, be that concord, which thou seekest to introduce amongst chris-
tians, cursed in this life and in the next !
The Genevan church had declared that, — as the church of the Augs.
burg confession agreed with the others, in the fundamental points of
the true religion, there was neither superstition nor idolatry in their wor-
ship ; the faithful of the said communion, who, through a spirit of amity
and peace, should unite with the Helvetic communion, might, without
making any abjuration, be received at the table of the Lord.||
But in his prophetic visions, Luther had long since divined the fate-
of this strange hallucination, and cast his curse upon this approxima-
tion of the two communions.
Avaunt ! my fine sirs ; address yourselves to some other than to
me. Had I cut the throat of thy father, of thy mother, of thy wif&
*Die lutherischcn Theologon wollten mit aller Gcwalt die Welt beredeni
dasz Calvin bis zum lahre 1549 sicli ofFentlich nicht aiiders hiitte merken
lasscn, denn dasz er mit dem lutherisclicn Theil ganz gleichstimmig sei. —
Plank, Gescliichte der Entstehung des prot. Lehrbegritfs. Bd. 5 Th. p. ]0.
+ Grlisze mir aclitungsvoll den Sturm und den Calvin. — De Wette, Luther's
Briefe, t. V. p. 210.
:j:Talcm ergo preesentiam loco circumscriptam statuere qua corpus Christi sig-
no includatur aut localiter, qnod aiunt, conjungatur, non est tantum delirium,
:cipiamus et bellum geramus, etc. . . . — Contra fanaticos sacr.imentariorum
errores. tome. I, folio 382-383. Dasz die worte Christi: das ist mein Leib,
noch feststehen. Halle, t. XX, p. 950.
tHeniicus Eckhardus, Preefat. ad Fasciculum.
:j:Fortnsse putatis controversiam eucharistlcam leva quoddam esse dissidi-
\im : quod non ita se habet; cur a specie taciti consensus non cavemus cum
lis ecclesiis quas male sentire certo scimus. — Pet. Martyr. Epistola ad eccle-
siam anglicanam.
? Tam virulento odio in nos crepant ut citius illis pax cum Turcis futura sit
et cum papistis fraternitas, quam nobiscum inducise. — Calv. contra Westphal.
p. 791.
236
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
never announced but one and the same symbol ?* But whom do they
wish to deceive ? The dead reappear.
Now, that three centuries sleep upon the ashes of Calvin, behold
Protestants, lifting up their voices to glorify the Catholic dogma, which
he so deplorably denied.
'■' You reject the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eu-
charist; well, then, tell us what it does enclose? — Straw. If Christ
be not there, what shall we find there ? Nothing."!
" They tell us that we receive the body and the blood of Christ, but
only by the organ of faith. — But faith does not lift itself up to heaven
otherwise than thought travels to Rome or Constantinople ! If not, you
attribute to the spirit qualities whicii you deny to Jesus Christ : to dwell
at the same time in heaven and on earth.:]:
" You oflfer an insult to logic, in maintaining that the soul of the
communicant receives the body and blood of Jesus Christ from the
highest heavens, at the moment that his material mouth is eating bread
and drinking wine.§
" The scriptures can only be explained by tradition, or by the first
institutions of Christianity. St. Justin, in the middle of the second
century, wrote : "We know that this consecrated bread and wine are
the body and blood of Christ." Thus, the idea of the real presence
belongs to the primitive times of Christianity. ||
" The miracle of transubstantiation is not greater than that of the
hypostatic union. 1"
* Schediasma Irenicum, hoc est necessaria eccles. Protestantium in fide con-
sensio ex propriis doct. Lutheranorum rigdidissimorum unica demonstratione
evicta. Ratis. in 4to. 1720.
Tn a single visit at Heidelburg, in 1836, we found w^ith Wolf, the antiquary,
(this is the name given in Germany to the venders of old books,) the follow-
ing Latin works, written by Calvinists, against the Lutheran doctrines:
Bremensis Eccleslae Ministrorum Elenchi paradoxorum, ad refutandam au-
daciam Tubingensiura, Bremee, A. 1588.
Parse!, Calvinus orthodoxus. Neostadii, 1595.
Mart. Beumleri, triplex scriptum ad Jacobum Andreas. Neostadii, 1586.
Ejusdem, Falco emissus ad capiendum, deplumandum et dilaceran-
dum cuculum ubiquitatis. Neostadii, 1535.
Matt. Martini, confusio confusionum, D. Balth. Mentzeri. Herbornfe, 1597.
Rodolphi Hospiniani, concordia discors. Tiguri, 1607.
(-hristophori Ilordcsiani, duo scripta contra formulam concordise. 1579, 1580.
Ambrosii Wolfii, fund?},mcnta Lutheranoe doctrinaj. Genevee, 1579.
Danlelis Tossani, Theses theologicee contra pseudo-evangelicos. Steinfur-
ti, 1605.
Orthodoxa Tigurinee Ecclosise confessio adversus Lutheri calumnias, con-
temnationes et convicia. Tiguri, 1545,
t Glaus Harm's Predigtcn. [fLeibnitz, Systema theol., p. 215.
^ Schwurz, tiber das Wcsen des heil. Abendmahls.
||Horst, cited by Hoeninghaus, p. 185. Here is the text of St. Justin: Ad
eundem modum, etiam earn, in qua per preces verbi ejus ab ipso profecti gratite
actse sunt, alimoniam unde sanguis et caro nostra per mutationem aluntur^
incarnati illius Jesu carnem et sanguinem esse edocti sumus. — Ad. Anton.
Pium, Apol. 2.
IfPlank, Worte des Friedens.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 237
'' The dogma of transubstantiation is the most sublime idea of all
religion and of all philosophy ; it is the union of the finite and the infi-
nite, of heaven and earth."*
*Horst: Das Dogma von der Transubstantiation geht auf dem hochsten
weltbUrgerlich-religiosen Standpunkte in die erhabenste Idee aller Religion
und Philosophic tiber.
The Catholic school of the seventeenth century has produced an excellent
work on the question of the Eucharist ; we mean : " Le Traite de I'Eucharistie,
par feu Pelisson, conseiller du roi, maitre des requetes de son Hotel; a Paris,
chez Jean Anisson, 1694, in 12mo. de 558 pages." In the beginning of the
work, there is an approbation of Bossuet.
But the finest pages of controversy, on this subject, are found in "Methode
la plus falile pour convertir ceux qui se sont separes de I'Eglise," attributed to
Cardinal Richelieu, in folio, Paris, 1650; a work which cannot be too strongly
recommended, and with which Catholic Germany has nothing that can be
compared.
Rodolph Goclenius has published a work, concerning the manner in which the
Zwinglians and Calvinists explain the mystery of the Eucharist. Against this
work, Gaspard Fink, a Lutheran, wrote his "Disputationes antigocleniae, de
analogia sacramentali cingliana et tractione panis Calvinistica." Giessen,
1607, in 8vo.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE EPISTLE TO THE EOMANSr
Character of the Saxon exegesis.— Luther. — Melancthon. — The Catholic
School. — Its influence and progress in hermeneutics. — Calvin's Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans. — Appreciation of this work. — Examples of
various texts of St. Paul tortured by the reformer. — His exegetical sys-
tem.— The abysses into which his interpretation leads.
The struggle of Protestantism against Catholicism was at first alto-
gether dogmatic. When the Saxon church had triumphed, it should have
endeavoured to spread the word, by aid of which it boasted that it had
won the victory. It was necessary to prove that the scriptures had been
corrupted or perverted by the Catholic school. The reformation, with
incredible ardour, set to work to give its commentaries upon the Old
and New Testaments. The Postillce, of Luther, real village sermons,
contain various interpretations of the sacred text. These familiar in-
structions were not addressed to the learned, but to simple souls, who
receive the word of God without scrutinizing its economy or its depths.
Luther has commented some of the Psalms of David, interspersing
through his comments of the sacred texts, insults to the papists, abusive
Avords about the monks, and blasphemies against the court of Rome.
Nevertheless, some natural sentiments, worthy of a father, a spouse, and
a master, are found there. The first, who laid down the rules of Pro-
testant exegesis, was Mathias Flaccius Ulyricus, in his book entitled :
Clavis ScripturcB Sacrce..^
Melancthon, next after him, devoted himself to sacred hermeneutics.
His commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romansf rejoiced 'the
heart of Luther, who ranked the work of his disciple above every thing
that had been produced by St. Jerome, Let no one cry out, exaggera-
tion ; for it is well known that Luther held St. Jerome in slight esteem,
and amused himself with damning him, in order to enrage Erasmus,
who ranked St. Jerome with St. John Chrysostom : Erasmus was right.
Undoubtedly, Melancthon studied the holy scriptures very Avell, as a
man of the world, and a grammarian ; but his exegesis is never that of
a theologian. It is impossible, with the principle of individual reason,
f faithfully to interpret an inspired book, which, both in letter and
* Leonhard Bertliold and Doctor J. G. Engclhardt, in ''Observations on the
Sermons of Reinhard." t. II, p. 292.
tCommentarii Philippi Melanchthonis in epistolam Pauli ad Roraanos.
Wittembergae, 1524.
LIFE OF JOHN CALV15. 239
thought, derives its whole weight from tradition and divine infallibility,
Melancthon, at the University of Wittenberg, may have been able to
analyze all its poetic beauties, but only Catholic genius is able to per- /
ceive, and expose to the admiration of others, its real beauties, dogmatic /
and moral, which flow, necessarily, from its true sense. Nor shall wB'
even agree with certain reform writers, at the head of whom stands M.
de Villers, that interpretation is the fruit of the tree of the reformation;
for, before Luther, one of the cardinals of Leo X., Cajetan, had proved
himself a true master of the sacred science, in his commentary on the
Psalms. It is Erasmus who tenders him this fme eulogy.
Catholicism has the right to claim for herself glories of every kind.
The fathers of our church are, by turns, theologians, orators, and com-
mentators. Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Diodorus, Tertullian, and
St. Jerome understood hermeneutics wonderfully well. They had
learnedly studied sacred archeology, the manners, laws, and idioms of
sacred and profane antiquity. But we would not wish to deny, that
Protestants have often profited by the oriental languages, for the expla-
nation and interpretation of the sacred scriptures. With them, exegesis
particularly embraces criticism of texts, and in this department, the re-
formation has established some chairs, in which, at intervals, appeared
men of remarkable ability. The names of Chemnitz, Camerarius,
Val, Sciiindler, John Buxtorf, Henry Hottinger, Bugenhagen, are known
to all those who devote their attention to sacred philology. Unfortu-
nately, it was the destiny of the reformation, to blast every thing it
touched ; and in its hands, exegesis shared the fate of all the truths of
revelation. ''Admirable science," here exclaims doctor de Wette,
"which, with disdain for the derivation of Avords, ceased to attach itself
to grammatical criticism ; which, from the moment it refused to live of
christian life, lost its historical character, and which no longer deserves
the name of exegesis, for it no longer thinks of reflecting sacred science,
in order to explain or translate it."*
Calvin obtained the reputation of commentator, by his commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans. He was acquainted with the labours of
his predecessors, and he loves to eulogise them : "And first," says he,
"comes Melancthon, who, among all, shines conspicuous for science,
intellect, eloquence, and who, in his scriptural commentaries, has dif-
fused such vivid light. — After him, there is Bullinger, illustrious also,
by his labours; and finally, Bucer, that treasure of erudition, perspica-
city, information and intelligence, the rival of every one now living. "f
But how did he happen to forget the very remarkable work of cardinal
Cajetan? Why, if acquainted with it, such disdain for so splendid a
work ? Whence this ignorance of a book, so widely circulated, that
he could have found it in the library of any literato of Strasbourg ?
* Diese Exegese ist weder grammatisch, denn sie miszhandelt noch garzu
oft die Sprache, und kennt deren lebendige Gesetze nicht; noch historisch,
denn sie forschet nicht, sie lebt nicht mit und in der Geschichte, und liat keine
geschichtliche Anschauung; sie verdient endlich nicht den Namen Exegese,
denn sie ist nicht des Heiligen Dolmetscherin, sie kennt und versteht es nicht.
De Wette. Prof, der Theologie zu Berlin.
tPraefatio, Simoni Gryneo. Argentines, XV, Cal, Nov. 1539.
240
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK.
He needed only have asked it from his friend Bucer, who had read it,
and read it again.
Calvin had selected the Epistle to the Romans, because, he said, he
found in it, in substance, "the doctrine of predestination taught in the
Institutes, the immolation of works to grace, Christianity in all its sever-
ity, the apostolic thought expressed in Roman language, depth and
simplicity, and revealed truths in their primitive form." Beautiful and
noble characteristics, which Tholuck imagines to behold resplendent in
the reformer's commentary.* 1^^
_jrholuck here considers the form only :( should we examine the work
under a theological point of view, we would point out the unhappy ef-
forts of Calvin to corrupt the Apostle's thought, to torture, twist, and
mutilate it, until it is brought to lie against authority : a violent treach-
ery, which he tries to disguise in a phraseology sparkling with insults
against Catholics. Do you wish to be acquainted with Calvin's
manner ?
Deus enim est qui operatur in vobis et velle et efficere pro bona vo-
luntate. ch. II. v. 13. Phil.
" For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish,
according to his good will."
" The papists calumniate us, saying that we make man like to a
stone : yes, we have of our nature, free-will ; but nature has been
vitiated by sin, and is worth nothing, save inasmuch as God reforms it
in us. Sweat, then, ye sophists, to reconcile in your schools the human
will and the grace of God ! In every act, the will and the power are
to be distinguished ; Paul relates to you that both are in God : what,
then, remains to us about which to glory ?'"'
So, then, behold St. Paul, that great doctor of nations, transformed
into a preacher of serf-will ; and man metamorphosed into clay, with-
out consciousness of his individuality, and incapable of doing good ;
into a worm of the earth, ignorant how to avoid corruption, or to seek
for grass and sunshine ! But had not Calvin then read the work, written
by Erasmus, in reply to the desolating doctrines of Luther? The re-
futation of his argument deduced from St. Paul, is there wrii|en, in
letters of gold. Had he not then perused the pages of Mela^cthon,
on the Epistle of the great Apostle ? Had he not then, in spirit, parti-
cipated in the disputes of the Saxon school, regarding free-will ? And
had nobody even lent him a copy of the confession of Augsburg, in
which Protestant Germany openly recognizes the error of Luther ?
Let us proceed.
The Apostle has said : Vestram salutem operamini (Work out your
mhaiion). Are any words more positive, more clear, and more lumin-
ous ? Can there be a more precise demonstration of free-will ? Work
out thy salvation, does Paul say to man, — by faith or by work as Cal-
vin will understand it, — but in virtue of thy individuality, thy sponta-
neity, as is said to physical man : walk. What! then, would the doc-
tor of the Gentiles cry out to the slave chained to his pillar : — Arise,
• Hier vereinigt sich romischer Styl, grOndliche grammatisch.historisch©
Auslegung und lebendiges Christenthum.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 241
and walk ? But would not the slave respond to him : first break my
chain, or thy word is but another insult to my misery ? Well, Calvin
has found means to accommodate this very powerful text to his own
doctrines, and see how he does so ;
"I respond, that salutem (salvation), in this place, signifies the
entire cycle of our vocation,* the accomplishment by God himself, of
all his decrees, upon the gratuitous election of humanity." This is not
a reply ; it is rather an exaggeration of the difficulty. If salvation be
nothing but the entire cycle of our vocation, and if this cycle itself be
but the accomplishment by God of all his immutable decrees, upon the
gratuitous election of humanity ; what can man do, except turn like a
machine, under the omnipotent influence and direction of these immuta-
ble decrees ?
Moreover, these are but mere logomachies, whicli Calvin ought to
have rejected, after having placed at the head of his commentaries upon
the minor prophets, this beautiful declaration — "if God has bestowed
on me some dexterity for the exposition of the scriptures, I well know
with what fidelity and diligence I endeavour to reject therefrom all
subtilties, which are but too vain, and that it is far better to give expo-
sitions characterized by a simplicity, ingenuous and suitable to edify the
children of God, who are not content with the shell, but desire to arrive
at the kernel. In truth, the fruits produced by my other expositions of
scripture, so gladden my heart, that I long to devote the remainder of
my life to such labours."
He, besides, sometimes imitates his master, and like Luther, tears to
pieces the most holy names of the Old Testament.
In his eleventh sermon, on the history of Job, he accuses this patri-
arch "of being in doubt, of murmuring against God, of being angry,
of having wavered, tottered, yielded ; of being ungrateful to God, of
having so succumbed amid his passiops, as to have forgotten the divine
graces, and cursed the Lord."
In his twelfth sermon, he adds, speaking of Job : — What sayest thou?
that there is no discrimination between the good and the bad ? that
"death is the end of every thing ? Thou here speakest like an infidel,
who has never known what God or religion is.
With the exception of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Proverbs,
Esther, the Paralipomenon, the Canticle of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and
the Apocalypse, Calvin has commented the whole of the scriptures.
M. Paul Henry remarks correctly, that "this choice is characteristic ;t
it manifests that the writer only aimed at the elucidation of the morality
of revelation, without regarding its historical value." It seems that, af
a later period, and when in advanced age, he contemplated completing
his labours, and including in his exegetical examination, the annals of
• Salutem pro toto vocationis nostras cursu accipi, et hoc nomine compre-
hend!, omnia cjuibus Deus, eam ad quam nos gratuita sua electione destinavit,
perfectionem implet.
t Diese Auswahl ist auch charakteristisch und zeigt deutlich, wie Calvin's
Geist sich nicht von dem Aeuszerlichen, Historischen angezogen fUhlt, son-
-dern weit mehr von den Werken, die den Kern des Glaubens enthalten, 1. 1,
p 347.
21
242 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the holy books. His last thoughts were given to Joshua. He did not
always disdain the Catholic school, and Scaliger recognises that his
work upon Daniel, admirable in its texture, was inspired in all its parts
by St. Jerome.* Calvin was right, perhaps, in not undertaking the
Apocalypse ; but what christian, or what learned man would dare en-
dorse his judgment, on the revelations of St. John, "so obscure that the
thought of him who wrote it is incomprehensible, and that the true au-
thor is unknown by any one who prides himself upon his erudition?"!
In our days, since the Protestant school has discovered that Rome is
the see of satan, and the Pope Antichrist in person, the Apocalypse has
been restored to its dignity. :|.
Exegesis was differently practised in Germany. The Saxon school,
which recognizes Luther and Melancthon for its masters, is almost en-
tirely metaphysical ; the Genevan school, of which Calvin is chief, is
more philosophical. In its scriptural elucidations, in the least of its
glosses, in its scholia, and little notes, the Saxon school labours to un-
dermine the foundation of the Catholic edifice, and it denies the greater
part of the truths established by tradition. It was impossible for it to
take another course. At the epoch, when Wittenberg desired to erect
altars, it could only build them upon the ruins of our symbol. When
there were in Germany sufficient fragments out of which to construct a
preacher's pulpit, the Saxon reformation still continued its exegesis,
nearly always by attacking authority. It was bent to this form by Lu-
tlier, Melancthon, Musculus, Chytreus, Bugenhagen ; hence, that stiff-
ness of style, that professorial surliness, that sententious acrimony, that
pedantic wrath, which you detect in the least important of their com-
mentaries, and of which the Saxon's disciple, in spite of his gentler na-
ture, could not entirely divest himself. Bugenhagen and Musculus,
particularly, with their eyes upon the sacred book, have ever the air of
professors : with their affected disdain for the king of syllogisms, they
ever, like Aristotle, proceed by argumentation. Never seek, in their
commentaries, for that dew which refreshes and vivifies the soul ; for
that sweet odour, which invests magisterial instruction with a charm of
irrisistible attraction ; for that ambrosia which intoxicates the lips of
the sinner. In them, lives the man, and not the priest. Often, at the
moment we allow ourselves to be taken by the artifice of their words,
and are on the point of being lulled to sleep by their logical reveries,
we find ourselves shocked by the grinning figure of a monk, which rises
up in front of a hymn of love to the Lord, or a canticle in praise of
the humility of Christ. \ The Genevan school, in its exegesis, exhibits
" the sense, the spirit, the morality of the scriptures, in a point of view
congenial with fatalism. It nearly always regards dogma as a fixed
* O quam Calvinus bene assequitur mentem prophetarum ! nemo melius!
Calvinus omnium optime in Danielem scripsit, sed omnia hausit ex B. Hiero-
nymo. Scaligeriana secunda.
tAc valde mihi probatur Calvini non minus urbana quam prudens oratio,
qui de libro Apocalipseos sententiam rogatus ingenue respondit, se penitus
ignorare quid velit tam obscurus scriptor, qui qualisque fuerit, nondum con-
stare inter eruditos. Bodin, cited by Bayle.
:J:L'Europe protestante n. XII, p. 21.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 243
point, and passes beyond it. Calvin rarely emancipates himself from
this law, which he seems to have imposed upon himself; it is a sacri-
fice which costs him something, but for which he finds means to com-
pensate himself.
Calvin, for a taste more correct, a style more precise, an expression
more clear, bears away the palm from Zwingle and Qilcolampadius,
who have given commentaries, the first, upon Isaias, Jeremias, the Gos-
pels and Epistles ; the second, upon Isaias, and the Epistle to the Ro- /'
mans ; but he is inferior to these in science, and this is the opinion of/
Schroeckh, a competent judge.* Zwingle delights in tropes, allegories/
figures ; he pursues them with curious eye, and when he believes that
he has caught them, he encases them in a dogmatic deduction. Calvin
aims to address reason. For Zwingle, David is the anticipated personi-
fication of the Christ ; in Calvin's eyes, David represents a miserabje
guilty soul, which groans, prays, and sues for mercy. Calvin has Tn
vain searched the Old Testament for the enunciation of one God in
three persons, as well as for the prophetic announ-cement of the myste-
ries which one day should be accomplished on Golgotha. In this, he re-
sembles Servetus.fn Had he been born two centuries later, he would
have been a rationalist. Leo Hutter reproaches him with liaving fur- j
nished the Jews with arms against Christ ; he says Calvin Judaizes. J
The learned Richard Simon thinks that the Genevan only possessed
the rudiments of the Hebrew language, and had but vulgar notions of
the Greek. We are not to expect from Calvin the linguistic skill of
Erasmus or Cajetan ; he discovered the sense of a text, less by the aid /
o( his knowledge of languages, than by a sort of divination.:}: "^
Tholuck has eulogized Calvin's exegetic talents too much :
" In his writings we find," says he, "a happy understanding of
the grammatical sense, a great propriety of terms, a luminous in-
tuition of the allegorical or symbolical idea. In his commentaries
on the New Testament, his simple and elegant style, his philos-
ophic independence, his vast knowledge, his enlightened christian-
ism, cannot be sufficiently admired. With him, elegance of expres-
sion is conjoined with conciseness of thought ; an elegance which does
not, after the manner of Bembo or Castalion, consist in a fastidious
choice of terms, but in a purity and correctness of words, very difficult
to be acquired." §
It cannot be denied, that the Calvinistic exegesis tends towards
rationalism. Whatever Tholuck may say on the subject, Calvin holds
*" Calvin, weniger geflbt als Zwingli und CEcolampadius in den Sprachen:
abertraf sie an Scharfsinn und seinem Geschmack, die ihm oft mehr Dienste
leisteten, als Sprachkenntnisz ; suchte weniger wie sie typische, allegorische
Deutung auf, prflfte, beurtheilte welt freier gewohnliche Erklarungen, zeich-
nete sich durch eine mehr gebildete Schreibart aus. X. 5. der Ref.-Gesch.,
p. 115.
t See the chapter of this work, entitled : Micliael Servetus.
■\. Calvinus solidus theologus et doctus, stili sat purgati et elegantioris quam
theologum deceat. . . . divine vir preeditus ingenio, multa divinavit, quee non
nisi a linguae hebraicae peritissimis (cujus modi tamen ipse non erat) divinari
possunt. Scaligeriana prima, p. 39.
♦ Litt. Anz. for christliche Theologie, n. 41, 1831.
244 LIFE OF JOHIT CALVIN.
tradition in as little esteem as he does allegorical signification. He is
unwilling to recognize in the Old Testament the figures, which, accord-
ing to Christ, to St. Paul, and to tradition, foretold the future. He has
thus opened the path for the Socinian school, which itself has pre-
pared the way for Naturalism, thai beholds in the inspired books,
but an ordinary word, the value of which each individual has a right
to examine. The Paulus, the Eichhorns, the Strauss, are the off-
spring of Calvin, just as Carlstadt, (Ecolampadius, and Munzer pro-
ceeded from Luther : the same causes produce the same effects. It
was liberty of examination, that, in Calvin's time, had already given
birth to the sect of false mystics : unbridled imaginations, which re-
pulsed science, as calculated only to seduce the soul from the way of
salvation, "as if," says Calvin, "the sword should be cast away, becaiase
it may sometimes arm the hand of a madman."*
Moreover, exegetical science, the influence of which, upon the
development of the christian spirit, has been too highly lauded by M.
Villers, was already depraved at the epoch of the reformation. It had
become curious, rash, imprudent. Beza himself was alarmed by it.
Castalion's impudence of language, in his commentary on the Canticle
of Canticles, was enough to sadden a christian soul. Under the pen
of this literato, Solomon is rather an ale-house poet, than an inspired
"writer.f
• Scientia tamen nihil propterea quod inflat magis vituperanda est, quam
gladius si in manus furiosi incidat. Hoc propter quosdam fanaticos dictum
sit qui contra omnes artes doctrinamque furiose clamitant; quasi tantum ad
inflandos homines valeant, ac non utiiissima sint tarn pietatis quam communis
vitee instrumenta. — In Cor., 8, I.
t Columba mea columbinis ocellulis lepidulas habes genulas: dissuaviare
me tui oris suavio; hibellula tua sunt similia cocco; elegans oratiuncula;
mammula vino pulchrior, lactiflua lingula; cervicula tua eburnea curricula;
ostende mihi tuum vulticulum, nam vulticulum habes lepidulum. — Comm. de
Castalion.
The edition of Calvin's works (Amsterdam, Schepfer) contain, in the first
seven volumes, all his exegetical works. — V. Ziegenbein, 29, 30. Walsh, Bib,
vol.4. Schellhorn, Ergotglich-keiten aus der Kirchenhistorie. Schroekh, t..
V. Bretschneider: Calvin and the Protestant church.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PRIVATE LIFE OF CALVIN AT STRASBOUBG.
Calvin's literary friendships at Strasbourg. — Castalion. — The Waldensian bro-
thers.— Indigence of the reformer. — Farel wishes to come to the aid of his
friend. — Calvin's refusal. — The booksellers, Vendelin and Michel. — Calvin's
books meet with but little success in Germany; and why'} — The reformer's
character. — He denounces the misconduct of a magistrate from the pulpit. —
He complains of Bucer. — The Jacobin's recriminations. — Calvin's avowals.
Though Calvin was afFectionately welcomed at Strasbourg, he lived
there without glory. Bucer threw the refugee in the shade. The lec-
tures of the Jacobin attracted the crowd ; those of Calvin, at the French
church, )vere only frequented by persons of a peculiar organization,
Calvin was no orator : his gestures were vulgar, his voice was hesita-
ting, his style without warmth. He discussed in the pulpit. At
Frankfort, Worms, Ratisbon, attentions and laurels fell to the share of
Bucer and of Eck, and Calvin was left neglected in the crowd. The
reason is, that at diets is needed an oratory capable of affecting, fasci-
nating, and exciting the auditor. Deluded by Melancthon, who had
seemed to approve his Eucharistic system, he returned to Strasbourg,
irritated by the pedantic haughtiness of certain reformers, who prided
themselves too much on their fame; jealous of the approving smile ac-
corded by the emperor to certain German deputies, whose cerebral ster-
ility was no mystery; disenchanted by Bucer's recantations, and regret-
ting that Geneva, where he had neither masters nor rivals.
Finding himself in a large city, where every thing was new to him,
its customs as well as its language, he, at first, attracted certain young
pupils, who, after his lecture, came to visit the professor at his lodgings,
in order to hear him converse, and, by friendly offices and attentions, to
beguile the hours of his exile. It was a joy for the theologian to com-
mune with his scholars, in a language which he tenderly loved, and
which, with some glory, he had spoken in his Christian Institutes. He
attempted to learn German, but very soon had thrown his grammar
aside ; that idiom, replete with images, was unsuited to a mind so posi-
tive as his, which, content with the idea, never troubled itself about
the form. Calvin had wished to sing at Worms ; the city which Luther
had formerly entered entoning his inarseillaise :
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
"My God is my citadel." It was at the commencement of the year_1541>
21*
246 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
that Calvin began his salutation in Latin verses, where, speaking of
the Pope, he said :
Digit! signo spatiorum concutit orbem,
Nee minus est hodie, quam fuit ante ferox.
A pitiful distich, unworthy of a pupil of the fourth class. Calvin was-
no poet, as must be admitted : never was there an ear less musical
than his.*
The friendship between Calvin and his scholars lasted but a short
period ; whether, because the habitual sufferings of the professor fa-
tigued these youthful imaginations, which, full of life and joy, could
not, without pain, endure the sight of physical miseries ; or rather, be-
cause the morose preceptor could not accommodate himself to the
noise of these prating associates, who were free and light as air. The
tie of affection, which bound master and pupils together, was soon
broken, and all these birds, whose wings Calvin would have desired to
cut, took flight, and returned no more. One day, one of these birds .of
golden plumage, which had made its nest in the lote-trees of Greece,
the palm-trees of Judea, and the beeches of Italy ; which sang in He-
brew, Greek, and Latin, lighted in Strasbourg. He was known to the
learned world, under the name of Castalion. At first, Calvin opened
his window, and for some time there was heard nothing but sweet con-
certs, soothing harmonies, aerial melodies. At last, Calvin became
w^earied of his companion, and drove him away, in order to give the
little room he occupied to a lady, by name Vergers, who furnished the
theologian a complete household ; a wife, children, and a servant.
Castalion, after having paid for his board and lodging, went away.
After this, the lady's servant chanced to fall sick. Castalion, the com-
patriot of the valet, was recalled, and the learned Hebraist set to work,
dealing out drinks and potions, and also, at night, he watched like a ten-
der mother, by the bedside of the invalid. Will any one believe that
Calvin, at a later period, found occasion, in a dispute which we shall
recall, to reproach Castalion for the food which he had gratuitously
furnished him during a few days ?t
There was one moment of his. life, when poverty, with all its bitter
agonies, came to visit him : this Avas after his departure from Geneva,
and before his fate had been settled. His misery was so great, that he
was forced to sell his books. His writings at that time brought but
little ; the whole profit went to the bookseller. The lessons which he
gave in the city, to young men of good families, aided him to meet the
expense of his correspondence, in the middle ages so costly, when per-
sons were compelled to employ messengers, now on foot, again on
horseback.
One day, certain Waldensian brethren came to him to exhibit their
confession of faith, which, like Bucer, he seemed not to reject, per-
haps because they had retrenched certain articles opposed to the reform-
*• Er hatte nicht wie Luther, den ritterlichen und so auch nicht den mu»ika-
lischen und poetischen Sinn und Geist. — Paul Henry, t. I, p. 378.
t Bayle, article Castalion,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 247
ed doctrines.* They were so poor, that he was obliged to lend them
a crown (six francs); "I have taken care," said Calvin to Farel,
<«to recommend them to pay it to you, when they shall arrive at Neu-
chatel : it will be one upon the account I owe you ; the rest I will pay
when I shall be able. I am so needy, that I have not a cent in my
pocket. t You would be unwilling to credit how expensive it is to
keep house."
It seems that Farel, who was aware of the painful situation of his
friend, had, at different times, attempted to apply a remedy ; but Calvin,
whose soul was proud, was unwilling to accept advances which he saw
no means of repaying. In a letter which he writes from Strasbourg,
he testifies his gratitude to the pastor of Neuchatel : — "Thanks to all
m.y brethren, for their charitable offers, poor souls, who desire to give
alms to one still poorer than themselves. This is a proof of love which
is very dear to me, and rejoices my heart ; but I have promised myself
to accept of nothing from you, or from our common friends, until I shall
be forced to do so by the greatest necessity. Wendelin, my bookseller, to
whom I have sent my Opuscule, will aid me to subsist for some time.
The books, which I left at Geneva, will pay my host, untilnext winter.
The Lord will do the rest. Formerly, 1 had a great number of friends
in France, not one of whom would have given me a farthing; I think
they might now safely act the part of generosity and open to me their
purses, for I would accept nothing. I say nothing, however, of Louis,
v/ho wished to give me a loan, but at too high interest ; was he not
speaking of converting me ? For the present, I content myself with
thanking you for your fraternal offer. I will accept your favours, w^hen
I shall find myself unable to do better ; I am sorry, only, for the loss
of my poor crown. "J
As his income was insufficient to defray his household expenses, Cal-
* Waldenses, cum adhuc essem Argentorati, miserunt confessionem quje
Optimo animo et mihi tunc probata fuit; sed mihi postea ostensum fuit exem-
plar quoddam in quo nonnulla mihi displicent quee nollem admittere.--Bullin-
gero, Calv. Junii, 1557. MSS. G.
"The Waldenses had first been named Lyonnists, because their chief or mas-
ter was a rich merchant of Lyons, and also Insabbatati, because they observed
neither Sabbaths nor festivals." — Crespin. Epist. de I'Eglise 307.
According toReinerius, who lived nearly about the time of Waldo, it would
appear, adds Crespin, that their doctrine was this :— "That it is necessay to be-
lieve the holy scriptures only in what concerns salvation, without referring to
men ; that there is but one only mediator, and consequently the saints are not to
be invoked; that there is no purgatory, but that all men'justified by Christ go
i.ito eternal life; that there are only two sacraments, baptism and communion;
t'lat masses are damnable; that human traditions should be rejected; the
chanting and recitation of the office, fasts on certain days, and festivals are
superfluous; that the see of Rome is the true Babylon, and that the Pope is the
fountain of all evils; that the marriage of priests is good and necessary in the
church." 330-332.
All Luther's symbol is found is this confession of faith,
t Fratres Valdenses coronatum unum mihi debebant cujus partem d me mutuo
acceperant, partem dederam nuncio qui cum fratre venerat, Sonerii mandate.
Hunc ut tibi darent jusseram.. Si dederint retinebis quo tantumdem a^re tuo
exonerer. Quod reliquum erit solvam quum potero. Ea enim mea est con-
ditio, ut assem numerare queam. — Mart , 1539.
t Ep. 15 Ap, 1539.
248 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
vin endeavoured to obtain money by the sale of his works, the manu-
scripts of which he sold to the printer Wendelin, or to Michel of Gene-
va. Wendelin was a bookseller, the like of whom is rarely met with,
who did not try to drive bargains with his authors, but paid generously
for their works, whether or not the writer's name was known at the fairs
of Frankfort. He bought the whole edition of the commentaries on
St. Paul, for much more than Calvin had anticipated; and, besides the
price of purchase, for which he never made the author wait, he gave
him also a large number of copies, which the latter sold or distributed
among his friends, to be sold. Farel was charged with the task of dis-
posing of them.
We find, upon this subject, certain curious details, in the posthumous
letters of Calvin, and especially in a manuscript epistle to the minister
of Neuchatel, bearing date the 27th of July.
" There is nothing new, since your departure, except that, on the
very day you bid me farewell, and about three hours after you had left
me, the regents proposed me an augmentation of my salary ; but
this will not make me richer. Should amateurs present themselves,
who are desirous of purchasing my works, you can let them go at from
ten to nine batzen (about two francs) per copy, but not lower, unless,
however, a great quantity be taken : in this case, you may put them at
eight batzen. The transportation has cost me very dear, and besides
the expenses from this to Neuchatel." . . .*
Calvin's productions, always excepting his Christian Institutes, ob-
tained but little success. It was admitted, in the learned world, that
the writer was acquainted with Latin, that his phrase was modeled
after that of good authors, that his style wanted neither perspicuity nor
elegance ; but he was reproached with not having been able, like Lu-
ther, to invest his thesis with the slightest degree of interest. At Bale,
they imagined themselves still in the year 1521, at the opening of the
theological quarrel, when a monk's figure must necessarily be brought
into the dispute, in order to be buffeted on either cheek, amid peals of
laughter, from citizens and students. Calvin, by rejecting the monk,
had consequently deprived himself of a powerful element of success.
In default of a monk, no longer in fashion, they would have desired,
in Switzerland and Germany, that Calvin should have availed himself
of the devil, to account for the obstinacy of the papists; and no one
can account for his having voluntarily renounced the agency of the
devil, who had rendered such extraordinary services to his predecessors.
They went so far as to publish, that he did not believe in the devil,
which was a falsehood,t and this did him injury in the minds of the
Germans, who would not have given the least of those devils, who
sprang from Luther's brain, for the best arguments. Hence it happen-
ed that the booksellers, at first so well disposed towards Calvin, grew
cold, on finding that his books would not sell like those of doctor Mar-
tin. They, indeed, paraded them at the fairs of Frankfort; but per-
sons passed without buying them ; and hence arose complaints, which
*27 Julii 1539. MSS. Gen.
t See succeeding chapter, entitled : The Devil and the AntichrisU
LlfE OF JOHN CALVIur. 249
wounded the self-love of the author. Calvin, to appease Ulie ill-humour
of the bookseller of Bale, wrote to Michel, at Geneva : — " Send me,
by means of Farel, the books which, on coming away, I left with you,
and also the personal effects of my brother." Michel made a package
of the effects and books, which he addressed to Neuchatel ; some days
previously, Farel had received a note thus worded :
'* When you shall have received the trunk which Michel will for-
ward to you, open it, my friend. You will there find books and
clothes ; sell the books, if you can. Send what may be left to Bale :
my bookseller complains, that my work does not take,^ and that he
has in his store many more copies than he has need of. 1 wrote to
him, therefore, to send you a hundred copies. Tell me whether he has
done so ?"
Calvin had been unable to find repose at Strasbourg. His heart was
rended, by the spectacle of variagated creeds presented by that city,
which was open to fugitives of every opinion, where the Zwinglian el-
bowed the Lutheran, where the Anabaptist marched by the side of the
Munzerian prophet, where all religions, except Catholicism, had a right
to the same protection. His heart suffered, on beholding all those na-
tures kneaded out of Bucer's clay, who boasted that they had thrown
off" the old man, while still carrying all the marks of him, visible upon
them. He was unable, he said, to take a step, without finding himself
entangled in some swaddling cloth of the *'papism," which the city still
preserved, in order to please the emperor, and from dread to offend the
eye of his lieutenants. Around the Protestant temples, there stood a
number of stalls, for the sale of reformation pamphlets, of which,
some taught and some denied the real presence, free-will, the intimate
power of the sacraments, and the necessity of works. Augsburg,
Spire, Frankfort, Nuremberg, Hagenau, Worms, Ratisbon, each had
there a tent, erected after the fashion of Munster, where each confession
of faith, devised since 1530, offered to the passer-by its formulary.
Neither the oral theses of Calvin, at the French church, nor his confer-
ences with the representatives of Protestantism, nor his written discus-
sions, had been able to trimnph over the apathy and versatility of the
people. Vainly did he, at times, seek to galvanize and electrify this
carcass, his word was vain : life came not. Then he fell into sadness,
and regretted Geneva.
He had been unable to reform his misanthropic nature ; after his ex-
ile, he still remained what he had been at Geneva : vain, irritable, des-
potic. Had he dwelt longer at Strasbourg, we have no doubt that he
would at length have provoked the anger of the magistrates. He tried,
indeed, to repress those carnal impulses, but nearly always without suc-
cess. At one time, the scene of the refusal of communion, which had oc-
casioned so much scandal at Geneva, was about to be reacted at Stras-
bourg. A man, whose name he does not mention, and who had opened
a house for sporting and drinking, if we are to credit his account, was on
the point of approaching the communion table, had he not prevented his
• Conqueritur Ubrum meum non esse vendibilem. — 31 Dec. 1540. MSS. Gen..
.250
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK.
access.* The guilty person preserved silence. The eye of the exile had
been able to see through walls, and to detect the existence of disorders,
•which Bucer and the other ministers had not perceived. Calvin blames
Bucer's laxity. f But who told him that the Jacobin did not here obey his
conscience ? When Eck proclaimed the necessity of works, Calvin
had ever at his service the same argument : — What good works were,
performed by the good thief? And who told him, that the christian, to
whom he refused the Lord's Supper, had not been visited by one of those
impulses of faith, which, according to his teaching, efface all our faults?
Calvin, at Strasbourg, as well as at Geneva, is ever in contradition
with himself.
One of the stettmasters of Strasbourg was not long in falling into
disgrace in the eyes of Calvin. JMo one could say to what confession
he belonged. All that was known was, that he had denied the faith of
his fathers. In the morning, seated at the table of an Anabaptist ; in
the evening, supping with a Zwinglian ; but little inclined to disputa-
tion by nature, assisting equally at the preaching of Bucer and Calvin ;
without the least recollection^ he listened to the divine word with as little
attention as he did to mere worldly discourses. Calvin would have
wished to dispute with liim; he spread his net, for this sick soul, who,
however, with persevering fortune, knew how to avoid being taken.
At last, the theologian grew impatient, mounted the pulpit, and poured
out upon the head of the criminal fiery coals of all sorts. There was
no room for mistake. Calvin himself assures us, that he had so takers
his measures, that the magistrate might recognize himself and be recog-
nized by the auditory. J What is admirable, on this occasion, is not the
indignation of the preacher, but the weakness of power, which observ-
ed silence, while it could, with a word, have silenced the orator. Do
you think that Calvin will be affected by this lesson of christian mode-
ration ? You do not know him. Some days after, the stettmaster left
Strasbourg to go to Frankfort, where Calvin meets with him again,
pursues him with his wrath, and denounces him to Bucer, as an enemy
of Christ, with whom neither peace nor truce can be allowed.
Bucer permitted the magistrate to pass without tormenting him. He
did not resemble Calvin. Of an ardent temperament, he was easily
irritated, and as easily appeased. Woe to the one who stirred up his
bile, as Eck did at Ratisbon ! he must look for a torrent of gross insults,
cutting, and, in case of need, even poetic ; for, to revenge himself, the
orator employed the language of the markets, the vocabulary of the
Greeks and Romans, and the figurative style of the prophets. Having
left the pulpit, in passing before his adversary, he would smile in his
face, and often even reach him his hand. Nor could he comprehend
that sort of wrath which gave no sign of exterior life, which burned
with an invisible flame, and changed neither the language, the figures,
•Ep. Farello, 1539.
t Qui interdumsit lenior. — Ep, Farello, 1539.
:J:Itaejus impietatem palam et aperte etiam pro concione sugillabam, ut ni-
hilominus aut ipsi aliis dubius esset sermo quam si vel naminas&em, vel digito
d^anonstrassem.— Farello, 1539.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 251
fior the mimicry of the orator. He called it the wrath of Cain.* Cal-
vin avowed this defect, and excused himself for it, by touching his head,
as if tlie seat of this malady had been in the brain. — " Yes, I confess
it," did he say to Bucer, "that impatience of the senses, is the most dif.
•iicult to be overcome of all my faults : I struggle with all my energy
to trimnph over it ; I have not been able, in spite of all my efforts, to
crush the head of the beast."! Vossius adds : admirable avowal, had
the struggle been incessant, as Calvin relates, and the beast been van-
quished; but the evil continued, and Bucer, afflicted at such perpetual
relapses into the same fault, wrote to his friend : "Your judgment is
formed according to your hatred or your affection, and you hate or love
without reason."
At Geneva, we shall find him once more, in his political life, ex-
hibiting the same propensities, which, in his christian life, he displayed
at Strasbourg : Bucer's admonition will have been useless. The rea-
son is, that the affection was not, as Calvin pretended, in the brain ;
for, in that case, it might have been driven away by a few drops of
water ; but in the whole blood, and in the heart, which it had gangren-
ed : there was no remedy for it.
Historians have found means either to praise or excuse this propensity
for which Calvin blushed. Bretschneider, in this choleric trait of cha-
racter, finds the element of all that was grand in the life of the Gene-
van, "who," he says, "with a colder head, might, perhaps, have been a
cardinal, but never a reformer. "J And Beza, whilst admitting these
paroxysms, of his friend, pretends that the Spirit of the Lord so aided
Calvin to become master of himself, that his mouth never allowed an
expression to escape, which could give offence to the ears of an honest
man.§ We have already seen how much the scholar of Vezelay could
be blinded by friendship.
The religious man will, at a later period, furnish us a solution for the
enigma of the political man. No matter what he did, it was for Calvin
a thing impossible, to emancipate himself from his system of predestina-
tion; in every sinner, he beheld the child of wrath; in himself, the
• Bucerus non ferre poterat vehemcntiam Calvini quem optime norat ex quo
Argentorati una vixerant, et melius nosse didicit ex quo Genevam revocatus.
Accusare igitur ejus, (quo jure, melius me scias,) maledicentiam maximam, et
quod dissentientes non ferret, sed dure adeo aspereque persequeretur, sic ut
etiam fratricidam, uti lego, nuncuparet.
fCalvinus sic a magno viro increpitus respondere hoc pacto: haec esse genii
potiussui quam judicii, etut Calvini ipsius verba ad Bucerum retineam, sic
scribere: ut verum fatear nulla mihi cum maximis et plurimis meis vitiis diffi-
cilior est lucta quam cum ista impatientia; neque certe proficio nihil, sed non-
dum id sum consecutus, ut plane belluam domuerim. — Ep. Vossii Grotio. Ep.
Protest, theol., p. 817.
:j:lenelndifferenz spaterer Zeit war nicht der Character derReformatore;
mit ihr waren Calvin und Luther vielleicht Cardinale, aber gewisz keine
Reformatoren gew^orden. — Cretschneider, p. 19 and 20.
^Fuit omnino naturae ipsius temperamento oxukolos quod vitium etiam
auxeratlaboriosissimum illud vitae genus: irae tamen sic eumdocuerat spiiitus
Domini moderari ut ne verbum quidem sit ex eo auditum quod viro bono in-
■dignum esset.— Vit. Calv.
252 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
evangelical doctor, the instrument destined, from all eternity, to glorify
celestial justice by the punishment of the guilty. In a royal head, erect
predestination into a dogma, a transformation realized in Calvin, and
you may look for the most bloody despotism : all the creatures whom
the monarch will drive before him with his iron sceptre, will be nothing
but creatures predestined to servitude. Calvin is this monarch, without
the diadem, but with a crown which he estimates at a far higher price ;
a crown of life and immortality, since, according to him, it is formed
of the very words of Christ or his Apostles. This desolating doctrine
is the key to the interior man, when, in the consistory, he shall domi-
neer over the conscience of a nation ; the key to the politician, when,
m the council, he shall govern the city.
CHAPTER XXy,
THE DEVIL AND THE ANTICHRIST.
The devil, in Luther's life, as an instrument of wrath and poetry. — The doc-
tor's temptation. — The devil in the life of Calvin.-— Opinions of the Gene-
van reformer. — Account of one possessed--=-The opinion of Calvin concern-
ing epileptics and sorcerers. — The Antichrist of Luther and the Saxon
tihurch. — The reformation still at this day teaches that the Pope is the Anti-
christ.— The Protestant Review of the nineteenth century — Belief of Cal-
vin.— John de Muller. — Hugo Grotius.
THE DEVIL,
If we except Luther, not one of the reformers exhibited any affec-
tion for forms, either as regarded human works, or the wonders of
•creation. Melancthon sheds tears on beholding Carlstadt prostrating
the beautiful statues in the church of Ali-Saints, but he weeps rather as
a christian than as a poet. We should in vain search through the long
correspondence of the reformers with eath other, for some expressions
of grief, forced from their bosoms, at the sight of those material images,
the glories of the churches of Franconra, Avhich, without opposition,
the peasants are allowed to break to pieces. Not one' of them stoops
to save some of those relics of stone, which, by a kind of miracle, es-
caped the hammers of the rabble, in the array of the peasants. On
the contrary, you see them, as at Frankhausen, warming themselves by
the fires, kindled from the manuscripts of which the convents had been
'despoiled. If, in reformed Germany, v.'e meet with some fine article
of goldsmith's ware, some sacerdotal vestment, a marvel of riches and
•patience, some bishop's crozier of massive gold ; we may be certain
that this chalice, purloined from the treasury of a Catholic church,
served as a drinking cup for some elector, a friend of Luther ; that this
sacerdotal cope tapestried his apartment, or, perhaps, that of his mis-
tress ; that this pastoral staff ornamented his museum, as a plaything
or a token of victory. When Saxony had apostatized, the princes sold
to the Jews, the chalices, the ostensois, the cruets of gold and silver,
the statues of wood and bronze, the cloths of lace belonging to our
■churches, and even the very coffins of the dead, in order to support
their hunting dogs of the lower court, their parks, their cellars, and their
mistresses. Luther often lamented the misery of the Protestant clergy,
who were left to perish with famine, on the straw, whilst the princes
were making good cheer, at the expense of the Catholic monks and
22
254 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
bishops. But even had Luther cared but little for matter, however
beautiful it came forth from the hands of man, the spectacle of the di-
vine works struck him sensibly. It often happened that Bora would
surprise him at the foot of a tree, contemplating a sky studded with
stars, in an extacy, which she had the cruelty or the malice to interrupt.
The sight of a flower, like the sting of remorse, forced from him pierc-
ing cries. " Poor violet," he exclaimed, "what perfume dost thou ex-
hale ! But how much sweeter still had it been, if Adam had never
sinned. Oh rose ! how much do I admire thy colours, which would
have dazzled with a more brilliant beauty, had it not been for the fault
of the first man ! Oh lily ! whose apparel surpasses that of the princes
of this world, what wouldst thou have been, had not our father disobey-
ed his Creator !"
That world, perfectly golden, which God had created at Geneva, where
he had set a lake, and caused a river to flow, where he had placed a
mountain of snow and ice, and spread around fields of verdure and
light, remained for Calvin a sealed book. See him upon his pathway ;
he never stoops to cull a flower, that he may soothe the ardours of his
brain. From that sun, which each morning came to visit him, in his
study.chamber, he stole not a single ray to give warmth to his style.*
The birds, which, in the spring. Providence sends in such abundance
to Plainpalais, sang not for him, for he never listened to their concerts.
Ah ! had the Lord dealt with Luther as he had done with Calvin, what
beautiful images would the monk have derived from that luminary,
which rises and sets behind the Alps, from those mountains, which in-
habit the skies, from that cloth of shining water, an azure vestment,
spreading out twenty leagues in length ! In place of shutting up his
great emperor, Charles V., in the tomb, and casting the imperial re.
mains to the worms of earth, he would have brought him, vested in all
the splendour of his regal robes, he would have placed him beside one
of those lilies of" the Waldensian Valley, or upon one of the Saleves,
upon which the winds beat, and he would have asked him of what he
was so proud, since a flower of the field was more lovely than all his
beauty, and a grain of dust more powerful than all his power.
The demon, as representative of the Divine wrath, has, with the two
reformers, of Wittenberg and of Geneva, assumed a double personality;
a semi-corporal one, with Calvin, a real and tangible one, with Luther.
The Genevan devil can, with difficulty, come under the senses : one
cannot see his body, his colour, his form. The Saxon demon, such as
lie has leaped forth from the brain of Luther, can be seen, touched,
felt; in amoral point of view, he is the rebellious archangel of Milton,
physically, nearly always the Quasimodo of the poet Hugo. Calvin's
fallen spirit is sad, inert, without fecundity ; Luther's fallen seraph is
coloured and poetic ; these two creations give us the measure of their
respective imaginations. It is known what part the demon plays in
the religious drama of Luther, in which he is orator, theologian, pam-
phleteer ; in which he wears the tiara, the diadem, the professor's robe,
• In praise of the created world, Calvin has consecrated but a few very
tame lines, in his Christian Institutes, lib. I.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 255
the doctor's bonnet, and the monk's cowl. Of all created beings, he
i« the one, that rendered to Luther the most important services. Does
an emperor, like Charles V., take a notion to combat the new gospel,
Luther summons the devil, who comes immediately and takes posses-
sion of the monarch. Does a prince, like Henry VIII. of England,
desire to defend the seven sacraments of the Catholic catechism, satan
runs in person, glides into the king's cabinet, steals the pen of his
secretary, and sets to work to write down every thing that passes through
his head. Behold an apostate, (Ecolainpadius, who has denied the Sax-
on doctrines, and, hiding himself at Bale, there sows cockle over the
field of the Lord : one morning, he is found dead in his bed ; do you
think it was the pest that killed him ? it was the devil, who twisted his
neck ; and how can there be a doubt of this; it is Luther himself who
affirms it, and who chants a canticle of thanksgiving. Zwingle falls
at Capel, beneath the lance of a Catholic, who has smitten the Sacra-
mentarian, as we are told by the chronicle : but Luther affirms that the
chronicle has lied, and that it was satan, who sought out the cursed
heretic upon the battle field, in order to deliver the earth from his pre-
sence. And he adds, that there may be no doubt of the truth of his
testimony : " There is no medium : either Zwingle or Luther must be
possessed.* Dost thou understand, thou human breast, insatanized,
persatanized, supersatanized ?"t It was this fallen angel that dictated
to Accolti his magnificent bull : Exsurge ; that drowned Miltitz in
the Elbe; that held Munzer's hammer; that spoke by the mouth
of Carlstadt^ that discovered the most destructive argument against
the idolatry of the mass, which ever came forth from human head.
It could hardly be credited, how much this infernal figure co-
lours the recital of Luther ! what a breath of life it infuses in-
to his smallest writings ! how it inflames his w^ord, and makes his
wrath sparkle ! At the moment you least expect it, in a purely
theological discussion with Latomus, or with some monk of Cologne,
you behold the phantom appear suddenly, unveil his presence by a tor-
rent of insults, of dumb show, of sallies, of mimicry, which give relief
to the argument, and seemingly invest it with a body and a form.
Calvin believed in a fallen angel, the breath of the Divine anger, the
tempter of the first man, the enemy of Adam's posterity, and damned
for all eternity. The demon is not, in his eyes, a mere mythos, but a
personality, whose part in the drama of human life he diminishes. He
defines satan : '' An enemy, prompt and bold in enterprise, active and
dilligent in execution, potent and robust in energy, cunning and skillful
in stratagems, obstinate and indefatigable in his pursuits, furnished with
all sorts of weapons and machines, and finally, very expert in the art
of warfare. "§ He admitted, as Luther did, the existence of a rebel an-
gel, and desired that all should reject the error of those who thought
*■ Ich oder der Zwingel musz des Teufels seyn, da ist kein Mittel. Op.
Luth. Jen, t. 3, f. 379.
tHabet enim insatanasiatum, persatanasiatum, supersatanasiatum pectus.
I Coll. Mens, fol. 497.
$ Inst, liv. I, ch. XIV, i 13.
256 LIFZ OF JOHN CALVIN.
the demons nothing else but "agitations and troubles, that excite in our
souls the evil affections which are suggested to us by the flesh." But
he abridges the demon's part, and uses him but rarely; when, for exam-
ple, there is question of the Pope or of an obstinate Catholic. He
never, like Luther, beheld him in flesh and bones.
All are aware, by what temptations the Saxon monk was assailed.
If we are to judge from these, satan left him repose neither day nor
night; at night, he sent him dreams, in which the divinities of Olym-
pus came to seat themselves on his pillow ; reveries of voluptuousness,
which covered his brow with sweat. At other times, he glided thoughts
of pride into his mind, and then the doctor of Wittenberg beheld all
the crowns of the world at his feet, and believed himself greater than
monarchs and pontiffs. Satan also endeavoured to throw him into de-
spair, by presenting to him in his sleep, his beloved Germany, torn by
factions ; the Anabaptists raging in the temples of the Lutherans ; the
Zwinglians seducing the minds of the people ; his brethren abandoning
him, and his work expiring amid waves of blood, which flowed like the
Avaters of the Elbe. Then the monks resumed their cowls ; the stink-
ing Babylon, Rome, was swept by numerous red robes; the Pope
strutted upon the beast of the Apocalypse ; the nuns left their ravishers
to seek the cloister once more ; Eck, Campegio, Miltitz, and all the
clergy, those whom he called (pretraille Romaine) the low Roman
priesthood, laughed at his impotent wrath, and his fruitless labours. It
was important for him, therefore, early to accustom himself ri^corously
to repulse the assaults of the evil spirit. The anchorets of Thebais had
found in prayer an efficacious remedy against the rebellion of the old
man ; he tried prayer, and was not satisfied with it. Now, here is his
own remedy, a serious remedy, since he advised his friends to resort to
it : *'Poor Hyeronimus Weller, thou hast temptations; it is necessary
to get clear of them : when the devil comes to tempt thee — drink, my
friend, drink freely, get drunk, and make thyself a fool, and sin out
of hatred to the evil spirit^ and to annoy him. If the devil says to
thee: — Wilt thou not cease drinking? answer him: — I will drink
freely, because thou forbidest me ; I will drink copiously, in honor of
Jesus Christ : imitate me. I never drink so well, I never eat so much,
I never enjoy myself so greatly at table, as when I do so to vex satan.
I would be glad to discover some new sin, that he might learn to his
sorrow howl mock at every thing sinful, and do not think my con-
science burdened by it. Away with the decalogue, when the devil
comes to torment us ! If he whispers in my ear : — But thou sinnest,
thou art deserving of death and of hell. Alas ! my God, yes ! I am
but too well aware of this : what dost thou wish to tell me ? — But thou
wilt be damned in the next world. — It is false ; I know one who har
suffered and satisfied for me : he is called Jesus Christ, son of God;
where he is, there shall I be.* If the devil departs not, I cry to him :
In manum sume crepitum ventris, cum istoque baculo, vade Romam.f
* 6 novembie a Jerome Weller. In Weller. op. p. SOS.— Lehorecht dft
Wette, Dr. Lathers Briefe, t. IV, p. 188.
t Tisch-Reden.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 267
Luther, in his writings, often recurs to this magnificent antidote, and, in
the most serious manner in the world, to silence the devil's bawlings,
he counsels drinking, eating, good cheer, taking good care of the belly
and head, filling the latter with the fumes of good wine, and the former
with exquisite meats : " A large glass of wine full to the brim, be-
hold," said he, "when one is old, the best ingredient for appeasing the
senses, inducing sleep, and escaping satan."*
This poor Weller still suffered, and still continued to lift up his
hands towards Luther, imploring him to deliver him from his tempta-
tions, and Luther never indicated to him any other penance except that
boisterous joy, those orgies of the senses. " Dost thou see," he again
said to him, "God is not a God of sadness, but a God of joy; does not
Christ say, I am the God of the living, and not of the dead ? What is
it 10 live, if not to rejoice in the Lord ? Thou canst not prevent the
birds from flying over thy head, but thou canst prevent them from build-
ing their nest in thy hair/'f
Calvin, in several of his writings, speculates upon the influence of
the evil spirit upon the destinies of the new gospel, but never, like Lu-
ther, with that faith which would almost communicate its terrors. His
theological system is designed, in advance, to give confidence to him
who listens to it. He taught that the devil, who was able to make the
soul of the sinner succumb, was impotent to trouble the soul that be-
lieves in Christ the Redeemer. He did not, like Luther, admit the ex-
orcism of children, and of our exorcizing priests he said : "They do
not understand that they are themselves possessed : they act as if they
had power to operate by the imposition of hands ; but they never will
convince the devil that they have this gift ; first, because they produce
no effect on the sick, secondly, because they themselves belong to satan;
scarcely is there one of them who is not indeviled."J
Calvin believed in possessions : in one of his manuscript letters to
Viret, we find the account of a carrying away, operated by the devil,
at a short distance from Geneva.
A man, whose name he does not tell us, was living under his roof of
straw; wicked, the frequenter of bar-rooms, a drunkard, and a real
worthless fellow, who openly made sport of Calvin, and said to those
who reproached him with not going sufficiently often to hear the French
minister : Heh ! the devil ! I am not hand-in-glove with master John.
He fell sick, and was suddenly seized with a burning fever. His nurse
held him down, and recommended him to pray; the impious man ex-
claimed : What need have I to pray ? I belong to the devil, and care
no more for God than I do for my old slipper. § On the next morning
a little after sunrise, he had a new paroxysm, sprang from his bed, as
if lifted by a violent wind, leaped over hedges and walls of great
height, and fell upon a vine, which he stained with his blood. They
* Mihi oportunum esset contra tentationes remedium, fortis haustus qui
somnum induceret.
t A We'ler, 19 juin 1530. Op. Weller, p. 204.
Xlnsi I. IV, ch. 19, «24.
J.... Quia jam diabolis esset adjudicatus neque Deum majori sibi cura
esset, quam calcei laceri vilissimam partem.
22*
258 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN,
sought in vain for his body, the devil had carried it away. Some min-
isters belonging to the council, maintained that this carrying away was
a fable ; but on the following Sunday, says Calvin, I ascended the pul-
pit, and I vehemently castigated the incredulity of those who refused to
credit the miracle ; I went so far as to exclaim : For two days, I liave
desired death at least twenty times, that I might not be a witness of such
unbridled impiety :* and in order to convince and stril^e them, I cited
the two following circumstances :
One day, and it was Sunday, a drunkard went to the drinking-
house, asked for wine, made a false step, fell upon the point of his
sword, and died instantly.
During last September, a day of communion, a drunkard, who
was trying to enter a brothel by the window, fell, and broke both
his legs.
Calvin believed in sorcery and witchcraft ; but he did not, like Lu-
ther, endow the demon with the creative faculty. He thought that the
devil could not change matter, but only delude the eyes.. Thus, the rod of
the magicians (2 Moses, 7, 12,) changed into a serpent, still remained
a rod;t only the spectator's eye, deluded by the devil, saw an organized
being in a body which had not changed its substance. Picot asks him-
self, how Calvin allowed himself to condemn so many sorcerers to
death, during his dictatorship at Geneva ; and he explains the conduct
of the reformer by the age in which he lived. Calvin has just inform-
ed us that the devil had no power except over the reprobate : possession
being, in his eyes, a sign of eternal reprobation, how could he have at-
tempted to rescue a sorcerer from the flames ?
He read the divine wrath, even upon the brow of the lunatic or epi-
leptic, whose condition he could not understand, except by calling in
the intervention of a secret agent of the Creator's will. " The scrip-
ture," said he, ''does not indistinctly characterize those possessed, by
the name of demoniac ; it calls by this name those who, by an aveng-
ing decree of the Omnipotent, are delivered over to satan, who comes
and takes possession of them, soul and body. The lunatic is one
whose malady increases or decreases with the different phases of the
moon, as the epileptic, for example. These maladies are not to be
cured by ordinary remedies; God, in driving them away, displays the
omnipotence of his divinity. "J
♦Vireto, Genevee, 14 Nov. 1546.
fDe prestigiatoribus tibi eitra dubitationem assentior, niliil eos in suis cor-
poribus verse conversionis pati; non cnim aliam in ipsis metamorphosim cogi-
to, quam in virgis magorura, qure cum serpentum faciem prae se ferrent, v»-
cantur tamen ideo virgee apud Mosem, quo intelligamus impostores illos magis
illusisse spcctantium oculos, quam aliquid verum exliibuisse. Pignjeo Veliensis
eccl. ministro. Cal. Oct. 1538.
tDa^moniacos scriptura vocat non omnes promiscue qui a diabolo vexantur,
scd qui arcano Dei vindicta Satanse mancipati sunt, ut eorum montes et sen
sus possideat. Lunatici vocantur in quibus augescit vis morbl et decrescit
pro luna^ inclinatione, nuales sunt qui comitiali morbo laborant et similes.
Quum sciamus ejusmodi morbos naturalibus remediis non esse curabiles se
quitur testatam fuisse divinitatem Christi, quum eos mirabiliter sanavit. Harm
Elvang. p. 127. Cornm. ad Matb., 23.
M. Galleo has ranked with the possessed, Catherine of Sienna, St. Bridget,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 25$
THE ANTICHRIST.
Near the church of All-Saints, at Wittenberg, stood the drink ing-
house, which Luther frequented every evening, in order to drink beer,
and discourse with his intimate friends. These table conversations have
been gathered by his disciples, and published in German and in Latin.
In our history of Luther, we cited some fragments of them, and
soon had to repent of our courage, for we know that certain ears have
been offended by that crudity of language, of which Petronius alone
had been able to furnish a model. We thought that it was important
to make the reformer known, and perhaps, also, the shamelessness of
his pupils, who said to us, by the mouth of Mathesius : Luther was the
enemy of cynic speeches; never, whilst I was living with him, did I
hear from his lips a word which could make a maiden blush."*
Well, Luther, seated by the side of Justus Jonas and Aurifaber, had
caused the conversation to turn upon the Pope.
" My friends," said he, "remember this well : the Pope is the Anti-
christ : should he even consent to cast aside his triple crown, to descend
from his seat, to renounce his fabulous primacy, and to confess with
joined hands, that he has sinned, blasphemed, and shed innocent blood;
you ought not to recognize him as a child of God, as a member of the
church of Christ : he would not the less remain the Antichrist foretold
by the prophets."
Since that day, for many of the Saxon churches, it has been an arti-
cle of faith, that the Pope is the Antichrist, in flesh and bone : this article
of the new symbol was put forth in Latin and German verses. The
children, in chorus, sang :
The Pope is the Antichrist;
What by him or canon law is taught,
Comes from the devil himself.
If to satan yoa would not belong,
Then renounce the Pope.t
After Luther's death, the church of Wittenberg seemed for a mo-
ment to abandon the doctor's symbol. It is worth while to see how
Wigand, Gallus, Judex, and Armsdorf aroused themselves against this
intellectual falling off! Wigand sets to work, and, at the end of a few
weeks, produces an octavo volume, in which the doctrine regarding the
Antichrist of Rome, is sustained by near a thousand scripture texts. J
St. Hildegarde., and even the virgin de Vaucouleurs. — See Servati Gallaei dis-
sertationes de sibyllis earumque oraculis. Amstelodami, apud Henricum ct
viduara Theodori Boom, 1688, in 4to.
*• Mathesius, XII, Predigt, 137.
t Tisch-Redon.. Eisl. fol. 416, 6.
:j:Der Papst, der ist der Antichrist;
Sein Lehr' und jus canonicum
Ist des Teufels Lehr' in einer summ :
Drum willst du nicht des Teufels werden,
So fliehe ilinhie auf Erden.
Nicod, FrischlinusinPhasmate: voy. Huttenus delarvatus p.269.
:j: Synopsis antichristi Romani spiritu oris Christi revelati.
260 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Mathew Judex appears in the name of Christ himself, to declare war
against the see of Rome, and to damn the Wittenbergers, who refused
to inscribe in their symbol, that Leo X. is the Apocalyptic beast of St.
John.* Afterwards, arises a host of Protestants and reformed preach-
ers, to proclaim this truth : There are M. Beumler, Am. Cheffreus,
Lambert Danes, Andr. Willet, the English professor Conrad Grasser,.
the professor Albert Grawer, Henry Hammond, James Heerbrand, the
reformed theologian Samuel Maresius, who, in his Antichristitm Reve-
latum, becomes angry with Grotius for seeing nothing but a bishop in
the Pope ; then come. And. Mengilet, Joh. Georg. Siegwart, Joh.
Conrad Danhauer, Freed. Balduin, Joh. Hoepfner, the Anglican bish-
op Abbot, Nicholas Hunnius, Theo. Thummius, Dorsch, and still
many others; and, at a later period, John Fox, Whitaker, Fulke,
Willet, the great Newton, Joseph Mede, Lowman, Towson, Bicheno,
Henry Kett (interpret, of prophecy, pref.) ; the Anglican bishops Fow-
ler, Warburton, Newton, Hurd, Watson ; the Lutherans, Braunbom,
Sebast. Francus (de Alveg. stat. Eccl.), Napier in his commentary on
the Apocalypse, Beza (in conf. gen.), Flemming, Bullinger, (in Apoc),
Junius, Musculus, Wisthon (Essay on Revelations), the preacher Alix,
Faber, Daubenay {The Fall of Papal Rome), etc.
Bishop Halifax was right : one of the articles of the Protestant sym-
bol is, that the Pope is Anticrist. It is one still at this day taught in
the reformed church.
Two years ago, there appeared at Paris, a monthly review, entitled,
Protestant Europe, the special mission of which was to prove that
Gregory XVI. is the beast of the Apocalypse. We must cite an ex-
tract from it, for perhaps our word would not be credited f:
*< We could not admit any kind of compromise between light and
darkness, Christ and Belial. Those holy men, those intrepid men, J
whom it pleased God to raise up to be the liberators of nations, and to
free them from the chains of darkness, with which papal Rome had load-
ed them, in their struggle with spiritual wickedness in high places, in
their powerful contest, made use of all the weapons of the sanctuary.
In those noble defenses of the truth, included in their confessions, they
do not confine themselves to a justification of the reformation, by prov-
ing a perfect harmony of its doctrines with the word of God; we be-
hold them carry the war even into the camp of the enemy. Armed
with the mirror of truth, they present it to papal Rome, they raise it
up before its face, denouncing that church as the Babylon, as the mother
of harlots, and the Pope, as the man of sin, and the son of perdition,
who dares seat himself, like God, in the temple of God. In the last,
♦Gravissimum et severissimum edictum et mandatum seterni et omnipoten-
tis Dei, quomodo quisque christianus sese adversus papatum, nimirum anti-
christum gerere et exhibere debcat. See further.— Joannis Seldeni Papatus,
irreconciliabilis, 1646. — Isaaci Schoockii Desperatissima causa papatus, 1638.
— M. Flaccus, Antwort auf die Expedition der Wittenberger, 1560.
t Protestant Europe, No. XII. Signs of the times; prophecies o[ the Apoca-
lypse and their fulfilment, p. 18, seq.
I See the appendix to the pamphlet of M. Cuningham, entitled: That the
church of Borne is the apostaci/y and the Pope the man of sin.**
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. t!$t
as well as in the first part of this testimony, they were equally unani-
raous ; with them, there cannot be found a single example of hesitation
as regards the character of papal Rome."*
*« 1 know," says Luther, in his treatise concerning the Babylonia
captivity of the church, "I know, and am certain, that the papacy is
the kingdom of Babylon, and the power of Nimrod, the strong hunter.
Scio et certus sum papatum esse regnum Babylonis, et potentiank
JSemrod, rohusti venatoiis."
Throughout, in his reply to the book of Ambrose Catharin, he applies
to the Pope that prophecy of St. Paul, in his second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, (ch. I. v. 1 to 12.) and he says :
" Is it not seating himself in the temple of God, to announce himself
" as the supreme regulator of the whole church ? What is the temple
"of God ? Is it of stone or of wood ? Has not Paul said, that the
" temple of God is holy, and that you are this temple ? To seat one-
" self, what is it, but to reign, to govern, to judge ? And who, then,
" from the commencement of the church, has dared arrogate to himself
" the title of head of the whole church ? Who, except the Pope alone?
" Not one among the saints, not one among the heretics, has ever dared
" bring forward this blasphemy of frightful pride. Paul, speaking of
" himself, entitles himself the doctor of the Gentiles, he who teaches
'* them the faith and the truth, and not the doctor of the church."
In another place, Luther says, that, "when Daniel saw the frightful
" beast with ten horns, (which all the commentators agree to regard as
" the figure of the Roman empire), he also saw another little horn,
" which came forth in the middle of the ten others. That little horn,"
adds he, "is the papal power, which rises up in the midst of the Ro-
" man empire."
Let us also heboid Melancthon, in his dissertation on marriage,
making allusion to the fourth chapter, v. 1, to 3, of the first to Timothy :
*' But," says he, "since it is certain that the pontiffs and monks have
* It is unfortunate that the organs of Protestantism so often are destitute of
science. Here we have a grave man affirming, that a single example of hesi-
tation, as regards the character of papal Rome, vi'ould be vainly sought for
among the reformers.
1st. A student of Bonn would quote for him the preface of the Epistle to
the Thessalonians, from the Protestant bible, printed at Stuttgart, by P. Tre-
uen, and in which is read: "It is false that the Pope is Antichrist." — dasz der
Pabst nicht der Antichrist sey, etc.
2dly. Christ. Math. Pfaff, chancellor of the University of Tubingen, has
caused to be printed, by J. George and Christ. Gottfried Cotta, a Bible, where
we read, "that I. Joh. ii., 18, 22. IV. 3, Joh. 7., do not furnish the least proof
in the world that the Pope is the Antichrist." — dasz nach dem Verstand dieser
Spriichen der Pabst zu Rom nicht der Antichrist seye, not more than XXIY,
24. St. Math, and Mark XIII, 22.
Nothing is more true, especially in regard to absurd opinions, than this old
maxim: nihil novi sub sole. A quarto volume has fallen into our hands, which
has this title: The judgments of God upon the Roman Catholic church, from
its first rigid laws for universal conformity to it, unto its last end, &c., in explica-
tion of the trumpets and vials of the Apocalypse, upon principles generally
acknowledged by Protestant interpreters. By Cressenex, D. D. London, 1689.
Now, it is from this work that M. Cuningham has derived all his silly things
against the papacy.
262 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT.
" prohibited marriage, it is most evident, it is beyond doabt, that the
"Roman pontiff, with all his hierarchy and his kingdom, is Z/ie ilnti-
*' Christ himself.'' — Thus, again, speaking of the second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, chapter II. Paul "says, in clear terms, that the man of
" sin will govern in the church, erecting himself against the worship of
" God, etc. : but it is manifest that the popes reign in the church, and
" under the title of church, {iii Ecdesia et iitulo Ecdesice dominari
" pontijices), sustaining idols and the worship thereof. I affirm, there-
" fore, that there never has arisen, and never will arise, any heresy,
" which these words of St. Paul will suit, and to which they will adapt
" themselves in a manner more exact and more true, than this papal
"kingdom."
*' It is also to the Antichrist that the prophet Daniel refers these two
" circumstances, to wit : that he will erect an idol in the temple, and
" that he will honor it by offerings of gold and silver; and that he will
" not honor women. Now, who does not clearly see, that both these
" things regard the Roman pontiff? Evidently, the idols are the mass,
" the worship of saints, and those statues of gold and silver which they
" present to the veneration of the faithful."
The English reformers were not less unanimous concerning the cha-
racter of the papacy. *' As to the Pope," says Cranmer, when ready
to ascend the pyre, " I reject him, as the enemy of Christ, and as the
"Antichrist, with all his false doctrines." — "I confess," says Latimer^
before the commissioners who tried his cause, " I confess that there is one
" Catholic church, to the decisions of which I shall remain attached:
" but this church is not the one you call Catholic, and which rather
"ought to have the name of diabolic." And in his second conference
with Ridley : *' What is there in common," exclaims he, "between
" Christ and J^nlichrist ? It is neither just nor lawful to bend under
" the same yoke with the papists. Go out from among them, separate
*'from them, says the Lord." See in what terms Ridley expresses
himself, in a farewell letter which he wrote before being led to punish-
ment : •* The see of Rome is the see of satan ; and the bishop of Rome,
"who supports its abominations, is evidently the Antichrist in person.
" And, /or the same reasons, this see is to-day the one which St. John^
" in his Revelations, calls Babylon, or the harlot of Babylon, and in a
" spiritual sense, Sodom and Egypt, the mother of the fornications and
" the abominations with which the earth is filled."
John Knox, the great leader of the Scotch reformation, in a public
discussion between a priest and John Rough, to an argument of the
theologian of Rome, concerning the supreme authority of the church,
replied in these terms :
«' As to your Roman church," he says to him, "in its actual state of
" corruption, and as to its authority, upon which you ground your hope
" of victory, 1 no more doubt that it is the synagogue of satan, and that
" its head, who is called the Pope, is the man of sin, of whom the
" Apostle speaks, than I doubt that Jesus Christ has suffered by the in-
"iquity of the visible church of Jerusalem."
But here are the most curious lines of the dissertation : let us nok
forget, that they were written at Paris, in 1840.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. ^63
** By these, citations, we perceive what was the language of the reform,
©rs, and that they were men of God, whom God sent to purge the Catholic
church of its errors, and bring it back to its primitive simplicity and
purity ; we see no motive for holding a language different from theirs,
or to speak as courtiers and flatterers concerning a church, which, in
our opinioTi, is nothing else than the Antichrist himself."
It is not necessary to say, that Calvin saw in the Pope, the Anti-
christ of Daniel and of St. John. On this subject, he expresses him-
self freely :
" We say," he writes, ''that Daniel and St. Paul have foretold that
the Antichrist would seat himself in the temple of God : we say that
the Pope of Rome is the chief and prince of this cursed and abomina-
ble kingdom We say that he has profaned the church by his
impiety, afflicted it by the inhumanity of his domination, poisoned, and
put it to death, by false and pernicious doctrines, so that Jesus Christ
is there half-buried, the gospel suffocated, Christianity destroyed, piety
proscribed, the worship of God almost abolished."*
He adds :
" To some persons, it seems that we are too bitter, when we call the
Pope the Antichrist ; but those who entertain this sentiment, do not
then see that they accuse the Apostle St. Paul of the same crime, after
whom we speak, and from whose mouth we have learned to hold this
language ? . . . . As if they doubted what kind of Christianity the
popes and the college of cardinals have professed for so many years
past, and of which they still at present make profession ? The first ar-
ticle of that secret theology which prevails among them is, that there
IS NO God ; the second, that all that is written, and all that they preach
regarding Jesus Christ, are but lies and impostures; the third, that all
things contained in the scriptures, regarding eternal life and the resur-
rection of the body, are but fables."t
John de Muller shrugged his shoulders, while reading Calvin's lines,
which, at best, are worthy of a Crespin,J and asked if it were not more
probable that the Antichrist should find himself in a seat, which has
ended by denying the Divinity of Jesus, and by seeing in the Christ but
a human being ?§ And H. Grotius said, laughing : ** 1 excuse not the
faults of the papacy ; but I am certain, that, if the Antichrist has ap-
peared, he has shown himself not only on the banks of the Tiber, but
* Inst. liv. IV, chap. Ill, } 12.
t Inst. liv. IX, ch. VII, J 25-27.
^Crespin, bookseller, binder, writer, and disciple of Calvin, is the author of
a work entitled: Estat de I'Eglise avec les discours des temps depuis les apos-
tres jusques au present, petit in-8, 1581 : libelle furibond, 06 il soutient — que
Paul III entretenoit 45,000 paiilardes, p. 479; — qu'il estoit astrologue, magi-
cien et devin (471) ; — que les papes avec Arius et Mahomet ont enseigne que
Jesus n'est pasle fils de Dieu; — que les moines qui commencerent sous Paul,
premier hermite, ont nourri et maintenu cette mesme h6resie en leurs diverses
fa^ons de vivro (457); que la papaute periroit en brief & cause des mechan-
cetez enormes et detestables qui se commettoyent en icelle (456),
Mohann von Muller. sammtliche Werke, t. VIII. p. 256. f. Grotius had
made the same reflection as Muller. See the Antichristum rtvclatum of Sam.
Maresius.
264 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
on the shores of lake Leman."* It is probable that Grotius beheld
him, not on the end of the eleventh horn, of which Luther speaks, but
through the smoke and flames of the funeral pyre which consumed
Servetus.
We now perceive whether the written word is dangerous : it is in the
scriptures, that the reformat'on has discovered that the Pope is the An-
tichrist, and that the Pope and cardinals are atheists.
• Ego paparum vitia non excuse antichristus autem non ad Tiberium tan-
tum sed et ad Lemanum et alibi apparuit. Op. theol. t. Ill, p. 499. Amst., 1679.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SCRIPTURES,
Opinion of Pighius concerning the value of scripture and tradition, — Heinrich
Bensheim of Hagenau, — His vision. — Luther and Calvin before the supreme
tribunal. Cotta, the woman according to the heart of God, — Calvin opposed
to Calvin. — Avowals of modern Protestants.
Pighius has censured the monks for having accepted the struggle
according to the terms imposed by the reformers. ** Undoubtedly,"
says he, "the scripture, which their adversaries wi^'hed to constitute sole
judge of disputes, is a word, the inspiration of which was recognized by
both sides; but the exterior or material sign, with which it was bound
to invest itself, could not possess for all the same degree of clearness.
This sign could be obscured by pride, vanity, and all perverse instincts.
Has not Luther written : When, in the Bible, thou shalt find : Do
works, read : Do no works ?* Has he not been often forced to confess,
that, in order to comprehend the ancient Testament, one should have
lived with David, Jeremias, Isaias, and the prophets; and that, to un-
derstand the evangelists and apostles, it would be necessary for a per-
son to have passed his days with St. John and St. Paul ? Had Carl-
stadt the same degree of intelligence as Melancthon ? Did Munzer
understand Hebrew and Syriac like Luther ? (Ecolampadius or Zwin-
gle, Greek, like Aleandro? The dispute cannot be comprehended, if
the sign be not the same for all those who seek to explain the idea which
it involves. And even were this phonetic sign identical, it would still
be necessary, that the intelligences which it addresses, should be of equal
value. But if this conformity of images does not exist in the physical
world, how could it be found in the intellectual world ? If one ray of
the sun does not resemble another ray, how should the rays of intelli-
gence be the same? The theologians, therefore, without abandoning
scripture, should, in order to interpret it, appeal from it to authority, the
only torch, which, since the days of the Apostles, shines with an absolute
clearness. The reformation, then, had either to deny this torch,
which was impossible, or to refuse to Catholic interpreters the gifts with
which it illumined every one of its own exegetists. They should have
said to it : '* This word, which you cite, is divine : it came from the
mouth of God, or of men whom He inspired. We accept it, we adore
♦ Disz soil dlr ein gewisse Regel seyn, darnach du dich zu richtenhast, dasi,
wann du SchrifTt behlcht, und gebiethet gute Werke zu thun, du es also ver-
stehest, dasz die SchrifTt verbiete, gute Werke zu thun. Tom. 3, Witt, lat. fol.
171. t. 2 Alt. fol. 606, in der Auslegung dcs fttnften Psalms.
23
266 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
it : our fathers also adored it, but they understood it differently from
you ; it is not possible that they were mistaken; for God, in that case,
would have abandoned his church; and where then should truth be
found ?"
Wieland has expressed the same idea as Pighius, but with more
colouring. — The bible cannot, in matters of faith, decide in the last re-
sort, if, liive a treatise of geometry, the signs which it employs have
not, in all eyes, an equal signification.* Krug, the philosopher, is,
perhaps, more poetic : — Thou sayest tljat God has spoken, and that his
word is the wing which is to bear thee up to heaven ; and thou darest
interpret it! and what if thou deceivest thyself! Should you tell n.e
that you rely on a colieciive interpretation, I might agree with you :
but then the Catholic church is right. f
In the year 1560, there dwelt at Hagenau a poor monk, who had
belonged to the order of Dominican friars, driven away from Strasbourg
at the time of the reformation. He called himself Heinrich Bensheim,
He acknowledges himself, that, up to 1540, the epoch of Calvin's ar-
rival at Strasbourg, he had studied the scriptures but superficially, J being
content to follow with docility the voice of his superiors, and entirely
occupied in prayer and meditation. But when he beheld the sectaries
take possession of the convents, and drive away the monks, he wished
to become acquainted with the spirit of the new gospel and the work
of its apostles. His study was long and conscientious : he read and
annotated all the writings of the Saxon, Swiss, or French reformers,
then went to work. His opinion was that of Pighius. He revered the
scriptures; but he believed that tradition was the only path then open
to bring back the honest heretic to the truth. " Let us first," said he,
"seek an authority in the reformation, and see its symbol." The Sax-
on church offered him multiform symbols, in which the word of two
evangelists presented a double signification, and then he said : " The
Saxon church has not the truth, and is not inspired, for the Holy Ghost
has but one breathing." He interrogated the Helvetic church, which re-
sponded to him with the same confusion of tongues ; and he said again:
'♦ The star of life shines not upon Zurich." He passed to Geneva, and
thence to France, where the evangelical communions were equally di-
vided in their doctrines.
His book was completed : he wished to place in relief these confused
teachings. Then, he imagirffed a drama, the elements of which he found
in the bull of Leo X. against Luther, or, perhaps, in the poem of Math.
Palmieri, called la cita di xita.§ Bensheim, like Accoiti, opens his hea-
ven, which is quite resplendent, with seraphim, archangels, and apostles;
but the monk places the scene at the end of time, and he supposes,
what the Roman cardinal would not have accorded him, that the souls
of heretics have slept until the day of the final judgment.
♦Wieland, Bermischto Aufsatze, t. I.
t Die kathoHschc Kirclie hat ganz Recht liierin. Dr. W. Krug. Philoso-
phisches Gutachten in Sachcn des Rationalismus und des Supranaturalis-
miis, 1827.
J Christliche Erinnerung. Mayence, 1610.
iNiceron., t. XI, p. 83.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 267
The aagels, then, have sounded the trumpet, to assemble the dead :
the dead, who belong to the reformation, arise. You first behold the
doctor of Wittenberg move aside the stone of his tomb, and appear
with the gospel in his hand. The Sovereign Judge, with the cross of
Golgotha by his side, cries out to the Saxon monk :
•' Luther, what hast thou done with my blood ?"
Luther. " Lord, I have taught that it was corporally in the Eu-
charist. — In my writings to Froschauer, the printer, I have said that I
was unwilling to have any intercourse with the Sacramentadans of
Zurich, to receive, or to read any of their books, seeing that they were
out of the church of God, miserable men, damned, and forcibly destin-
ed to hell, and because I was unwilling to participate in any manner
in their damnation and blasphemous doctrine; moreover, whilst I was
living, I made war upon them, both by prayers and books.*
** And, in my epistle to the duke of Prussia, have I not written :
There should be no treaty with the Sacramentarians, for they are op-
posed to the common faith of all the christian world, concerning the
truth of the sacrament, and are divided among themselves into eight
contrary and entirely false interpretations? Therefore, I beseech your
grace not to allow them to live in your country, if you would have
quiet in your soul and peace in your province. f
♦' And in my book : Qwod verba Christi stent, I have written against
the Huguenots and Calvinists : — Let him who refuses to believe that
the bread of the Lord's Supper is the true and natural body of Christ,
which Judas and the wicked received as well as St. Peter, depart from
me, and not communicate with me, neither by letters nor by other
writings, nor by words, and let him expect no peace from me, for he
would lose his pains. And it is of no avail for these phrenetics to bab-
ble so loudly about spiritual communion, or to believe in the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, since, with blasphemous mouth, they deny this
article of faith."
And the angel, a second time, sounded his trumpet.
And the dust was agitated to form again the body of Bullinger, of John
Lasco, a Calvinist minister in Poland, of Thomas Naogeorgus, of
Ambrose Wolff, of (Ecolampadius.
And all these shades, in passing by Luther, cast angry words into
his face.
Bullinger. Is it thou I behold, oh! Luther, a man full of errors, who
hast not rightly walked in the way of the gospel ? J
John Lasco. Avaunt ! thou rustic and ignorant man !
Thomas Naogeorgus. Withdraw, thou choleric, envious man,
who hast invented, a new doctrine, contrary to holy antiquity ; who hast
sought only thy own honor, and not that of Christ !§
Ambrose Wolff. Shame on thee, who hast written controversies,
without reason, without conscience, without argument, and contrary to
th« sentiment of the whole ancient church ? ||
♦ Schlusselburgius, lib. 2 Theolog. Calv., art. 12, fol. 133.
t Rescius, p. 2.
I h, contra Brent. f In Psal, 26. {| Lib. contra form, concord.
268 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
(EcoLAMPADius. God will judge thee ; thyself and thy followers,
through thy inconstancy and false wisdom, divided into sixty-two differ-
ent opinions.*
And the angel, a third time, sounded the trumpet, and Calvin beheld
Christ face to face.
And Christ asi^ed him as he had Luther :
" What hast thou done with my blood ?"
Calvin. *• Lord, I have defended the truth against the falsehoods
of thy enemies, the Lutherans, infected with so many errors that their
oldest theologians do not even understand what little children learn in
their catechisms. They knew not what the Lord's Supper signified, nor
what was lis end. They were brutal men, not having an idea of honest
shame, cavillers, uttering the hyperboles of their Luther, solicitous only
how to enchant the people and please the world ; and careless of the
judgment of God and his angels : impetuous, ^furious, light, andincon-
slant men, dealers in fibs, blinded men, drunkards, full of doggish im-
pudence and diabolical pride. "f
And, a fourth time, the angel sounded the trumpet, the dust was one©
more agitated, to form again a visible body, and Heshus was seen to
appear.
Heshus, who at first was seized with trembling at the sight of CaL
vin, began to exclaim :
"Liar, who, in all thy veins, hast not one drop of the faithful chsi?-
tian or honest man; how will thou and thy preachers evade the horri-
ble judgments of God, you, who bear yourselves so boldly and treacher-
ously in divine things pertaining to faith, that no one can recognize the
least sign of the spirit of God ? Were you not then guided by that
Calvinistic, phrenetic spirit, the despiser of God and of his word, dis^.
guising your wicked cause, in terms so well devised, in order to de-
ceive simple souls with all fraud, artifice, and cheat ? Now, I protest that
I have never agreed with you in doctrine, or in faith, but have held you
to be false teachers, blasphemeis, disloyal and wicked Sacramentarians.:]:
You have endeavoured, and especially thou, oh Calvin, the sophist,
to abolish a sentence, by your darkness and mists, quite contrary to
the words of the Son of God. With impudent mouth, you have blas-
phemed, and spoken irreverently of the flesh of Christ, jugglers as you
are, destitute of the spirit of truth, and replete with the spirit of false-
hood; cunning players of pass-pass, you have persecuted the Saxon
churches. "§
And Franz Stancar came, and jostling Calvin, who turned his head
round, said to him :
*' Thou shalt understand me, blasphemer o( Christ ; thou !
whom I hold guilty of the ancient heresies of the Cainites, Arians, Eu-
tychians, Apollinarists, Acephali, Theodocians, and Macarians. I have
maintained, that Peter Lombard, called the master of sentences, should
be esteemed as worth more than four hundred Melancthons, three hun^.
* -^qua Respons. t Admonit. ultima ad Wcstplialum-^
:^ Epist. ad quemdam ex praecipua nobilitate.
i Def. contra Calv., lib. de praesent. ChristL
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
dred Bulling«rs, and five hundred Calvins, from whom it would be im-
possible to extract a single ounce of true theology, should all of them
together be pounded and mixed in the same mortar."*
And the angel sounded the trumpet a fifth time. " Then," says Hein-
rich Bensheim, ** I heard a frightful clattering of bones, which were
investing themselves with human flesh. These were the sectaries gene-
rated by the reformation, and who were again assuming life and speech:
Osiandrists, Stancarians, Majorists, Flaccians, Synergists, Adiaphorists,
Mansfeldians, Misnians, Wittenbergians, Ubiquitists, Substantiarians,
Accidentarians, Swenkfeldians, Calvinists, Melancthonians, Carlstadi-
ans, Zwinglians, OEcolampadians, who began to insult each other, to
reproach each other for the souls they had destroyed, for the blood they
had poured out, for the tears which they had caused humanity to
weep !"
And a voice cried out :
" Have you a symbol ?"
And no one answered.
Then the angel, for the sixth time, sounded the trumpet, and a woman,
vested in black, approached.
And the angel asked her : '* Who art thou ?"
" 1 am Cotta," answered the soul ; "it is I, who, at Madgebourg,
to a poor child, who asked me in the name of God, gave bread to appease
his hunger, and water to quench his thirst, and a prayer book, that he
might pray."
And Christ said to her :
" Come, beloved of my father : I was hungry, and thou gavest ms
to eat; thou hast, in the simplicity of thy heart, believed what the
church taught thee ; thou hast resembled the lily of the field, which asks
not whence comes the rain that falls from heaven : thy humility of
heart shall be rewarded."
And Bensheim awoke. But his drama was not yet completed.
There was another tribunal, before which he desired to summon the re-
formers ; this was his own. His book ceases to be poetical , the monk
has re-appeared, and put on his scholastic robes, in order to judge the
heads of the new churches. His memory seems truly prodigious.
He knows by heart all the writings of the new doctors, whom he op-
poses, not to each other, but to themselves. Calvin's confession is
curious.
CALVm. CALVIN.
I would have for ever buried such Such terms are very profitable to
names as Trinitarian, Divine Persons, the church of Christ, as well to ex-
co-essential, and co-eternal. Utinam press the true distinction of persons as
hoec nomina sepulta essent. Inst. lib. to exclude the evasions of heretics^
1 , c. 1 3, J 5. and I protest that I embrace them free«
ly. Ep. p. 240.
As to the simple permission of God The temptations which assail us are
regarding sins, I call it falsehood, ter- not fortuitous, but from the devil, by
♦ Rescius, p. 26, 27. Stancar, de Trinitate et Mediators
23*
270
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIST.
giversation^ fiction, a solution too cold,
cavilling. Inst., 1. 1, c. 8, ^J 1 and 2.
L. 2, c. 4, i}3, 4,5.
God was the author of the murders,
massacres and outrages, committed
by the Chaldeans and Sabians against
Job, his servants and possessions. Sce-
iesti latTones ministri fuerant, Deum
fuisse autoreni colligimus. Inst., L t,
c. 18, ii L, 2-
the permission of God. God p^ermits.
his word to perish in some. He had
permitted Judas to betray, the Jews to
seize Christ, and to cry: his blood ber
upon us, and upon our children. Th©
fathers were right,, in attributing to-
the sole permission of God, the blind-
ness and obstinacy of the wicked,
and not to his operation. Comm. in
Math. c. 4, 8, 9, 26, 27; in Joh., c. 10^
J 4; Joel, 10 and 14.
The nam--e of God, in its excellence,
belongs only to the Father; after the
general judgment, the Son, according
to his deity, will be subject to the Fa-
ther. Ad.. Valent. Gentilem. Inst., 1.
2, c. 14,3. la consideration of his per-
son, the Son cannot be called Creator
of heaven and earth.. L. adv. Val.
Gentil, The Son of God,, by reason*
of his office, and even according to his
deity, is less than the Father. Ep. ad
fratres Polonos. The Son is of him-
self,, not of God the heavenly Father;
he has- a splendour of his own, not en-
gendered of the Father. Inst., L L c
8; jn9, 25. In c. Uo., v. 9.
The Divine essence is entirely com-
municated to the Son, by the Father,
who is the principle and the fountain
of deity : this is confirmed by the text
of St. John, 6., where the Son attri-
butes to the Father all that he has of
divinity. Inst., 1. 1, c. 8, *» 23 and 25.
Servetus: thou art constrained to ad-
mit that Christ acknowledged himself
to be from the Father, and for this was-
truly his Son,.
Christ had an ignorance in common
with angels and men. In c. 24. Math.
In cap; 2 Luc.
From the Son of God, a desire in-
considerately escaped, which he had
forthwith to renounce. In cap. 11,
12, Jo.. He asked of his Father a thing
impossible; his desire had to be chas-
tised and revoked. His prayer was
not well meditated, but extracted by
the force of pain, also it had to be
corrected. In cap. 26. Math.
CALVIW.
Christ knew what was hidden front'
men, viz: the interior of hearts.
Comm. in cap. 3 Jo.
The affections of Christ were never
vicious, but were always moderated
and conformed to the service of God:
no passion in him exceeded due mea-
sure; there was none without good
reason and judgment, for he always
held himself under the will of hisFa-
tber. In cap. 11 Jo.*
We were more than once assailed by doubt, while perusing Heinrich
Bensheim.'; we were unable to credit these incessant transformations of
a word, which they announced to us as an echo of the divine word, and
which, in truth, resembles the vessel of the Argonauts, so often repair-
ed, that no fragment of its primitive frame- work remained. Then,
* Francis Fev-Ardent has exhibited the contradictions of the Calvinistic
and Lutheran doctrines, in a work which made a great noise in the sixteenth
century, and which is entitled :. Les ENTREMANaERiBS btGuerres Ministrales,
in l2mo. This stanza of four lines is found at the head of the book :;
Comme sus le Frintemps la neige va fondant
Aux rayons du soleil, quand son cours renouuelle,
Ainsi de iour en iour dedans co Fkv-Ardent
Se brusle peu 6 peu cesto secte nouuelle.
LIFE OF J0H2J CALVIK. 271
with an impulse of incredulity, we proceeded to search for the texts
cited by the monk of Hagenau, and we found them at the page which
he had indicated. And we asked ourselves, whether that light, which
the reformation brought us, was truly a light of life and truth ; whether,
like the light spoken of by the Apostle St. John, it enlightened all
those who walked in its glare.
We again took up Bensheim's book, and read these prophetic words;
" And the day will come, when the reformers themselves shall ac-
knowledge the insufficiency of individual sense, to interpret the word
of God."
That day has come : for it is the reformation which has penned the
following lines :
'•' Why has a dead letter been substituted for a living authority,
if, to understand the scriptures, you oblige me to study the languages
of the past? It is a burden which you impose upon my reason."*
'• With Luther's maxim, that the scripture is the only rule of
faith, it was impossible for the Protestant school to preserve the doc-
trines of the Saxon master. If the monk abandoned the Catholic
teaching because it did not rest on the scriptures, could the Saxon sym-
bol be preserved, when it was found not to be in harmony with the word
of God?'-"t
" Prove to me, by scripture, that my doctrine is false, and I am
ready to renounce it. It is thus thou spokest, oh ! noble Luther, at the
Diet of Worms, and thou didst triumph. We will follow thy exam-
pie, and say : prove to us the truth of Luther's doctrine, and we shall
deny our own, for we do not believe what he believed. "J
'• The Protestant church, which takes the scripture for a doc-
trinal foundation, is built upon the sands. "§
♦ Prof. Dr. von Schelling, Vorlesungen Qber das akademische Studium.
t Plank, Ueber den gegenwartigen Zustand und die Bedurfnisse unserer pro-
testantischen Kirche. 1817, p. 24T
:{: D. Papa, Distichen in der a. K. Z., 1830, No. 171.
i Dr. F. F. Delbrfiek, Philipp Melanchthon, der Glaubenslehrer, 1826.
CHAPTER XXVII.
calvin's catechism. — 1541.
The Catholic catechism. — Catechisms of Luther; the doctrines contained ii»
them. — Calvin's catechism, old and worn out. — The reformation has not a
church, but churches. — Father Athanasius of Stanztadt. — That Catholicism
only can have a catechism. — All the truths of the gospel affirmed and denied
by the rotormation. — Various proofs extracted from Protestant works.
The Catholic catechism * of Geneva was a book almost as ancient
as the oldest chants of its church, of an admirable simplicity, essentially
milk and honey; and, moreover, it was like all the other catechisms of our
church. It was nearly the same that Bossuet, "admonished by his gray
locks," expounded to bis little children, and that Vincent of Paul caus-
ed to be recited by the peasants of Chatillon on the Chalaronne. It
was in the form of a dialogue. The priest asked : What is God ? the
child answered : God is an infinite spirit, &c.; in such sort, that it wa»
not necessary to apply to a philosopher, in order to know the symbol
of faith. The young maiden, on the point of making her first com-
munion, knew as much as was known by Thomas a Kerapis.
Luther, struck by this simplicity, preserved the little book almost
entire. He retained the dialogue, the simple expression, the purplish
colouring, in fine, the form : but, with his breath of innovation, he cor-
rupted the groundwork. In the Catholic catechism, the priest disap-
peared behind the divine word, of which he was but the interpreter :
in the Saxon catechism, the man stands forward as the king of crea-
tion, and the child, who is able to read, learns to know him who is
charged with distributing to him the celestial manna, before he has even
touched it. Do you comprehend that this monk has nailed upon the
head of his large and small catechism, a preface, in which he finds oc-
casion to insult Catholics? In the preface to his large catechism,
he, for a moment, forgets the papists, who, although he long since sang
their downfall, still prevent him from sleeping, and he pounces upon
the reformed ministers. " Fallen beings, who think only of their
bellies ; keepers of dogs, rather than pastors of christian souls, who^
quite glad to be disburdened of their breviaries, find it too fatiguing to
*Christi domestic! et fratres dicebantur graece katechoumenoi, eseterum qui
eos viva voce erudiebant, katechistai, et eruditio ipsa katechesis, universum vero
negocium hoc appellabant katcchismon» — Prcef. Wicelii in suum catechismum.
Col. 1554.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 273
read, each morning and evening, a single page of the New Testament,
and fall down exhausted, when they have recited the Lord's Prayer."*
We have searched to find whether Luther had placed calumny in the
catalogue of sins, and we have found it noted down as an offence
against God and the neighbour. It is not probable, therefore, that he
was willing to lie against his conscience, in drawing for us so sad a por-
trait of the ministers of his church, renegades, whose loss Catholicism
has no reason to deplore, and whose conquest the reformation has no
reason to chant. Luther's golden volume. Liber aureus, for a long
time ranked among the symbolical books of Saxony, has seen its time :
advanced Protestantism no longer, at this day, admits human words as
dogmatic, but it still continues grossly to insult our articles of belief.
Has it not, in our time, reprinted "the Papistical Catechism" of John
Frid. Mayer ? a miserable pasquinade, in which the child is asked to
recite the first commandment of God ; and in which the child answers:
" Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, Mary, the holy angels, the saints
and their relics, the figure of the cross, the cross, the holy father, &c."t
In 1536, Calvin, probably with the assistance of Farel, published a
French catechism, for the use of the church of Geneva, which he trans-
lated into Latin, and had published at Bale, by Robert Winter. J In
his letter to Sommerset, he thus establishes the necessity for a
catechism :
* Qui scientiae opinione inflati, aut ventri indulgentes non decent plebem,
digni utique ut canuiu custodes (Hundeknechle) siut potius quam animarum
custodes. — Liberati a molestissima Breviarii recitatione, unam tamen alteramve
singulis diebus mane, meridie ei vesperi ex catechisino, novo testamento aut
alio scriptures sacree libro legere gravantur, aut orationem dominicam pro se et
auditoribus suis recitare. — Seckendorf, comment, historicus.... de Lutheranis-
mo. Lib. II, sect. 17, * 41, p. 146.
t Dii sollst den Herrn deinen Gott nit allein anbetten, sondern neben ihme
Mariam, die H. Engel, die vetstorbenen Heiligen, ihre Reliquien, die Figur
des Kreutzes, das Kreutz selber, den heiligen Vater Pabst und vil anderc mehr.
Mayer's Papistical Catechism had great success in Germany. Published
for the first time (we think), in 1679, it was reprinted at Frankfort, on the
Oder, in 1717, under the stamp of that entirely Catholic city, Cologne: a lie
on the title page, and a lie on each page of the work.
:J:Basileae 1538. Catechismus sive ch. rel. institutio ecclesiee Genev. vulgari
prius idomate edita nuncque postremo latinitate etiam donata. Joan. Calvino
autore: Omnes homines ad religionem esse natos. — Quid inter falsam ac ve-
ram religionem intersit. — Quid de Deo nobis cognoscendum. — De homine. —
De libero arbitrio. — De peccato et morte. — Quomodo in salutem ac vitam resti-
tuaraur. — De lege Domini. — Exodi XX. Ego sum Dominus (explicatio Deca-
logi). — Legis summa, — Quid ex sola lege ad nos redeat. — Legem gradum esse
ad Christum. — Christum fide a nobis apprehendi. — De electione et preedestina-
tione. — Quid sit vera fides. — Fides donum Dei. — In Christo justificamur per
fidem. — Per fidem sanctificamur in legis obedientiam — De pcenitentia et re-
^eneratione. — Quomodo bonorum operum et fidci justitia simul conveniant. —
bymbolum fidei. — Credo in unum Deum etc. Explicatio Symboli apostolici. —
Quid sit spes. — De oratione. — Quid in oratione spectandura. — Orationis domi-
nies enarratio. (Explicatio orationis dominicse). — Orandi perseveratio. — De
sacramentis. — Quid sacramentum. — De baptismo. — De ccena Domini. — De ec-
clesiae pastoribus et eorum potestate. — De traditionlbus humanis. — De excom-
municatione. — De magistratu. — Sequitur: "Confessio fidei in quam jurare
cives omnes genevenses, et qui sub civitatis ejus ditione agunt, jussi sunt, ex-
scripta e Catechismo, quo utiturecclesia genevensis."
574
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
" True it is, that it is meet and expedient to obviate that levity of fan-
tastical minds, who allow themselves too much license, and also to close
the door upon all curiosity and new doctrines; but the good and proper
means for doing this, is such as God points out to us. It is, first, to
have some determined suminary of doctrine, which all ought to 'preach,
which all prelates and pastors should swear to follow, and that no one
should be received to the ecclesiastical office, who does not promise to
maintain such union. Afterwards, that there be a common formulary o(
instructions, for little children and ignorant persons, which may render
good doctrine familiar to them ; so that they may discern it from false-
hoods and corruptions which might be introduced to the contrary. Be-
lieve, my Lord, that the church of God never luill preserve itself with-
out a catechism : for this is as the seed to prevent the good grain from
perishing, and to make it increase from age to age. And as you desire
to erect an edifice which shall endure long, and not soon fall to decay ^
cause the children to be instructed in a good catechism, which briefly
manifests to their little minds in what consists true Christianity. This
catechism will serve for two purposes, viz. as an introduction to all the
people, to enable them to profit by what shall be preached to them>
and also, to aid them to discern if any presumptuous person teaches a
strange doctrine. However, I do not say that it is not good and neces.
sary to restrict pastors and cures to the keeping of a written form, as
well to supply the ignorance of some, as also the better to manifest
conformity and concord among the churches. Thirdly, to cut short the
progress of all curiosity and new invention, on the part of such as
might be inclined to extravagances."
In his catechism for children,* Calvin has not pursued the sam»
plan as Luther, who defines and explains the law, then exposes the
dogma or creed, and afterwards comes to prayer. Calvin's progres-
sion is more rational. Behold how he proceeds :
— What is it truly to know God ?
It is to know him in order to honor him.
— What is the true manner of honoring him ?
It is, firvSt : to place all our confidence in him ;
2dly. To serve him, by complying with his will;
3dly. By invoking him in all our troubles, centering in him om
hopes, our salvation, our present life ;
* Le catechisme, c'est-i-dirc le formulaire d'instruire les enfants en lachres-
tiente, fait en la maniere do dialogue, ou le maistre interroge et I'enfant r6-
pond. — Op de Calvin, p 200.
" Calvin composed this catechism in French, in the year 1536, and published
it at Bale, in Latin, in 1538. He changed its form in 1541, reducing it into a
good method, by questions and responses, to be more easy for children t
whereas, in the other, the matters were treated by way of summaries and
short chapters." Beza. — Calvin afterwards made a Latin translation, which
was printed at Strasbourg, in 1545: this edition was copied at the end of the
Latin edition of the Institutes, printed at Geneva, in 1549, in quarto.
The edition of 1538 must be very rare, since it was not reprinted, and there
are grounds for believing that Calvin wanted to suppress it. David Clement,
Bibl. Cur. t. VI, p. 96, note. The catechism has been translated iato Hebrew.
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 275
4thly. By confessing, with heart and lips, that every good comes
from him.
The principle of true faith consists in the contemplation of God in
Christ ; from this ascetic vision, he deduces the apostolic symbol formed
by four representations : the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the
Church.
From faith, he proceeds to consider works, repentance, the law, and
the ten commandments; then what he calls **the service of God,"
which consists in doing his will.
From the law, he passes to prayer ; for man has need of divine as-
sistance, in order to do the will of God.
The Lord's Prayer serves him as a text for glorifying the Lord, who
is the source of every good, and who has given his holy word and the
sacraments to the church.
At the head of his formulary, the reformer has placed these insolent
lines.
•* To instruct little children in christian doctrine, is a thing which
the church has always held in singular esteem. And to do this, in an-
cient times, they not only had schools, and commanded every one care-
fully to indoctrinate his family ; but also, the public orders were held
bound to examine the little children upon points which should com-
monly be known to all christians. And that they might proceed with
method, they made use of a formulary, called the catechism. Since,
the devil, by dissipating the church, and making horrible ruin, of which
the marks are still to be seen in most parts of the world, has destroyed
this holy policy, and has left nothing but some sort of relics of this
custom, which can only serve to engender superstition without in any
wise conducing to edification; they call that confirmation, which is a
mere mummery, without the least foundation."
We must here imitate Calvin's frankness, and tell him that he de-
ceives his reader. At the moment he was accusing our church of leav-
ing children without spiritual nourishment, our presses in every country
were labouring to reproduce, under various titles, of Articuli jfidei, and
Rudimenta fidei, in Latin, in French, and in German, this little book,
which already bore the name of catechism.* There was one at least
which he should have known, we mean that which Erasmus published,
under the title of : Dilucida explanatio symboli.j
Calvin's method met with little sympathy in Germany. Ursinus and
Olevian changed the pedagogical form of the two reformers. It is man
in all his misery, fallen through sin, that the child first learns to know.
But this man has been freed and resuscitated by his faith in Jesus Christ.
What is this faith ? Olevian furnishes its formula : Man, made free,
owes his love and gratitude to his Saviour, and the christian soul learns
• Who knows not the catechism of Wicel, translated from the German into
Latin verses, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the catechism of Ed-
mund Auger?
t This little work, which obtained the approbation of Sadolet, (Sadol. ep. 5.
lib. 4.) appeared in 1533, (Ep. Er. ep. 43, 1. 29.) It is in the form of a cate-
chism. Vie d'Erasme par Burigny, t, II, p. 353,
276 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
in what this love consists. If he loves^ he must live in a holy manner,
and obey the principles of the divine law. Then comes the exposition
of the ten commandments and of the Lord's Prayer.
Calvin revised his French work, in 1645, and changed its method.
In the new edition, he proceeds by dialogue, and deduces faith before
the law. The Genevan synod ranked the catechism among the sym-
bolical books, and received it as an enchiridion of christian truths,
written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The synods of
France decided that the reformed churches should receive it, without
changing any thing in it. But it has encountered the fate of Marot's
rhymes : the worm of time has gnawed it, and Vernet, the rationalist,
has taken the place of Calvin.
Thus, in the reformation, spirit and matter, signs and ideas, every
thing dies. Could it happen otherwise ? Behold these books, which
were designed for childhood, and in which all the light the reformation
had was poured forth; there is not one of them which includes identi-
cal doctrines. Upon the title, was written : for the use of the Protest-
ant churches. What churches ? Those of France, of Switzerland,
of Silesia, of Denmark, of Sweden, or of England ? The reforma-
tion is right : Let it still leave upon the title page of its cate-
chisms : for the use of the Protestant churches. In this stands record-
ed its own sentence. It has not a church, but churches; and this de-
cree has been drawn up by a writer of the reformation.*
Not long since, in visiting the church dedicated to St. Nicholas-de-
Flue, at Stantztadt, in Switzerland, we saw a capuchin, with silvered
locks, teaching the catechism to some peasants.
— "Who are the beloved of God?" asked the monk of a little girl.
" Those who know their catechism well," responded the child, with-
out hesitation.
The father smiled.
— " She is right," said father Athanasius to me, in the evening : "is
not the whole sacred chrism of the divine word contained in this little
book ? Some few drops may also have fallen into those little books
which Protestants place in ihe hands of their children, but mingled
with the water of rain and snow."
— " You would speak of their catechism ?" said I, in reply.
— Or of their manuals, to which they give this name, rejoined the
monk ; for, as there is only one God, there can be only one catechism.
Do you wish me to give this name to compilations, in which creed
changes like the temperature of our mountains, at every thousand
fathoms ? The catechism of Geneva is not like that of Neuchatel ;
the catechism of Neuchatel is different from that of Zurich. Hear me,
added he, and be not in dread of this cowl, in which Luther has lodged
the seven capital sins, without even having shown favour to the one
borne by our holy liberator, the hermit Nicholas de Flue. Let us seat
ourselves before this beautiful lake of Lungern, the surrounding fields
of which have been made fertile by monks, and I will cast aside my
♦Planck, G. J., Ueberdie gegenwartige Lage der katholischen und protes-
tantischen Parley. 1816.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 277
1'\ occHsiae nastrre digncris succurrere, alioqu'. rcqui-
rel dc manu tat sanqfaincm nostrum Dominus Dcus. Tuus Jacobus Bernard.
US, ministor ovangelicus. Genovce, 6 Fob. 1641.
284 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
were none. We must pardon his silence, or, perhaps, laud the prudence
of those who collected the reformer's letters, and who shall have read
his response. How did he manage to praise an intruder ?
Each day, the field of intestine quarrels was enlarged. Berne,
which bad confiscated the country de Vaud, coveted that of the Gene-
vese ; this would have been its brightest jewel. The lands of the chap-
ter of Saint Victor were enclosed in the bailiwicks of Terni and Gail-
lard, the proprietorship of which it contested. Its language, at first,
affectionate, grew bolder and more menacing. The republican pride was
aroused : the patriotism of a whole people cannot be assailed with im.
punity. The council, dreading to irritate the Bernese oligarchy, by a
rejection of their claim, deputed three of its citizens to treat with Berne,
concerning the points in litigation. This choice was fortunate. John
LuUin, Auiedee de Chapeaurouge. and John Gabriel de Monathon were
good patriots. John Lullin belon£:ed to one of the oldest families of
Geneva ; ambassador, with Besan^on Hugues, John Philippe, and Ami
Gerard, to the league, in 1530, he had been named syndic, in 1538,
Ami de Chapeaurouge, or, as he signed himself, Ami de Ghapeau-Roge,
was member of the council in 1529, 30, and 31. John Gabriel de
Monathon was also of an ancient stock. It was, with reason, expect-
ed that they would courageously defend the rights of the city. But
whether it was that the deputies had secret instructions, or that they de-
sired, by prompt measures, to avert an armed invasion from their coun-
try; they signed a treaty, in which the rights of Berne to the chapter
and boundaries of St. Victor, were formally recognized. The popula-
tion of Geneva, excited by the Calvinist faction, received the returning
deputies with murmurs and insults. They cried out : Give way for the
articulants i The fanaticized populace, on a sudden, forgot a life pure-
ly occupied in public duties, the signal services which had been
rendered to the country, a nobleness which had never proved untrue ta
itself, either on the field of battle, in the affairs of administration, or in
the domestic sanctuary. It was not merely a trivial pleasantry, which
the faction cast into the face of the deputies, but the cry of treason. The
inferior councils were alarmed, and refused to ratify the articles of the
treaty ; and as the murmurs of the partisans of the exile continued in-
creasing, they took the resolution to sacrifice the patriots. This was
an act of base cowardice.
The arliculanls had numerous partisans, as well as infuriated ene-
mies. What most contributed to injure them, was the protection of
Berne. The inferior councils endeavoured to have them incarcerated,
on the 27th of January, 1540 ; but at the general assembly, on the first of
February, they succeeded to prove their innocence, and confound their
calumniators. This was a noble victory, but they abused it. As it
was important for them to have a pledge of future security, they sue
ceeded, with the aid of the influence of Berne, to place at the head of
the city militia, a man of resolution, John Philippe, the enemy of
Calvin. The struggle grew more envenomed. The Calvinists regard-
ed the deputies as nothing but traitors, sold to a foreign power, and
meditating the oppression of Geneva.
The little council, which did not allow itself to be controlled by the
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN, 285
FOte of the general council, continued silently to urge on the process-
of the deputies. The arliculanis became fearful, and committed an
error in leaving the city. They were condemned ; and the people, by
their silence, sanctioned the decree of death. One Sunday, the two
parties met each other, at a bird-shooting. Philippe sought for some
pretext to chastise the insolence of his enemies. The struggle com-
menced with insults and abuse; but blood was wanted. The irritated
captain unsheathed his sword, and smote to the heart an unfortunate
man, named Daberes, who belonged to neither faction. The cry was
jraised ; au Mouiard ! The place, thus named, was soon filled with
combatants; the blood of Daberes called for vengeance : the murder-
er was sought for ; he had taken refuge* in the stable of the tower de
Perse, where he was soon discovered, seized, and dragged to prison,
amid the clamours of an infuriated populace. There was but one head
that could appease its anger, and that was the head of John Philippe,
but recently its idol. The syndics pronounced the sentence of death
against the captain.
"We, the syndics, judges of criminal causes in the city, having seen
the process drawn up in form, at the instance of iM., the lieutenant,
with specifications against thee, John Philippe, and the answers which
thou hast voluntarily placed in our hands, and which thou hast often
reiterated, by which it is to us apparent and proved, that, on Sunday
last, thou didst assemble a large number of persons, and excite a great
tumult, in which there were several murders committed, and many per-
sons wounded ; a case of crime incurring grievous corporal chastise-
ment.— Therefore, after having consulted our citizens and burghers,
according to our ancient customs, sitting in the place of our predeces-
sors, having the book of the holy scriptures before our eyes, saying : in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
— By our definitive sentence, which we here render in writing, we con.
demn thee, John Philippe, to be taken to the place de Champel, and
to have thy head severed from thy shoulders, even till thy soul be sepa-
rated from thy body, and the said body to be aflixed to the gibbet.
Thus shall be ended thy days, to give example to traitors, who might
be tempted to commit such crimes. — And we commend and command
you, M. the lieutenant, to put in execution this our present sentence."!
The head of John Philippe having fallen, the populace was silent.
The punishment of the captain general, and the death of Claude Richard-
et, who had killed himself, in his desire to escape from the hands of Jus-
tice, both of whom were violent enemies of Calvin, were regarded by cer-
tain fanatics as instances of divine chastisement. Beza and the histo-
rian Eoset, have, of the executioner and of chance, made two immedi-
ate instruments of the anger of heaven. The inferior councils should
profit by this moment of stupor, to recall the exile. Religious authori-
ty was in hands incapable to sustain such a burden. The reformed
churches of Switzerland could cite some names more or less celebrated:
Lausanne had Viret; Zurich, Leo Judae ; Neuchatel, FareL But
*■ Fazy, t. I, p. %BQ,
X Cited by Picot, History of Geneva, 1. 1.
?86 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT.
what was to be thought of Geneva, where the spiritual administraliors
was entrusted to one La Mar, who snid, in the pulpit, that "Christ had
gone to death as rapidly as man ever went to be married ?" Calvin's
name had been greater, since the period of his appearance at the diets
of Woruis and Katisbon. Though the French doctor had cut no figure
in the debates of the diets, it was known, that when brought face to face
with Melancthon, at that epoch the eagle of the scene, his knowledge
had not suffered much from the approximation ; it was even said, that
Philip had conferred on him the name of theologian. The political"
power, which in vain sought support and aid from tiie priesthood, was
disregarded. The councils needed some name to elevate them in the
eyes of the multitude; but if they knew of any such, they were names
belonging to the patriot party, to the libertines, who were too well ac-
quainted with the exile to consent to his recall. There was neither
unity nor cohesion in the councils. They presented a strange medley
of beliefs and opinions : Catholicism, Lutheranisra, Zwinglianism^
Anabaptism had representatives there; Calvin and John Philippe also,
had their partisans. At first, an attempt was made to draw over Farel
and Viret; but neither of these was willing to undertake the adminis.
Iration of a church, in which Calvin had failed. There remained but one
recourse.
Calvin must be recalled. " Therefore, for the increase and advance-
ment of the word of God, it was ordained to send to Strasbourg to seek
for master Johannes Calvinus, who is very learned, to be the evangel-
ist of the city of Geneva."* This was a measure rendered necessary,
by the degradation of all authority and power.
Calvin desired an act of popular justice, real or apparent. He ought to
be contented. The council recalled "the man whom Providence had
sent to Geneva to extend the kingdom of God."
The syndics and council wrote to him :
" Sir. our good brother and excellent friend: in recommending our-
selves to you very affectionately, inasmuch as we are perfectly assured
that your desire is only for the increase and advancement of the glory
and honor of God and of his holy word, on the part of our small, our
great, and our general councils, (which all have earnestly urged us to
do this), we pray you very affectionately to be pleased to come to us,
and return to your former post and ministry ; and we hope, with the
assistance of God, that this will be cause of great good and fruit for the
augmentation of the holy gospel. Our people are very desirous to have
you. And we shall so arrange matters with you, that you shall have
occasion to be satisfied. — Geneva, 22d. October, 1540.
Your good friends,
The Syndics and Council of Geneva."!
Power here caused the voice of the people to speak, and yet it had
not once been lifted up in favour of the exile. Had they been desirous
for his recall, they njight have used Philippe's scaffold for a tribune to,-
♦Fragm. bioj^. extraits dcs reglstres du 20 novcmbre 1540.
t Cited by Paul Henry, pieces justificatives, p. 77, t. I..
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 287
demand it. The historian, who has rummaged all the archives of the
city, h^ not found a single testimony in favour of the professor of
Strasbourg.*
Calvin was making preparations to go to Worms, when he received
the letter of the council of Geneva. Bucer and certain refugees were dtsi-
rous to answer it. Their language is noble. '• We sincerely congratulate
you," they said to the Genevese, '-on the good thought which has struck
you, to recall your worthy pastor. If, to maltreat and drive away his
ministers, be an offence against God, it is an unequivocal sign of wis-
dom to recognize that Christ shines again in your glorious martyr.
Calvin has never had but one thought, the solicitude for your salvation,
even had he to pour out the last drop of his blood f To-piorrow or
the day after, he sets out with us for Worms. If the religious confer-
ences, which are to take place there, lead to no reconciliation of partie?,
we have to look for serious com. notions. Should religion be tormented
in Germany, it will also be done elsewhere : this is to be dreaded. It
is not then probable, that Calvin would despise the divine will, which
sends him on a mission to the colloquy."
Jacob Bedrottus, professor of Greek at Strasbourg, gave to this mis-
sion an entirely human motive, more probable than the intervention of
the Divinity : this was, that the exile understood and spoke the French
language.!
Calvin imagined that his word would be more potent than it had
ever been before. He was mistaken, as we have seen already : and
perhaps it was this hope of worldly glory, which induced him to refuse
to set forth immediately for Geneva ; probably, also, he did not con-
sider the offence offered to his dignity sufficiently expiated by the letters
of recall : he desired a more striking reparation. His response to "the
puissant seigniors and gentlemen, the syndics and council of Geneva,"
is dry, ambiguous, and embarrassed. Through a phraseology sparkling
with expressions of humility, Calvin is very glad to show his enemies,
that he is the man whom Providence sends to the diet to represent the
interests of the divine word.
" I pray you, therefore," he says to them, "as not long since I wrote
to you, to consider always that I am here to serve, according to the
slight abilities God has given me, all the christian churches, in the
number of which your church is comprehended ; and hence, I cannot
abandon such a vocation, but am constrained to await the issue which
the Lord will please give us. And though I be nothing, it should suf-
fice for me, that I am appointed to this by the will of the Lord, to de-
vote myself to every thing which he shall be pleased to entrust to me;
and although we do not see matters disposed for success, yet it is neces-
* Notices genealogiques, t. IIT, art. Perrin, p. 403.
t Vero en'm Chrisius contemnitur ct injuria afficitur, ubi tales ministri reji»
ciuntur et indigno tractantur. Bene itaque nunc habent res vestrae dam
Christum in hac prssclaro ejus organo rursus agnoscitis. MSS. Gen.
:j: Si nescis, legates mlserunt ad senatum nostrum, turn ad Calvinum, GenC'
venses, hujus revocandi gratia. Responderunt nostri se nunc valde opus ha-
bere Calvino ad colloquium, parlim propter linguae galiicse cognitionem.
Argeat., 24 nov. Sturm, Antip,
288 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
sary for us to use all <3ilUgence, and to hold ourselves ow our guards
the more so, that our enemies are seeking to surprise us unawares, and
what is worse, as they are full of cunning, we know not what schemes
they are machinating."*
Calvin feared the hostile dispositions of the people. Viret, who had
been for some time at Geneva, endeavoured to encourage him. Calvin
answered him : — " Truly, I can with difficulty peruse your letter with-
out laughing : Return to Geneva! Why not crucify me ? It would be
better lor me to die right oft', than to expose myself to be tortured con-
tinually, in that (iery chamber."!
Viret exhibited the letter to the syndics.
Then the political power was seen to abase itself even to entreaties,
to humble itself before the exile, to blast the city, by representing it,
since the banishment of the minister^ as a prey to disputes,- debauche-
ries, seditions, factions, and homicides^ and to glorify the exiles, as
servants of Christ, victims of the brutality of an ungrateful populace,
which at once had forgotten their glory and their services. Calvin and
Farel, who had insulted the citizen magistracy from the pulpit, who
had three times disobeyed the will of the national representatives, are
now holy ministers of the gospel, whose return is the only means
of again introducing order into the country.
The sovereign council placed itself in this attitude, m making its
supplications before the consistories of Berne, of Bale, of Zurich, and
•of Strasbourg,
The letter having been written, the sentence of banishment was re-
pealed, and the ancient syndic. Ami Perrin, sent as deputy to the senate
of Strasbourg, to solicit the recall of Calvin. Ami Perrin ought to
have refused this mission, as, until then, he had shown himself the ene-
my of the exiles, and the leader of the faction of the libertines. He was
a generous patriot, who feared Berne, and dreaded the subjection of his
country. In the return of Calvin, he saw nothing but a means of es-
caping the schemes of an ambitious canton. The historian must give
him credit for his devotedness. Ami Perrin forgot even the insult which
the Calvinist party had quite recently offered his wife, who was too fond
of those pleasures, for which a rigorous puritanism censured her as for
crimes. §
• MSS, de Geneve.
t Cur non potius ad crucem? Satius enim fuerit semel perire, quam in ilia
carniticina itcruin torqucri. MSS. Gen.
t Inique profligaii, magnaque ingratitudine reject! fuerunt, prsetcritis plane
ac oblitis gratiis ct beneficiis haud sane vulgaribus, quae a Domino horum inin-
isterio obtinuimus. Ab ea cnini hora qua ejecti fuerunt, nihil prceter molestias,
inimicitias, lites> contentiones, dissolutiones, seditiones, factiones, et homici-
dia habuimus. Clarissimis principibus, D. consuli etscnatui urbis Basiliensis,
vel Argentinonsis, aut Tigurincnsis, amicis nostria integerrimis. Maio 1540.
t Men, women, and children, who have danced, are thrown into prison. Isf.
Nov, 1540. P. M. v., who danced last Sunday with the wife of Ami Perrin,
the wife of said Marquiot, and the hostess of Morlier, shall be punished ac-
cordine
Christen. — Juristen-Unwissenheit — Juristen wissen nicht was Kirche isl — Ju-
rlstcnknnst — Juristen wenig, aber viel Procuratores, etc,
25*
294: LIFE OF JOH^' CALVIN.
he was a veritable fabulous animal, and he employed against the Saxon
monk all the arms which nature had given him. The combat was long
and furious ; and, even on the avowal of Lutherans themselves, the
goat gained the victory. He gored master Martin to the very blood,
who, at first, began screaming, like one possessed, but the goat released
not his hold; then, Martin fell to asking pardon and mercy, which
were allowed him, on condition of a truce of several months, signed by
both parties.
The jurists, less numerous at Geneva than at Wittenberg, were im-
portant personages on both shores of lake Leman. Luther could not
have restrained himself from laughter, had he beheld these men of the
law, transformed into noble seigniors, largely paid, leading a joyous
life, sitting in the mo^ honorable places of the council, and sometime*
invested with the title of syndic, without even- having acquired the right
oY citizenship.
In 1457, the council deputed two doctors and two syndics to Chara-
bery : the doctors received, per day, a crown, two florins, or two francs
and twenty centimes, of our money; the magistrates only six sous; the
doctors had the title of Dominus, or Seignior ; the syndics that of Sir,
or Messire.*
In Calvin's contest against Genevese liberties, the jurists showed'
themselves cravens and cowards : not one of them undertook the de-
fense of the oppressed ; not one of them dared cast in the theologian's
face the blood of the victims ; not one of them gathered a coal from
the funeral pile of Servetus, to set fire to the minister's robe : they were
afraid, and probably they had reason. Who knows ? perhaps, had they
troubled the sleep of the despot, Calvin, less- patient thai| Luther, in-
stead of calling for the devil, who does not always come when he is
called, might have sent the executioner, who would have run, as he did
for the punishment of Gruet. The student of Noyon had a more pene-
trating glance than the Saxon monk. Luther read the face, Calvin
looked into the soul. A few month's sojourn at Geneva had sufficed to
make him know the jurists; souls, accustomed to the sweets of life, to
a tranquil sleep, to the pleasures of the table, to worldly joys, and ready
to obey any one who could exercise open force : and Calvin was deter-
mined'to search for the light. He would have entertained much great-
er dread of a babbling student than of a jurist, nailed, by his very na-
ture, to a dead letter, the understanding of which the reformer had
reserved to him.self.
The sun of the reformation, in Saxony, had hatched out a myriad of
doctors, who had descended like hawks upon the word of God, to tear
it to pieces. At Geneva it had remained sterile. Calvin has taken
])ains to give us the portraits of the ministers who had siK^ceeded him
in the evangelical pulpit : one of them had found his commission as
preacher in the arms of a prostitute ; another, changes his religion as the
serpent changes his skin ; a third, scarcely knows how to read; em-
bryo doctors, whom, in case of need, Calvin could crush with his
heel, or with the nib of his pen. How often, in Saxony, did Luther
* Picot, Histoire de Geneve, p. 139, t. I.
LIFE OF JOHN CA1.V1K. 29-3
behold his path obstructed by a host of theologasters, who wished to rob
liini of his tune ! The monli was forced to ply the lash lustily, in or-
der to drive them away. And if some of them, like Carlstadt, with
face and back bruised, dared again present themselves before him, doc-
tor Martin seized the sword of the nearest elector, and drove the unhap.
py wretches before him, to perish with famine in some unknown village.
Calvin, as you perceive, was more favoured by heaven. On bis return
to Geneva, scarcely did he find some two or three unfrocked Carmelites,
who Jinew enough Latin to be porters at a convent gate. Luther's task
was entirely more painful ! Popes, cardinals, kings, emperors, elec-
tors, monks, devils, jurists, even physicians thronged around, in order
to torment the unhappy man. At Eisleben and Jena, the physicians
themselves took part in theological disputes. It was not enough for
them to slay the body ; they must also kill the soul. — "Little ones," said
Luther to them, in his Table-Talk, '•' I do not amuse myself with giving
physic to your patients, let me then evangelize my own. At the great
day of judgment, God will not ask you an account of the souls, but of
the bodies, which, under the sanction of your diplomas, you shall have
run through, cupped, slashed, tortured." But those physicians, possess-
ed by the devil, listened not to the voice of the doctor, and, with scal-
pel in hand, treated the Bible like a real carcass. Some of them had
tried their hand upon the toulo of the Eucharistic institution, with a fa-
tuity so grotesque and absurd, that Aurifaber laughed at it for days to-
gether. See how much more fortunate Calvin is at Geneva ! One
would say, that society there had been expressly constituted to suit him:
number the physicians, who might be able to annoy him by their
babbling; with difficulty can you find some two or three. "When,
at this epoch," says M. Galiffe, "a person was sick, he called the bar-
bers, who w^ere nearly always surgeons," and who, in consequence,
played a far more important part than they do in our day.* Hence,
there was one germ the less of opposition : for we cannot suppose that
Calvin could have had any dread of a barber.
If the various elements of Genevan society, considered in their indi-
viduality, were not menacing for Calvin, we are forced, on a careful
study of them, to avow that the public spirit was hostile to him. His
exile had appeased the popular w^rath ; his return had been hailed by
no token of joy, notwithstanding all the efforts made by some of the
syndics !
A stranger to the institutions of the city, to the governmental man-
ners of the country, to the actual life of the citizens, Calvin was but
the representative of a religious opinion, unrelieved, and destitute of
form, which the population had adopted, less from conviction, than
through a spirit of independence, and that, by a change of religion,
they might emancipate themselves from the house of Savoy. The revo-
lution having been effected, the national character still remained the
same ; it is not so easy for a people to strip themselves of their nature
as of their faith. Do not expect from a mercantile population, that
noble devotedness which leads to martyrdom : when such a people
* Galiffe, t. I, Introduce, p. 14.
296
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN".
soize their arms, it is nearly always in behalf of material interests, and
if they consent to renounce their faith, it is because they are reconu
pcnsed for their apostacy. The Genevan did not divest himself of hi,s
personality, in adopting the symbol of Farel. Before, as well as after
the banishment of Calvin, he had continued to lead his habitual life ;
calm and simple, during a portion of the day, that is, during the hours
of labour; loquacious and noisy in the evening, at the bar-room, the
ordinary rendezvous of the burgher. This semi-nocturnal existence,
the sweetest portion of German life, is still found in most of the circles
of Germany. Not long ago, at the tavern of the Black Eagle, in Wit-
tenberg, they exhibited the table upon which Martin had so often lean-
ed his elbows, the benches upon which he sat, and the glass which he
had fdled with the sparkling beer of Thorgau. Enter : you are sure,
ai this day, at the same hours, to find the same guests of three centuries:
students, jurists, merchants; only the theologians are fewer in number.
In its contact with the German people, Geneva had acquired this taste
for tavern enjoyments, grown even stronger since the reformation, an
epoch, when numbers of French emigrants had come to bring to their
coreligionists the reckless joys of the Gallic bar-room, the censorious
Xtme, the self-importance and vanity peculiar to the inhabitants of large
cities. By degrees, beer had been abandoned for wines and liquors,,
and the German dance, so entirely modest, displaced by French dances,
sometimes ardent, even to wantonness.
When bishop Charles de Seyssel made his entry into Geneva, the
people received him like a veritable prince of the church, with the
sound of bag-pipes and trumpets, and danced the whole evening in
token of joy. To honor the bishop, a monk composed a history, which
met with great success on the theatre, and which to the writer was worth'
a florin, as the reward of authorship.*
This propensity for tavern life was particularly prevalent among the
libertines. In them, it was allied with an expansive character, an ar-
dent love of country, a pride easily excited, as we have remarked al-
ready. The libertine is the purest expression of the national type :
Genevese, from sunrise to sunset, that is, laborious, sober and discreet ;
Frenchman, in the evening, till bed-time, that is, loquacious, censorious,
loving to rail at all superiors of every class, — at the bankers, nobles,
ministers, and especially at their wives. If, in searching the registers.
of this epoch, you find a burgher reprimanded by one of the councils,
you may be certain that this burgher was a libertine; if Geneva be
menaced in its independence, and blood must be shed, this blood will
he that of a libertine, a man of no discretion, but ever ready to sacri-
fice himself for his country. It is this patriotism, of which he has ex-
hibited such frequent proofs, which makes him so proud. It must be
admitted that Genevan legislation fell into an affected scrupulousness
tliat was ridiculous. It punished, by imprisonment, the lady who had
arranged her hair with too much coquetry, and even the chambermaid
who had assisted her ; the merchant, who played cards ; the peasant,
who reproached his oxen in too acrid terms; the burgher, who had liQt.
* Fazy, Fssai, etc., p.. 03, t. I..
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIK. 297
extinguished his lamp at the hour appointed. Geneva at length began
to resemble a school, governed by some village pedant.
The libertines had reason to protest, in their ballads, against an ex-
otic puritanism, which was essaying to change the national character
We can comprehend their wrath against this preacher of Noyon, wiio
never knew the delights of family happiness ; an ungrateful son, a dry
student, who carried his dark humour with him, from land to land; a
man without country, without affection, without any tie of the heart,
and who wanted to smite with his anathemas the unrestrained gaity ot
the fireside, the indiscretions of the bar-room, the noisy rejoicings of the
inner sanctuary of families, and even the very national customs. Sick,
from an asthma which frequently nails him to his arm-chair, the noise,
of the streets or of public assemblies, irritates his nerves ; the dance
prevents him from sleeping, and the clatter of glasses gives him the
headache. The image of those banquets, at which they amused them-
selves at the expense of the gloomy policy of the theocrat, where they
permitted themselves to laugh at his nasal tones, at his cadaverous figure,
at his half-dead eye, and withered hands, re-appears in his sermons, at
every instant. They would speak of him as of a Spartan, fed only on
black broth. Listen to the orator : his accusations are vague, his
strokes are dull and undecided; we see clearly that it is not blasphe-
mies against the gospel, scandals against morality, or attacks on modes-
ty, which he has undertaken to denounce.
'•'When they are there," says he, "how many frivolous discourses do
they hold. There, where they should eat as if in the presence of God,
and rejoicing with his angels, will be found vanities Avhich, in such sort,
will transport men, that to many it appears they have no good cheer,
without they are made gay, I know not after what sort : I speak even
of good persons. ... If there be question of a banquet, how do they
commence? Is it by invoking the name of God ? Oh! this would
seem a matter of melancholy : therefore the name of God must be
buried ; for, should they think on God, it seems that all the pleasure
ihey take in banqueting would be changed into mourning ; and then
every restraint w^ill be removed, so that there will be question only of
treasonable and malicious propositions; there will be nothing novel,
except to tear the neighbour to pieces ; and a continual machination
will take place against this person, and that person. Behold, what
things prevail at these banquets. Hence, then, since men are so much
inclined to vices, it is impossible there should be no fault, even if the
bridle of restraint be not entirely relaxed. I pray you, then, must there
not be, as it were, a gulf of hell there, where those persons assemble
to plot all sorts of malice and treachery ?"*
Calvin's panegy^rists have taken these impulses of a sickly organiza-
tion, for evangelical transports ; but they radiated rather from the head
than the heart. For, we must guard ourselves from trusting to those
declamations, used, at the coming of Luther, against Catholic morals :
bar-room speeches, engendered amid circulating pots of Munich beer,
by nuns, escaped from the convents, and monks, who knew but these
* Sermon on Faith.
298 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
three words of the Old Testament : crescite et multiplicammi, — increase
and multiply.* The Franciscan whO;. after Calvin's exile, thundered
in the pulpit most loudly against the disorders of Catholics, was pre-
cisely that Bernard, who had found "the Lord in the arms of his own
maid servant."
Before the reformation, Geneva was a pious, charitable, christian,
city ; its priests were nearly all men of intelligence and good morals ;
its bishops, the very models of wisdom and patrioiism. Protestantism
has been able to reproach the last prelate, Peter de la Baume, for pusil-
lanimity of character, and perhaps for a somewhat too- lively inclination
to advance the interests of the house of Savoy, but it has respected the
virtue of the bishop. It was Adhemar Fabri that confirmed the muni-
cipal liberties of the city. One of the articles of the episcopal charter
imported, that the citizens had the right of judgment, in all cases of
blood ; another, that no one should be subjected to the torture, without
the authorization of the people ; a third, that from sunrise to sunset, the
guardianship of the city should be confided to the burghers, and that
during this interval, neither duke, bishop, nor inferior agent, should ex-
ercise the slightest power: and a fourth, that to the burghers belonged
the election of the burgomasters. f We shall see what Calvin will do
with these liberties.
At the moment when this Genevese community, constituted of such
various elements, was yielding to its nature, oblivious of the past, and
rndiflferent to the future, God descended to visit it. The pest, after
having desolated Italy, and ravaged part of France, had just pomicedt
upon the banks of lake Leman. Throughout all the streets of this
mercantile city, there went up a cry of fear and terror.
*' On the 26th of October, the ministers mount the pulpits, and
set forth *'hovv the christian churches are greatly molested by the pest,
and for this cause we are bound to pray to God for one another; that it
would be good to return to God, with humble supplication, and to pray
for the augmentation and honor of the holy gospel, and that on Sunday
next, 30th of October, they could be able to. announce the holy supper
of tlie Lord for the Sunday following. — One day, during the week, the
sermon was announced by ringing the large bell, to assemble the peo-
ple, in order to pray God that he would please, by his grace, preserve
us, and that the Sixty, CC. and the heads of families might be admon-
ished.— The preachers have repeated beautiful remonstrances,, as in or-^
dinary council, that communion should be announced next Sunday, for
the Sunday following; — that prayers should be said one day dbringthe
week ; that, on that day, the shops should be closed, and that the citi-
♦ With regard to the state of morals, after the triumph of the reformation,
the reader may consult several of the Postillee of Luther; 1st and 2d Sundays
of Advent;— Melancthon, Ep. lib,. IV.— Capito, ep. adFarellum: — Burnet.
History of the Reformation, part 2. — Motives of Good Actions, by Stubbs»
London, 1596; — and L'Eglise Romaine, defendue contre les attaques-du Pro-
testantisme, 8vo. 225-233.
t Hottinger, Histoire des Eglises de la Suisse. Bretschneider.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 299
^ens should be fidmonishcd, in order to cause them to assist at the ser.
mon. *
These prayers did not avert the scourge, which raged terribly. We
^ere desirous to contemplate the reformed ministers under this trial.
We remembered the beautiful words of Calvin to Sadolet :t
'• Even had I no regard for the church of Geneva, from which I
cannot distract my mind, which I cannot love less, but hold it dear as
my own soul; granted that I had no affection for it ; there, where I see
defamed my ministry, which I have, as it were, known to be from
Christ, I must, if need there be, even maintain it at the price of my
life. — God, once having appointed me to Geneva, has obliged me al-
ways to yield it faith and loyalty."
The ministers concealed themselves. J
ApA then, a man, still youthful, who loved the muses passionately,
Bastien Chatillon, better known under the name of Castalio or Castal-
ion,§ presents himself, and says : " I am ready to go to the pest-house,
iilihough many of the preachers have said, that they would sooner go
to the devil, than go there." ||
And Chatillon went courageously to visit those infected with the pest,
in company with another Frenchman, by name, P. Blanchet, who died
a victim to his zeal.l"
Then, say the state registers : " Ordained 1| that the ministers assemble
to elect the most proper person, and that ihe council order him to go
there. And as to the election to visit said hospital, that M. Calvin be
excluded frmn those who may he chosen, because there is need of him
for the church. — The ministers presented themselves with Calvin, and
set forth how they had advised amongst themselves, that, to visit the
pest-hospital, it is necessary to be firm, and not timid, and that they
had found one, who iscf France, a faithful person; wherefore, should
their lordships find him suitable, they present him. Although their
office be to serve God and his church, as well in prosperity as adversity,
even to death, they confessed they did not do their duty, in this conjunc-
ure. — Resolved, to give them a hearing, always understanding that M.
Calvin is not comprehended with the rest, because he is needed to serve
in the church, and to respond to all passers, who may wish to consult
kim. — The said ministers having entered without Calvin, have confess-
ed that God has not given them the grace to have strength and consten-
cy to visit the hospital, praying, therefore, to be held excused. — M. de
f scof-
fers.
The old translation gives it : and who is not infected with pestilence.
Let Calvin now speak to us of the necessity of circulating the scrip-
tures in ^the vulgar tongue-? His idiom does not blaze with a light
capable of dazzling our vision, since, to understand it, we stanid in need
of a glossary of ancient terms. "Strange pretension, according to
Fitche, is that of the reformed school, which wishes to close heave-n
against all those who do not know how to. read V'X
*" Tiscli-Reden, p. 4.
t M. Pliilipps Tiingst du srtgen, dasz er seine Postill carrijrirf^, denn erhat
niclit vcrstiniden, waruinb dcr Herr im F^vanj^elio die Reichthumb Dornen
nermt. — An seine IJausfrau, 6 Febre. 1546. D. Wette, t V, p. 780.
:j: Der Buch.stibc Vr'urdc das fast unentbohrliche Mittel zu Sdigkeit; wad
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIH- 317
"Poor souls, adds Lessing, how I compassionate you, born as you
are in a land, where the Bible has not yet been translated ! And you^
Islanders, who have not learned how to read, and are christians, inas-
much as you have received baptism, how unfortunate are you ! For, my
brethren would have me believe, that, in order to be saved, it is as neces-
sary to know how to read, as to have been baptized. And when you
shall have learned how to read, poor souls, all is not yet told, you will
still be under the necessity of studying the Hebrew to be more sure of
your salvation."*
In Germany, in our days, they have come to the conclusion that
there are numerous passages, both in the old and New Testaments, that
are incomprehensible, even for the learned. Krug has developed this
opinion in the journal, The Minerva,] and Muller has gone so far as
10 maintain that the Bible is an evil present made to the people, when,,
with it, there is not also given the intelligence to comprehend it. J
But in order that the scripture should be the only foundation of chris-
tian doctrine, Calvin should at least agree with his own school, con-
cerning the value of the elements, of which the Bible is composed.
Now, has not each reformed church its own bible, as well as its own
catechism ?
The Apocalypse of St. John, according to Bretschneider, is neither
prophetical nor apostolical ; in it, is discovered no trace of divine in-
spiration, §
De Wette and Vater maintain that the Pentateuch is not the work
of Moses, that it was composed only a short time previous to the flight
of the people of Israel, and that the history of Moses, down to the
conquest of the promised land, has been falsified and disfigured.
Gramberg 1| pretends to demonstrate, after de Wette (Betrage, z. Eins.
ins. Alt. Testam. I. 1,) that the historical authority of the books of
Chronicles is very doubtful.^
The plagues of Egypt, and the passage of the Red Sea, according to
doctor Leo, are poetical traditions.**
Carlstadt maintains that Samuel and Esdras are not the authors of
the books attributed to them. ft
ohne lesen zu konnen, kann man nicht laenger fUglich ein Christ seyn. — Fichte,
Grundzticre des Zeitalters. 219,
* UnglQckliche! da h6rt Ihr's ja, dasz lesen kOnnen so nothwendig zur
Seligkeit sey, als Getauft seyn! und ich sorge, Ihr mlisset habraeisch lernen,
wenn Ihr Eurer Seligkeit gewisz seyn wollet! — Lessing, Beitraege zur Gte*
schichte und der Literatur, Si:xth part.
t Feb. 1821, Luther went further, he wrote : Plures sudarunt in Epistola
Jacobi ut oim Paulo c'oncordarent, sicut et Philippus in sua Apologia tentat,
sed minus feliciter; sunt enim contraria: fides justificat, fides non justificat..
Qui ho3c recte conjungere potest, huic fatuum me nominare permittam.
:j: In den Handen des Volks wird die Bibel immer ein miszliches Geschenk
bleiben, solan^e nicht auch zugleich das rechte Berstandnisz verabreicht wird.
Mliller, vorn Wahren und Guten. Leipzig, 1832.
k Bretschneider, Handbuch der Dogmatik, 1. 1, p. 266.
II Die Kronik nach ihrem sfeschichtlichen Charakter und ihrer Glaubwftr-
digkeit geprQft —Halle, 1823^
% Wegschneider, Inst, theol. Christ., p. 1 19.
** Leo, Vorlesungen ttber die Gesehichte des ]Udisch.«» Staates, 1828..
tt Carlstadt, De canonicis scriptor., 1530^
27*
318 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
The book of Judith, according to Haffner, is a pious romance ; the
good and bad angels of the book of Tobit, are superstitious symbols;
the Canticle of Canticles, is a graceful poem, wherein conjugal love is
represented in the style of an idyl.*
Listen to Bretschneider : " The book of Job is but a drama : the
writer no where says that he is inspired. The chants, known under
the name of Psalms, are mere poetical productions. How are we to
regard as inspirations of the spirit of God, the imprecations of David,
Avhich are in such manifest opposition to the command of Christ ?"t
" The prophets are the monks of ancient times, fanatical spirits,
"v\'hose fantastical character is manifest in the death of Elias"J — " It is
not possible for Isaias to have been the author of the chapters from 40
to6b."§
" Tiie book of the prophet Jonas is a beautiful fable, quite in the
taste and spirit of the ancient times." [j
" It is probable that the doctrine af Clirist has been altered in the
New Testament. "T
Schulze and Schultess yield little faith to the gospel of St. Mathew.**
" The three gospels, of St. Mathew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, have
been made up from an ancient Aramean code."tt
'' The gospel of St. John is indisputably the work of some philoso-
pher of Alexandria."}t
Schleiermacher has attacked the first epistle to Timothy § §; Eichorn^
in his introduction to the New Testament, t. Ill, p. 415, has assailed
the first and second epistles, as also that to Titus.
Doctor Baumgarten-Crusius, at Jena, in the programme of christmas
1828, establishes that — the epistle to the Hebrews is the work of a
philosopher of Alexandria, a disciple of St. Paul, and that the false
epistle to. the Alexandrians is nothing else than the epistle to the He-
brews.***
And now let the reformation endeavour to found a christian system
on a word, every letter of which is contested in its own school ! Mui-
ler is right : what becomes of the holy scripture, which ought to be the
rule of faith, if it pleases one, to reject an epistle of St. Paul, anothes,
the gospel of St. John, a third, St. Mathew, St. Mark, and St. Luke?ttt
* Haffner, Einleitungzu der neuen, von der Straszburgischen Bibel-gesell-
schaft veranstalteten Ausgabe der heiligen Schrift, 1819.
t Bretschneider, p. 93. ifLeo. loc. ci(..
If Staehelin, Einige Bemerkungen Qber lesaias, 40,66. Theol.. Studien und
Kritlk, 1830, I, p. 82.
II Michaelis, Uebersetzung des alten Testaments.
% Augusti's theol. Monatschrift, No. 9.
*• Bretsclineider, Handbuch, t, II, p. 778, note.
tt Eichhorn, Bibliothek der bibl. Literatur, t. V, p. 761— 996.
:}::{: Staudlin's Magazin der Religionsgeschiclite, t. III.
(j^ Ueber den sogenannten ersten Brief des Paulus an den Timotheus. Ber-
lin, 1807.
*** Lucke, Uebersicht der zur Hermeneutik etc. geh5rigen Literatur vom
Anfange 1828 bis Mitte 1829. Theol. Stud, und Krit.. 1830. p. 450, t. II.
ttt Job. von MUller, Minerva 1809. July, p. 76.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 319
On the other hand, the signs, which Calvin indicates as marks by
which the church is to be recognized, are entirely insufficient. Ac-
cording to the reformer, wherever you shall hear the pure word of
Christ, say without fear : " This is the church."
But what sect is there, that does not imagine itself in possession of
the word of Jesus ! Ten years since, we beheld two anabaptists come
to Geneva, whom they drove away, under pretext that they were teach-
ing the doctrines of falsehood.* And tiie book which these brought
with them was Calvin's bible; and to justify their symbol, they in-
voked no other word but that enclosed in the holy book ! When
Munzer, after having stained the plains of Frankenhausen with blood,
w^as conducted with bound hands, before duke George, he was asked in
virtue of what right he had revolted against his masters. Munzer
quoted several texts of the Bible. Andreas Carlstadt, driven out of
Saxony, and reduced to vend pastry in a little village for a living, cursed
his oppressor Luther, who had been unwilling to comprehend the mean-
ing of the Greek touto. Servetus, when dyings chanted a verse from
the psalms. At the conference of Marbourg, the Sacramentarians and
Lutherans threw at the heads of each other^ texts of the Old and New
Testaments. Which of these founders of sects represented the church?
To what faith did the elect of Calvin's invisible church belong, be-
fore God had rescued them from what he terms the Roman idolatry?
Evidently^ to the Catholic faith, to that choir of learned men, of doc-
tors, of martyrs, among whom were St. Hilary, St. Polycarp, St. Je-
rome.. But Hilary, Polycarp, Augustine, and Jerome taught what is
taught by Paul III., whom Calvin ranks with the reprobate. The
same symbol, the same dogmas, the same faith. If God assume them
into heaven, he ought to drive thence those fallen souls, who come into
this world to teach a different doctrine. Would Calvin desire to disin-
herit these Catholic glories of the beatific vision, or to place Wiclef,
Arius, and John Huss amongst the blessed ? But in this case, it is the
church of these sectaries that he perpetuates. Then why are his doc-
trines different from theirs ? Why does he offer another symbol ?
When Catharin, that old Catholic champion, demanded of Luther : "If
thy church, as thou describest it, is entirely spiritual, tell me then by
what mark I shall recognize it." Luther responded : By what mark ?
Why, by that which tl^e Saxon church bears on her brow, by baptism
and the bread." But the bread and baptism are material symbols, and
the bread of Luther is not the bread of Calvin. And besides we will
add : Who knows your elect ? God only ; for, if you name them, you
remove by a stroke of your pen, one of the conditions essential to your
church, viz : invisibilit'i, .
Luther's priesthood differs essentially from that of Calvin. Luther
regards every christian as a priest : "The Catholic ordination, is, ia
* See chapter entitled : The Axabaptists.
■f Dices autem si ecclesia tota est in spiritu et res omnino spiritualis, nemo
ergo nosse poterit ubi sit uUa ejus pars in toto orbe : quo er^o signo agnoscam?
ecclesiam? — Respondeo: signuni necessarium est quod et haberaus Baptisma,
ac panem, et omnium polissimum Evanofelium. — Luth^ Resp. ad lib*. Am.
Cath. an. 1521. Op., t. II, fol. 376,, 377. ^
320 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
his eyes, but a satanic mummery, where a hog cuts the hair, and throws
the sacerdotal robe over the shoulders, of a blockhead."* Calvin es-
teems the ministry a divine institution. He establishes a two-fo-ld vo-
cation, interior and exterior, the combination of which is indispensable
as a foundation for the sacerdotal mission. The Genevan school, so
brilliantly represented to day by M. Vinet of Lausanne, has changed
both the terras and the idea : It recognizes an immediate mission, which
is that given by Christ to his apostles, and a mediate mission, which is
that given by the apostles to their successors.! It may be seen that
not only the words have varied, but the symbol has been changed. In
Calvin's system, the interior mission has no need of proof, it flo^ws en-
tirely from the personality of the candidate, who establishes his voca-
tion upon an internal grace, or on proofs which cannot be discussed.
The ordinary mission or vocation therefore remains.
Luther at first had received the ordinary mission from his bishop ;
but when John de Lasphe imposed hands on him, in 1507, the neophyte
promised to teach what was taught by the Catholic church : J you know
whether or not he has been faithful to his oath. The commission was
then revocable ; had he been an angel from heaven, he could neither
add to, nor change the gospel which he was charged to propagate. §
Calvin can lay no claim to the ordinary mission which was confer-
red on Luther ; for he was not a priest : interior vocation, external
mission, every thing was assumed by him.
Bossuet has not evolved the variety of the reformed doctrines con-
cerning the institution of the holy ministry, with more logic, than has
M. Ernest Naville, in the theses which he recently published at Geneva.
He is an independent thinker, from whom we delight to quote :
''The possession of grace cannot exist except where there is dogmatic
authority : this authority the reformed ministers have attributed to them-
selves, or at least they have acted as if they did attribute it to themselves.
Articles of faith have been drawn up, persecutions have been set on
foot against those who refused to subscribe to them : to the scandal of
violence and injustice, Protestants have added the scandal of the most
flagrant inconsistency.
" In the reformed churches, to day, there are no longer found any en-
lightened and impartial men, who do not acknowledge, that, at the very
moment men admit a dogmatic authority distinct from revelation, they
ought to go swell the ranks of the Catholic church.
*' Moreover, the ideas of the reformers, concerning the manner in
which powers are conferred on the clergy, conduct to Catholicism. In
fact, how are their powers conferred upon pastors, if it be denied that
it is the choice of the flock which confers these powers? By conse-
cration, which is a sacrament. By whom is this consecration effected ?
By the pastors of the church. By whom have these pastors been con-
t An die Boehmischen Brueder. — Koenne man doch jcdcr Sau das Haar ab^
sclieeren und einem jeden Klotzcein Gewand anziehen. — Moehler, p. 412;
|Narrateur religieux, No. 139.
] Reform, aim.
y Sed licet nos, aut angelus de cceloevangelizel vobis prseterquam quod evaft-
gylizavimus vobis, anthema sit. (Gal, I, 8.)
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. 321
seorated? By other pastors. And by whom were the first reformed
pastors consecrated? Here is the difficulty; the only means of solv-
ing it is that employed by Dmiioulin. He endeavours to establish the
succession of the reformed pastors, either through pastors of the W al-
densss and Albigenses, or through the Roman priests, and employs va-
rious arguments to establish, that the minister, consecrated in the church
of Rome, remains legitimately consecrated after passing into another
church.* After this manner, they relapse into the doctrine of apostolic
succession, and thence into Catholicism. Also, Calvin f, without en-
tirely rejecting the idea of successioin, as he could not admit the legiti-
mate vocation of the Roman priests, declares that this succession is
worth nothing except where the true faith exists. In the last analysis,
it is then the doctrine which distinguishes the lawful pastors. But
what is the rule of the doctrines of the church? The confessions of
faith. Who draws up the confessions of faith ? This is done by the pa-
tars. Therefore, it is the doctrine that judges the pastors, and the pas-
tors who judge the doctrine.
'• The Roman system is so logical and connected in all its parts, that
we must either admit nothing of it, or admit all. Protestants will al-
ways be vanquished upon the arena of principles, whenever they shall
not unreservedly admit liberty, with all its consequences. "J
But liberty, with all its consequences, here invoked by M. Naville
as aid to the reformation principle, conducts to the ruin of Protestant-
ism : no one can build on a negation. Dumoulin's idea, on the legiti-
macy of vocation by succession, would be of no use to the Calvinistic
church, because its founders, Farel, Viret, and Calvin, never had the
sacerdotal authority. What, then, is to be done ? Appeal from it to inte-
rior vocation, the argument of the monks, who were taken by Berne from
the bar-rooms to receive the priesthood ; and of Luther and Calvin, both
of whom pretended to have received their ministry from God himself.
For, Lather wrote from the Wartbourg to the elector Frederick : " I
have not received my gospel from men, but from heaven and from
Christ ;"§ and Calvin wTOte to Sadolet : " The foundation of my min-
istry is the divine vocation : I hold it from Christ." || Or else, like the
libertines, they must deny that the priesthood is a divine institution, and
make of it but a human symbol, the dispensation of which belongs to
society ; and this will be to fall into Anabaptism, which searches for
revelation outside the ministry.
Besides, the two reformers had a foresight of the ruin of their sym-
bolism. In order to protect his against the anarchy of sects, Calvin en-
deavoured to place it under the tutelage of the consistory. He was
unwilling to comprehend, that, w^iers unity exists not, it is impossible
to have doctrine ; that, indeed, as remarked by Plank, he left churches
* De la Vocation dcs pasteurs, p. 68.
tinst, liv, IV, ch, 2,
% Theses publiques soutenues d I'academie de Geneve, Juin, 1839, ch. 4 ^ 3.
] Main EvaniTelium habe ich nicht von Menschen, sondern allein vom Hiin-
DT^l, von Jesu Christo.
11 Ministerium quod Dei vocatione fundatum ac sancitnm fuisse non dubito.
— Ministeriummeum, quod quidem ut a Christo esse novi. — Op., p. 108.
322 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
behind him, but not a church.* You will see that God will not allow
him the consolation to die in peace. It will be necessary for him^ after
the example of those who preceded him in his fatal career, to witness
the downfall of his own work. At first, it is sounded ; then, the examina-
tion being finished, comes doubt; afterwards, negation, in its turn, erects
its crest. His teaching shall meet with blasphemers in the very bosom
of the reformation. In vain has he placed it under the protection of
the civil law; conscience will not yield. He is about to wrestle with
Gentilis, with Westphal, with Servetus, with a whole portion of the
the Genevese population. Heidelberg will reject his catechism,
and reformed France his predestination. Gentilis will soon suffer the
penalty of his confidence in Calvin's word ; Bolsec, on the point
of triumphing over the implacable fatalism of the reformer, will be
driven away from Geneva; and Castalion, who, in virtue of his science,
was living in a college, on an annual salary of 450 florins, will be
compelled to fly from an inhospitable land, where, to doubt of Calvin's
infallibility is a crime punished by exile. But he has beheld the re-
former, the church, and the ministers of Geneva : and from Bale he will
cry out to us : — "Proud men, puffed up with glory, and so vindictive^
that, with less peril, could you offend princes, than irritate these felons !
Masters, consummate in calumnies, in backbiting, in lies, in cruelties^
in intolerable arrogance, who term their Geneva,! the holy city, their
assembly, Jerusalem ! Oh Babylon ! Babylon ! who confiscates the
property of those whom she judges to be heretics, and who calls aU
those heretics, whom she wishes to drive away, because they do not lis-
ten to her. They have burned Servetus, but they have kept the %&
chain which belonged to him. ."
• Wir haben keine Kirche, sondern uur Kirchen^— Plank, Geschichtei ^ I*
t Rescius, p. 54.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE LITUKGY.
I^omages of Protestants to our liturgy. — The Catholic temple as ancient aS
Christianity.— Baptism.— What Calvin has made of it. — What it was in the
primitive church^-^The Calvinistic and Catholic Lord's Supper.— The
Viaticum existed in antiquity. — Marriage at Geneva — Divorce and its
causes. — Calvin refuses to marriage the title of Sacrament. — Confession.-'--
Calvin at first favourable to auricular confession, which he afterwards abol-
ishes.— Extreme Unction, Sacerdotal TJNCTioN.^^Avowals of some Protest-
ants.— Veneration of the Saints. — What Calvin thinks of Mary.— Con-
vents.—The Cross prostrated by the reformer. — Lamentations of Protestant*
ism.— Chanting.— The Psalms of Marot.— Fatal influence of Calvin upon
the arts. — The reformer judged by Baudouin, the jurist.
We must invite the glories of the reformation to celebrate the poeti-
cal genius of our worship, so unfortunately misapprehended by Calvin;
our eulogies might be suspected ; the canticles of praise sung by our
adversaries will have more weight. Calvin was unable to love forms :
from his Genevese liturgy, he effaced part of them. He wanted an
adoration in spirit* Let us here listeri to the responses of some of his
brethren.
'' But, are not the flowers, the trees, the fruitSj and the whole garni-
ture of the exterior world, the images of God ? Who should ever have
conceived the idea of breaking to pieces these marvelous works, under
pretext of an entirely spiritual adoration ?* — To kneel before a sym-
bol, and, in the saints or the blessedj whose features are under our
view, to admire the power of grace, the treasures of divine bounty, is
not committing an act of idolatry : he would be an idolator, who
should give to emblems a power which no church recognizes in them.f
They have talked to us so much about adoration in spirit and truth, that
there is no longer spirit, truth, nor adoration."
«« Now, that we have banished all symbolical ceremonies, is the
Lord's Supper more fervent, more pious, more spiritual, than former-
lyV't
" There are christians, who will no longer take the trouble to go to
church to hear the word of God, which they find at home, in sermon
* Feszler, Theresia, t. II, p. 94.
t Pustkuclren-Glanzow, Die Weiderherstellung.
X Dasz heil. Abendmahl. Eine dogmengeschichtlicbe Untersuchung, p.
i39, note.
324
LIFE or JOHJf CALVIN.
bookS) in journals, and in almanacs."* — '• To study the nature of man,
and all his spiritual wants, is a duty lor all those who have charge of souls:
words and phrases are but an open door for escaping from responsibility;
what matters it about the origin of a fashion, if it be efficacious?"! —
" Nothing is more common among our theologians and our ministers,
than an anti-symbolical spirit ; notliing more rare than true Christianity.
Even the cross has become a sign of idolatry, because it is found upon
Catholic churches and chapels.":]:
" The feast of All-Saints, in the Catholic church, stirs up the con-
templative sentiment in the very depths of the heart. "§ — " What beau-
lul days are those of the Roman Calendar, where the christian admires
and chants- the millions of elect, whom God has taken from this world
and placed in his glory,— and where the church, in choir, prays with
her children for the liberation of those souls still sullied by the stain of
sin !" II — " Then the population of the city is seen silently moving to
the cemetery, to seek the tombs which cover it, lo pour forth prayers and
tears, whilst the priest sprinkles the half-uncovered graves with the holy
water of his benediction. On this day, death is a preceptor : his head
is crowned with flowers, and the blaze of lamps and tapers represenus
the light of eternity." t
" Blinded by a sectarian spirit, our reformers have destroyed the great-
er part of the beautiful allegories of the Roman worship ; they falsely
imagined that they were making war against supersition. I have never
found greater piety and greater fervour than among Catholics."** — "It
is certain, that the mass commands attention and recollection ; and it
is to be remarked, that, in the prayer books of our brethren, the Latin
prayer, translated into the vernacular, can defy the rust, with which time
consumes every living idiom. "If — *' The music in their church, is truly
beautiful ! I should not be able to believe that God rejects those
chants, 60 full of spiritualism ; that cloud of incense, that chime of
bells, those vocal harmonies, which, in our narrow-minded prejudice,
we dare despise." J ± — "The Catholic temple, — with its doors perpetu-
ally open, its lamps unceasingly burning, its voices at all hours making
appeals, its chants, its masses, its anniversaries, — is like a mother, whose
arms are ever open to the fatigued soul, which needs rest, to the ex-
hausted soul, which is hungry, to the proscribed soul, that wants an
asylum night and day. It is a fountain upon the pathway of life, around
which are gathered all those who are thirsty and need to be refresh-
ed."§§
" When the pilgrim, after a long travel, fatigued and weary, but with
heart joyous, and overflowing with love for God, comes to kneel on the
steps of the temple, and his song of gratitude rises to the very throne
*■ Darmst. Allj^. Kirch-Zeit. 1830, No. 89.
+ Zimmermann, Allg. Zeit. 1830, No. 181, p. 1845.
^ Clausen.
\ Horst, Mvsterlosophie.
I Feszler, Thercsia, t. II, p. 110.
If Spindler, Zeitspiegel, t. I, p. 13; 1831.
♦• Feszler, Thercsia, t. II, p 101. ttWir,
. 1(.X Leibnitz, Syst. th., p. 207.
n Isidorus (Graf von Leben), Lotosblatler, 1817, 1. 1.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. SZO
of Him who has sheltered him with His wing; — when a mother casts
herself at the foot of the altar, to offer up her first-born to the protec-
tion of the holy angels ; — wiien the setting sun is dallying with the
stained glass of the Gothic window, and robes with his rays the kneel-
ing figure of some young maiden at her prayers ; — when the light from
the tapers of the altar is struggling athwart the shadows of twilight,
and the organ is sighing forth its harmonious melodies, ; — when, at eve,
is heard tlie sound of the Angeliis, and, at day-break, the bell rings to
summon the monk to pray for the living and the dead; — does not the
Catholic church then inform us, that life ought to be but one long prayer
to God; that art and nature ought to unite to elevate the heart of man
to the adoration of the Sovereign Master, and that the temple, in which
so many elements of prayer, contemplation, and recollection are found,
has a right to our reverence ?"*
" Poesy is the very essence of Catholicism, a beautiful diamond
shining in the light of faith."!
Leibnitz, Spindler, Clausen, Wix, Fessler ! These are noble names.
In Germany, at present, every thing which feels at heart the least spark
of life, is approximating towards Catholicism. The nudity of the Pro-
testant religion, its temples despoiled of images, its sad and spiritless
ceremonies, its psalmody destitute of melody, chill and sadden the
heart and eye. It is now understood, that prayer, to revive, needs ex-
ternal stimulous ; that the ignorant soul, to lift itself up to God, de-
mands the aid of material signs, and that adoration in truth, is a mere
abstraction, which every order of intelligence is not adequate to com-
prehend. In Catholicism, every thing is interwoven and linked to-
gether ; each ceremony has a spiritual signification, and is hallowed by
tradition. It is under this historical point of view, that our liturgy is
•admirable ! Since the time of the Apostles, our prayer has ever been
the same ; and even the very form with which it is invested, can be
studied from century to century.
THE TEMPLE.
The centuriators of Magdebourg have written : — That four ages after
the Apostles, the Catholics still had no temple. J But, to show that
they wrote falsely, behold a basilic, erected to God, in Neocesarea, un-
der the reign of Gordian, and the magnificence of which is celebrated
by St. Basil. § Has not Origen described the ravages committed in our
temples, by the soldiers of Maxirainus ? In the first age, when Clement
was Pope, they began to erect churches, which he caused to be conse-
crated by prayer. || What, then, were those chapels, those oratories,
those monasteries, if not houses of prayer, reared by our fathers ? The
first concern of the reformation, when triumphant at Geneva, Avas to
prostrate the churches which fead been constructed there by the piety of
* Clausen 790.
t Es ist ein im Lichte desGlaubens spielender Diamant.
t Cent. 2. § Greg. Nic, in vitS Greg,
jl Ecclesias per congrua et utilia facite loca, quee divinis precibus sacrare
oportet, et in singulis sacetdotes divinis orationibus dicatos poni.
28
326
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the Catholics. The cathedral dedicated to St. Peter, was the only one
left standing, and even over the walls of that, the reformation caused
the trowel to be passed, in order to render it contemptible in the eyes
of strangers. In the time of Florimond de Remond, could still be
seen the stained glass of the edifice, ''with pictured saints," as he nar-
rates in his poetic language. The image of Christ had fallen, but that
of the bishop had been spared. Behind Calvin's pulpit, still stood the
figures of the Apostles, "in high relief, with their names engraved upon
scrolls."*
In Germany, as in Switzerland and France, the reformation preach-
ed the destruction of our temples : it was happy when able to point its
culverins against the church of St. John at Lyons. After the capture
of Orleans, armed with a hammer, it mounted the spire of the cathe-
dral, and, while striking the gilded metal with which it was covered,
merrily sanoj :
*• Thus shall Babylon be destroyed."
To cause it to release its hold, the prince de Conde was forced to
point his cannon. Then how quickly does it descend; but in the
evening, at the voice of Beza, its apostle, it returns with a cohort of
malefactors, and saps the foundations of the edifice, which totters and
"tumbles to the earth."!
" Of what use," said Calvin, "are such splendid houses? it is only
pure hearts that God requires."
" And it was not at that time only the Catholicism of France, Italy,
Spain, Germany, that it attacked; but the primitive Catholicism^
which Lucian, in his day, pursued with his pagan irony, because the
new religion dwelt in buildings resplendent with gold and marble. St.
Ambrose desires the priest to exert himself to make the house, or,
as he terms it, the palace of God, resplendent. J Constantine made it
his glory to adorn the churches with rich tapistry. The temples, which
he erected, at Constantinople, Antioch, Nicomedia, Jerusalem, were
magniiicently rich in decoration, as is related by Optatus, in his book
against the I)onatists.§ Behold, in St. Chrysostom, the christian altar
radiant with gold, the pavement and walls, with Mosaics, the tapistry,
with variegated colours, and the lamps, with carving and enchasing f
At Geneva, ancient Catholic customs could not fall suddenly, like
the walls of the churches : often, a poor labourer, on entering the re-
formed temple, forgot that he had been forced to apostatize, and sought
for the holy water, or devoutly crossed himself. But to dampen the
forehead, on entering the holy place, with the water which made us
children of God in baptism, i.s, as Calvin pretends, "an act of idol-
atry !"
At the coming of the reformation in France, the pulpit belonged to
* Histoiro dc la naissancc, progres et decadence de I'heresie de ce si^cle,
p. 1004.
t Florimond do Romond, p, 1004.
^ Maximo sacerdotis hoc convenlt oniare Doi templum decore congruo, ut
ctiam hoc cultu aula domini resplcndeat. Lib. II, Offic, cap. 21.
« Sozom., lib. IV. Theod., lib. II, chap. 27. Nic, lib. IX, c. 46, et lib. VII,
c. 49. — Eus, do Cesaree, Vie de Const., eh. IV.
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 327
any one who chose to ascend it. The first comer took the Bible, read
some verses, and frequently also a homily of Calvin. Nevertheless,
this human word, which the reformation had abused when issuing from
the mouth of our doctors, disgusted and shocked certain religious souls,
and the provincial synod of Chatellerault, in 1597, forbade hencefor-
■ward the reading of Genevese interpretations.
Out of hatred for Catholic tradition, Calvin banished the use of the
surplice, of the stole, of the chasuble, and of all the sacerdotal orna-
ments. The minister who preached, was vested in a morning-gown or
a black robe. In France, at first, the Calvinists wore that red robe of
the burgher fashion, reaching half way down the leg, with cut and pen-
dent sleeves, and a mourning cap. When Lafaye came to preach be-
ibre Madam, the sister of Henry III., he wore, with a sword at his side,
a violet mantle and doublet, and breeches of yellow chamois. The
minister of the Contondiere preached at the Isle Bouchard, in Touraine,
with a doublet of red worsted,* having at his side sword and poniard.
The Catholics asked the reformed preachers if this costume belonged to
the priests of the primitive church, and was like that which St. Den-
nis describes : a robe of linen around the body, stole on the neck,
maniple on the arm, and chasuble on the back.
'• Thus," says St. Clement, "the Apostles were vested ; they sacri-
ficed with a splendid robe as do all their successors. — Let the priest,"
he adds, "take the white robe, and being at the altar, let him sign him-
self on the forehead with the trophy of the cross."
Lactantius has left us the description of an ancient church : — In the
middle, at the point best seen, arose the cross and image of Christ, be-
fore which christians kneeled at all hours of the day; for, at every
hour, there are men who need to pray, to pour forth their tears, to so-
licit consolations, to recommend themselves to God, to strike their
breasts and obtain pardon for their faults. The Saviour has said : My
house is a house of prayer. Also, in the primitive church, they did not
teach in the (emple, but in a retired place, which we term the school.
St. Chrysostom exclaims to him who says : Shall I enter the temple ?
Are they preaching ? — Enter, and come to pray, this is a house of
refuge.
BAPTISM.
" The little children of the faithful," says Beza, "have the seed and
germ of faith before being baptized,! seeing that the Lord has sanctified
lliem in the wombs of their mothers."
Tertullian, in accord with the church, had said, we become, and are
not born christians.J
Baptism, in the Calvinistic teaching, is but a sign which serves to
distinguish the christian, and can be administered only in the temple,
before the christian assembly. § The ordinances are precise. The
♦ Florimond de Remond, p. 1007.
t Schlusselb., de Baptismo.
^ Fiunt, non nascuntur christiani; — anima fieri, non nasci solet Christiana.
Apol., cap. XVII.
J Premier article. Ordonn. de Geneve.
328 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
child thus ran the risk of dying without baptism. Musculos, superin-
tendent of Berne, had prohibited the administration of baptism on any
other day than Sunday. Samuel Hubert, one night, baptized a child
in danger of death : he was summoned before the senate, and accused
of revolt and heresy : Hubert alledged the bodily and spiritual necessi-
ties of the newly born babe. Musculus maintained that the absence
of baptism does not deprive the unbaptized person of the vision of God.
Hubert refuted this proposition, which he taxed with impiety. Beza
was called from Zurich, with certain Bernese ministers; the question
was debated, and Hubert was condemned and deprived of his office.*
Calvin maintains, that, in case of necessity, a laic cannot baptize,
"it being," says he, '-'more expedient to allow ihe creature to die with-
out baptism, than to baptize after this sort."t And here again he com-
bats, as he has done before, the doctrinal tradition of our church.
In primitive Calvinism the ceremonies of baptism were varied often
enough. Sometimes, the infant was held in the arms of the sponsor,
sometimes, as at Nerac, he reposed in the cradle. After some words,
rather in form of a remonstrance than a prayer, the minister poured
water upon the visage of the babe, pronouncing the words : " I
baptize thee," &c. Zwingle said, — that to attribute some concealed
virtue to these v.^ords, would be to resemble magicians. J In England
and Germany, they impress on the forehead of the child the sign of the
cross : this sign of salvation, of which there is question in the Areopa-
gyte, in St. Augustine, and in St. Bazil.§
'* 1 preserve baptism," said Calvin, "but I renounce the chrism.^'
You will in vain seek in the Calvinistic liturgy for the ceremonies,
u>edin the primitive church, and which have an entirely spiritual signi-
fication : — The imposition of hands, which, like a shield, is raised up
for the defence of the child : — The renunciation of satan, the restora-
tion of fallen nature : — The salt which the priest puts in his mouth,
and the taper, burning, to show that the newly born has passed from
darkness into light : — The white robe, an emblem of his virginal puri-
ty ; holy allegories, which Calvin, in his narrow, prosaic mind, desired
to exclude from his liturgy, and which we find in use at the very cradl&
of our faith.
Let us listen to St. Dionysius :
" When the child is held over the baptismal font, we make the
sign of the cross, three several times, on his forehead, and apply to him
the unction." II
And St. Augustine says :
" We breathe upon the infant, we exorcise him, in order to break
(he power of satan. 1
And St. Chrysostom and St. Basil say :
" In baptism the priest consecrates the water of purification."**
* Resciiis, Atheismes du sacrement de penitence.
t Epist. p. 445 cited by Flor. de Remond. | Hosius in prologcv.
If St-Dion, de Baptisnio. — Sanct. Basil., de Sp. s., ^T.—Aug. Ep. U8^
II vSt-Dion., c. I, Calest. Hler.
li" S. Aug., lib. I. Conf., cap. 11.
•* St-Bas , cap. 27, de Spir. sanct.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIN. 329
And now, let Calvin, who has made no study of the origin of chris.
tianity, rail as much as he pleases at these ceremonies, the mysterious
signification of which he never wished to comprehend : what does it
maimer to our church ? He has confounded the two Senecas, in his
treatise of Clemency ; why should he not deny the antiquity of our
liturgy ? Then, let him write : " The devil, seeing that these decep-
tions have been so gladly received by the credulity of the world, was
emboldened to devise still grosser mockeries, to wit : to add the salt
and spittle."*
Origen answers him : The priest touches with his finger, wet with
saliva, the lips, nose, and ears of the infant, saying : — Be opened, as
did the Saviour, in healing the man deaf and blind. f
THE lord's supper.
Of the Paschal communion, Calvin has made a precept, Luther has
left it a voluntary act.J
In the Catholic church, the priest offers up the sacrifice every day,
for the salvation of all those, who live in a land where the name of
Jesus Christ is adored. — At Geneva, Calvin instituted four annual com-
munions.
The people assemble in the temple, as on preaching days : the tem-
ple is left without decoration. St. Luke,§ however, says, that the
Saviour desired that the cenacle, in which he was to celebrate the pasch,
should be ornamented and accoutred, as the Genevese bible has translated
the Greek expression. It is this hall that Proclus calls the first christian
church. II The sermon being concluded, the minister descends from
the pulpit, and places himself before a table covered with a cloth.
They have cast aside the altar, called by Chrysostom the holy stone^
and by Optatus the seat of Christ. 1[ On the table stands a basin filled
with morsels of bread ; for, faithless to all historical traditions, Calvin
has rejected the chalice, of which Tertullian, Augustine, and Optatus
speak. The minister, assisted by the deacons, and w^ithout having
washed his hands, as is done in the ancient church, takes bread, breaks
it, and distributes it to the faithful. Our priest, in presenting the host
to us, says to the communicant : Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi cus-
todial animan tuam in vitam eeternam. Amen. (May the body of
our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul unto eternal life. Amen.) A
holy prayer, which was recited in the catacombs, and which will be
repeated until the consummation of the world.
Is not that a beautiful prayer, which is breathed quite low by the
priest, who is about to receive communion : Domlne, non sum dignuSf
* Cal. liv. IV, Inst. chap. 15.
t Orig. homil. 6 sup. Ezechiel.
:}: Longe igitur errant et peccant qiioque graviter qui cogunt homines sub
neccato mortali in paschali festo uti, id quod |iactenus fieri solitum est. Op.
Luth., f. I, 344.
^ Luc. c, 22. Marc. 14.
j] Procl. eupo litur. Geneb. in liturg.
^ Chrysost, horn. 61. ad pop, Antioch.
28*
339 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Lord, I am not worthy, as said the Centurion of the gospel, and after
him, all the christians of the primitive church?* Why has Calvin
banished this sweet prayer from his liturgy ? In the Calvinislic Lord's
Supper, he, who receives the bread, in token of respect and homage,
kisses the hand of the celebrant that presents it, and if some grandee
of the world approach to commune, the minister, in testimony of vene-
ration, carries the bread to his lips. Oh! how far more beautiful is
the Catholic pasch ! In 1834, we saw the Pope approach the holy
table, and receive the Immaculate Host from the hand of a poor capu-
chin ; and then it was not the coarse garb which humbled itself, but
the tiara. The Pope no longer wears a crown, he is but a miserable
sinner, who kneels to beg for grace and mercy : the capuchin is the
vicar of Jesus Christ, and holds in his hand Him, before whom angels
and dominations tremble.
THE VIATICUM.
But the christian has fallen sick, he is suffering : and one day, art
confesses itself unable to ward off death. Then, the sick man, warn-
ed that his last hour approaches, asks for the Viaticum. In our coun-
try places, the bell rings, and soon appears a priest, preceded by a
choir boy, and bearing in his hand the spiritual manna, the last nourish-
ment of the dying man. At the sight of the sacred vessel which con-
tains the body of a God, the villagers cast tliemselves on their knees,
and pray for their brother. The sick man, placed in a becoming posi-
tion, awaits with sweet impatience the visit of his God. We ask all
those, who have ever assisted at this communion before the portals of
the tomb, if their heart has not been moved and affected, when the
priest, after having, with holy oil, anointed the feet of the sick, which
have been piously uncovered by the hands of a child, presents him the
body of a God made man, repeating : Corpus Domini nostri Jesu
Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam ? The ministry of the
priast is not yet concluded : it remains for him, after the dying person
shall have received the supreme benediction, to pronounce the last
adieu : Depart, christian soul, — profiscicere, anima Christiana.
To all souls that were thirsty or hungry, that suffered, or aspired
after eternity, Calvin at first refused the body of Christ, as a last Viati-
cum. Kemnitz, the Lutheran, said to the Calvinisls : ''Hard and pitiless
souls, who deny the healing body of Jesus Christ ; St. Augustine did
not do like you; he exhorts the sick to ask promptly for the sacred
Viaticum. Dost thou see, Calvin, St. Dionysius has decided that thy
sick are deprived of a great good by thee, who depriveat them of the
Eucharistic communion."
The reformation is incessantly appealing to the purity of the primi-
tive times; but this purity is preserved by the Catholic church. Does
not St. Clement tell us that it was an ancient custom, to gather the
remains of the bread of angels, to carry them to those who were dying?
" There should always be Hosts consecrated," says the council, "that at
* Origenes, hom. 5,
LIFE OF JOHX CALVIN. 331
the first desire of the sick person, the priest may be prepared to give
him communion." Now, for twelve centuries, has the sacred Host been
preserved in a ciborium, as at this day.*
Now, for eighteen centuries, has tlie priest come, as he does today,
to anoint the members of the dying person with oil, according to the
command of St. James. f
" Why should not the holy unction of the sick be preserved ? (Jame?,
V. 14, 15.) Down to the time of the German schism, it was in use
iH the church. If it were regarded as efficacious formerly, why should
it have lost its efficacy ?"J — " Who, then, will say that extreme
unction was not practised in the primitive church ?"§
Behold the language of those Protestants who have studied the origin
of our liturgy; who are acquainted with its history, and are not afraid
to proclaim the truth.
The language of Calvin is different, because the Genevan reformer
has read nothing but books of theology ; because passion blinds him,
and it is easy for him to deceive a people who will not dare reply to
him. He rails, in place of debating or discussing.
" From whom have they taken their unction," does he ask of us Cath-
olics ? •* They answer, that they have derived it from the son of Aaron,
from whom comes the commencement of their work. ... If they so
much delight in Jewish ceremonies, why do they not still sacrifice oxen,
calves, and lambs ? They put in operation spiritual graces ; yet they
cannot make themselves imitators of the Levites, without being apos-
fdtes from Jesus Christ, and renouncing the office of pastors.
"Behold their fine consecrated oil, which imprints a character that
cannot be lost, which they call indelible, as if oil could not be taken
and cleansed away with powder and salt, or, if too strongly rubbed in,
with soap. Their unction is stinking, since it is not made with salt,
that is, with the word of God
" Oil is for the belly, and the belly for oil, and the Lord will destroy
both. These greasers say that the Holy Ghost is given in baptism for
innocence, and in confirmation, for the augmentation of grace. .....
Sacrilegious tongue, darest thou compare with the sacrament of Christ,
grease, infected with the stink of thy breath, and, by the murmuring of
some words, invested with a charm ?"[!
*■ St-Hier, lib. de Sept. grad. 6. Just. Apoe. 2 de Consecrn. dist. 3. St-Clem.
et Aph., lib. IT, c. 6!. Greg. Tur., de Gl. mart., c:ip. 86. Iren., Ep. ad Victo-
rcin, apud Euseb., lib. V, c. 24. Tertul , de Orat. et lib. 11, ad Uxorem.
t Origen in 235; Council of Nice in 325. Ephrcm, de vita spirituali ad
ruonacuin novitiurn. In the Missal of St. Ambrose (370) we read : Deus qei
studio salutis humause creaturis tuis vim benedictionis indidisti etc., infunde
.s'inctificatiouem tuam huic oleo, ut ab his quae unxerit membra fugatis in-
sidiis adversaria^ potestatis, per susceptionem prcesentis olei sancti spiritus
gratia salutaris debilitationem expellet, ct plenam conferat sospitatem.
t Hugo Grotius, Votum pro pace EccL, t. IV, Op^^ p. 660.
♦ Mosheim, Histor. eccles., p. 11.
II Inst., liv. IV, eh. 19.
332 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
MARRIAGE.
At Geneva, from the time of Calvin, it was long the usage to peiTorm
the ceremony of marriage only before the sermon and prayer, for fear
this act of christian life should be taken for a sacrament. According
to Calvin, marriage is but a civil contract, which religion is called upon
to bless. The young man of twenty years of age, and the young
maiden of eighteen, can get married without the consent of their pa-
rents. " If they do not marry in six weeks after their espousals, the
consistory can constrain them to do so."*
Calvin admitted several cases in which marriage could be dissolved :
adultery, the prolonged absence of the husband.
" Should a debauchee husband leave his wife," say the ordinances,
"let the wife wait till the end of the year. This over, if it be known
that she has need of marrying, she shall be able to do so after the procla-
mations. And if the husband return, his place being taken, he shall
be punished, as it shall be found reasonable."
Here is the form of procedure on this subject :
The wife appears before the consistory, and is interrogated by the
minister : she must affirm that during a year she has had no news of
her husband. — They question her concerning the gift of continence.
If she reply, that she is afraid she may fall, they grant her permission
to marry again. Lindanus relates, that, in the space of six months,
a certain man married three times, his first two wives having been con-
victed of adultery.
The Genevese legislation caused disorders amongst the populations of
Lyons and of Savoy. Wives were seen flying to Geneva, the
land of liberty and privileges, in order to marry their seducers. Hus-
bands, who were unable to break their indissoluble ties, took refuge in
Switzerland, "to embrace what then was named, the liberty of the
flesh." Thus did the marquis de Vico, the seignior de Lombres, the
count Julio Estienne de Vicence, Miss de Chelles, of Dauphiny, come
to Geneva, concealing, under the apparent motive of a change of reli-
gion, their wish for conjugal emancipation, which, in their own country,
it would have been impossible for them to satisfy.
De CIair6, a gentleman of Languedoc, was desirous, after the peace
of Piedmont, to pass through Geneva, being accompanied by M. de
Laval, one of his friends. They wished to hear Calvin. While casting
his eyes upon those who surrounded the pulpit, De Clair6 recognized
his wife. The sermon being concluded, he seized her by the arm ;
Calvin hastened forward : — Save me, cried the young wife ; this is my
papist husband, who wants to carry me away ; my God ! help me.
The matter was carried before the consistory, and the husband condemn-
ed : they oflered him his choice between his wife and apostacy : he
preferred to abandon Geneva. f
" The wife ought to follow her husband," said Luther, "even did
she know that he was the devil covered with the skin of a man..""
* Ordonnances de Geneve.
t Florimond de Remond, p. 1040.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 333
Like Calvin, he recognized two causes for the dissolution of marriage :
adultery, and the disappearance of one of the parties.* The impeiial
constitutions did not allow the wife to recur to second nuptials, until
after an absence of five or seven years. But Luther became enraged
against those jurists, who tried to establish this rule in the christian com-
munity.— The imperial statutes, said the doctor to the jurists, dull asses
as you are, regard only persons engaged in war : the universities which
have given this decision, are like Justinian, who, if now living, would
amuse himself with governing Constantinople according to the Romam
jaw.f He treated those husbands, as mere blackguards, who, having
abandoned their wives, and voluntarily^ absented themselves for a year,
returned again, and he wished that their heads should be amputated.
Calvin maintained that "no one had perceived marriage to be a sacra-
ment until the time of Pope Gregory. "§ The merest student might
have quoted for him Zeno, || TertuJlianjIF and Augustine;** but the re-
former would have shrugged his shoulders, closed his book, and said :
" In fine, we must escape from their filth, yet T think I have some-
what profited by maintaining, in part, the folly of these asses. "ft
CONFESSION.
By abolishing confession, Calvin destroyed the intimate bond, which,
in the Catholic communion, unites the priest and the penitent. In a
religion, where religious life needs not exterior works in order to be
reflected to the eyes of others, it is very difificult for the pastor to become
acquainted with the spiritual wants of souls. He has no right, like the
Catholic priest, to enter the dwelling of his parishioner, and ask him
the reason of the tears that he sees him weeping ; he cannot, without peril
of indiscretion, interrogate the person, who is suffering, groaning, mur-
muring, or blaspheming. There are chagrins which lose their poignan-
cy, when allowed to escape from the heart ; these shall never belong
to him. Who would hazard confiding them to him, who is but the
representative of a human individuality, and who has never made a
promise to God to conceal them from every other ear of flesh ? Nor
can the reformed minister ever aspire to the beautiful title which is
borne by the Catholic priest : one who has charge of souls, for none of
them belong to him. The reformed church has only the external po-
lice of conscience : the device, which Protestantism ought to assume, is,
every one for himself, God for all.
*■■ Ursach der Ehescheidung. Tisch-Reden, p. 447.
t Tisch-Reden, p. 447.
-^ Solche Buben haben gemeiniglich Zwickmillen, die an einem andern Ort
Weiber nemen, nach zweien laren kommen sie wieder, und wenn sic sie
geschwengert haben, lauffen sie wieder weg. Denen soil man den Kopf den»
Ars legen. — lb. p, 447.
^ Inst., liv.IV, ch. 39, k 4.
II Zeno, Epist. ver. sermo de fide, spe et charitate. He lived in the third
century.
TLib. II, ad uxorem. cap 3.
** Sanct. Aug, sermo 40 de Temp., cap. X: lib. de fide et op., cap. 7.
tt Inst., liv. IV, ch. 9, J 37.
334
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Calvin had well understood the harmony established by Catholicism
between the priest and the penitent, and the isolation, which the aboli-
tion of confession would occasion between the christian and the reformed
pastor. He at first essayed to establish voluntary confession ; but his
denomination rejected it. Then, he imagined pastoral visits, which
were to be made by the elders ; but this was only an inquisition, mask-
ed under the name of spiritual supervision. During the whole period
of Calvin's existence, the Genevese community struggled against this
mode of tyranny, which made the civil power acquainted with the secrets
of families, and the mysteries of households. Besides, such an in-
stitution was in opposition to the reformation principle, which recog-
nized religious independence, the inutility of good works, and justifica-
tion by faith alone.
If it be true, that Calvin frequently, at Strasbourg,* manifested
sympathy with the doctrine of auricular confession, whence happens it
that he effaced it from his symbolical book, at Geneva ? Was it not,
because he then yielded to the interested instincts of the population,
just as Luther had done at Wittenberg ? At times, we deteet in the
works of the Saxon reformer, words of eulogy, regarding this regene-
rative dogma. "Art thou a christian," does he say to the German peas-
ant, "thou wilt yield neither to the violence of Luther, nor to that of the
Pope ; but, bound by voluntary chains, thou wilt come and beseech me
to make thee partaker of this fountain of graces. If thou disdainest it,
proud that thou art ; if thou desirest to live as thou pleasest, I thence
conclude that thou art not a christian, and that thou art unworthy of
the sacraments ; for thou despisest what a true christian ought not to de-
spise ; thou dost not merit to have thy sins pardoned, and thou provesl
to me that thou hast no esteem for the gospel. Yet, once more, let
there be no coercion ! If thou wert a christian, thou wouldst be quite
joyous ; thou wouldst travel a hundred miles to seek this spiritual reme-
dy ; and yet it is thou, who wouldst do us violence. Our nature would
be changed ; thou wouldst march in liberty, and we should crawl in
the chains of the law."t
The want of this spiritual remedy, spoken of by Luther, was felt in
the dissident denominations. To encourage auricular confession the
church of England decreed a canon which prohibits her ministers from
revealing it.:}: Wesley, who was acquainted with the miseries of the
soul, endeavoured to institute confession in his church. Each week
the parochial community is assembled in the temple, and the minister
asks the christian the following questions: "what are thy sins of habit?
How art thou tempted? How dost thou resist temptation? Tell me
thy thoughts, thy words, and thy actions, what thou believest defiled
by sin or not?"§
♦ Epist. Farcllo, 1540.
f Bist du nun ein Christ, so darsst du weder meines Zwanges, noch Papsts
Gebot, nichtsUberall; sondern wirst dich wohl selbst zwingen und mich
darum bitten, dasz du solches mr)gest theilhaftig werden. — Vermahnung zur
Beichte. 129.
:j:See eccles. Canon A. D. 1693, No. 113.
J Southey, in the translation of Krummacher, t. 11, p. 213.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 335
But the penitent has a reply quite ready. — Why dost thou ask me?
Who has given thee the right to scrutinize my conscience? Who has
constituted thee priest of the Lord? Canst thou bind and loose? What
will the minister do? He must, if consistent, return to Catholicism, or,
closing his eyes, rush into the midst of the darkness of his pride, like
Luther, who, after having lauded confession in such magnificent terms,
was obliged to say to the people who complained: " confession is not
of divine precept, but of papistical commandment."* What then was
he doing, when he exclaimed to the christian: " Thou hast renounced
thy baptism, thou art not worthy of the sacraments, if thou comest not
to confess?''
Ever the same frightful instability of word and doctrines, of which
the reformation incessantly presents us the spectacle! You have just
heard Luther, it is now Calvin's turn.
In a manuscript letter to Farel, dated, Strasbourg, May, 1540, he in-
clines visibly for the retention of auricular confession, such as it was
practiced in the Lutheran church. He speaks of penitents whose con-
fession he receives before communion, in order, says he, to restore
peace of soul to those who desire to reconcile themselves with God.f
And at that very hour, they were reprinting his Institutes, in which
we read:
*' Though all the advocates and agents of the Pope, and all the para-
sites whom he has under pay should clamour, we hold this point well
determined, that Jesus Christ is not author of that law, which con-
strains men to recount their sins."}
FESTIVALS. THE VENERATION OF SAINTS.
The poetry of our Catholic festivals has perhaps been more magnifi-
cently chanted by the Protestant Fessler,§ than by Chateaubriand him-
self. The Saxon church has preserved some of these; Calvin has
abolished almost all of them. At his instigation the council waged
war upon religious solemnities as it had against images. In the re-
formed calendar, the only day that was left to be solemnized was the
Sunday. On his return from Strasbourg, Calvin regulated the celebra-
tion of the divine service, during which the shops were all to remain
closed ; but when the bell had sounded the mid-day hour, the people
could all return to their occupations. He had preserved the solemnity
of Christmas, which the council abolished in 1551. Before the re-
formation, the church bell, each evening, announced to the inhabitants
that the hour of prayer had arrived. At the sound of the bell, the tra-
veler paused, knelt down on the highway, and recommended himself
to God; the father of a family joined his hands and raised his heart to
the Lord ; the labourer paused from his work, uncovered his head, and
* Die Ohrenbeicht sel nicht geboten von Gott, sondern vom Papst.
fEndlich damit die, welche durch einige Gewissensbeangstigungen gepei-
nigt warden, Trost emptangeru — Trans, ot M. Paul Henry,
t Inst., liv. Ill, ch. 4. J 7.
J Fessler, Theresia.
336 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
besought the Creator to bless the fruits of the earth. This ringing of
bells is still heard in Catholic Switzerland, at night-fall, as in the time
of Walter Furst, Melcthal, and Nicholas de Flue, and being repeated
by the echo of the mountains, it possesses an inexpressible charm for
the soul. Reformed Switzerland gives the name of Winkelried to one
of its boats, yet blushes to pray as did this hero.
''How is it possible to remain unmoved, when in the evening hour,
the bell strilies the Ave Maria, and the Catholic breathes his saluta-
tion to the Virgin? Our reformers did not comprehend the beauty of
prayer !" It is not a priest of Zug, who has made this remark, but a
minister of Berlin, a soul enthusiastic for Calvin.*
Mary, whom Byron sang:
Ave Maria, o'er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee.
Don Juan.
could find no favour at Geneva. Calvin abolished the worship of the
mother of God as an idolatry; and yet this worship existed in ancient
times, when, according to the reformation, the church was walking in the
way of God. And to justify this erasing of the calendar, Calvin revives
that old charge of fetichism, brought against us by different sectaries
who appeared before his time: as if St. Cyril had not already answered
— that we do not adore the saints, that we implore their intercession
with God; and St. Jerome — that if on this earth the prayer of the just
ascends like an incense of sweet odour before the throne of God, the
prayer of one of the blessed is a perfume .still a thousand times more
sweet. t The reformation has not denied that a sanctified soul can see
through space ; is it not then cruel in Protestantism, to prevent the or-
phan from lifting up its hands to Mary, the mother of all the afflicted?
In the war of the three confederated cantons against the house of Aus-
tria, Tschudi, the historian, exhibits to us the heroes of Grutli, after
having addressed their prayer to God, recommending themselves to
their good patron, and the benignant Virgin. Therefore disavow this
intercession, which was the price of liberty to the Helvetic soil. J
Luther designated Mary as the very holy, (Holdselige.) "Who
Gould deny, says he, that God operates great miracles at the tombs
of the saints ? I therefore maintain, with the universality of the Catho-
lic church, that the saints ought to be invoked and honoured. Let no
one neglect to address himself to the blessed Virgin, to the angels and
to the saints, to obtain that they should intercede for us at the hour of
our death. "§ And Calvin has acknowledged that the angels and saints
* Wer frcut sich nicht, in catholischen Landern am Abend das Gelaute der
Glocken zu horen, welches das Ave Maria verklindigt, und zu sehen., wie
jeder Christ seiii stilles Gebet verrichtet — walirend die strengen Reformato-
ren mit jeren ausgeartcten Andacht zugleich das Wahre, Efhabene nnd
Sch6ne derselbenentfernen muszten und keinen Ersatz daiQrfinden konnten.
—Paul Henry, t, 11, p. 167—168.
t St-Jerome k Vigilance.
:j: In exposit. evang. Dom. in Trinit,
§ Prseparatio ad mortem.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVI>f. 337
constantly keep watch over us ; more than once, has he taken them to
witness, as if they heard and listened to his voice.* We have beheld
him lauding and glorifying that church, composed of the elect of God,
the image of which is frequently recalled in his formulary of faitli.
How then are we to explain the nudity of the Calvinistic temple, from
which every symbol is excluded; the sterility of that informal calendar^
in which you neither find the name of the queen of angels, whom he
called the glorious Virgin, quite full of the grace of the Holy Ghost ;t
nor the names of St. Peter and St. Paul, whom he has lauded as
great servants of God ? Upon a study of the Genevese liturgy, we dis-
cover in it a twofold principle; hatred of Catholic tradition and empti-
ness of heart: all the errors of Calvin are stamped with thisdouble sign.
In him, there was neither love nor poesy.
THE CONVENTS.
When Calvin came to Geneva to place himself at the head of the
religious movement, the convents had already fallen. With an ineffa-
ble charm of feeling, sister Joanna de Jussie has described to us the
fall of those houses of prayer, which not only offered refuge to anchorets,
but often also to artists and popular heroes. Calvin, in imitation of
the reformers of the sixteenth century, has calumniated the convents;
he has dared write: — " I say one thing, out of ten cloisters, scarcely will
one be found, which is not rather a brothel than a domicile of chastity. "±
Now, to speak here only of Geneva, the testimony of the reformed
writers is unanimous to convict him of falsehood. He well knew also,
that, during the middle ages, the monasteries had been the asylum of
the sciences ; that the glories of Protestantism — Luther, Melancthon,
Bucer, BuUinger — had there imbibed their taste for human learning.
*' The monks," says the Protestant historian Mallet, " by diffusing
a taste for letters, softened the manners of the people, and opposed
their influence to the despotism of the nobles, who knew no other occu-
pation than those pertaining to war. The people wanted no other
judges. There was an old proverb which said: " [t is better to be un-
der a bishop's crozier than a king's sceptre. "§ Calvin had not yet
worn out his life in wordy contests, for he would have understood, that
the soul frequently stands in need of withdrawing from the agitations
of active life in order to seek the Lord in solitude. Melancthon, weari-
ed with the tumults ef a fleeting Avorld, before his death longed after
that sweet solitude, where God unveils himself to his elect. The An-
glican bishop, Leighton, numbers the destruction of convents among
the complaints, which humanity may make against the reformation, i|
* Coram summo judice angelos omnes habeam testes, per me non stetisse
quominus sedatos absque ulla noxa progressus ageret Christiregnum.
t Nunc referlur insigne et memorabile sanctae Virginis canticum ex quo
dare apparet quanta spiri'tus gratia excelluerit. — Calv. harm. Evangel. Ed,
Ber. 1833, p. 19et28.
tinst., lib. IV, ch. 13, i 15.
) Histoire de la Suisse, 1. 1, p. 105.
)| Life of Wesley, by Soathey, t. I, p. 274.
.29
338 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
THE CROSS.
" Faith," wrote Heinroth, "is the wing which elevates the creature
towards God. Miracle is the wing, on which God descends and com-
municates himself to the creature.* How was it, that, in the midst of
those splendours of light, shade, verdure and vegetation, which on a
summer's day Geneva spreads out to the view, Calvin could establish
as a rule — that every thing which addresses the imagination should be
bsftiished from the divine service ? But if the soul be affected by the '
spectacle of the prodigies of creation, why should the pomps of our wor-
ship, the voice of our levites, the chants of our priests, the tones of our
organs, the sweet fragrance of our incense, distract the thought from the
contemplation of God ? When the poet desires to revive in the heart
of Margaret the sensation of the infinite, he causes a choir of young
maidens to chant in the far distance. Calvin has despoiled the Lord's
house ; the eye in vain seeks in it for the image of the saviour, or of
the patron saint of the city: it does not even find there the glorious em-
blem of christian faith, that cross, upon which the mystery of our re-
demption was accomplished. Formerly, before the epoch of the refor-
mation, the cross, like a luminous beacon, arose above the summits of
our sacred edifices; the belated traveler, who beheld it from afar, hast-
ened his pace, while commending himself to the Man-God, who had
tinged him with his blood; he hailed it when starting forth, with his
matin prayers, and had he lost his way, or become faint from hunger
or cold, his heart revived on seeing it above the poor man's humble
cabin. He knocked, certain that the door would open, and a christian ap-
pear to say to him : enter brother, thou art hungry, I will give thee
bread; thou art thirsty, I will give thee drink; thou art cold, I will
warm thee.
In our writers of the middle ages, are found ineffable poetic scenes^
where the power of the images strikes even the most worldly imagina-
tions.
One day, Erasmus was rambling over the mountains of the Jura; he
was surprised by a fearful tempest. On lifting up his eyes, he beheld
a cross engraved on the face of a rock surrounded with this text in the
form of a halo : Sperat anima mea in Domino ; My soul hopeth in
the Lord. The rock, half broken, presented an enormous cleft in which
the philosopher found refuge. The storm having abated, he resumed
his way to Bale ; but, he says, he had forgotten his philosophical spec-
ulations, and Luther, and all the turmoils of life : his thought fixed
itself upon the sign, which had delivered the world from the darkness
of paganism.
Old Tschudi, in his history of Switzerland, has a beautiful passage,
surpassing anything that could be imagined by the painter Steuben, or
the musician Rossini : it is that, in which he portrays the three libera-
tors, swearing upon their swords, arranged in the form of a cross, to
deliver their country from the yoke of Gessler.
♦ Heinroth, s. Schriften.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 339
Calvin has excluded from his church every kind of emblem and im.
age. How is the asylum of prayer to be known ? he closes his temple
during the whole week, and opens it only when the pastor is to make
his appearance. Hence, that pious custom of the people to visit the
house of God, after the hours of labour, to offer him their sufferings,
chagrins and tears, is entirely abondoned.
He had never perused these beautiful lines of Thomas a Kempis :
" A certain person, who, after wavering between hope and fear, had
fallen into great sadness, saw a church, and having entered it, he pros-
trated himself before the altar, murmuring : Ah! did I but know that
I should persevere! — And presently he heard within himself an an-
swer from God : And if thou didst know this, what luouldst thou do ?
Do now, what thou wouldst then do, and the peace of heaven will de-
scend into thy heart.*'*
The unhappy man was consoled.
If the reformer had been acquainted with the book of imitation,
would he have kept the doors of the church closed ?
Thanks be to God, the reformation in our day no longer banishes
images : it would wish to restore that cross, which was broken to pieces
by the hammers of its apostles, and, at times, hymns escape from it which
we are delighted to collect.
Listen then !
" The time is not far distant, when, under a new breathing which
shall revive Protestant sentiment, the cross, that glorious symbol, shall
be again erected, not only on the summit of the christian temple, but
also on the mountain's peak, where the traveler will be able to hail it
from afar,and on the wayside, where the poor villager will come to
kneel and invoke it. And why then, when all creation so gloriously
sings the power of God, should not the cross appear to us to speak to
us of his love and of our redemption ? He, who has only looked upon
nature in her magnificence, might be led to imagine the earth, which
he traverses, a true paradise, and forget that the physical world will
share the destiny of its inhabitants ; whilst upon the cross the eye reads
in words of fire the long sufferings of man, his fall, his redemption, his
salvation purchased at the price of all the blood of Christ !"t
May God bless and enlighten him who has penned these lines !
THE CHANT.
In Calvin's liturgy the pastor commences by imploring pardon for
his faults, and recites aloud the following confession :
" We invoke our good God and father, supplicating him that he
would please turn away his face from so many offenses by which we
cease not to provoke his wrath against us ; and, inasmuch as we are
unworthy to appear before his majesty, that he would please look at us
in the face of his well beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, accepting
the merits of his death and passion as a recompense for our sins ; that,
• Lib. I, ch. 25, i 2.
t Paul Henry, Calvin's Leben. t. II, p. 158, 159.
340
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
by this means, we may be acceptable to him, and that he would deign
illuminate us by his Spirit to a true understanding of his word, give ixs
the grace to receive it with true fear and humility, that we may be
thereby tauRjht to place our trust in him, to serve and honour in order
to glorify his holy name through our whole life, to render him the love
and obedience which faithful servants owe to their masters, children to
their fathers, since it has been his pleasure to call us into the number
of his servants and children ; and we pray to him, as our good master
has taught us to pray, saying : Our Father.*
Then the singing of psalms commences ; afterwards comes the ser-
mon, which Calvin caused to be preceded by a prayer thus conceived :
'' We invoke our good God and father, supplicating him, that as
all plenitude of wisdom and light is in him, he would deign illumine
ns by his Holy Spirit in a true understanding of his word, give us the
grace to receive it with true fear and humility, that we may be taught
by it, fully to place our trust in him alone, to serve and honour as is
meet to glorify his holy name during oue whole life, and to edify our
neighbour by good examples, to render him the love and fear which
faithful servants owe to their masters and children to their fathers, since
he has been pleased to receive us into the number of his servants and
children ; and we pray to him as our good master teaches us to do :
Our Father."
After the sermon come prayer, the formulary of faith, and the bless-
ing of the assistants. At the instruction, Calvin extended his hands^
saying : " May the grace of God the Fath^K, the peace of our L&rd Jesus
Christ, and the communication of the Holy Spirit dwell eternally with
you." At the communion he said: "The Lord bless and preserve
you— May the Lord make his countenance shine upon you and pros-
per you — May the Lord again turn his face upon you and maintain you
in good prosperity."
" Care should be taken not to allow the ears to be more attentive to
the harmony of the chant, than the mind to the spiritual sense of the
words. Chants and melodies, which are composed solely to please the
ears, as are the airs and glees of the papistry, and all that is termed
broken music, artificial airs, and tunes with four parts, are in no
wise suitable to the majesty of the church, and caanot be executed
without greatly displeasing God."t In pursuance of this esthetic no-
tion, Calvin banished the use of the Latin chant from his new liturgy.
Fioin that day, the soul, which from the very cradle was addressed by
the accords of the primitive church, no longer listened to those hymns,
those proses, those lamentations, treasures of poetry, the influence of
which could not be comprehended by one organized like the re-
former.
Erasmus, who in Germany had assisted at the disorganization of the
national worship, regretted that Luthxr had abolished that Stabat Ma-
fer, which affects the hearer even to tears, that Te Deum Landamus^
which inspires him like a hymn of war, that Range Lingua, the sol>
* This is the prayer addressed to God by Beza at tlie conference of Pcissy^,
+ Inst., liv. Ill, ch, 20, § 32,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 341
emn harmony of which seems to paint before the eye the mystery which
it celebrates, and those lamentations of the holy week, in which the
prophet forces sighs of grief from the soul. In Saxony, Luther had
found in christian families, a host of canticles with simple words,
which the people sang morning and evening, or on the eves of the sol-
emn festivals of the church, and the old airs of which he preserved.
The Saxon puritans would have been glad to destroy those Catholic
melodies, as they did our crosses, our statues, and images ; but happily,
Luther would not listen to them. — I do not think, he said, that the gos-
pel is the enemy of art : I wish to preserve the relics of it, and especial-
ly music, which ought to remain in the service of him who has created
and given it.^ He composed some canticles which soon became popu-
lar, and among them, the EirLfesie Burg, still heard in Germany, and
which he entoned on his entrance into Worais. But we are not to
forget that Catholicism had anticipated him, and that long before his
time, the young girl, on the eve of Christmas, sang this canticle, quite
fragrant with poesy :
Ein Kindlein so lobelich
1st uns geboren worden. t
The German language is admirably adapted for melodious or
dramatic expression. The rhythm of Luther was noble, grave, easily
retained, and potent to affect the ear. Meyerbeer, in his Huguenots,
has borrowed from the Saxon a musical phrase of great beauty. Cal-
vin imagined himself able to imitate the monk of Wittenberg, not
dreaming of the inferiority of the language which he spoke, and which
soon was to experience the fate of the Latin, and even still worse, at
length to be no longer comprehensible to the highest intellects.
i\larot, at the instance of the theologian Vatable, had translated some
of the psalms into the vernacular. The work of the valet de chambre
of Francis L met with great success. Beza, in his ecclesiastical his-
tory, relates to us the effect, which this musical novelty produced on
those who for the first time heard it.
'' It happened that certain persons being at Pre aux Clercs, a public
place of the University, commenced singing psalms : this being heard,
B. great number of those who Avere promenading or amusing themselves
in different games, were attracted by this music, some from its novelty,
others, to sing with those who had commenced. This was continued
during some days, in a very large company, where was found the king
of iSavarre, with many seigniors and gentlemen, as well of France as
of the other countries, being there, and taking the lead in singing; and
though in large crowds confusion enters easily, yet there were such ac-
cord and such reverence that each of the assistants was enraptured ;
and tliose who could not sing, and even the most ignorant, mounted the
* Auch bin ich nicht der Meinnng, dasz dutch Evangelium sollten alle
KQnste zu Boden geschlagen werden, und vergehen, sondern ich wollte alle
Ktinste, sonderlich die Musica gerne sehen im Dienste Das der sie gegeben
und erschaffen hat. — Preface des cantiqucs spirituels.
t The Saxon school itself admit?, that Catholic canticles in the vulgar
tongue existed previously to the reformation. See the Gesangbuch, printed at
Leipsic in 1707, p. 36.
29*
342 LIFE OF JOHN CALVII?.
walls and other places around to hear this singing, rendering testimony
that it was wrong that so good a thing should be prohibited.''*
Calvin caused William Franc, f who dwelt at Lausanne, and Gou-
dimel, who lived at Lyons, to set the psalms of Marot to music. Gou-
dimel was a Protestant, who, at the time of the massacre of St.. Barthol-
omew, was thrown into the Rhone. J He was not .destitute of
talent ; his melodious phrase is simple and noble, but witliout glow.
After three centuries, Luther's choral, Ein' feste Burg, is still young,
Avhilst the musical style of Goudimel is worn out, as are the words
which inspired it.
Moreover, Calvin shaded the error of the gravest minds af that epoch,
of Beza and Pasquier, who imagined that the language of Marot would
undergo but slight modifications. Unfortunately, everything, even
down to the very form discovered by Protestantism, has found its end;
whilst our ancient Catholic airs are still to-day in use, and excite the
admiration of every one with the soul of an artist. Glorious fortune of
our church, who confers immortality on every thing that she enlivens
with her breath ! Beza, before his death, was forced to retouch Ma-
rot's verses. At each half century, a chosen Protestant hand essays to
rejuvenize av/ord extinct forever ; but the dead return not as in Bur-
ger's ballad. Revised, modernized, restored, Marot's work can be
compared to nothing better than to that statue of Glaucus, which beaten
by the waves, 'by tempests, and by passing centuxies, at length ceased
to possess the human form. §
The Sorbonne, termed by Luther, " the mother and nurse of sacred
learning," had condemned Marot's work. The court ladies, who,
while rising in the morning, amused themselves with singing a psalm
to some Poitou air, complained to Francis L who interceded for the
poet. But the Sorbonne remained ixexorable. Marot was wrong not
to have oftener taken the advice of Vatable. The poet caused the
Royal Prophet to sing thus:
♦Hist, ecclcs., t I, p. 141, 142.
t " Since they are completing the psalms of David, and as it is very necessary
to compose a pleasing chant for them, ordained that M. Guill, who is well able
to rehearse the children, instruct them one hour each day. Reg. 16th April,
1543. — "The psalms of David are printed with the prayers of the church, but
because in these there is mention of the Angelical Salutation, resolved that it be
expunged;" June, 16.
Reives carcere educti ac sicis jugulati in Rhodanum projiciuntur : eandem
fortunam expertus est Claudius Gaudimelus excellens nostra estate musicus. —
Thuan., 1. 52, p. 1084.
§ In the seventeenth century the version of Marot and of Beza was revised
by Conrartand la Bastide. Marot translated fifty psalms — Beza the remaining
luindred, at Calvin's entreaty. Pasquier appropriately remarks of Beza's work :
"The translation of David's psalms manifests what he could still do, though
he has not been so fortunate as Marot in his fifty." It seems that at first Cal-
vin had the intention to translate the royal prophet inverse, judging from
what he wrote ta Farel in 1539. Ed. Amst. p. 258. Psalmos ideo miseramus
flt prius cantarentur apud vos. Statuimus enim publicare. Quia magis arri-
Jebat melodia Germanica, coactus sum experiri quid carmine valerem. Ita
Psalmi duo 46 et 20 prima sunt mea tirocinia, alios postea attexui. Thi.s
work was not continued. The first edition of the psalms in verse appeared
in 1561.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 343
Qui au conseil des malins n'a este
Qui n'est au trac de pescheurs arreste.
We prefer the Latin of the Vulgate. Beaius vir qui iion abiit in
consilium impioruvi. Marot mistook the signification of the word
consilium. Vatable would have told him that the analogous word in
Grreek Boule, and the Hebrew synonyme ghelsah, never, in the sacred
language, have any other meaning than assembly or meeting.
He has spun out into six verses these simple words of the psalmist :
Quoniam novit Dominus viam justorum.
Car TEternel les justes cognoit bien,
Et est soigneux et d'eux et de leur bien:
Pourtant auront felicite qui dure,
Et pour aUtant qu'il n'a ni soing, ni cure
Des mal vivans, le chemin qu'ils tiendront,
Eqx etleurs faicts en ruine viendront.
Vatable, Marot's good angel, was then asleep. The poet here in-
sults the Divinity, who causes his sun to shine upon the just and the
unjust. Viret, who knew very little Greek, complained to Beza of this
poetic license, and Beza printed ;
Quant aux meschans qui ii'ont ni soing ni cure
De s'amender, le cliemin qu'ils tiendront,
Eux et leurs faicts en ruine viendront.
In the eighth psalm, the valet of Francis I. caused the Hebrew poet
to say, speaking of Christ :
Tu I'as fait tel que plus il ne lui reste
Fors estre Dieu.
Certain Catholic doctors, for whom Calvin felt such great pity, hav-
ing taken exception to this, Beza effaced the two verses, and the
people of Geneva sang :
Tu I'as fait tel que plus il ne lui reste
Fors d'estre un ange, *
Calvin had still less mercy on poor Marot, who, detected in adultery,
received; says Cayer, "the lash through the thoroughfaies of the city of
Geneva, and was thus made walk in statu." j
At the moment the reformation broke out in Switzerland, Geneva
was commencing her intellectual travail. Like Florence and Rome,
she had to cultivate the art of painting before applying herself to poetry
and letters. Rome, Florence, Ferrara, placed in her temples some of the
beautiful inspirations of the great masters, which the bishops were de-
lighted to exhibit to public view. The contemplation of these had not
been sterile ; but Farel appeared, and all these images fell, mutilated,
* In tlie Calvinistic temples they for a long time'sang these verses of Marot •;
• De bord en bord, pleine tasse me donne,
Et moi je suis un grand butor,
Et moi je suis une chouette.
t Cayer, Form,, fol. 47.
344 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
broken, burned by certain iconoclasts, incapable of appreciating tbeis^
moral or artistic influence. Calvin completed the work commenced
by Farel. The Italian families, so passionately fond of form, were
compelled to deliver up to the consistory the paintings which they had
made companions of their exile, and the reformed temples presented to
the view but bare walls, which had been whitened with lime, for the
purpose of eifacing every trace of material representations. Geneva had
to remain a stranger to the spiritual impulse, which was moving all cities
to the study of the arts and sciences : Calvin had checked the flight of
mind. At this hour, you would in vain seek, for one poetic spark :
mind slavishly obeys the inspiration of the master, and for its only
nourishment receives a sterile exegesis. Before it, are the most beauti-
ful sun which God has ever caused to shine upon his creation, and the
finest flowers with which he had decorated the eden of our first parents ;
and if it attempt to reproduce upon the canvas these miraculous images,
a liand is stretched forth to seize them and tear them to pieces as papis-
tical inspirations. Calvin has stripped the christian temple after the
fashion of Attila. He has driven from it the Christ, the madonnas, the
angels and the saints ; on the altar, he has left nothing but a stone, in
the sanctuary, nothing but wooden benches. He has forbidden the
christian to impress upon the canvas or the marble the great scenes of
our regeneration. Man must condemn himself to live only by the
spirit, as if God had not also given him the five senses.
The reformation is well aware, that if we should ascend to the origin
of its liturgical disputes with our church, we should find it vanquished
upon all the arenas of science, of languages, of history, of sacred and
profane traditions. We, Catholics, alone have forgotten those noble in-
telligences whom God raised up to defend authority. Who, to-day, in
our school, is aware of the great eclat which the jurist Baudouin (Bal-
duinus) shed upon the controversy concerning tradition ? Calvin, witli
effrontery, had denied that our ceremonies of baptism, of extreme unc-
tion, of the mass, of communion, could be defended by the testimony of
primitive times. We should see with what disdainful superiority Bau-
douin gives scientific lessons to the Genevese reformer ! Let us quote
at least a few lines of his admirable pleading.
Calvin had made sport of this formula : ahrenuntio satance, I re-
nounce satan, the Latin of which amused him even to tears.
" But do not laugh so much, Baudouin here says to him : this is a
term frequently employed by the Roman jurists : at every instant will
vou find it in their books : Renuntiare sponsalibus vel nuptiis ; in
the Pandects: Renuntiata affinitas. Now, the christians have made
use of this ancient formula to repudiate the slavery of satan, to which
original sin had chained us. Bucer, thy friend, has retained this ex-
pression. St. Ambrose, explaining the passage of St. Paul, regarding
baptism, c. 2, ad Col. says that the apostle here recommends us to per-
severe in the renunciation of satan and his pomps. There is no doubt
that he alluded to a formula of language in use from the times of the
apostles.
«' In truth, I know not why thou so often makest sport of the chrism
with which thou wast anointed in thy baptism, as I also have been»
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
345
But this concerns me not; assail Jerome, Dionysius, TertuUian, Cyp-
rian, Basil, Optatus, Augustine; Dost thou understand? attack the
universal church, which accuses thee for having abolished a ceremony
as ancient as Christianity."
And then Baudouin overwhelms his adversary with waves of Greek
and Latin quotations. He proves to him that he is ignorant of all the
most common notions of the Roman law, of the Greek and Latin lit-
urgy, of hermeneutics, and of the primitive history of our christian annals,
or that knowingly he has deceived his readers, in denying the antiquity
of the Catholic ceremonies. The whole of this discussion in Baudouin,
is a model of truth, logic, and perspicuity. After having perused it,
we comprehend the beautiful eulogium which Melancthon addressed to
the jurist ;
" Hail doctor of law and jurisprudence, who hast not only studied
civil laws, but hast made thyself familiar with that doctrine, by the aid
of which the Deity communicates himself to humanity !" *
*■■ Te igitur juris et justitise doctorem scio non tantum forenses leges, sed
etiam earn doctrinain cognoscere qua sese Deus humanis mentibus communi-
cat.^Fr. Balduini Resp, altera ad Joannem Calvinum, Parisiis, 1562, p. 144,
Time obliterates the memory of a host of writings, of which it is the histori-
an's duty to inform those who are desirous of defending the truth. There is a
book of controversy which caused a great sensation when it appeared, and
deserved all the glory it obtained in the sixteenth century. We speak of the
treatise of Demochares : "De veritate christi, necnon corporis et sanguinis
Christi in missee sacrificio, adversus hoereticos, assertio, in 12, Parisiis, 1572."
The author proves the tradition of the Catholic liturgy by the collected testis
► monies of St. Dionysius and of all the fathers, councils, and doctois, down to the
sixteenth century^
CHAPTER XXXlll.
THE CONFESSION OF FAITH.
Calvin in opposition to his own doctrines regarding private judgment. — ^He-
imposes a confession of faith upon Geneva. — What the reformation, in our
day, thinks of the formularies, or symbolical books. — A session in the great
council of Lausanne, — Reactionary movement of different reformed church-
es against the confessions of faith. — Prophetic threats of Hammerschmidt.
There can be no ecclesiastical government without unity. Calvin
had comprehended this great law of every christian society^, a?nd he had
thought to introduce it into his new church ; but, to ground it, he had
to sacrifice the religious liberties of Geneva. His tribunal of censure,,
his consistory, his religious police, his liturgical forms imposed on the
Genevese community, are so many attempts upon individual con-
science.
On his appearance in the theological world, we behold him publish^t
ing, under the name of Institutes, another gospel, from which, after-
wards, he extracts the legislation which governs his christian republic.
In 1536, he caused his formulary of faith to be subscribed at Geneva,^
at a later period, in a letter to Somerset, he declares that a church
cannot exist without a catechism, and he writes a symbolical book for
the use of the reformed communion. And, from 1541 to 1543, he
completes his work, which he places under the protection of a confes-
sion of faith, to which each member of his church is obliged to sweair,.
under penalty of chastisements in this life and in the next. Soul and'
body, — every thing is bowed down under his despotism. "The organi-
zation given to the Genevese clergy by the ordinances of Calvin," says.
M. de Fazy, "was far from corresponding with the true spirit of Pro-
testantism, which, out of each conscience making a temple into which
divine revelation may descend, should have included a popular element
representing the consciences of all.""* Certain persons of the senate
and not of the councils, had in vain attempted to protest against the
dangerous innovations which so evidently threatened freedom of thought,,
but their voices were stifled. To combat his adversaries, Calvin,
exulting in his triumph, had the pulpit, books, and the consistory. Each
of his ordinances was immediately converted into a law by the civil
power, and each law became a dogma, in the formulary of faiths which
was imposed on the whole commune.
* Essai d'un Precis de I'histoire de Geneve, t. I, p. 260.
I!FE fF JOnS CALVIN* 347
When he began the construction of his church, the reformation bad
'dready scattered broad-cast among the christian people, a host of sym-
bols, which often expired even without a struggle or a pang. Zwingle,
in his mountains, had concocted a confession of faith, which the Holy
Ghost had overspread with his rays, and which did not even live as long
as the prince to whom it had been dedicated. Melancthon had drawn
up his symbol in the true spirit of a poet pursuing a rebellious rhyme ;
erasing, correcting, eifacing, pruning, and adding to a work, which,
at every phase of the painful travail, was always represented as having
been touched by the tip of the Holy Spirit's wing. Myconius prepared
the first Helvetic confession, a creation, even still more obscure than iis
author. Gryneus and Bullinger succeeded to invest their confession
with a symbolical authority, which lived through a few years. That of
Calvin was destined to be still more fortunate.
But to-day all these symbols, animated by the breath of human lips,
have fallen to rise no more. What Eliseus shall spread himself over
the lifeless form of the Augsbourg confession, to recall it to life ? Who
shall collect the dry bones of the Helvetic formularies ? Where shall the
remains of that confession be Found to which Calvin made the Genevese
pledge their oaths ? All these formularies had been composed to es-
tablish religious unity ; all, if you shall credit the writers who had m-
voked the Holy Ghost as their coadjutor, were destined to live eternally,
and to govern the christian society until the consummation of ages ;
and all are worn out, fallen into decrepitude, worm-eaten. A new era
has dawned upon the reformation, which now proclaims the inutility
and emptiness of confessions of faith.
Come to Lausanne, and you shall be present at a session of the great
council, in which a question vital to Protestantism is to be agitated :
that, which regards the preservation or suppression of formularies.
The Minister Rond *
— '* What will become of the liberty of private judgment, that very
precious right bequeathed by the reformation ? But, it is precisely be-
cause of this liberty of private judgment, that a formulary of belief is
necessary, that the church may be able to make known to those who
wish to be teachers, what is the doctrine which she professes, and which
she desires to have preached.
To pretend that in a church there should be nothing fixed, nothing
recognized ; that each one may believe and teach after his own notions,
is to maintain an impossibility, a chimera ; as well say that a govern-
ment can subsist without laws, without a constitution ; that each citi-
zen may view the law as he pleases, and constitute himself judge of the
degree of obedience that he owes to his country. Take away its con-
stitution from a country, and you will have war and anarchy ; suppress
the confession of faith, and you will soon behold such dissensions,
scandals and divisions, as your civil laws will in vain labour to put
♦ Consult: La Religion du cceur, par M. I'Abbe de Baudry, Lausanne, 1840,
1 vol. in 12mo. p. 320-352, where the question regarding confessions of faith
is admirably discussed. It is a controversial work, written with good faith
and ability, and which we could not too highly recommend.
"348 LiFfc OF roiiN calvin.
liown. Anarchy or tyranny, one or the other, must be the result of such
a measure.
The Professor Chapfuis. — The church has not the right to impose
a confession of faith upon this or that individual christian. If she
should take upon her conscience a power of this nature, it would be an
usurpation, and the most monstrous of all usurpations.
The Minister Golliez.— Can the church subsist without a con-
fession of faith ? It is the interior or spiritual tie which forms the
church. This consists of unity of sentiment and thought, concerning
the dogmas of faith. If the church have no confession of faith, who
^hall determine the fundamental points of christian doctrine.
Jayet, the Advocate. — A confession of faith ! But I do not con-
ceive the possibility of a confession of faith, without infallibility. If
the divine word itself present some obscurity, it can only be interpreted
by human voices. We are told, it is true, that God has employed hu-
man means, in order to reveal himself to us ; but let us not forget that
those human voices, which have transmitted the word of God to us,
possessed the gift of the Holy Ghost. I do not conceive how the in-
spired language can be interpreted by voices which are not inspired.
M. Gorrevon de Martines. — I behold in the church the assembly
of those persons who follow the same religious banner. That these
persons may know what they have embraced, it is necessary to teach it
to them . For this, pastors are appointed. Is the mass of the people in a
condition to use the liberty of private judgment? Not the least in the
world. This portion of the church must have pastors, the flock must have
shepherds. To cut the matter short : believe not that you can arrive at
universal instruction, by means of your renovated academy, your gym-
nasium, and your medium schools. There must be pastors to preach
the gospel to the man who cannot divine it for himself. The work-
man, engaged at his labour, has no time for self-instruction. There
must be pastors, to give him religious instruction on Sundays. There
must be a rule, to determine, for these pastors of the church, upon what
points they should insist in their preaching.
M. D£ LA Harpe. — Confessions of faith are contrary to the princi-
ple of the reformation. The principle of the reformation is liberty,
the right to choose, the right to place the authority of the Bible above
the authority of men. This has been admitted, and yet it is insisted
that the confession of faith does not affect the principle, since the con-
fession is only for the teachers, and not for the flock ; but the pastors
must necessarily endeavour to communicate the doctrines to the persons
whom they are appointed to instruct. The flock cannot resist ; if it
resist, it is accused of unbelief, and almost of impiety. When a re-
ligion is just beginning to establish itself, the people are told that they
shall reap all the advantages thereof; they are made an integral part of
the newly born society ; but once it is well established, the people are
no longer consulted. Calvin arrived at Geneva in 1535. In that
place, there were a great many persons who did not approve his views^
and woe to the one that resisted him. A Spaniard, who had written a
book on the Trinity, escapes from his enemies in France, he comes to
Geneva ; the implacable Calvin discovers him, and has him executed.
llfE OF JOHN CALVIN. 349
Another has his head amputated on the block, for having spoken evilly
of the reformer. A schoolmaster is displaced from his post, for having
spoken a word against Calvin's ordinances; a poor woman, for having
expressed her opinion, that it was unjust to execute Servetus, is driven
from the city. Behold the way in which the new christians sow the seed
of evangelical truth in the minds of men. To the grand chamberlain
of the court of Navarre, Calvin wrote : *' Spare no pains to free the
country of those rascals, who excite the people against us. Such mon-
sters ought to be executed like the Spaniard Michael Servetus. Fear
not, that in future any one will take it in his head to imitate him.''
M. Druey. — A confession of faith is a pope.
M. Jaccard. — The confession of faith is the yoke of authority
trammeling thought. Almost as well have the councils and the infal».
libility of the Pope.
The great council voted for the abolition of the confession of faith.
And one of the members, M. Berger, exclaimed : It is anarchy,
which you have just established by decree, and there is but one step
from anarchy to the abolition of the national church !
But in the reactionary impulse against human symbolism, Lausanne
had been anticipated. In Switzerland, with the exception of Berne,
the preachers no longer took the oath of Zurich, — to preach only the
word of God contained in the New Testament.*
The venerable company of Geneva had already, long since, dispens-
ed its evangelical ministers from the necessity of being acquainted with
the various reformed confessions of faith. t
In Brunswick, two candidates having refused to swear to the symbol-
ical books, the ecclesiastical council decided, that henceforward, aspi-
rants to the ministry should be freed from all doctrinal coercion. J
Most of the ecclesiastics of Anhalt-Benburg, enlightened men, have
thrown aside the confessions of faith established by the reformation,
and admit but the one book only, the gospel. §
The anti-symbolical spirit of the German reformed church prevailed
in the union established in 1817, which absorbed almost the entire Lu-
theran church, and which admitted the unlimited principle of liberty of
teaching. In the first official acts of the union of the Duchy of Nassau,
drawn up by the synod of Idstein, in 1817, no mention is made of symbols
of faith ; in the protocol of union for the County of Mark, there is the
same omission. The general synod of Kaiserslautern, in the act of 1818,
recognized no rule of faith but the holy scriptures. It is well known
with what immoveable firmness the first and second synods, of 1821
and 1825, maintained their first resolution, in spite of the menacing
obserA'ations of the consistory of Munich.
The act of union of the principality of Saxe-Cobourg Lichtenberg,
drawn up by the synod of Baumholder, in 1820, and approved by the
state, admits no other symbolical book but the Bible.
* Regist. du synode, 1803, p. 13.
t Baselerwissenschaft. Zeitschrift, 1815.
t Christ. Freimuth, in der A. K.-Z. 1832, p. 385, n. 48,
♦ lb., 1830, n. 199.
30
350
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
The synod of Carlsruhe, of 1824, also, admits no symbolical book
except the scriptures, as of reformed authority in dogma. Rhenish
Hessia, the commune of Unterwalden, and that of Hildburghausen,
have adopted the principle of the union.
On beholding this repudiation of symbolical books, some noble souls,
strongly attached to the reformation, were sensibly affected, and could
not dissemble their sorrow and fears. Hammerschmidt made the air
resound with prophetic menaces.
— " So, then, you no longer admit any thing of the symbolical books,
but the spirit which gave them birth : the liberty of investigation.
You acknowledge Christ and the gospel, but who assures me of this?
Why do you conceal all this ? Innovators that you are, do you not per-
ceive what a dissolvent you are throwing into the christian community?
In place of a society, united in its faith and its love to Christ, you are
about producing a crowd of sects, which will devour each other."*
Hammerschmidt is right. But why, with his lofty understanding,
has he voluntarily closed his eyes to the light? That sun of error,
which blinds the rationalist, in turn, blinds him also. Anarchy, disso-
lution, tyranny ; all the elements of disorder or of despotism, are in-
cluded in this grand principle of free investigation. You give wings to
my reason, and when she begins to spread them, to soar away from
earth, you seek to cut them off": you have liberated me from the yoke
of the papism, and with your own hands you fashion -payer popes, as
you term them yourselves, and to which you give the name of confes-
sions. Then you tell me : — " War upon the fundamental doctrines of
our confession is war upon the Bible. "f But this is a cry of distress,
which you utter. I shall not search long for a reply to you : I will
say with Paalzow : Partisans of symbolical books, who declaim against
authority, you have made with your own hands a paper pope, more in-
tolerant than the pope of bone and flesh that reigns at Rome ; J or with
Ludke : — " Your symbolical books are an iron yoke imposed on the
necks of christians. "§
'' I believe in fortunate men," said Napoleon : he would have placed
little faith in the reformers. Contemplate the lot of all the truths
which they have announced.
Luther discovered impanation, and serf-will.
— Serf- will and impanation sleep with him in the tomb of Witten-
berg.
Zwingle dreamed of a Lord's Supper entirely figurative.
— His trope was slain at the battle of Cappel.
Calvin imagined a free necessity, a predestination quite aristocratic,
a Lord's Supper, which is neither figure nor reality.
His theological system has lived but a few years.
Zwingle drew up a confession of faith, which was cast into the shade
by the Augsbourg confession of Luther and Melancthon.
♦Hammerschmidt, Allg. Kirch. Zeit., p. 13G5, 1369, 1372.
t Homiletisch. litur!risch. CoriespondenzbL 1830, n. 30.
\ Paalzow, Synesius, p. 192.
§Ladkc, Vom falsclien Religionseifer. 1767.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 361
The confessions of faith, by Farel and Calvin, by Gryneus, by Bul-
iinger and Musculus, could not stand the test of free examination.
The liberty of investigation, at length, has ended in anarchy of doc-
trine ; it has generated a thousand sects in the United States.
Anarchy has invoked an abyss, of which Strauss is the new monarch.
Eichhorn and Paulus had swayed the sceptre before him.
The reformation cannot even select the precipice of its ruin : its
own doctors have drawn up the sentence which condemns it. Catholics
have no part to perform but that of recording clerks.
Therefore, when it makes an attempt upon the miprescriptible right
of thought, Schulz says to it :
— '* Daughter of liberty, take care of what thou art doing : if, by
the aid of thy confessions of faith, thou darest arrest the flight of mind,
thou ceasest to be thyself, thou fallest into authority, thou art lost."*
On the other hand, should the reformation leave thought free to in-
dulge its caprices, Thiess cries out to it :
— •'< Be thou cursed, impure Protestantism, in the name of Christ;
for satan has not prepared a more deadly poison than rationalism,"!
At Geneva, the reformation, before reaching rationalism, was doom-
ed to pass through the ordeal of despotism.
Calvin's consistory, his clerical system, his ecclesiastical constitu-
tion, his confession of faith, his symbolical books, are so many
outrages upon the liberties of his new country. And his religious
legislation is, at the same time, the greatest chastisement that God
could inflict upon apostacy, and the most frightful monument of the
reformer's theocracy.
Let us pause a moment, to contemplate its spirit.
♦ Schulz, was heiszt Glaube, und wer sind die Unglaubigen? 1830, p. 43.
+ Prediger Thiesz, Moses, Eine Sammlung christlicher Predigten, 1828.'
Erste Rede.
CHAPTER XXXIV. .^
CALVIN THE THEOCRAT. 1541 1543.
The theocracy of Calvin. — His legislative code is w^ritten with blood and witf^.
fire. — Penal laws against the heretic, — Examples of punishment inflicted by
the legislator — The torture. — CoUadon. — The sorcerers. — Calvin's proceed-
ings against them. — How much greater was the mildness of the Catholic
church at Geneva.
Acts and thoughts, — every thing in Calvin, displays the character of
the theocrat.
*' The priest, when marching in the light of the word eternal, is, in
his eyes, the most magnificent image of the Divinity. Let others glory
in their power, that of the priest surpasses all dominations. It is his mis-
sion, to subjugate every thing that lives to the yoke of this word; he breaks
to pieces the strong, he raises up the feeble, he extends the kingdom of
God, he overturns that of satan. It is his office to conduct the sheep to»
the pastures, to drive away the wolves, to instruct docile souls, to chas-
tise the incredulous ; let him, then, have a crown, a sword, or a pasto-
ral staff; and, if need there be, invoke fire from heaven, and hurl thun-
derbolts in the name of Jehovah. The priest or pastor is as indispensa-
ble to the christian society, as light or heat to the physical world."*
It is the duty of the priest "to combat the more zealously, because
his exertions are watched by that great Judge of the lists, who sits on
high, in heaven. And that holy and sacred host of angels promise him
their favour, and point out to him the way he should pursue."!
It is manifest that Calvin's minister is not the angel descended from
heaven, "who, with honey, assuages the wounds of the sinner." His
sacerdotal type is neither Fenelon nor Vincent of Paul. He has met
with it, he tells us, in Israel, in the person of Moses. He forgets that
Christ came into the world to abolish the Jewish law. One would sup-
pose that he had ascended another Sinai, and brought down from his
mountain a code, promulgated amid lightnings and thunder. He deah
with Geneva, as Moses did with the unbelieving people. Behold the
words which he has inscribed upon his tables of the covenant ; " Who-
ever outrages the glory of God ought to perish by the sword/'* His
* Inst. cit. par Bretschneider j Calvin et I'Eglise de Geneve, p. 8.
"t Clairo exposition contrc Heshusius. Op., p. 1953.
♦ Der Schander der Ehre Gottes rausz mit dem Schwerde gerichtet werden.
—Paul Henry, p. 57» t. II.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 353
historian, in order to justify him, represents him to us as if impelled by
the finger of God, and obeying, like Luther's horse, the spirit which
guides and directs him.* But this God exists elsewhere than in heaven,
he dwells in a human brain, where hatred, pride, and love of power
are fermenting : from this focus all liis inspirations are derived. The
minister, in order to oppress the people, here vests himself with the
mantle of Elias. The historians, who plead excuse for such frequent
employment of fire and the sword in the Galvinistic legislation, while
making the fiery tongues of the Apostles descend upon the head of their
legislator, do not then any longer remember that the student of Orleans,
often, in France, raised his voice to blast the judges of his brethren !
And, when at Geneva, his eye remains motionless at the sight of the
executioner, they say that God has closed and dried the lid, and stayed
the tears which were ready to flow ! Calvin himself wanted to play
the part of the prophet, and to cause an impression that he dwelt in the
thought and counsels of the Omnipotent. His spirit has lived after
him. In 1582, the authorities asked the ministers whether, with jus-
tice, they could undertake war against Savoy, and the ministers, still
quite full of Calvin, answered : You have been guided by the Spirit of
God, who, in causing you to consult us on a case of this nature, regard-
ing conscience, has pointed out to you the true path.f
So, then, in this theocratical system, the priest must intervene, in all
political questions, because his voice is the voice of God himself. Al-
ready, in the year 1555, when some soldiers were on the point of start-
ing from Geneva for the defence of their country, Calvin had these three
letters, 1. H. I., engraved on their flags, to the end that they might
understand, that above all things, they were children of the church. He
had so skillfully combined the two elements, the religious and the polit-
ical element, that the commune was as greatly troubled by the apparition
of a heresy, as by the appearance of a standard of Savoy upon the Gene-
vese territory. The people had to take part in every crusade set on
foot, in the name of the consistory, against a seditious or impious book ;
and whoever opened such book was punished, now by the prison, again
by fines, and sometimes, if his curiosity assumed the form of revolt
against the Calvinistic symbol, by death itself. The reforaier's pen
Avas by turns dipped in fire and blood. ± His name is not inscribed at
the head of the legislative code of 15^3, which, however, is entirely
the product of his inspiration. At Strasbourg, from a prophetic anti-
cipation of his recall, he had studied carefully the customs, franchises,
and ancient edicts of the republic. He formed of them a collection, to
which he added a great number of new edicts, where his hand mani-
fests itself like the lava of the volcano. As long as Calvin lived, no
one dared touch this Draconian work. To aid him in his labour, they
had given him the syndic Roset, an apostate, who had become rich by
* Er aber fiihlte sich von Gott angetrieben, so zu handeln, dies geht aus
alien Aeusserungen des gevvissenhaften Mannes hervor. — Id.
t P. Henry, t. II, p. 58, note,
|Seine Gesetze waren nicht nur mit Blut geschrieben, wie des Atlienien-
sers Draco, sondern mit einem gluhenden Griffel, — Paul Henry, t. II, p. 78.
30^
354 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
purchasing at a trifling price tlie confiscated property of Catholics,*
and, at a later period, the syndic la Rive, and some other councilmen,
and also they exempted him from the duty of preaching on Sundays, f
Having completed the work, he received a tun of old wine from the
hospital.J
" Then," remarks M. Thourel,§ " Geneva found herself under the
dominion of an almost new legislation, in which three different ele-
ments were easily distinguished : the ancient constitutions of the coun-
try, the reformation principles, and, as regarded civil edicts, the com-
mon law of the province of Berry, which Colladon had introduced into
the constitution." Colladon was a learned jurist, but a man destitute
of the bowels of mercy, who had come to Geneva in order to embrace
thereformation.il
In perusing this politico-religious code, one imagines himself reading
fragments of the laws of some savage tribe, discovered after the lapse of
several thousand years. Idolatry and blasphemy are capital crimes,
punished by death. There is but one word heard or read : Death. —
Death to every one guilty of high treason against God. — Death to every
one guilty of high treason against the state. — Death to the son that
strikes or curses his father. — Death to the adulterer. — Death to heretics.
And, with sanguinary irony, the name of God incessantly drops from
the lips of the legislator. It is ever that same coldly cruel soul, which,
at a later period, will exhort the princes of England to put the Catho^
lies to deaths
During the space of twenty years, commencing from the date of Cal-
vin's recall, the history of Geneva is a burgher drama, in which pity,
dread, terror, indignation and tears, by turns, appear to seize upon the
soul. At each step, we encounter chains, thongs, a stake, pincers,
melted pitch, fire and sulphur. And throughout the whole, there is
blood. One imagines himself in that doleful city of Dante, where
sighs, groans and lamentations continually resound.
Quivi sospiri, pianti, et aiti guai
Risonavan I'aer senza stelle.
After the lapse of three centuries, at length a cry of reprobatiort
bursts forth from a Genevese breast, and in a waiting, printed at Gene-
va, by a Protestant, we can read this energetic sentence :
*' Calvin overturned every thing that was good or honorable to hu-
'•GalifTe, t. I, p. 347.
t Registres de Gotha ct de Gcnevo, 3 drscembre 1543.
% Registres de la ville, 16novombre 1542.
* Thourel, Hist, de Geneve, t. II, p. 261.
j Colladon, doctor of laws, born in Berry. "In 1575, the rights of citizen-
ship were conferred on him in order to strengthen the party of honest men
against the libertines. (See chapters entitled : The Libertines and Michael
Servetus). Colladon was a great jurist; the council profited by his knowl-
edge, in all difficult business, and rendered justice to his deserts by charging
him with the digest of our political and civil acts. This is undoubtedly the
reason why they have such great correspondence with the customs af Berryo'*
— Senebier, Hist, litt, de Geneve, t. I, p. 343.
% Calv, Ep. «7.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 366
manity in the reformation of the Genevese, and established the reign
of the most ferocious intolerance, of the most gross superstitions, of the
most impious dogmas. He at first attained his end by cunning, then
by force, menacing the council with an insurrection, and the vengeance
of all the satellites by whom he was surrounded, when the magistrates
wished to cause the laws to prevail over his usurped authority. Let
them, then, admire him as an adroit, profound man, after the order of all
those petty tyrants, who have enslaved republics in so many diflferent
countries ; this must be allowed to feeble minds. Blood was necessary
for that soul of mud.''*
And we must conduct the reader through blood and filth.
At times, one believes himself at Constantinople. At Geneva, they
threw adulterous women into the Rhone : and the difterence was, that
at Constantinople the executioner sewed his victims in a sack, to hide
them from the light. At Geneva, they threw them into the river with
their eyes open.
Here is a process which commences like a fairy tale, and terminates
like a decree af Tiberius, dated from Ischia.
" There was a rich burgher named Henry Philip le Neveu, who, for
fifteen years, kept a figure painted upon glass, which he called his fa-
miliar demon. Now, when he desired to know what his wife was do-
ing, he approximated his ear, and the indiscreet image told him, in a whis-
per, something which it would have been much better for him not to
have asked. The husband afterwards went to relate to any person that
was willing to listen, how, at his lodgings, he had an image on glass
which spoke, and a wife who would be very glad to make it keep si-
lence. Well, le Neveu babbled so much that the council caused him
to be arrested."
The image was silenced, and so was le Neveu : they had cast one of
them into the Rhone and hung the other.
Spon, that wise historian, says, very seriously :
" In the year 1560, the Genevese made two examples of justice
which savoured of the severity of ancient Rome.
*• A citizen having been condemned to the lash by the small council,
for the crime of adultery, appealed from its sentence to the Two Hun-
dred. His case was reconsidered, and the council, knowing that he had
before committed the offence, and been again caught therein, condemn.
mI him to death, to the great astonishment of the criminal, who com-
plained that they did him a wrong, to punish him w'ith the highest de-
gree of punishment. Some time after, for the same crime, a banker
was executed, w^ho died with great repentance, blessing God that jus-
tice was so rigorously observed."!
There were children publicly scourged, and hung, for having called
their mother she-devil and thief. When the child had not attained the
age of reason, they hung him up by the arm-pits, to manifest that he
deserved death. J
* Galiffc, Notices genealogigues, t. Ill, p. 21.
t Spon. History of Geneva, in 4to., t. I, 305.
X Picoi., History of Geneva, in 8vo., t. II, p. 264.
356 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Calvin felt that the word, which had invested him with royalty, might
also deprive him of it ; he therefore sets to work to brand the forehead
of every intelligence sufficiently bold to question his mission, to discuss
his theological doctrines, or to refuse his symbol of faith. Then Bolsec,
who denied his predestination, was driven away from the republic ;
Gentilis, who rejected the Calvinistic quarternity, was condemned to
take the rounds through the city, with a halter on his neck ;* Castalion,
who considered the Canticle of Canticles as apocryphal, though once
the table companion of Calvin, was driven from Geneva, without a
morsel of bread to put in his mouth; and Servetus, who had made
sport of the Institutes, was burned alive. When Farel made his first
appearance at Geneva, w^e remember that he had asked permission to
dispute ; that, in spite of the orders of the magistrates, he had mounted
the pulpit, and preached his God to the astonished multitude. Woe
now, to the man who should say that he is impelled by the Holy Ghost
to preach a word different from that of Calvin ; the hierophant is
there, ready to sieze the audacious man, and he will put him in irons
or cast him into the fire, if he consent not to retract. CoUadon will
put him to the torture, and give him, as he did Goulaz, "a strappado
with the rope, if he will not confess; and order him to be shorn for
using enchantments; and have him proceeded against by all manner
of justice, till the pure truth be known, f and," adds M. Galiffe, "after
the confession shall have been obtained, subject him anew to the tor-
ture, to the end that something else may be learned. "J
Sometimes a wretch, worn out by sufferings, after having in vain
cried for mercy to CoUadon and his acolyte, the executioner, who, on
the next day, were to resume their office, addressed himself to God, im-
ploring Ijjm to terminate his life ; but soon he learned that God had not
heard him; then he fell into despair, and requested to see Calvin.
And Calvin entered the dungeon, and wrote to Bullinger : " I am able
to assure you that they have acted very humanely towards the guilty ;
they hoist him up on the stake, and cause him to lose the earth by sus-
pending him from the two arms." §
We shall shortly behold a Spaniard, guilty of blasphemies against
the Trinity uttered in France, ask of Calvin, not some bread and
water, but a shirt, as a change for the one on his body, and which the
vermin are devouring, and Calvin will ansAver : No.||
Most of the patients subjected to the torture, "on recommendation of
M. CoUadon," as we read in the registers of the city, acknowledged
the real or false crimes, of which they were accused, and passed from
the fiery chamber to their punishment. But justice liad not finish-
ed with them : she often seized upon the headless trunk, and suspended
it at Champel, and nailed up the head on the highway. At times, but
rarely, she took a notion to be merciful, and her pity causes horror.
John Roset, under the violence of his tortures, acknowledged the adul-
♦See chapter entitled : Litekary Friendships.
t 22 Janvier 1543. Reg. de la ville.
:j:Not. Geneol. Article CoUadon, p. 566, t. 11.
i) A. Bullinger. — Manusc. gen.
11 See chapter entitled : Servetus.
LIFE or JOHM GALVIU. 367
tery of which he was accused ; one of the judges experienced some re-
morse of conscience, and obtained a commutation of punishment. The
decree ran : John Roset has merited death with the halter ; the council
shows him favour. He shall be scourged through the city, have his
feet chained with an iron chain, and be put in prison for ten years ;
afterwards, be perpetually banished from the city, under penalty of
two hundred florins or crowns fine, for which he shall give security.*
These torments and punishments had affected all hearts at Geneva ;
but they wiped away their tears ; for, had they wept, they would have
been denounced to Calvin. Some verses were put into circulation,
in which the judges and executioner were devoted to the wrath of God.
The police seized upon them, and noted in them several infernal here-
sies. Three citizens, suspected of occupying themselves with religious
poetry, were cast into prison. CoUadon, who had tortured them, ac-
cording to his custom, concluded that they should suffer "the pain of
death." But the poets did not die ; they were condemned to make the
aniende honorable, with torch in hand, and to cast their heterodox in^
spirations into the flames.
CoUadon, who did not believe that God, in his mercy, wished to save
sinners, treated his prisoners as so many damned souls. If they refused
to confess their crime, he said : the finger of satan is here ; and he had
the criminal shorn, and again subjected him to the torture, persuaded
that the devil was concealed in the hair of the sufterer.
Do not fear that Calvin will cry mercy, in behalf of the victim. If
he descend into the lion's den, called the question chamber, it is not in-
order to say to the executioner : enough ! but coldly to write to Bullin-
ger : *' I should never have done, were I to refute all the idle stories
which are circulated in my regard. . . . They say that unhappy per-
sons have been forced to confess, under the torture, crimes, which, af-
terwards, they disavowed. There are four of them, it is true, who, at
the moment of dying, changed some trifling things in their first avowals;
but that torments constrained them to lie to God, this is not so." Do
you recognize the student of Noyon, who, by the dead body of his child,
wrote to his friend : — Do come, we shall chat together?
The whole study of the man, who calls himself minister of a God
of mercy, is to invent new crimes, in order undoubtedly, to resemble
that being, whom he presents to us in his book of predestination, impell-
ing his creatures to evil, and afterwards smiting them, in order to dis-
play his justice. The councils themselves, the pliant instruments of
Calvin, grew weary of beholding blood flow ; they dreaded lest it should
cry to God; and, on the 15th of November, 1560, they decided that
the new decrees, ''regarding debauchery, adultery, blasphemy, and con-
tempt of God," added to his Draconian code, ''seemed to some per-
sons to be too severe, and ought to be revised and moderated, and after-
wards be in general presented." The civil power was visited by a
good thought, of which it should be proud ; but it dreaded to proclaim
it, for fear of offending Calvin, and attributed it to *'same persons," as
if it was afraid to accept the responsibility.
♦ Registres de la ville»
358 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Ah ! the reformation is at least just for once ; to-day it dares bran:d
Calvin, and laud the Catholicism of ancient Geneva, **where the laws
were so mild, the creeds which dishonored other countries less sought
after, torture scarcely ever applied, the confiscation of property abolish-
ed; where you will find none of those monstrous prosecutions for opin-
ions, or of those frightful punishments inflicted on unhappy persons,
suspected of dealings with the devil."*
At Geneva, previously to the reformation, sorcery was not punished
by death; the sorcerer was prosecuted before the tribunal, and banished
from the city. In 1503, the council declared to a certain magician
that, if he did not leave the canton, they would drive him away with
blows of the cudgel. f Calvin instituted punishment by fire against
sorcery ; he stigmatized it as the highest degree of treason against God.
In the space of sixty years, as shown by the registers of the city, one
hundred and fifty individuals were burned for the crime of magic. "We
do not understand," says a minister of Berlin, "how it was, that Calvin,
who had such an affectionate heart, and also Beza, have not protested
against a legislation so cruel ?"J And some lines farther on, this same
historian tells us, that Calvin's laws "are not written with blood, like
those of Draco, but with a red-hot iron."
In this legislation, there are not only blood and fire, but all things
else that can assist the executioner in the discharge of his office.
It was the duty of the elders, as we have seen, to visit their parish-
ioners, to receive their confessions of faith, to permit them to partake
of the Lord's Supper. Each citizen, that failed to commune during a
year, was exiled from the territory. In 1564, Claude du Rocher and
his son were obliged to offer the amende honorable, at St. Gervais, be-
cause, on Pentecost day, instead of listening to the sermon, they went
to drink and amuse themselves ; and George Druson, pastor of the vil-
lage of Moens, was deposed, both for his avarice, and for his bad man-
ner of preaching. Some of these elders, real spies of the consistory,
at length began to blush at the task which Calvin had imposed on
them, and withdrew, "loving rather," says Cayer, "to see persons go
and voluntarily confess to the priest, than to be spying and eves-drop-
ping at doors, in order to denounce some word, spoken possibly under
irritation, by a husband to his wife, or before every body. For all this
is related to the consistory, so that it is a real Spanish inquisition. "§
Cayer adds, thai "these elders were wont to inquire into every par-
ticularity which they could imagine, even as to the beds."
An ecclesiastical ordinance imports "that no one shall remain three
entire days in bed, without giving notice to the minister of his quarter,
that those consolations and admonitions may be obtained, which are
then more than ever necessary." The refractory patient who recover-
ed his health, and also his nurses, in case of disobedience, were repri-
* J. Fazy, p. 185, t, I. t Picot., 270, t. II. .,
\ Auffallend ist es in der That, dasz Calvin, der gutherzig, freundlich unii
zartfiihlend war, ebenso auch Beza, sich noch nicht so weit durchgearbeite't
hatten, urn gegen jene strengen Gesetze zu protestiren.— Paul Henry, t. U»
p. 75.
k Picot, t. II, p. 273.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 35&
manded, and subjected to fine. The sermons were frequent, and it
was necessary to assist at them, under penalty of corporal punishment.
Three children, who had left preaching to go and eat cakes, were
scourged publicly.
Calvin, Abel Poupin, Michael Cop, treated the libertines, in other
words, the liberals of the epoch, "as villains, scoundrels, rascals, dogs;
their wives and sisters as ; the emperor, their sovereign, as ver-
min ; their father and mother, as agents of satan."* "Whilst Calvin,
with the tongue of a trooper, was insulting his enemies, the peasants,"
adds the same writer, "were not allowed to speak impolitely to their
oxen. A farmer, who had sworn at his oxen in the plough, because
they would not puli, was immediately dragged into the city, by two
refugees, who, concealed behind a hedge, had overheard him."t
The city was thronged with spies, who denounced to the consistory
the blasphemies, impious words, and libertine expressions which they
had heard. One day, a mason, who fell down exhausted, exclaimed :
Let the work and the master go to the devil ! He was summoned be-
fore the consistory, and condemned to the dungeon for three days4
Calvin had numbered among sins of blasphemy, all railleries against
the French refugees, whom he wished to be regarded as martyrs of the
gospel.
Games, of cards, dice, and nine-pins were prohibited : the iron collar
was put upon the gamester by profession. The consistory made crimes
out of the most innocent amusements, and interdicted certain young
persons from the Lord's Supper, for having, on the Epiphany, drawn
lots in the game of the kings.
The council excommunicated a young girl, who, one evening had
disguised herself in male attire, as also her mother, for having al-
lowed her to do this. It exiled a woman for having sung profane songs
to the tune of a psalm ; imprisoned a man, with whom the tales of
Poggio were discovered; condemned Amadis de Gaul, "because many
read this work, although in it there is nothing but dissolute and wicked
things :" and at a later period, threw Henry Estienne into prison, "for
having printed a book full of things scandalous, and unworthy of a
christian, and for having been wanting in respect to M. de Beza, who
reproached him for the abuse he made of his talents, and for his bad
reputation, being commonly termed the Pantagruel of Geneva, and the
prince of atheists ; finally, for having said, that, to please the consisto-
ry, a person should be a hypocrite. "§
Calvin finally ended by refusing a serious struggle with ideas too
hostile to his doctrines. When Servetus had been burned, some Pro-
testants secretly printed a book "regarding the non-combustion of here-
tics : De non comburendis hcBreticis." He had just published a pam-
phlet concerning the necessity of killing blasphemers with the sword
or fire, among whom he placed the papist, in the first rank. To please
God, he would have thrown his benefactor, the abbe d'Hangest, into
* Galiffe, Preface, p. xix, t. I.
t lb., p. XXV, xxvi.
I Registres, 13 mars 1559.
4 Registres, 13 mai 1580.
360 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the flames. This book, then, had agitated the theological world; and,
you will admit, that the question was of sufficiently grave importance,
where the life ot* a man was at stake. Calvin treats it with a proud
disdain, as if it meriled no concern.
" I will say to you, in one word, that their arguments agree together
like cats and dogs, as their own books manifest. Except, that on one
thing they have conspired together, that heretics ought not to be punish-
ed ; and this, in ordtir that they may vomit forth whatsoever pleases
them ; for such people would be glad there was no law or restraint in
the world. Behold, why they have concocted this fine book : De non
comburendis hareticis, in which they have falsified the names of as
many cities as persons ; not for other cause, than that said book is
crammed full of insupportable blasphemies, and they go so far as to
say, that if Jesus Christ wished all to be punished who shall have blas-
phemed, he would be a second idol of Moloch. I let rest, their beau-
tiful maxim, that every contrary dispute should be tolerated, because
there is nothing determined and certain, but that the scripture is a nose
of wax."*
In 1538, as we must remember, a preacher presented himself to Lau-
sanne, at that time Catholic, and said to the canons of the cathedral: —
I wish a discussion. The canons answered : — In whose name do you
come ? The preacher said : — hi the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Gbsst . — The canons, subject to the authority of
the bishop, told him : — We will consider. The minister flew into a
passion, and pretended that Christ, whose kingdom had been founded
by the word, ought to be glorified by the word, and that it was necessa-
ry to allow every oral debate. This minister was Farel, who wanted
to argue concerning the Trinity, baptism, and the Eucharistic sacra-
ment. In 1555, Calvin, the theocrat, scarcely deigns to enter the lists
with those who offer him a theological combat. f
• Manus. de Geneve, 20 fdvrier. 1555.
t With regard to the dogmatic influence of Calvin, the reader may consult
the little work of M. John Gaberel : Calvin at Geneva, p. 78-79, and concem-
ing his theocratical ideas, the Christian Institutes, 1. 3, ch. 4, \ 14. — L. 4, ch,
3, § 4.— L. 2, ch, 8, ^ 46, etc.
CHAPTER XXXVe
THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE,— 1543— 1547.
THE LIBERTIXES. THE PAMPHLETS. THE REFUGEES, THE INFORMERS,
THE LIBESTIN^S.
Calvin, master of Geneva, first makes war upon freedom of intellect.— The
patriots chastised. -*=CaIvin struggling with the Libertines. — What we are to
understand by this denomination. — The philosophic system attributed to
them by the reformer. — It is almost entirely extracted from Servetus. — No
trace of it is found in the history of the Libertines. — Open war declared
against them by Calvin.
When the reformation had succeeded to expel 1 Catholicism from
Saxony, it imagined that the hour of repose had arrived, and for a mo-
ment it lulled itself to sleep in its triumph. When the tempest was
menacing the church that he had just founded, Luther, at the Wart-
bourg, was amusing himself with hunting the birds of heaven. Eman-
<;ipated thought, seated amid the ruins of the ancient religion, undertook
to scrutinize the mission of the man, who had scattered these ruins
around him, and it discovered that the Saxon evangelist had revealed
only imperfect truths to the world. In the very same book which Lu-
ther had cast it for food, it read the signs of the speedy fall of the word
of Wittenberg. Then appeared Anabaptism, which, in virtue of the
Protestant principle, came to demand protection for its word. But
Luther, without permission of the elector, broke through his bounds,
left his Patmos, descended from the airy region of the birds, and mount-
ed the pulpit, to hurl his thunders at the new prophets. The Anabap-
tists, routed and dispersed, rallied on a foreign territory, which they
filled with trouble, as Luther had Saxony. Some of them, in their
flight, came even to Geneva. In the first portion of this history, we
have seen how they were driven away. They were not even allowed
to defend their doctrines.*
In the face of these souls, so greedy of novelties, tormented with
such curious desires, and so inquisitive after new truths, Luther had, as
* See chapter entitled : The Anabaptists. Camerarius, in his life of Me-
lancthon, speaking of these heretics, says: "Non habeo pro certo dicere, ubi
locorum et quibus maxime auctoribus secta ista furiosa exorta sit. Hospinian,
in his history of the Sacramentarians, is more candid. He acknowledges
that this sect was the offspring of Luther.
31
362
LIFE OF JOHN CALVINo
a reproach, cast the epithet, Schwaermer, which, in the Teutonic lan-
guage, signifies : men of trouble and disorder, who lose themselves m
mists ; adventurous spirits, who believe in the existence of no world
that ibey have not discovered; intellects steeped in pride. Anabaptists,
and iconoclasts. Hence, with the brand upon their foreheads, these inno-
vators were tormented by the civil power, and excommunicated by the
church, wherever they appeared.
Calvin, also, had ransacked the French language, for an expression
calculated to brand his political or religious adversaries, and had found
that of Libertine, an ancient term, which, with its twofold significa-
lion, sometimes designated the being that moves along with the head
bowed down to earth, and sometimes the being that boldly gazes upon
the heavens, in order to mock at Him who dwells there : the brute^
and the demon.
We have contemplated the struggle of the Genevese against the
house of Savoy, the destinies of which were by no means so interwoven
with those of the episcopacy, that it was necessary to sacrifice the priest-
liood in order to save the national franchises. Geneva might have
preserved the bond of spiritual unity, even after the fall of the dukes;
but the people, bewildered by the predications of French apostates,
beheld in the episcopacy a faction, hostile to the rights of the commune.
In breaking to pieces the crozier, which had so effectually protected
them, they imagined that they were saving their liberties. This was
an ingratitude which merited chastisement, and Calvin was the man
chosen by God to inflict it.
The fir^i act of a despotism, which, to consolidate its power, was not
even to recoil from bloodshed, was the creation of a tribunal of morals;
a living inquisition, in which individual conscience is at the mercy of
certain informers, decorated with the name of elders, whose duty it is
to discharge the office of the daughters of Lot before the consistory.
Under the episcopal administration, interior faith had never been dis-
quieted; and the priest at the altar, did not, like Calvin, designate with
his finger, the christian not worthy of approaching the sacraments.
Calvin, from the pulpit, pursued his enemies by mockery, irony, or
insult ; in the council, by excommunication ;* out of the temple, by the
aid of valets, who played the part of decoy agents. The Genevan was
condemned to be present at the preaching of the ministers, and to listen
to their tirades against the papacy. If he wished not to be damned, be
liad to believe in Calvin's providence, that cruel mother, who gives birth
to her children in order to doom them to the punishment of fire. Ha
could no longer possess images, without incurring the penalty of idola-
try. The number of dishes at his meals was fixed, the form of his
shoes prescribed, and also the head-dress of his wife. He was not al.
lowed to dance in the long evenings of winter, to drink wines that
were too spirituous, to play at cards, or to clothe himself in too gay a
fashion. In the temple, he was compelled to keep his eye cast down,
* The consistory had the right only to reprimgnd ; that of excommunication
was reserved to the council. Registers of the state council of the republic,
1543, 19th March. At a later period, the consistory done had the right to
excommunicate.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIX. 363^
and be careful not to give rein to his mirthful nature, when Poupin
preached, or Calvin lavished the names of scoundrels before his audi-
tors. If he said raca to a French refugee, he was called before the
consistory to be reprimanded; for the refugee, under Calvin's wing,
had become a man of God. Confession had been abolished ; but he
was obliged, at any hour of the day, to receive an inquisitor, whose
office it was to denounce to the tribunal of morals, every murmur against
Calvin, every secreting of images or papistical books, all too noisy
clattering of glasses, all profane songs.
Open the state registers, and you will read ;
''Prohibition made to men to dance with women, to wear embroider-,
ed stockings, or flowered breeches." — Registers, 1552, 14th July.
•' Sponsors must not retire till after the baptism and the sermon, un-
der penalty of five sols fine; on the occasion of the sponsorship, they
can go to no other expense, under penalty of paying double the amount
to the hospital." September 30th, 1550.
" Three companions, tanners, put for three days in prison on water,
for having, at breakfast, eaten three dozen meat pies (pates): which is a
great dissoluteness." 13th February, 1558.
In order to deceive Calvin's inquisitorial eye, Geneva made herself a
caviller. During the whole life of the reformer, you will not perceive
one ray of light illumine this unhappy city. When all the cities of
Germany and Italy were awaked by the concerts of the muses, Geneva
remained plunged in a scholastic darkness, of which they would have
made sport at Cologne.
During revolutions, there are some who allow themselves to be borne
along upon any current which God invests with force enough to carry
them, never troubling themselves about the rocks against which they
may be dashed to pieces, nor about the port at which they may be land-
ed : the future is in the hands of the Lord, and it is no concern of theirs.
When despotism appears, such organizations become the property of
the person that has energy enough to make himself feared : their God
is necessity. But ever, by the side of these degenerate individuals, are
placed, for the honor of humanity, spirits which make no compromise
even with force ; who may be killed, but not subdued, and who, like
the ancient gladiators, die with their eyes looking up to heaven. The
libertines belonged to this class of privileged beings, whom the histo-
rian is delighted to encounter, in order to give dramatic interest to his re-
cital. It is less our task to vindicate their memory, than to manifest with
what energy they combated for Genevese liberties : the real girondists of
the reformation, who, like those of the convention, nearly all paid the
price of deceptive illusions, with their blood or with exile. Their strug-
gle with Calvin was not only protracted, but pregnant with lessons
which should not be allowed to perish.
We have seen that the first care of the exile, after his return from
banishment, was to chain and shackle conscience. He desired first to
make himself master of the intellect; the soul subjugated, there re-
mains only the body, which, then, can easily be conquered. Had he,
like an ordinary despot, made his first assault upon material organi-
zation, he would have failed: for the sword of the libertines had achiev-
364
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
ed SO many heroic deeds, that the contest might have been uncertain.
Luther, before arraying the Saxon population against the peasants of
Thuringia, essayed to injure their cause at the tribunal of God. He rep-
resented these rustics as so many degraded beings, who had vowed them-
selves to satan. His voice aroused from their lethargy the prince electors,
who seized their arms, and drenched the plains of Franconia with ple-
beian blood. The subdued revolt was branded with the guilt of blas-
phemy. And then was heard a voice, exclaiming : " Give straw to
the peasants." It was the voice of doctor Martin.*
Calvin proceeded after the same sort against the libertines, and be-
gan by calumniating them in their private life.
If we listen to him, *' A sect has been established at Geneva more
immoral than all those that have desolated the church of Christ."t Its
grand chimera is liberty, not a liberty according to God, but one entire-
ly worldly, revolt against law erected into a system : carnal souls, de-
sirous to pass for pure essences, and whose speech affects the very form
of clouds and dreams; Cerdonites, who admit a twofold principle, and
deny the resurrection ; disguised Marcionites, Gnostics, and Maniche-
ans, who, out of shreds and patches stolen from the ancient heresies^
have fashioned a symbol; mocking spirits, who laugh at every thing,
call St. Luke "a broken pot, St. Peter a renouncer of God, St. Johii
a wanton stripling, and St. Mathew a usurer." Study their doctrines,
and you will find no breath of life in them; they are like old women,,
discoursing about the courses of the planets, and desirous to regulate
the march of the sun. " Duplicity of speech is their article of faith :
they wish to bamboozle the world with absurd and dangerous follies.
To hear them speak, or rather, mutter, is like listening to the German
chant : as if the tongue had not been created by God to express thought;
as if it were not perverting God's order, to beat the air with confused
sounds, which no one could understand, or to circulate their ambiguities-
with the ale-can,, for the purpose of setting their auditors to dreaming.
To treat of the mysteries of God, the scripture is our rule ; the Lord ac-
commodates himself to ouE littleness, like a nurse prattling with her
child."
Libertinism, seeking to elevate itself to the purest spiritualism, now,
floats away in space, where no human eye can follow it, again, plunges,
into the deepest mire of impurity. Its dogma is, that "in God there is
one Spirit, which lives in all his creatures, that every thing created
comes from God, and is God himself" The devil, in the notion of the
libertines, is the world and sin : therefore,, there is no demoniacal or
angelical individuality. Also, evil is only a mere negation ; the hu-
man soul, a portion of matter or of the world, is mortal and perishable..
There is but one spirit, that which fills matter ; alone, active, living,
prolific ; that, which necessarily existed from all eternity, and, in itself,
contains every cause and effect. There exists no other being, but God
only ; there is no human morality, no justice, no. society ; hence ffow
♦See Luther's life, — chapter entitled : The Peasants.
t In quibus veteresomnes q,uantumvis portentosqe reuavatse suat hg^reses.-**-
Beza, Vita Calvini,
Lir^ OF JOHN CALVTN. 365
these theorems ; God and the devil are one and the same entity : con-
science is a vain word, sin, an absurdity : every thing is in God, every
thing is God. In this fantastical system, there is no such thing as revela-
tion or Christianity; Christ is no other than this spirit infused into us and
the creation ; " wtiat he has suffered is but a fable, or morality acted, in
order to figure to us the mystery of our salvation." Christ is in them,
they are Christ, and can no longer suffer, because every thing is accom-
plished. The resurrection of the soul by faith, is a mere nonsense.
Man here is in a state of primitive innocence, and cannot sin. For
these sectaries there exist no human laws ; each member of civil socie-
ty need obey no other inspiration except that of the spirit. Marriage,
being but a carnal bond, can be broken, united, multiplied, at will ;
there is but one entirely mystic union, — that of the spirit. All the
goods of this earth ought to be possessed in common. Liberty will al-
low no other limits. There will be no resurrection of matter, the spirit
is absorbed in God.
Here we have a philosophic system precisely defined ; but where has
Calvin discovered it ? None of the libertines, whom he so zealously
pursued, has left a written confession. If you follow them to the con-
sistory, you will never hear them make a profession of faith. When
banished from Geneva, they form alliance with no sect, and no where
endeavour to propagate their symbol; when they die on the scaffold,
they invoke the name of liberty, this is their last cry. Schrceckh,
Planck, and Paul Henry have been unable, in the numerous prosecu-
tions of the libertines which they have examined, to find a single reli-
gious thought regarding dogma. More fortunate than they, we have
discovered this pantheistic symbol in the works of Servetus, and it was
thence Calvin drew it, in order to attribute it to the libertines. The
same God, the same nature, the same universal spirit, diffused through
plants, the air, water, and all organized nature ; God made man,
man made God; good and evil, devil and angel, spirit and body,
constituting but one substance with various attributes or modes of
existence. In order thus to invest thought with a sensible form, one
must have an intellect accustomed to sport with philosophical ab-
stractions. Now, at Geneva, there was no one among the libertines
who had devoted his life to such speculations. Long since, the liber-
tine who should have invented this system, would have shown himself;
we should have seen him, at the moment of the reformation, disputing
with the Catholic priest. But no one except Farel makes a figure in
theological discussions. Thus, it was in the book of a man, whom he
was to consign to the flames, that Calvin, in order to blast the character
of his enemies, sought for a system of which they had not the slightest
notion.* If it be pretended that he has merely reduced to a general for-
mulary the principles, Avhich, in his civil or religious administration,
he found spread around him ; we shall ask hov/ such doctrines were
kept hid so long from public view ? If they existed previously to the
reformation, let them put us upon their track, let them show us their
genesis. After our eye shall have contemplated this, still other ques.
♦ See chapter entitled : Michael Servetus.
31*
366 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN,
tiona will remain. How happened it, that this Catholic priest, whont
you represent as so intolerant, never prosecuted ideas so hostile to social
order ? But the Catholic priest is guilty neither of intolerance nor
apathy. If these speculations have not been invented by Calvin, they
are the ofifspring of the piinciple of the reformation. As Erasmus has call-
ed upon Luther to be answerable for the follies of Carlstadt, we have the
right to make Calvin responsible for these monstrous fancies ; whether
they be considered as a simple accident in the religious life of the Gene-
vese population, reduced to a system by the reformer ; ox referred to as
an organized revolt against the christian society.
But whom will they induce to believe that persons, whose chief
crime is a refusal to believe in Calvin's infallibility, represent Cerdon,
Manes, or Marcion ? that ladies who persist in wearing shoes after the
fashion of Berne, are lovers of their own bodies ? that the Genevese
youth, who amuses himself at supper with laughing at the figure of
Calvin, is a heretic, preaching the doctrine of a community of goods ?
that the merchants of the Moulard, who so sincerely hate the French
refugee, are pantheists ? that labourers, who know not how to read, are
believers in a God, that is at the same time man, plant, flower, angel,
and demon ?
The libertines may possibly have carried to excess the sentiment of
free-will ; irritated by the violence of Calvin, they may have organized
against him a systematic opposition ; and to overthrow the minister and
the tribune, they may have' exaggerated the democratic and religious
principle. But who will believe that a faction sought to obtain power
by libertinism and hypocrisy ? Born in a monarchical country, Calvin
did not understand the Genevese people. He had spent the first years
of his life at Paris, under a government, the feudal forms of which had
seduced his very practical spirit. Having rejected divine right as a
source of power, he believed, as remarked by an historian,* in absolute
doctrines, the empire of which none but chosen intellects had the voca-
tion to establish. In this system, although truth is supposed to belong-
to the community, the manifestation of the principle belongs only to a
small number of beings, the envoys of God. Such is the theory which
he desired to reduce to practice at Geneva. We have already seen how
incorrect it was to call Luther the representative of civil liberty : Cal-
vin is still a greater despot than the Saxon monk. Both, after having
emancipated the human mind, repented of their work, and sought to
withdraw the gift, which, under an impulse of egotism, they had bestow-
ed upon man. Their doctrines regarding grace and justification are
thoroughly aristocratic. What is Luther's God, who impells man to
crime ; or Calvin's God^ who predestines him to hell from all eternity?
Blind gods, made after the image and likeness of the reformers. What
is to be said of that heaven, of that abode constructed by John of
Noyon, towards which the soul in vain endeavours to lift itself on the
wings of prayer, of mediation, or of good works, as if salvation were
not offered to all, and depended not on their free choice.
t Jamas Fazy, Essai d'un precis de I'histoire de la repub-lique de Geneve,
t. I, p. 274.
LIFI OF JOHN CALVIN. 367
Nor did Calvin seem to comprehend that every revolution is a pro-
gress for good or bad. When he had started revolt upon its march, he con-
ceived a strange idea ; he wished to replunge into servitude the people
whom he had emancipated ; to repress the spirit of investigation which
he had developed ; to create a theocracy on the ruins of the sacerdotal
empire; to give a symbolical book to a nation which, without exami-
nation, had rejected the catechism of the Catholic church. How shall
the child of Geneva, with his hot blood, clothe himself with the warm
under-jacket of the son of the north, and voluntarily subject himself to
that Spartan puritanism, the austerities of which were purposely ex-
aggerated by the reformer, in order to influence the neighbouring popu-
lations, by the example of a city, which, without a murmur, accepts all
the rules of cenobitical life ?
In order to struggle against the exigences of the people, there was
needed a privileged organization, which was destitute of fear in the face
of danger, without pity for humanity, without concern for human life,
liberty and conscience ; one, that, in case of need, could transform
every religious thought, which was too bold, into a blasphemy, every
murmur into open rebellion, every free speech into an outrage upon
morals; a magistrate, who, as means of punishment, had at his service,
reprimands, excommunication, exile, the prison, and death. Now,
Calvin was the only man adequate to play such a part.
Luther would not have had the perseverance necessary to fill it;
sooner or later, he would have come into collision with the popular
wrath, and been broken to pieces. With his ardent instincts, he would
have allowed his soul to be read ; a man of the south, under a northern
envelope, he is armed with the lion's claw or tooth ; Calvin, hides un-
der the skin, and distills the venom, of the serpent.
At the very threshold of this dramatic struggle, we must bear in mind
the springs, which, at Geneva, set in motion the republican element :
The general council, in which the people elected their sj^dics;
The syndics, who chose the members of the council of tlie Fifty, or
the small council ;
The Two Hundred, who had a right of exclusion in the council of
the Twenty-five, or the strict council, a fraction of the council of the
Fifty.*
Now, outside these powers, Calvin created one, designed, in conse-
quence of the pastoral organization which he gave it, to absorb all the
rest. We have seen of what elements he had formed it : it was a theo-
cracy, in which every inferior intellect was to obey the powerful spirit
that set it to work. His consistory is far more despotically organized
than the police of Madrid. If necessary, Calvin could dispense with
the employment of concealed informers in order to become acquainted
with the secrets of families; he has spies openly recognized, who, in
virtue of a law of the state, can, once a week, introduce themselves
into the most mysterious sanctuary, in order afterwards to give an ac-
count, to the tribunal, of every thing that their eyes or ears shall have
♦ J. Fazy, Essai d'un precis de I'histoire de la republique de Geneve,
t. I, p. 216.
368 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
perceived or divined. These informers do not, as at Madrid and Ven-
ice, swear upon the cross to speak tlie truth. The denunciation made,
they do not depart; but they go and take their seat among the judges,
in face of the criminal whom they have denounced. Their name is not
a disgrace, it is taken from the New Testament ; the Apostle St. Paui
has baptized them with the title of elders. The fines, which the victim
is condemned to pay, serve to pay for each vacation of the tribunal.
Search as much as you please, and you will never come across a nation
which has thus delivered up its liberties to a stranger. In this sacerdo-
tal government, every thing is extraordinary; especially strange is the
figure of the hieropliant, who, in his cold impassibility, is like the
Egyptian priest ; for the ironical smile that plays round his lips, like
the Roman soothsayer ; and for an indescribable mingling of cruelty
and mockery, like the political inquisitor of Venice. During these
times of calamity, when every thing in the city seems smitten by the
hand of death, the consistory alone lives and moves. With difficulty
can it endure the labour of hearing those denunciations which weekly
are spread before it by the elders. During a single year, more than
two hundred cases, instituted for blasphemies, calumnies, libertine
speeches, outrages on morals, outrages upon Calvin, offences against the
ministers, observations against the F'rench refugees, were brought before
the council at the instance of the consistory.
Among the regulations which Calvin causes to be received, there is
one which strikes with interdict the taverns, where the people, even
under the rule of the bishops, had been accustomed to assemble to dis-
cuss matters of business. No asylum is left, where they can meet to-
gether, to draw closer the bonds of a common brotherhood, or protest
against oppression. They had silently to swallow the outrage offered
to all their instincts. Did they attempt some timid laughs, some tepid
mockeries, some inoflensive allusions, punishment followed immediate-
ly. The amende honorable, proclaimed aloud, beneath the open sun-
light, made the name of the criminal a bye-word through the city ; and
on the following Sunday, the minister from his pulpit, in God's name,
smote the unliappy wretch, who had already been branded by the hand
of human justice.
The libertines did not become discouraged ; but the struggle was un-
equal ; they could not assemble together in order to concert their mea-
sures of attack. If, on a feast day, they met each other at table, they
bad to look round them with caution ; for often, the host was a man
sold to the police of the reformer. The right of excommunication, at
first left to the council, afterwards passed into the hands of the pastors;*
this w^as lor Calvin a great victory.
At this epoch, but one means of success remained for the patriots :
this was, by their influence in the council, to procure one of those
grand assizes, where the people in general assembly might renew the
representative element. But the reformer had foreseen every thing ;
and as he had erected a sacerdotal power, independent of the constiiiv
tional authorities, he wished, by an introduction of foreign influences,
* Gaberel, Calvin k Gendve, p. 98.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 369
to corrupt the popular element, and, in the general council, to create
for himself a majority, like that which he possessed already in the infe-
rior councils. With adroit perseverance, he will endeavour to execute
this design.
THE PAMPHLETS.
Calvin preaches revolution by means of his pamphlets. — The Nicodemites. —
Political character of the Excusatio ad Fseudo-Nlcodemitas.* — Case of con-
science variously resolved by the Protestant churches. — Literary form of
Calvin's libel against the Nicodemites. — Letter to Luther. — Melancthon re-
tains it. — Calvin's anger against Luther. — Sadolet an idolater.
Calvin wanted to constitute Geneva a focus of propagandism. On
his return from Strasbourg, he began to celebrate the faith of all those
fanatics, who, at Paris, Lyons, and in some other of the larger cities of
the kingdom, demanded liberty of conscience, while pillaging our
churches, laying waste our monasteries, and killing our priests. If
some of these seditious persons fell by the sword, Calvin, Beza, or
Crespin had a crown ready prepared for the brow of the martyr. The
reformation was bold enough to give lessons to the civil power, and
with the Bible in hand, it maintained that the magistrate had no
right to punish the obstinate heretic with death. All the sectaries were
encouraged by this doctrine. We should see in Calvin's letters with
what ardour he urges persons to rebellion, by the promise of celestial
rewards. What a picture does he present of the constancy of those
souls blinded by his writings, who rush upon death without having
comprehended a single item of the Genevese symbol ! He wished to
have it believed that Henry [I., was another Domitian, and the king-
dom of France, a vast funeral pile into which the disciples of Jesus
were cast, as at Rome under the emperors.
" Behold the flames of persecution enkindled in France ! Let us
pray for our brethren." Immediately he transforms the Parisians into
a race of cannibals, who chant their savage songs around the stake.
"The Frenchman, says he, is a furious fool ; f He must needs behold
with his own eyes the punishment of two of our brethren ; may God
* Calvin's first treatise against the Nicodemites, or indifferentists, was pub-
lished 1544. His letter to the faithful of Rouen, is a reply to the production
of a Franciscan in favour of the libertines. Farel was desirous of assisting
his compatriot in this struggle, and, in 1550, published a pamphlet under the
title: "The sword of the true word unsheathed against the shield of defence^
of which a Franciscan wanted to avail himself to approve his false and damna-
ble opinions." Geneva: printed by John Gerard, the same who had printed
the Excusatio ad Nlcodemitas.
t Dira nunc in ilia regione persecutio ardet; quare pios fratres precibus nos-
trisjuvemus. Gallus nihilominus insanit. Ipse cum nuper duo exurerentur,
spectator esse voluit. Dominus tarn atrocem ferociam compescat virtute sua.
— MSS. Gen. Jul. 1543. Farello.
370
LIFE OF JOHN CALVINo
appease his rage ! " Would you not say that it is a nation seeking to
wage the battle of the giants against the God of heaven ? And marve.
lous constancy of our brethren ! A thing unheard of, and yet of which
the king has just been witness ! A christian exposed himself to martyr-
dom, in order to be able to cast three words of Christ into the face of the
prince, who was contemplating the scene of fire."* On that very day,
he ascended the pulpit, and an unworthy son and citizen, he invoked the
divine wrath upon his country and his king. And observe how great
his injustice and ingratitude ! By an edict of that year, the king, or-
dered the magistrates "to investigate crimes of heresy, and afterwards to
send those found guilty, to the episcopal tribunal," which could not, as is
well known, impose a more severe penalty than that of perpetualim-
prisonment. It is thus that Calvin at the same time corrupts oral tradi^
lion and the living testimony of contemporary history.
In France, his writings excited the people to revolt. That new
symbol, whence confession and good works were banished, as papisti-
cal superstitions, met with success at court. The great seigniors, in
adopting it, began, by dismissing their confessors and almoners : a
double gain for conscience and the purse. Ladies, burdened with
debts of honour, v/ere the most enthusiastic missionaries of the reforma-
tion. Among the courtiers, there were some who found means to re-
tain their posts and renounce their faith. These carnal men assisted
at mass, knelt down, bowed their heads at the elevation, sang at vespers
and assisted at the sermon. Having returned to their lodgings, they
read a chapter from the Bible in French, chanted with their mistresses
one of Marot's psalms, ate meat on days of abstinence, made sport of
the anti-Christ or the Pope at table, never went to confession, and
believed in the efficacy of faith without works. These were politi-
cal Protestants, or Nicodemites as they were called by Beza and Cai-
vin.f
" A question then" says Beza "began to be agitated among certain
persons of qualility who were acquainted with the truth at Paris, for
this cause, that Calvin, knowing how many there were who flattered
themselves in their infirmities, even so far as to defile themselves in the
abominations of popery, had chided them with a spirit somewhat too
bitter for their taste. Some therefore, who have since been called Ni-
codemites, maintained that they could go to mass provided the heart
consented not, and observing, I know not what other conditions ; others,
on the contrary, contended that it was necessary to serve God with
heart and body, and preserve oneself from defilement. This dispute
was the occasion of a man being sent express, not only to Geneva, but
to Strasbourg, and even into Saxony, and all the answers were after-
wards printed together. Now, although in these the Germans accorded
* Gallus itainsanit ut dicasvelle cum Deo gigantum instar confllgere; mira
interim martyrum constantia. Quod regi nunquam acciderat, quidam sponte
in sacrificium se destinavit, ut saltem libero tria verba pro Christo proferret
apud eum, cum ad spectanda incendia properaret. — MSS. Zurich, 15 Aug.
BuUingero.
t In eodem ordine collocabo molles aulicos et domicellas: proinde nesciant
quid sit audire verbum asperius. — Exsusatio ad Nicodemitas, p, 71,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 371
something more than the rest, it was nevertheless with common accord
decreed that no one can serve two masters. This closed the mouths of
all those who sought to cover themselves with a wet sack ; and this
difference proved the cause of a great good, many having resolved to
devote themselves entirely to God, who before lolled in pollution."*
Calvin's two works : De mlandis superstitionibus, and Excusatio
ad Pseudo-Nicodemitas, are not so much controversial works, as po-
litical pamphlets, designed to urge the populations which had abandon-
ed Catholicism, to martyrdom, if they had courage sufficient to confess
their faith ; to exile, if they could not renounce life. At the diet of
Augsbourg in 1530, the Protestant electors, who were robed in vestures
with a ground work of silk lace stolen from our churches, and orna-
mented with the gold of our sanctuaries, dreaded for a time to sully
their robes upon the pavement of a Catholic temple, and appealed to
the great luminaries of the Saxon church to know, whether, in con-
science, they could assist at our ceremonies. Melancthon and Luther
consulted th.e Bible, and responded affirmatively, quoting the example
of Naaman who, from the prophet Eliseus, obtained permission to enter
the pagan temple. t
The Nicodemites in France had propounded the same question ; and
Calvin, like Luther, had interrogated the Bible : but the Bible did not
return the same answer.
To him, the example of Naaman, cited by the Saxon, seems of no
value. "In the New Testament," says he "there is a more beautiful
image which you ought incessantly to keep before your eyes, that of the
holocaust of the seven brothers of the Machabees. What then, he
adds, would you go into a temple entirely defiled with superstitions,
M'here contrary to the text of scripture, they pray for the dead. J
• Bdze, Hist, des Eglises ref.
t Ulenberg, Histoiia de vita et moribus Lutheri, p. 374.
*" To show that prayers for the dead are not allowed by scripture, Calvin
blots from the second book of Machabees two words of the 43d verse of the
12th chapter. It is said : To offer sacrifice for the sins of the dead ; he effaces
*'of the dead,''' {des morts.)
There is one thing greatly needed : a history of the Protestant translations
of the Bible. From 1530 to 1600, they printed in Germany more than twenty
editions of Luther's version, revised, corrected, augmented and curtailed.
After Luther's death, Melancthon, Gaspard Creutzcr, and George Roerer,
revised, corrected, and often altered the doctor's version, as even has been ad-
mitted by Protestant critics themselves. (Sec unsch. Nacii. t. XIX, p. 267-280;
t. XXXIII, p. 170-171.
"There are a great many passages unfaithfully translated in the Protestant
bibles, as can easily be verified, by a comparison of the variations between
the more ancient and recent bibles. The first were the most faithful ; but, in
latter times, Protestants have added to the scripture things in some sort to
authorize their principal articles of faith, seeing that otherwise they could not
uphold them, and they have changed and pruned away, as I have said already,
terms that were contrary to their errors.
"The pretended reformers, to prove the 20th article of their confession of
faith which their church disputes with them, wherein it is said, that man is
justified by faith alone, have falsified the 16th verse of the 2d chapter of 8t.
Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, translating it thus:
" Knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by tbe
fdith of Christ aloneJ*^
372- LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
"If those dead had faith, they are in the bosom of God ; if they be-
lieved not in Christ, they are forever lost ; of vi^hat use are funeral pray-
ers ?"
The style which he employs in his Excusatio ad Pseudo-Nicodem-
" They have added the word alone in all the bibles printed previously to the
Jast century, beginning with that printed at Lyons, in 1551, by de Tournes; in
tliat which was printed also at Lyons, by Barbier and Thomas Courtau, that of
Lucius, in 1563; that of Henry Estienne, also in 1563; that of Perin, in 1574,
and in a great many others, and in fine, all the ancient bibles have not the
word alone, and all the new ones have it.
" The ministers, in order to show that Jesus Christ is not the Saviour of all
men, translated thus the passage of the first Epistle to Timothy, ch. iv, v. 10 :
*' God, who is the preserver of all men, and chiefly of the faithful," in the
bibles of the years 1588, 1605, 1610; whilst in the first version, of 1534, 1535,
1554, 1558, by Robert Olivetan, was read: ^^Saviour of all men, and chiefly of
the faithful,"
" It is to be remarked that the word, employed by St. Paul in this place, is
to be found twenty-five times in the New Testament, and not only in the Vulgate,
but in St. Augustine and the other fathers, tradition always renders it iSaviour^
except in the bibles of 1588, 1605, and 1610, where they have translated it
-preserver,
" To establish the 24th article of their confession of faith, which declares that
the intercession of holy persons departed is but an abuse, a fallacy of satan,
they have^translated : "There is but one only intervener (moyenneur) between
God and men;" whilst, in the bibles of the first and second editions, they
translated with the Vulgate and the ancient fathers : "There is but one Media-
tor (mediateur) between God and men;" whence it may be seen that they
have added the word only, which regards the very point of the controversy.
" The sense of these words of St. Paul, in his second Epistle to the Thessa-
lonians, c, 2d. : "Holdfast the traditions which you have learned either by
word or by epistles," has been changed, the first and second editions agreeing
with the Vulgate and the original text; But Beza, in his edition, printed in
1558, changes the sense, translating: "Keep the doctrine given, which you
have learned by word and epistles."
"He introduces the conjunctive, and, in place of the disjunctive, or ; and to
persuade simple souls that God has prohibited the images of Christ, of the
Blessed Virgin and the saints, in their latter bibles, they make him say in
Deuteronomy, c. v» and Exodus, c. xx: "Thou shalt make no carved images,"
whilst, in their first bibles, printed by de Tournes, in 1557, was read: idols.
Also, they make David say, in Psalm 32, v. 5 : "Thou hast taken away the
punishment of my sin," in the edition of 1588, and the following, in order to
authorize the eleventh article of their confession of faith, which declares that
sin remains as to its guilt; whilst in their first editions, of 1544, was read:
*'Thou hast taken away the guilt of my sin."
"They have also changed the word penance into repentance, to induce be-
lief that all penance consists in repenting, and that there is no obligation to
satisfy for sin, because Christhas satisfied for us, as they say.
" They have done the same with the word tradition, in place of which they
have every where substituted ordinance, in order to be able to reject tradition^
and they have retrenched two words from the 43d verse, 12th chapter of 2nd
Machabees, because in that passage it was manifest that in those times sacri-
fice was offered for the sins of the dead : they translate only : "offer sacrifice
for sin," and cut off* the words, of the dead, because these last words evidently
prove purgatory and prayers for the dead. From the 15th verse of the 16th
chapter of Ecclesiasticus, they have likewise retrenched the word, merit, and
besides, have altered this passage of the first chapter of St. John, v. 12: "But
to all those who received him, he gave power to be made the sons of God."
They unfaithfully translated : "But to all those who received him, he gave
right to be made the sons of God," substituting the word right iox power.'''' —
Reponse aux raisons qui ont oblige les pretendus reformes de se scparcr de
VEgUse, in 12mo. Paris, 1749, p. 183-199.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 3t3
Has, is nearly always ironical : he has thrown aside aristotelian argu-
ment to deal in ridicule. But he is never happy, a smile does not be-
come his face ; his gaity is forced, his pleasantry dull, and his buffoonery
often smells like that of a quack. No one could ever guess to what
the reformer compares the Nicodemites.
" I could not employ a more appropriate comparison than to liken
them to the cleansers of privies; for, as a master cleanser, after having
beenlong practiced in his trade of filth moving, no longer scents the
stench, because he has lost all power of smell, and laughs at those who
stop their noses; so these, being hardened by custom to live in their
filth, imagine themselves dwelling amid roses, and laugh at all who
are offended by the stench, which they no longer smell. And, to car-
ry out the comparison : as the cleansers, with the aid of garlic and
onions, arm themselves against the effluvia, that they may counteract
one offensive smell by another, so these, to prevent themselves from
scenting the bad odours of their idolatry, drench themselves with wick-
ed excuses, and smell like fetid meats, so strongly, that they destroy
every other sense."*
But he soon again resumes his scholastic nature, and turns, and twists
again, the same argument, in order to awaken the souls of the Nico-
demites from a sleep which he declares mortal. At one time, it is fire
and hell, at another, the crown of heaven, and again even worldly im-
mortality, that he invokes in order to conquer christians for the reforma-
tion. He must at every hazard have martyrs or exiles. To some, his
word is offered as a diadem, to others, his city of Geneva as a refuge.
To the family of the Budes, he writes : "If it be not possible for
you to acknowledge Christ as your Saviour, love rather for a short time
to be deprived of your rank by birth, than to be forever banished from
that immortal inheritance to which we are called. Willing or not, if
we budge not from the nest, we must be strangers in this world. But
blessed are those, who declare this in practice, and sooner than destroy
faith, abandon their houses freely, and do not hesitate to sever them-
selves from their earthly comforts, in order to remain in union with
Jesus Christ. For those, who have not experienced the great worth of
Jesus Christ, these things are hard, but for you, who have felt his good-
ness, all the rest should, after the example of St. Paul, be considered
as filth and dung."t
And, as if his words were not sufficiently potent, Calvin wishes to
let them hear the voice of the Saxon apostle, that other Hermann, w^ho,
perhaps will be fortunate enough to arouse, from their lethargy, all these
€Ourtiers, as he did the electors who slept while Munzer's hammer was
resounding in the mines of Suabia.
This was the first time that he wrote to Luther. With his letter, he
* AtquG ut similitudinem ulterius ducam : quemadmodum qui purgandis
cloacis operam locant, cepis, aliis, aliisque grave olentibus cibis tanquam anti-
dotis se muniunt, quo foetorem unum alio propulsent: ita illi ne idololatriee
suae putidum odorem olfaciant, inebriant se quodaminodo putidis excusationi-
bus, quo5 sensum illis olfactus adimunt. — Excusatio ad Nicodemitas, p. 66.
t MSS. of Berne : The letter is signed Charles d'Espeville, one of Calvin's
pseudonvmes.
32
374 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT,
sent his pamphlet on the Nicodemites, and his treatise on scandak,
Melancthon was to transmit the epistle to the doctor. In it, Calvin
conferred on Luther some beautiful names : he called him, illustri-
ous man, glorious minister of Christ, venerable father, -whose under-
standing the Lord governs, and will continue to direct for the welfare
of the church.*
But Melancthon knew Calvin. He had seen him at the diet of
Worms, and he was not to be duped by this sentimental phraseology in
favour of old Martin, whose character the French refugee not long be-
fore had so maliciously vilified at Strasbourg. He doubted that Calvin
had attached to this bouquet of flowery compliments, a selfish petition,
which Luther would not be willing to endorse. At least Melancthon
was candid : he answered precisely, that he had not shown the letter to
his master, who had become suspicious, and who was not willing to
have his name involved in such discussions. f
Some months after, Luther, that glory of Christ, that luminary which
the Lord had caused to shine for the welfare of his church, was no lon-
ger any thino; ''but a Pericles, a fire-brand, a soit of furious fool, who
was exhibiting his freaks before the astonished world, and for whom, he,
Calvin, felt pity. J
The Genevese reformer had one consolation left : he had secured the
-adhesion of Martin Bucer and of Melancthon, those two great lights
of the Protestant school, who allowed Philip of Hesse lo approach the
communion table, while driving thence the Nicodemites for having set
foot in a Catholic church. You are acquainted with the history of
Philip of Hesse. Weary of his garrison mode of life, he one day
wrote to Melancthon and Luther : " Masters, arrange matters; I must
have two wives. The patriarchs bad more than I ask of you." His
letter had been prepared by Martin Bucer. And some weeks after,
Martin Bucer, Philip Melancthon, and Martin Luther, having invoked
the Holy Ghost, replied to Philip of Hesse: — "Let your grace take
two wives, since two are necessary for your grace."
Well, a Nicodemite now seriously writes to Melancthon : — "If 1
go not to mass, and do not assist at the procession of the sacrament,
they will put me to death. "§
Melancthon answers :
There is the rule to teach you what ought to be done. The rule is
* Vale clarlssime vir, prae.^tantissime Christi minister, ac pator mihi semper
honorande. Doniinus te spiritu suo gubernare pergat usque in finem, in com-
mune Ecclesiee suas bonum. The autograph of this letter is no longer to be
found at Zurich.
t D. Martino non exhibui tuam epistolam; multa enim suspiciose accipit, ct
non vult circumferri suas responsiones de talibus qusestionibus quas proposu-
isti — Mel. Epistol., 1545.
t Vester autcm Pericles quanta intemperie ad fulminandum capitur ?... Et
quid in hunc modum tumultuando proficit, nisi ut totus mundus eum furere
judicet ? Me certe qui eum ex animo vereor, veliementer ejus pudet. — Ep.
63, Ed. Amst., p. 33. BuUin., 28 jun. 1545.
J Sed dicat aliquis : Si non accedam ad missas, ad pompas publicas cum
gestatur sacrameiitum, rapior ad supplicium.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 37*5
«ne thing, action is another. The rule is, that sooner than expose
yourself to death, you should abandon those places."*
Another Nicodemite said to Bucer : — *' But Naaman however enter-
ed a pagan temple !"
Bucer answers: — ^'Naaman the Syrian adored in the temple of
Rimon, but he adored the true God."t
Now, to Calvin and Bucer it was manifest, that the God, whom
vSadolet adored in the Catholic temple, was not the true God.
Sadolet was one of those "mass mumblers, who every day sold, for
thirty pieces of copper, what Judas sold but once for thirty pieces of
silver. "J
THE REFUGEES.
The emigrants bring with them to Geneva the vices of great cities. — Bernard
do Seswar. — How Calvin makes use of the refugees. — Perambulating mis-
sionaries.— Colporteurs. — The rights of citizenship degraded, and conferred
ou the creatures of the reformer. — Persecution of the Libertines.
The exhortations of Bucer and Melancthon, Calvin's libels, and the
cigour of the parliaments, induced many from among the French popu-
lations to emigrate. Most of the fugitives came to Geneva to seek a
refuge, where they could find a mild climate, gallic habits of life, and
ardent sympathy. The impulse, which had driven the Germans into
revolt, had extended itself to almost every other nation. In Italy,
Faust and Lelius Socinus renewed the heresy of Arius; in Spain, bold
spirits began to deny the divine word under the very eye of the Inquisi-
tion. It was in the Iberian Peninsula that anti-Trinitarianism was to
have birth, as the Poet says ;
Ed oltra questa nota, il peccadiglio
Di Spagna gli danno anco, che non creda
In unita lo Spirito, il Padre e'l Figlio.
Arlosto.
The exiles brought with them to Geneva equivocal morals, § and
propensities to idleness, to hypocrisy, and to all the vices of largo
cities. Chapels were founded for their especial benefit; that of the
Machabees was given to the Italians. At Notre Dame de la Neuve,
* Regiila est ut potins discedas ex illis locis quam venias ad supplicium.
Consilium Philipp. Melanchthonis, imprinie k la suite de 1' Excvsatlo ad JMco-
demitas, p. lOl.
t Naainan syrus quidem adoravit in templo Rimon, sed Deum verum. — Cons.
Mart. Buceri, p. 109.
tinst. chret., 1. IV, ch. 18, H4.
? " In the sentence of a criminal executed for counterfeiting, they had in-
serted, that he hart withdrawn to Geneva for sake of religion, and went daily
to preaching," and Calvin complains of this, as of a derision against God's
honour, Reg. du Conseil d'Etat, Fragments, p. 18.
376 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
there were sermons in English, at St. Gervais, in Sjiianish, and at Saint-
Germain, in Flemish. Bernardino de Seswar was one of the most cele-
brated Italian preachers.* Calvin greatly eulogized the zeal of this,
refugee, f who had declared a violent war against the Anti-Christ. %.
For the reformer, each emigrant was a conquest. His eye read the
souls of men, and he knew how to discern individual vocations. Du-
ring the morning, he opened for the young of ardent imagination his-
study cliamber, a veritabJe school of calumny against the Catholics. It
was there that Calvin, by torturing the testimony of history, of the
canons, councils, and ancient fathers, ''clipped the wings of the Pope,"^
and proved that Leo X. was by nature very cruel, Clement VII. mucli
addicted to the effusion of human blood, and Paul III. subject to inhu-
man fury ;''|| that all these popes are the Antichrist foretold Iby Daniel,,
and that no sound brain "would dare maintain that the office of bishop
b included in lead and bulls, and much less in that magazine of all
fraud and artifice which they call Rome,"*f The doctor read there
some of his interpretations, for example on Daniel, ch. VI, where he
handles kings nearly in the manner they were treated not long since by
the abbe Gregoire, as "beings, who have nothing human about them, into>
whose faces we should spit, and refuse to obey them."** These
students noted down the words of their master in short hand, aided'
his printers corrected his proofs, and circulated his books. Aided
by these disciples, Calvin became acquainted with the rumours of the-
city, the designs of the libertines, and die progress of opinions. Cer-
tain historians pretend that Nicholas de la Fontaine, who denounced
Servetus to the magistrate of Geneva, belonged to this cohort of fa..
imtical souls who had devoted themselves to the reformer ; others,
v/ith less semblance of truth, find him in the very kitchen of John
of Noyon. These youths, fed every morning on biblical texts, had
a marked advantage over the libertines, who endeavoured to deny
the theological power of Calvin. Some of them, as soon as their reli-
gious education had been completed, went to the neighbouring cities to
propagate and defend the doctrines of their master ; we often meet witii
ihem again in the Huguenot camp of the Baron des Adrets, where they
combat at the same time with the sword and the word. They were
hunters, very skillful in scenting a saint's relic, a pictured antiphonary,
illuminated missals, stained-glass windows of historical value, which
they mercilessly destroyed for the greater glory of the gospel. Our
* M. Bernardino de Seswar, who is a learned man, desires publicly to preach
the word of God in Italian. Resolved to give him a post at St Peter's in the
chapel of the Cnrdinal, for a short time, after which he may be placed at St.
Gervais. Registers, October 13th, 1542.— Picot, 1. 1. p. 391.
t Bernardinus est Bern, de Sesvar, primus pastor eccles.. italicee, quae Gene-
vse, niense oct. 1542, erecta est in gratiam Italorum qui s.e hue, Evangelii eau-
sa, recepernnt. — Gal.
I Epist, Calv. Vireto, oct. 1542. f Inst., 1. IV, ch. 7, ^ 21 .
n Inst., I. IV, c)j. 7, (; 24. 11 Inst., 1. IV, ch. 7, $ 28.
*♦ Reges indigni sunt qui censeantur in hominum numero, adeo ut patius
oporteat conspuere in illorum capita, quam illis parere.. In Dan., cap*, 6„.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. Oil
chapels, crypts, monasteries, at Lyons, and Forez, still bear the traces of
the passage of these Vandals.
In this system of propagandism, vulgar intellects also had their ap-
propriate employment. They were charged with disseminating without
the limits of the territory, heretical pamphlets, which they cast into the
cabins of the poor, into the saloons of the great, and into the counting-
houses of merchants. From the reports of these vagabond colporteurs,
after their return to Geneva, Calvin learned the dispositions of the Ca-
tholic populations and governments, the books that were put to press
by his adversaries, and the exterior influence of the reformed press.*
At the bottom of their packages, these colporteurs concealed "psalms
in rhyme, elegantly bound and gilt," of which they made presents to
young girls. For the most part, they were boys of the printing office,
who, having their heads crammed with texts of scripture, could, in case
of need, sustain, for some time, the burden of a religious discussion ;
like that John Chapot, who "came near routing the whole parliament
of Paris, in a very learned and very holy remonstrance which he made
to the counselors, when permitted to dispute, face to face, with three
doctors of the Sorbonne."t They sold secretly, and often at high
prices, the New Testament, translated according to the taste of the re-
formation, that is, miserably. Having business with the printers of the
larger cities, they carried to the firm of Frellon brothers, at Lyons,
the letters of Charles d'Espeville, the pseudomyme of the reformer, and
brought back to him their answers. There was not a project of
Michael Villeneufve (Servetus,) that Calvin did not know beforehand.
The journeymen printers, who had left Lyons, attracted to Geneva by
the bait of considerable gain, were occupied, at the office of John Gi-
rard, in reproducing the Antidoton adversus articulos facuUatis theolo-
gicm SorbonlccB ; or the Evistola Congratulatoria ad Gab. de Saco-
nay, disgusting, impudent, and snarling libels. Did Calvin's anti-Ca-
iholic whim subside, they set out for Neufchatel, where they printed
the French bible of Olivetan, a pitiful version, which the reformation
had the hardihood to attribute to the Holy Ghost. Most of them married
in Switzerland. The noble title of child of Geneva, so hard to be ac-
quired under the government of the bishops, was given as a recompense
to nearly all the creatures of the theocrat. One day, Calvin, thanks to
the majority he had secured in the small council, caused the right of citi-
zenship to be granted to three hundred refugees,! for the guard and
protectioji of the gooernment, say the city registers, for the shameful
motive of such a measure was not dissembled. The executioner received
citizenship gratis. Every body found his interest in this violation of
the Genevese constitution : the refugees obtained a country, John Lam-
bert, the first syndic, an augmentation of perquisites, and Calvin a ser^
* Florimond de Remond, p, 874. t lb.
X They received in one morning, 300 inhabitants, viz ; 200 Frenchmen, 51
Englishmen, 25 Italians, and 4 Spaniards, so that the antechamber of the
eouiicil could not hold them all. — Registres du conseil d'Etat, fragm. biogr.,
p. 24.
♦ Registres, 13 aoAt 1555.
32
;78
LIFE OF JOHN GALVIN.
vile majority. "Ah! poor Geneva," said Francis Berthelier, ''how-
no w shall thou be defended, should it please the king of France to turn
against us this garrison of his subjects ? Nothing now remains, but to
make a citizen out of him also, and allow ourselves to be driven away
from our firesides by these intruders."*
Thus, at each hour of the day, some shred was torn away from that
ancient banner, which, for so long a period, had protected the citizens
of Geneva. Under their bishops, they had the right to complain, and
to-day, a murmur against the despot is punished as a crime against the
state. Entangled in the inextricable net-work of spiritual regulations,
wiiich the reformer caused to be accepted as laws of the state, they
could neither collect around the family fireside, meet together at the de-
cline of day, nor occupy themselves concerning religious matters.
The penal code was filled with a host of regulations to punish an
equivocal word or gesture. In the strict] councils, filled with the de-
voted creatures of Calvin, the refugees calumniated the patriots ; through
the streets, they paraded, armed ; at the church, they might be seen
to smile when they heard the ministers attack the libertines. The ser-
vice over, woe to the patriot, who, passing by an emigrant, was heard to
murmur a word of contempt ; on the next day, he was compelled to
appear before the council, and was condemned to make the amende
honorable. In the court-yard before the church, Louis B. was heard
to exclaim : " To the devil with all the preachers, after they have eaten
their God, they come here to control us." Two days after, Louis B.
was condemned to ask pardon for having sinned against the honour of
God.
Every one having the heart of a man was incensed. The
patriots numbered their forces, and resolved to save the republic ; but,
to prevent their designs, Calvin had organized an army of spies, almost
the entire of which was recruited from among the refugees.
THE INFOKMERS.
The employment of spy ennobled by Calvin. — The Fox. — Favre. — Dubois,
the bookseller. — The two spies. — The informers at the consistory. — Physi-
ognomy of Geneva. — To what society is reduced by Calvin.
These refugees, for the most part, bankrupts, pickpockets, commer-
cial felons, evaders of justice, blushed at no occupation ; Calvin gave
them the office of informers.
They insinuated themselves into the privacy of families, into the
temple, into the merchant's shop. At nightfall, they went to drink at
t!ie tavern, and brought back to the consistory a report of every thing
they heard; wretches, who for a few Genevese coppers, would have sold
their souls to the devil, and who rented out their eyes and ears at so much
for each denunciation ! Calvin had ennobled this traffic ; he had pro-
• Galiffe, t. Ill, p. 546, 547.
LIFE OF JOII^ CALVIN. 379*
hibited any one to speak evil of the'informer ; to do so, in the language of
the day, was stigmatized as casting opprobrium on Jesus Christ.
From the archives of Geneva, M. Galiffe has copied some recorded
cases, which the historian must gather, in order to make the world ac-
quainted with the man who so long oppressed that city.
September 3d, 1547.— The Fox.
Master Raimond was passing over a bridge, when he heard a voice
exclaim : — I doom to the devil.
— Whom ? asked master Raimond of Dominic Clement.
— It is a girl dooming the soul of the fox to the devil.
Raimond imagines that this is an insult to himself.
— Thou art a fox thyself, said he to Clement, who replied ;
— I am as honest a man as thou, and I have never been driven away
from my country.
Raimond denounces Clement to the consistory, which causes both
parties to be summoned before it, and makes "ample remonstrances"
to Dominic. Dominic wants to say something in self-justification, but
Calvin enjoins him to be silent. " Be silent," does he say to him, "thou
hast blasphemed against God, saying : / have not been banished ; for
such reproaches, offered to a christian, are opprobriums against Jesus
Christ."
Dominic takes fire, and responds arrogantly :
— That they have only examined the witnesses they pleased, and
that too many cavils are adduced against him by the seignior Calvin.
The minister went out irritated.
Afterwards, two women came to the consistory, in order to accuse
Dominic Clement with having beaten his father, and had a child by his
mother-in-law. Colladon and Calvin declared for the torture : but
John Louis, S. de Marnant, pleaded the cause of the accused, and
manifested that the informers had contradicted themselves. Clement
was liberated.
The patriots trembled before a refugee, concealed themselves, and
dared trust no one ; they bolted the doors of the taverns where they
went in the evening to drink; but the walls had eyes and ears. The
informers, encouraged, recompensed, honoured, were every where :
espionage had becom-C a dignity.
At times, certain persons undertook to blush, on instituting a com-
parison of Geneva under Calvin, with Geneva under the bishops. They
dared not look the spies of the holy office in the face. If Calvin
chanced to be passing, they turned aside in order not to salute the bish.
op of Geneva. But these men, courageous even to audacity, were very
rare. The reformer's police knew them, set their spies to watch them,
and brought them before the consistory. Francis Favre, father-in-law
of Ami Perrin, formerly counselor, and one of the founders of Gene-
vese liberties, was summoned before the tribunal of morals, where his
great soul failed him not for a moment.
But how had Geneva fallen, that she was not moved to indignation,
and arose not to rescue from the grasp of this black robed calif, the
380
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
man who had aided her to throw off the domination of the house of
Savoy ! In the history of the republic, there is one epoch, when duke
Atnedee undertook to oppress the people ; the people remained mute
as now; but their bishop alone, and without arms, stepped forth, and
smote the prince with the curse of excommunication. Institute a com-
parison. Had not the reformation, on taking possession of Geneva,
dispersed the ashes of its bishops and broken to pieces their statues,
perhaps the citizens would have gone to revive their courage at the
tomb of these holy prelates, and Lessing would have had no occasion
to pass this sentence : " A true christian is to-day more rare, than in
our ancient times of darkness,"* and Ludke would not have said to
his co-religionists : "We, Protestants, are less free and less christian
than the Catholics. "f
WILLIAM DUBOIS, THE BOOKSELLER.
Dubois had maintained that Calvin had retracted more than once in
his writings : hence the hatred of the reformer, who accused the book-
seller with vending his books to the refugees at too high a price.
Under some pretext, they had him brought before the consistory, and
there, " M. Calvin commenced to speak against him most harshly, de-
■" daring to him that he had ever been a false hypocrite, and that it was
" time he should amend, with other such speeches. Whereupon the
" said seignior Dubois responded to the said seignior Calvin :
'• It is not merely now that you entertain rage against me, and I have
" well said to you also, that you were a hypocrite, in having hated me
" long, and yet received the supper of our Lord." — On this, said Cal-
" vin answered, this is a lie, that never had he used such expressions to
" him, and though he was sufficiently audacious, yet never had he the
" hardiness to speak to him so impudently, etc.
•' After this, said Dubois was asked what he understood by this word,
" rage ? upon which he answered, that he understood, fury. At last the
" said Calvin arose, demanding the consistory to have the affair sent be-
" ^ore the gentlemen, (messieurs), in order that justice might be done
" him for such outrages."
THE TWO SPIES.
When Calvin, insulted, wanted vengeance, two spies met, and one
said to the other :
— I have heard from Catherine, wife of Jacob Copa, of the duchy of
Ferrara, "that Servetus died a martyr of Jesus Christ, that M. Calvin
was the cause of his death ; inasmuch as there was a pique between
them, and therefore the seigniors did wrong to put him to death.
" That Gribaldus teaches good doctrine, and also John Paul Alciati,
and M. George Blandratus, and that they are wrongfully and malevo-
lently persecuted.
* Ein wahrer Christ ist jetzt viel seltener als in dunkeln Zeiten geworden. —
Theol. Schriften, t. III.
t Wir Protestanten handeln unmoralischer und unchristlicher als dirbmisch-
tn Christen. — Gesprache iiber die Abschaffung des geistlichen Standes.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 381
" That she is desirous of abandoning this city, because the proceed-
ings of these messieurs displease her, in this, that they punish those
who speali anything they do not approve, and she spoke several other
blasphemies, which I do not recollect."
The other replied :
'' She said that M. Calvin does not agree with M. Gribaldus, because
this Gribaldus is more learned, and because they are rivals.
" That we are of the number of those who say, Lord, Lord.
" That she had done no other thing but what Jesus Christ says.
'•' That if she suffer and die, inasmuch as she has come to Geneva,
she will be a martyr of the devil.
" Item, she has a letter of Gribaldus, subscribed by M. John Paul
and M. Valentin."
This wife of Copa had come to Geneva in order to please her only
son, who did not wish to go to mass.
She was condemned to beg pardon of God and the judge, was ban-
ished from the city, with orders to leave it in twenty-four hours, under
penalty of having her head amputated.
The informers were acquainted with their trade, and knew by experi-
ence, that every accusation against an enemy of Calvin was received by
the consistory. Placed in front of the reformer's pulpit, they watched
the irony which curled the lips, the blush which crimsoned the faces,
the wrath which sparkled in the eyes of the hearers, when the ministers
treated them as debauchees, blasphemers, dogs, and worthless fellows.
Three persons who had smiled during Calvin's sermon, on seeing a
man fall from his chair, were denounced, condemned for three days to
the prison, on bread and water, and required to ask pardon.
The informers spread snares for poor souls simple enough to listen to
them. They asked one Normand, who proposed going to Montpellier
to study, if he w^ould abandon the church.
Normand answered ; <' We are not to imagine that the church is so
limited, as to be hanging from the girdle of M. Calvin."
He was denounced and banished.*
The Genevese code required, where the accusation was capital, that
the informer should make himself prisoner. When the crime was
proved, the informer left his prison. Ordinarily, this part was played
by one of those students, whose religious education had been supervised
by Calvin himself. In the affair of Servetus, this comedy was played
by a young man, named la Fontaine, a sort of minion, w^hom the re-
former called my (mens,) as Beza did his Audebert.
At this moment, Geneva resembled the Rome of Tiberius. The citi-
zens regarded each other with dread. If they have secreted some Catli-
olic image from the eyes of the iconoclasts kept in pay by the author,
ties, they conceal it carefully, for fear of being denounced to the con.
slstory, where Calvin would condemn them as idolatrous papists. In
the inner household of families, at the evening repast, they have ceased
laughing, playing, singing, for the elder is there to knock at the door»
to demand of them an account for these songs, plays, peals of laughter^
* Registres de I'Etat, Bo6t 1558.
382 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
which Calvin, oa the morrow, will at the consistory transform into
blasphemies against the divinity, and oflences against his law for sus-
pected persons. Michael Peter Roseti, has just been thrown into
prison, suspected of debauchery. It is u crime to defend the interests
of God too earnestly. Robert, a turner by trade, is reprimanded by
the consistory for having maintained that we should impute the sin of
Adam neither to God, nor to the devil, but only to ourselves, and for
having spoken against predestination.* The image of Christ is prose-
cuted as an idolatrous symbol ; a merchant who sold wafers marked
with a cross, is condemned to a fine of sixty sous, and his wafers
are cast into the fire as scandalous. f Woe to the person that does not
uncover his head at the sight of Calvin, he is fined; woe to the one
that contradicts him, he is summoned before the consistory and men-
aced with excommunication; J woe to the young girl who presents her-
self in the temple to have her marriage blessed, having a bouquet of
llowers in her hat; the flowers are plucked from it, if she have not pre-
served herself pure, and she is cursed aloud by the consistory ; woe
to the one that has sung or danced on his wedding day, they punish
him with three days imprisonment ; woe to the young brid6, if she have
worn shoes after the Bernese fashion, she is publicly reprimanded. §
The Calvinistic legislation even regulated the number of dishes
which should appear on the tables of the wealthy, arid even the quality
of the butter sold on the place Moulard : They put a fruitseller in the
stocks for two hours for having sold old butter as new butter. }|
One day, the whole city was filled with astonishment, on waking in
the morning, to behold numerous gibbets erected on the pbblic places,
surmounted with an inscription which said : For any who shall
Si'EAK EVIL OF M. CaLVIN.T
Were we not right, when we said that drama is blended with come-
dy in this Calvinistic legislation ; and the comedy and drama are here
merely indicated. The burlesque or bloody action will soon be devel-
oped in some of the prosecutions, instituted by the reformer against the
most illustrious citizens of the republic. . . Then only shall wc com-
prehend the nature of that light, amid the illumination of which it was
marching; we shall know whether it comes from Sinai, or from those
places, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. We shall
also learn, whether the smile that plays round the reformer's lips be the
amile of Paul the apostle, or of that fallen angel, of whom Goethe has
sung.
As in tliose frightful times, of which Tacitus, speaking of the tyrants
of Rome, said : "They call the silence of the tombs, peace," so Cal-
vin designated the profuse shedding of the blood of citizens, purifica^
• Beze, Hist, cccl., 1. VI, p. 34, 7 juillet 1553.
t Ficot, t. I. p. 259. X 31 tlecembre 1543.
i Police regulation, July 29th, 1549. ** Foolish young women who have con-
ducted themselves badly in the flesh, must not come to the church to ho mar-
ried with flowers in their hats, as if they had comported themselves honora-
bly." And Geneva has erected a statue to John Jacques Rosseau, who p.laced
the fruits of his libertinism in the asvluni for foundlings.
n Ficot, t. 1, 266-207. ' IF Galiifo.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIW. 383
tion of marals : but one day this blood was to cry for vengeance. Be-
hold a Protestant patriot, who will tell us what John of Noyon did for
the Genevese society. "To those who imagine that the reformer confer-
red nothing but benefits, I will exhibit our registers covered with illegi-
timate children, (these were exposed at every corner of the city, and of
the country,) — prosecutions, hideous for their obscenity, — testaments,
in which fathers and mothers accuse their children, not of errors only,
but of crimes, — transactions before notaries, between misses and their
paramours, who, in presence of their relatives, gave them wherewith to
rear their bastards, — multitudes of forced marriages, for which the
delinquents were conducted from the prison to the temple, — Mothers,
who abandoned their children to the hospital, whilst they were living
in abundance with their second husband, — bundles of papers, concern-
ing trials between brothers, — heaps of secret denunciations ; all these
things in the midst of a generation fed with Calvin's mystical manna. "+
X Galiffe, Notices g^n«alogiques, t. III, p. 15,
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DRAMA IN THE STREET. 1547—1550.*
PETER AMEAUX. FAVRE. AMI PERRIN. GRUET,
PRTER AMEAUX.
Labour of the opposition. — Struggles of Calvin.— Calvinian duality. — Henry
VIIL, and Moses. — Revelations of the Libertines. — Peter Ameaux. — Noc-
turnal repast.— Design against the reformer. — The Counselor Ameaux is
denounced to the council and simply condemned to pay a fine. — Wrath and
menaces of Calvin. — The sentence is reconsidered. — Ameaux, in his shirt,
makes the amende honorable. — Master La Mar and the spy Texier. — The
gibbet at St. Gervais. — Some samples of despotism. — Abel Poupin in the
pulpit.
The theocratical government of Calvin was admirably organized :
in it, servitude is a law of God, and the legislator an inspired being ;
he is another Moses listening to the voice from Sinai, and giving the
commandments of the Lord under dictation. The libertines could not
accustom themselves to behold the apostle of the Lord in Calvin ; there
were too many passions fermenting in the reformer's breast, not to af-^
ford them grounds to contest his divine mission. Opposition was gain-
ing ground : it fortified itself by appealing to all those old instincts in
behalf of liberty, which were still living in every one that had a Gen-
evese heart, to the hatred of the people against the refugees, the sym-
pathies of the republican cantons, and to many glorious souvenirs, too
recent to be forgotten. In order to combat their revolutionary tenden-
cies, Calvin had his god, whom he caused to intervene incessantly.
Complaints, murmurs, offences, were so many sins, the suppression of
which he prosecuted in the name of heaven. From the pulpit, he trans-
formed his adversaries into disciples of satan, labouring to ruin tlie holy
-church which he had come to erect to the Lord. In his letters, God
and the devil are ever engaged in combat. The part, which he causes
bis enemies to play, is not that of factious tribunes. They are damned
souls moving and conspiring together, and whom it is his mission to
repress by blood, in case the word cannot triumph over them. In order
♦ We must repeat here that, in the political and religious history of Calvin,
the facts we adduce, when not flowing from official documents, are nearly
always upheld by the testimony of the Protestant writers, Gautier, Galiffe, Pi-
T:ot, Fazy, Gaberel, etc*
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. 385
(0 characterize the combat which he has to wage against the libertines,
^ve shall see him seeking inspiration from the holy books, borrowing
from the psalmist his oriental imagery, and, like king David, moving
under the impulse of the divine direction.
" Did I undertake, says he, in his commentary on the psalms, to re-
count all the combats which 1 have sustained, the recital of them would
be very long ! But what a sweet consolation is it for me, to see how
David has marked out the way for me ! he is my guide and model.
The Philistines had waged a cruel war against this holy king; but the
malice of his domestic enemies had more cruelly afflicted his heart.
And I, also, have been assailed on every side, and without cessation,
in exterior and interior struggles. Satan had conceived the project of
overturning this church; and I, feeble, unskilled in w^arfare, timid,
liave been obliged to battle body to body, even to the efTusion of blood.
During five years, stood I in the breach for the preservation of disci-
pline and morals; the wicked were strong and powerful, and had suc-
ceeded to corrupt and seduce a portion of the people. To these per-
verse persons, of what importance was holy doctrine ? They aspired
only after dominion : they laboured only for the conquest of a factious
liberty ! Some, impelled by want and hunger, served them as auxilia-
ries; others, urged on by the shameful passion of worldly interest; all
moved on blindly, borne upon the waves of their caprices, and resolv-
ed to plunge themselves with us into the abyss, sooner than bend their
necks under the yoke of discipline. I believe that all the arms forged
in the kingdom of satan, have been tried and employed by them : in-
famous projects, which were to be turned to the ruin of our enemies !"
Behold Cahin, in his potent personality, the reflection or echo of the
Divinity, the living symbol of the revealed word. The historians of
Geneva have not been willing to comprehend this phenominal duality
of the reformer : he is Henry VIII., and Moses. Like Henry, ho has
assumed to himself all the powers which govern society : he is pontiff
and king; like Moses, he pretends that his power emanates from God
himself: he is apostle and lieutenant of Christ. Therefore, every op-
position to his designs, every murmur against his decrees, every oflence
sgainst his person, will be invested with a double criminality : in each
of his adversaries, he will find the spirit of Grachus and of satan.
The libertines had but one means to triumph ; this w^as to strip Cal-
vin of his title of high priest. They attempted it. During several
years, w^e behold them, earnest in the work, watching Calvin in his
private life, at the temple, in the council, in the consistory, in the midst
of his intimates and friends, and recounting every thing that they be-
held, every thing that they learned, and sometimes what they had mere-
ly guessed. It was from the reports of the libertines, that Bolsec
learned how the minister took from the printers of .Geneva, "two sous
per page, or for the entire leaf;"* the sums of money "that had been
sent him to be distributed to the poor, by the queen of Navarre, the
duchess of Ferrara, and other rich foreigners ; the legacy of two thou-
sand crowns, which David de Haynault left him at his death, and which
* Bolsec, Vie de Jean Calvin, p. 29
33
386 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
he distributed among his relatives and friends ;* the marriage for monef
which he caused his brother Anthony to contract with the daughter of a
bankrupt of Antwerp, who had fled to Geneva in order to secure his thefts; f
the letter which he wrote to Farel concerning Servetus;J and his little
billet to the marquis de Pouet : — " Do not omit to rid the country of
those rascally zealots, who, by their discourses, stir up the people to
revolt against us, blacken our conduct, and wish to have our doctrine
taken for a revery ; such 7nonsters ought to he strangled.
" These designs, coming from the workshops of satan," says Beza,
'•were spread among the populations of the republic, and reflected upon
the honour of Calvin." The people welcomed them with joy : the
yoke of thetheocrat weighed heavily on all generous spirits.
Beneath the open sunlight, the libertines were less successful. They
were nearly always certain to fail, when they attacked the reformer to
his face, because Calvin knew how, with great skill, to present himself
before the council as the servant of God. If we may be allowed to
use the comparison, this was the Thabor on which he transfigured him-
self before every eye. They essayed to strip the consistory of the
consistorial jurisdiction, in order to confer it on the council ; but they
did not succeed. They could not even restore to the civil power the
right of excommunication, which at first had been reserved to it alone,
and which, by a monstrous iniquity, Calvin had transferred to the con-
sistory. Nor were they able to have repealed the decree which punish-
ed, with the pain of death, any one who should reveal the secrets of
the state. §
Calvin knew his enemies. The chiefs of the opposition were Peter
Ameaux and Ami Perrin. Peter Ameaux, a man of the bar-room,
with a wicked tongue and a soul destitute of energy; Ami, or Amied
Perrin, the idol of the people, admirable when facing the soldiers of
the duke of Savoy, but understanding nothing that concerned a con-
test of words; skillful in handling his sword, but incapable of wielding
a pen.
It is with these patriots that Calvin's struggle is about to commence.
Peter Ameaux, member of the council o( Twenty five, was fond of
seeing at his table the old republicans, with whom he could freely in-
dulge his humour. Calvin made the revellers the constant theme of
his railleries. One day, when Ami had drunk more deeply than was his
custom, he began to rail at the reformer in so droll a strain, that every
body was convulsed with laughter. •' Pardieu !" said he, "you set too
high a value on this man, and are wrong to exalt him so much : you
place him above all the apostles and doctors that ever were; but it is
no such great thing that you do, for among the good sentences heutters,
he mingles still more that are very horned and frivolous. "|| The wine
was excellent and abundant, the heads of the guests were affected, and
Calvin was mercilessly torn lo pieces. The minister, master Henry la
«■ lb., p. 30, t lb., p. 31.
\ See chapter entitled : Michael Servktus.
♦ The punishment of death, decreed against the betrayers of the secrets of
the councils, J 9th October, 1540.
Ij Bolsec, p. 33.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 387
Mar, borne away with the excitement, did like the rest, and took it
into his head to say, amid the plaudits of the revellers, "that he was
an impatient, hateful, vindictive fellow, who never forgave whilst he
had a spite against any one."
At this supper, which was prolonged far into the night, there were
present some spies, sold to Calvin, who denounced the seditious dis-
oourses. On the next morning, Peter Ameaux was cited before the
council.* The night had calmed the brain of the counselor, who ex-
cused himself, alleging the state of intoxication in which he was, when
he had spoken ill of master John. The members of the council, in
part friends of Peter Ameaux, after long deliberation, condemned him
to pay thirty dollars fine : a very large sum for that epoch, when the
counselor received a few sols salary.
On hearing the sentence, Calvin rises, invests himself with his doc-
tor's robes, and, escorted by some of the ministers and elders, pene-
trates into the council hall, asks justice in the name of God, whom
Peter Ameaux has outraged, in the name of morals which he has de-
filed, of the laws which he has violated, and declares that he will aban-
don Geneva, if the criminal do not make the amende honorable, with
naked head, at the hotel de ville, at the Moulard, and ai Saint-Ger-
vais.f /
The council, terrified, annuls the sentence. ' /
On the next day, Ameaux, half-naked, with torch in hand, accused
himself with loud voice, of having knowingly and wickedly offended
God, and he asked pardon of his fellow citizens.
And after three centuries, a historian is found defending the memory
of Calvin, who violates the sanctuary of the laws, overwhelms a re-
pentant counselor with bitterness and shame, and forces iniquitous
judges to repeal a verdict, which they had pronounced after having in-
voked the assistance of the Holy Ghost.
The minister was not satisfied. At the supper of Ameaux, master
Henry de la Mar was present, who, also, had drunk rather too copious-
ly himself, after the fashion of the drunkard Bernard, the ancient guard-
ian of the Franciscan convent ; and who, with his head fuddled with
Sauvagin wine, which the gentlemen of the council frequently sent to
Calvin, allowed himself to indulge in a few railleries with regard to
the reformer. Well, when he was paying a visit to Benedict Texier,
one of the doctor's spies, the conversation turned upon Peter Ameaux's
supper, and Henry, being interrogated concerning the cause of the coun-
selor's imprisonment, answered candidly : Some say, that after he had
well feasted them, and given them fine cheer in his house, they have
accused him to the messieurs of the council, and caused him to be cast
into prison."
Texier responds : — " I am sorry ; I could wish he had been silent or
spoken well. And what then did he say ? Has he spoken directly
agairist God or against men ?"
* Picot, Histoire de Geneve, t. II, p. 410-411. This historian has endeavour-
ed to justify most of Calvin's attempts against Genevese nationality,
t Gaberel, p, 92,
388 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Master Henry la Mar proceeded : — •' I think that he said something
against Calvin; yet, this was after drinking. And moreover," addshe
laughing, "the man is hateful and vindictive. Already, whilst he was
at Strasbourg, he was reprimanded for this; even when he came to re-
side in this ciiy of Geneva, some of his friends besought him to divest
himself of such passions, and told him that if hn continued in them, he
would not be borne with as he had been at Strasbourg." He added,
after looking around him cautiously : — " Calvin lately had such a great
squabble and enmity with one of the principal men of the city, that the
messieurs of the coimcil had to interfere. TheyVere much annoyed,
and had a great deal to do to reconcile him with the other. His hatred
was so great, that he did not take ttie Lord's Supper ; for which there
was great noise, and I think this was the cause of those remarks made
by the said Peter Ameaux. I have heard it said that Calvin prosecutes
the said prisoner."
*' I do not believe it," devoutly murmured Texier.
— " If it be so," resumed la Mar, "1 would be glad he .should be ex-
iled for his profit; for Peter Ameaux is a man of great credit, and has
many friends. Calvin thinks that I am the cause of all this; but I
assure you that I am not; I know nothing. about it; I beseech you, do
not tell him any thing of all this."
"Nor shall I," replied Texier, lifting up his eyes to heaven.
La Mar had scarcely descended the stair case,, when Texier went to
denounce the minister to Calvin, saying to him : — " Master, I have m-
deed promised secrecy ; but when I perceived that the matter was of
such great importance, I wished to have more regard for the public
good, and the welfare of the city in which I reside, than for the good of
a single man, even were this the greatest friend I have in the world."
Calvin, in consequence, accused Henry la Mar, had him deprived of
his post as minister at Jussy and Fansonex, and condemned to threes
days imprisonment. The sentence runs: For having censured M.
Calvin.*
The condemnation of Peter Ameaux enraged the whole clty.f They
might have ransacked the archives of the past, and never would they
have found that either bishop's crozier or ducal baton had so iniquitous-
ly struck any head, even that of a slave. Tears flowed from many
an eye. The people, collected in the suburb Saint-Gervais, made the
air ring with menaces, exclaiming : "Down with Calvin! down with
the refugees !"
Calvin does not allow the tempest time to burst forth. He feigns to*
leave the cily, and, in a moment, they all run to him : the councils, the
lieutenant, the companies of watchmen and officials, "armed with
.staves," and even the very executioner, who drags after him a gibbet,
which he proceeds to erect on the place Saint-Gervais., cryir^g through
• Sop Gnliffo, Notices Gen., t. Ill, p. 524-527.
t P(t^r Ameaux was lirouglit to iiid'rnont lor having siid thai M. Calvin
preached afalso doctrtnc,. was a wicked man,, and notliing but a Picardiaa.-»-
Registres du conseii d'Etat, 27th Jan,, 15461.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
389
the streets : — Whoever moves shall be hoisted on the gibbet, even till
death follow.*
The people trembled, the city kept silent, and Ameaux's sentence
was executed on the 5th of April.
Calvin's victory made him insolent.. He was like a college pedant
transformed into a king, and taking his amusement.
He mounts the pulpit, and calls those who made the demonstration at
Saint Gervais, idle fellows and villains. The suburb is agitated and
murmurs; four of the most mutinous are arrested and thrown into
prison, under plea of preventing revolt. f Order is given to eat meat
on Fridays and Saturdays, under penalty of imprisonment. The night
watch cries out : — Let no one make embroidered breeches and waist-
coats, nor wear them henceforth, under penalty of sixty sols.J
In the registers, we read :
" Chapuis is put in prison for having persisted to name his son
Claude, though the minister was not willing, but wanted him called
Abraham. He had said that he would rather keep his child fifteen
years without baptism." He was kept four days imprisoned §
Certain men and women having obtained permission from the coun-
cil 10 act a moral, composed by Roux Monet, and entitled, the Acts of
the Apostles, Michael Cop ascends the pulpit at St. Peter's, and de-
clares that the women who should play this farce, are shameless women,
who have no other aim but to show themselves, in order to excite im-
pure desires in the hearts of the spectators. ||
One day, a relative of Favre presents himself before the altar with a
young woman of Nantes, to be married. The celebrant, Abel Poupin,
asks the husband : — " Do you promise to be faithful to your wife ?" —
The husband, in place of answering, yes, bows his head. A great tu-
mult takes place among the assistants. The bridegroom is thrown into
prison, is obliged to ask pardon of the girl's uncle, and condemned
to bread and water. T
And Abel Poupin was reprimanded by Calvin for not having driven
the bridal parties out of the church. Master Abel, however, was not
deficient in courage : it was he, who, from the pulpit, cried out to the
libertines : *' Rascals, dogs, blackguards, even papists;"** the grossest
insult to be found in the reformed lexicon of the sixteenth century.
FAVRE.
The family of Favre. — His daughter Frances. — His son-in law, Ami Perrin. —
Favre summoned before the consistory, and accused of having cried, live
liberty ! — He is interrogated. — Calvin's letter.
If there was in Geneva a family which Calvin should have protected,
* Registres, 30 mars 1546.
t GaUfF^, p. 538-539. if Registres, 16 avril 1543.
* Registres, 1546. Picot, t. II, p. 413-414.
11 Fragments biographiques, p. 15.
S Episiola Vireto. ** Galiffe, p. 262, t. Ill, note.
33*
390 tlFE OF JOHN CALVINo
it was that of the Favres : those patriots, who had so long struggled (of
the emancipation of their country from the house of Savoy. But for
Francis Favre, and his son-in-law, Ami Perrin, and their friends, Be-
zanfon Hugues, John Baux, and John Philippe, Calvin would not to-
day be at Geneva. He owes his power to these intrepid, but abused
men, who, not being willing to comprehend that Catholicism adapts
itself to every form of government, used, for its destruction, all the
courage they possessed, and after a combat of eighteen years, in which
their blood was freely shed, succeeded only in giving themselves a
merciless master : the just chastisement of an apostacy, which they
vainly endeavoured lo colour with the name of patriotism. Calvin
was destined to make them expiate their part of renegades in a most
cruel manner.
It is not now necessary to ask to what side the Favre family belongs.
Francis and his son-in-law. Ami Perrin, could be found no where but
where danger was to be risked, liberty ^^to be defended, a country to
be saved, a despot's yoke to be broken to pieces : they are libertines.
Favre is a man, with whitened locks, an admirable vigour of constitu-
tion, a strength of soul fit for every trial, having his veins filled with a
mingling of Gallic and Roman blood, and who would have soon driven
the stranger away, had he found in the people, made degenerate by the re .
former, the audacity of the first days of the reformation. Calvin has
represented him as a toothless debauchee, who carries disorder into
families, makes sport of the virtue of females, of the honour of young
men, and goes to rekindle his wanton fires in the bar-rooms of taverns
and in other wicked places. His daughter, Frances, was one of those
women whom our old Corneille would have taken for heroines : ex-
citable, choleric, fond of pleasure, enamoured with dancing, and hating
Calvin as Luther did a monk. John of Noyon represents her as a
daughter of hell, and often designates her as "the new Proserpine."
Ami Perrin, the captain general, had, in 1538, espoused Frances
Favre. He was a man of noble stature, who wore the sword with great
grace, dressed in good taste, and conversed with much facility ; but a
boaster at table and at the council, where he deafened every one with
his boastful loquacity, his fits of self-love, and his theatrical airs.
Calvin, through derision, called him: Ccesar comicus et Coesar tragi-
cus, (the comical and tragical Caesar,) because of the attitude he loved
to assume, in treating matters either important or indifferent.* As tO'
the rest, like all men of this stamp, he had an excellent heart, was de-
voted as a friend, with cool blood, and patriotic even to extremes.
Could hatred kill, long since would Calvin have ceased to exist. Ami
called him nothing but the hypocrite. At the table, it was his delight
to imitate the reformer, elongating his visage, winking his eyes, and as-
suming the air of an anchoret of the Thebaid. At his dwelling, his
• Moshcim attributes this double soubriquet, given by Calvin to Perrin, to
the now tragic Jind now comic language of the syndic. — Das Wort Casar geht
wohl auf Herrschbcgierde, aber comicus und tragicus scheint auf seine Ber-
redsamkeit zu gehen, die bald zu hoch, und schwUlstig, wie in Trauerspielen,
bald zu lustig, wie in Froudonspielen war.— Mosheim, Geschichte Serveti,
p. 192.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN, 391
wife, child, servant, were all taught to despise Calvin : the daughter of
Favre was particularly remarkable for her noisy outbursts. She af-
fected to laugh at the disciplinary regulations of the reformer ; at divine
service, she threw her eyes round on every side; she clothed herself
after the Bernese fashion, and danced in spite of the ordinances.
On the 1st of April, 1546, there was a wedding at Belierive, where,
among others, were present Francis Favre, captain Perrin and his wife,
John Baptist Sept, ClauJine Philippe, Denis Hugues, James Gruet,
the poet, the wife of the seignior Anthony Lect, the wife of Philibert
Donzel, and the newly married lady was the daughter of Anthony Lect ;
they danced the whole evening.*
On the next day, the whole wedding party appeared before the con-
sistory. Francis Favre was accused of having used seditious observa-
tions at the repast.
We must cite the act of accusation :t
1st. He has said he would not accept the office of captain of the
:arquebusiers, if he had to have Frenchmen in the company, because he
wanted none but good Genevese, and nothing to do with the bishop of
Geneva, M. Calvin.
2ndly. He said that M. Calvin and M. Poupin have changed their
names.
3rdly. Item, that he does not believe what they preach.
4thly. He said to a man that saluted him : *' Why dost thou salute
a dog !" and this in order to excite hatred against the preachers, (who
had called him a dog from the pulpit.)
5thly. He said : These French, these mean fellows, are the cause
why we are slaves ; and this Calvin has devised means to make it ne.
cessary that one should go to him to tell his sins, and show him reve-
rence.
6thly. To the devil with the preachers and those who uphold them.
7thly. Item, that he would be glad the French were in France.
8thly. Item, that he wishes to leave Geneva, where his old age is
made miserable, whilst it would be honorable any where else.
9thly. Item, that Calvin has tormented him more than four bishops,
whom he has seen buried, and that he will not recognize him for his
prince.
lOthly. When they w^re conducting him to prison, he cried out :
Liberty ! liberty ! I would give a thousand crowns to have a general
council.
Liberty ! that sacred cry, shouted by an old man, who had shed his
blood in defence of national independence, has become a seditious cry !
To expiate it, they want Favre to ask pardon !
But the old patriot lifted up his head, and said to his judges : "Let
them take me to prison, I will not humble myself"
He lay there during three weeks. Then Berne remembered, that,
fifteen years before, Francis, with his brothers, John and Anthony, had
• Galiffe, t. HI, p. 540-541.
t Extracted from the act of accusation against Francis Favre, formerly
counselor.
392
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
assisted at the federation of Fribourg. Naegeli, the advocate, came to
demand, and he obtained, ihe liberation of the old soldier.*
We must hear Calvin's account :
*« Since your departure, dances have not permitted us a moment's re-
pose. All those, who have allowed themselves to be seduced into them,
have been summoned before the consistory, and, with the exception of
Ami and de Come, of whom nothing has been said, they have not
spared us any more than God. Anger at last took possession of me ;
1 have thundered against this public contempt of the Lord, and against
the neglect of our holy ordinances. They exhibit no signs of repent-
ance. 1 had promised God that I should know how to chastise them.
I will declare, that, at the peril of my life, I should know the truth,
and have justice for their falsehoods. The woman, Frances Perrin,
has spoken to us a thousand insults ; I answered her as she deserved.
I asked whether the Favre family had a privilege to violate, with impu-
nity, the police regulations. The father is a debauchee, who already
has been charged with adultery. There is now a second prosecution of
this nature about to be instituted, and perhaps a third; it is spoken of,
at least. The brother openly mocks at us. I added : Why do you
not build a city where you can live according to your fancy, since you
are unwilling to submit to the yoke of Christ ? but, as long as you shall
remain here, it will be in vain for you to seek to exempt yourselves
from the laws : for, were there in your dwellings as many diadems as
heads, God will still know how to remain master. — Then came the
avowals, they have confessed every thing, and T have learned that they
had danced at the widow Balthasar's. They passed from the council
to the prison. The syndic had exhibited a criminal weakness; he has
received a sharp reprimand from the consistory, and been suspended
until he give marks of repentance. It is said that Perrin has returned
from Lyons : he shall not escape chastisement. The wife of Perrin
is furious, the widow Balthasar half a fool, all the rest are ashamed
and silent. "t
AMI PERRIN.
Lawrence Megret, a creature of Calvin, denounces Ami Perrin to the coun-
cil.— Means employed by the reformer to ruin the captain general. — Popular
commotion. — Calmed by Calvin. — Prosecution of Perrin. — The interrogato-
ry.— Reaction. — Condemnation of Megret.
The captain general was in fact absent. Calvin had sent him away
from Geneva in order to ruin him. Perrin, named ambassador to Paris,
was one of those confiding souls, whom it is easy to ensnare. A fine look,
ing cavalier, he was to be feasted in a gallant court, where external
gifts were the requisites for success and triumph. Cardinal du Bellay
» Francis Favre, father-in-law of Perrin, has been liberated from prison, at
the prayer of the seigniors of Berne, who have sent here the ancient advocate,
Naegeli, express, to solicit his liberation. — Fragments biographiques, p. 14.
t Ep. 71, 1546, Farello.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIN. 393
loved to chat with Perrin. In one of those openhearted interviews,
the conversation turned upon the emperor, who was then menacing
Switzerland.
— In that case, said the cardinal, have courage ; the king, my mas-
ter, will not forget his cherished allies. Do you wish two hundred good
lances, of whom you shall be captain ?
— My lord, responded Perrin, I will speak of this to the council.*
This design was denounced by Lawrence Megret, called the magnifi-
cent, and at Calvin's instance.
The capital accusation was altogether proved ; and it was only ne-
cessary now to have a pretext for arresting the captain general, and
Calvin comes to the aid of Megret.
Perrin's wife had gone to dance in the Bernese territory, and on the
next day, the rumour was spread through the city, that Frances Perrin
and her father, accused of committing adultery Avith their servants,
were to be conducted to prison between two soldiers of the police.
This was a humiliation that Perrin would not have suffered at the price
of his blood. Francis Favre had been cited before the consistory.
The theme of the counselors had been prepared beforehand. Favre,
in response to the charge of prostitution, exhibits his grey hairs, and
refuses to say anything in self-justification : they insult him ; he is si-
lent ; and, once out of view of the tribunal, he pours forth his soul in
insults against his judges. He is summoned anew, and withdraws to
the country ; his daughter takes his place, and appears before the con-
sistory. This was the woman whom Calvin called a fury ; a woman
fond of her own body, and, in his energetic language, a 1
Frances defended herself like an angry woman, and did not spare
Calvin. It was said that she was about to be arrested.
Then the captain general presents himself before the council, at
once in defence of his father-in-law and his wife. At the moment he
entered, they were interrogating a man arraigned for an offence against
God. The captain general, who wanted to speak, pushed the prisoner
aside violently, saying to him : Withdraw ; my business is more
urgent than thine.
Among the members of the council, there was one evidently sold to
Calvin : this was Lambert, who had no means of livelihood, except
from the fines which were levied from the libertines who were de-
nounced by the reformer. For the judge, the captain's insolence was a
God-send; he accused him of an attempt upon the sovereignty of the
people, in the persons of the members of the council ; of criminal
pity for a wretch condemned to be scourged, whom he had prevented
from being struck to the blood ; of seditious tenderness for a poor man,
to whom he had remitted a fine that would have taken his last and only
cent.:j:
On leaving the council, Perrin was arrested and conducted to prison.
His prosecution was commenced immediately : Calvin wanted blood.
* Galiffe, t. HI, p. 379-392.— James Fazy, t. I, p. 270-272.
t Uxor est prodigiosa furia, impudenter omnium criminum defensionem.
suscipiens. — Ep. 70,
I Galiffe, t. HI, p. 385,
394
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
But the people loved Perrin. They admired the courage, the gene-
rosity, the patriotism, and even the very defects of the captain general.
In the evening, the streets were filled with labourers and burghers, de-
manding news concerning the prisoner. The police did not dare resort
to force, in order to disperse the crowds which at length would have
assumed a menacing attitude. Calvin's name was abused. In the
councils, the cause of the patriot was pleaded with energy. In the
Two Hundred, the majority seemed to have abandoned the reformer,
and wished an appeal made to the people to sit in judgment on the ac-
cused. Had there been a single man of courage in the councilof the
Two Hundred, Geneva would have recovered her liberties. But Gene-
va was in dread : a great lesson was about to be given her, in which
the reformer will manifest how a people can be made to tremble.
The council of the Two Hundred was assembled. Never had any
session been more tumultuous ; the parties, weary of speaking, began
to appeal to arms. The people heard the appeal. Calvin appears,
unattended ; he is received at the lower part of the hall with cries of
death. He folds his arms, and looks the agitators fixedly in the face.
Not one of them dares strike him. Then, advancing through the midst
of the groups, with his breast uncovered : — '• If you want blood," says
he, "there are still a few drops here; strike, then !" Not an arm is
raised. Calvin then slowly ascends the stair-way to the council of the
Two Hundred. The hall was on the point of being drenched with
blood ; swords were flashing. On beholding the reformer, the w^eapons
were lowered, and a few words sufficed to calm the agitation. Calvin,
taking the arm of one of the counselors, again descends the stairs, and
cries out to the people that he wishes to address them. He does speak,
and with such an energy and feeling, that tears flow from their eyes :
they embrace each other, and the crowd retires in silence. The patri-
ots had lost the day. From that moment, it was easy to foretell that
victory would remain with the reformer. The libertines, who had
shown themselves so bold, when it was question of destroying some
front of a Catholic edifice, overturning some saint's niche, or throwing
down an old wooden cross weakened by age, trembled like women
before this man, who, in fact, on this occasion, exhibited something of
the homeric heroism.*
The prosecution of Perrin was commenced on the 20th of Septem-
ber, and lasted to the 5th of November, 1547. Among the witnesses,
that gave evidence against the chief of the libertines, appeared Bonni-
vard, who, twenty years before, played all parts, and who now was
purchasing from Calvin, at the price of base informations, a repose
which he could have made more glorious. This old soldier of liberty,
quite bruised with the chains of Chillon, was mean enough to sit at the
table of judges, whose ears could listen to an interrogatory conceived
in the following forms :
1. Since when he has been detained, and if he know the cause of
Lis detention.
♦ Epist. Vireto, 17 septemb. 1547. — Bretschneider, Calvin ct TEglise d&
Geneve, p. 162.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 395
2. If he be not citizen and counselor of the city of Geneva, know-
sng the edicts and ordinances of the council, ivhich is established by the
pravidence of Gud, and ratified by the community of Geneva, which
every one ought to obey in all things licit, and those who contravene
it deserve to be punished.
3. With what arrogance and authority, on Tuesday last, the 20th
of this month of September, 1547, he came to interrupt the ordinary
council, without being called, he being retired out of said council.
4. With what authority, he has spoken to a certain person named
Bramet, whom their seigniories had summoned to hear in council, as
the order shows, such words as these : Withdraw, and, in fact, by his
arrogance, caused him to retire, contravening the ordinances on this
point established.
5. If he have not said that, if they cast Francis Favre and the wife
of the said accused into prison, and led and dragged them through the
city, he could not tolerate it, and would even revenge himself, and God
would aid him to be avenged..
6. By what means he designs taking such vengeance, and who are
his adherents.
7. On which occasion, the day aforesaid, several times, and again,
he came to interrupt the council, saying : "You have caused command
to be given me to go to prison; but 1 will not go," with high words,
menacing and otherwise illicit, and if this be not great rebellion against
the magistrate, and deserving of punishment.
8. If, formerly, he have not said that he had kept a turkish horse
in Geneva during the space of three weeks, and worn a coat of mail,
for the purpose of killing three citizens of Geneva, of whom he then
declared that one was among the seigniors the syndics, at that time
holding the office of the syndicship in his own degree.*
9. What acquaintance and intercourse he has with the seignior de
Rolle, to have thus so long frequented him.
10. If he have not declared that he was as much master in Geneva,
as the king in his kingdom of France.
11. With what authority he made such a speech, and to what end
it tended.
12. If, being in the country, near this, and having met a citizen of
Geneva, he did not say to him, in a rage, blaspheming God : *♦ Thou
hast not saluted thy prince," and he threatened to beat him.t
13. If he have not said that a look or sign from him would suffice,
to kill all the members of the council in their houses. J
14. On what occasion he used such a remark, and let him declare
the source and foundation he had for it.
* This accusation, and all which follow it, concern remarks or facts
anterior to his embassy to Paris.
t In accompanying the syndic Lambert into the country on an excursion,
he strongly chidcd a peasant, who had neglected to salute the first magistrate
of the republic. — Galiffe.
t De faire un signe pour que tous les conseillers fussent tu^s dans leurs
tnaisons.
396 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
15. If he have not said, blaspheming God, that he would sooner
die rich, than a good poor man.
16. If, before leaving Geneva, when he was about to go to France,
he did not use words like these : " What sayest thou ? Would it not
be good and profitable, did I find means to obtain a pension from the
king ?" and he said that he would take one.
17. In pursuance of his desire to have such pension from the king,
wishing to execute his enterprise, what proposals he entertained at the
court of the king, and the parley about light horse, etc., and let him
declare this enterprise, and to what end it was designed.
But the voice of the people continued to mutter round the tribunal.
The judges were afraid, and did not dare give Calvin the head of Per-
rin. They condemned hhn, for having violated the sanctuary of jus-
tice, to be deprived of his titles and employments, and abolished the
office of captain general.*
Then commenced a reaction in public opinion, of which any one else
but the captain general might have known how to take advantage.
Megret, whom the ministers named Jesus^ who had abused the protec-
tion of Calvin, to pursue the patriots, denounced by the public voice as
the paid spy of France, was in his turn arraigned before the council.
The truth came out. Urged by questions, the spy acknowledged his
occult manoeuvres with Calvin, to form a defensive league between
France and Berne. They learned that, driven away from his country
for various misdeeds, the informer was seeking to procure his recall from
exile, at the price of infamous services. This was the table compan-
ion of the reformer, '*who," says M. GalifTe, "gave meat and drink to
every parasite whom he could in any way use to advantage." Leger
de Mestrezat, denounced by Megret, had come near perishing on the
scaffold.
The people needed satisfaction ; this was accorded them. Megret
was condemned, in spite of Calvin and the ministers. f
But the Genevese did not yet know, that in revolutions, it is necessa-
ry to push on, as in the mountains between Uvo o'erhanging avalanches,
without pausing or looking behind. They imagined that they had re-
covered their liberty, because, for some time, their master allowed them
to make merry in the bar-rooms : their joy was to be of but short du-
ration.
G RU E T .
Placards stuck up at St. Peter's. — Gruet accused. — Seizure of his papers. —
He is thrown into prison. — Tortured, — Decapitated. — Prosecution instituted
against some loose leaves.
At the end of May, 1547, the following writing in Savoyard paloi*
■was found affixed to the pulpit of St. Peter's church :
* Registres du conseil d'Etat, 9 octobre.
t GalifFe. t. Ill, p. 391,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 397
«' Gro pan far te et to compagnon gagneria miot de vo queysi. Se vo
no fette enfuma, i n'y a personna que vo garde qu'"on ne vos mette en
tas, Lua que pey, vo maudery I'oura que jamet vo salites de votra
moi«nery. Et mezuit prou blama quin DiabJo et tot su f.....prestres
renia no vegnon ici mettre en ruyna. Apres quon a prou endura on se
revenge. Garda vo qu'i ne vo n'en presgne comrne i fit a monsieur
Verle de Fribor. No ne voUin pas tant avey de mettre. Nota bin
mon dire."*
The voice of the public, for once in accord with the reports of
Calvin's spies, designated Gruet as the author of this placard. James
Gruet was a man of courage, a patriot who busied himself in making
songs against John of Noyon and the refugees, which were more ma-
lignant than poetic. Several times had the reformer called him a
scurvy fellovj, from the pulpit. Gruet laughed at the threats of his
€nemy. At church, he looked hun boldly in the face, shrugged his
shoulders when he was speaking, and frequented the taverns '-which
then were, what coffee houses and clubs are in our days.'"* He was
the first to adopt the fashion of breeches with plaits at the knees.
Abominable principles of religion were attributed to him. Calvin
draws a horrible picture of the poet's morals.
'' There is no longer question of the comic Ccesar and his dancing
Venus. Gruet has just been arrested : he is suspected of having affixed
the placard at St. Peter's; yet it is not in his hand-writing; but in
searching among his papers they have discovered frightful things : an ad-
dress to the people, in which he maintains that a mere attempt against
the state ought not to be punished by the law ; that the despotism, of an
atrabilious man such as Calvin, would necessarily lead to a conflict
among the citizens. Then, there are two pages, all in his hand, in
which he mocks at the holy scripture, defames Christ, treats the immor-
tality of the soul as a fable and revery, and saps all the groundworks
of religion. I do not think that he has devised ail these fancies, but
he has written them, and he shall be judged. And yet who knows ?
he has mind enough to have given a form and a body to doctrines,
which he will have borrowed from some other person. "f
These papers, seized upon at the lodgings of Gruet, were like those,
which are found with every man who occupies his intellect in literary
labours; leaves in disorder, on which he had thrown unfinished
phrases, lame verses, imperfect hemistiches, lines in prose, all this
illuminated with flourishes, signatures, hieroglyphics, and all the ca-
prices of a student's pen.
* We give the original of this placard, because we are not sufficiently ac-
xjuainted with ihe patois in which it is written, to venture a translation, ex-
cept by way of a note. We take the following to be the import, if not a
translation, of the text. " Gross hypocrite, thou and thy companions will get
more than you bargain for. If you do not save yourselves by flight, there is
no one that can keep you from being taken hold of. And what is worse, you
shall curse the hour that ever you left your naonkery. The devil and so many
of his cursed priests come here for our ruin. When persons have endured for
a long time, they revenge themselves. Take care, they do not serve you as
they served M. Verle of Fribourg, We do not want to have so many mas-
ters. Note well what I say." — Tr.
* James Fasy. t E. Vireto, 11 juillet 1547.
34
398 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIF,
Now, were we to say that in the rolls of our revolutionary tribanak^
no capital accusation, so monstrously bolstered up, can be found, who
would believe us ? Read then.
< 3. All contradicting this ( the reformation, ) as well by word as
WILL, are rebels against God, and deserving of grievous punishment.
■ 6-9. The said Gruet has shown himself other than he should; he
has specifically and openly, in liis letter ( a busybody ) insulted the
said master Calvin, saying in this: — '' As our gallant Calvin has
done."
18. He has written with his own hand, hy him acknowledged, two
CUT leaves written by him in the Latin language, in which are con-
tained several errors.
19. And from the things premised, he has been rather inclined to
speak, recite, and write false opinions and errors, than the true word of
Our Lord, which every day is announced.
■ 22. He affixed the placard at St. Peter's.
2.?. He must have adherents and accomplices, whom he must name,
24. He must be punished with corporal punishment.*
We are forced to blush. It is necessary to go to reformed Geneva,
in order to find judges, who incriminate not only deeds, but thoughts ;
not only opinions manifested externally, but desires revolved in the
depths of the heart, and who say to the accused : thou must have
accomplices, and thou must name them. Fouquier Tinville has been
calumniated !
Now let Golladon discharge the duties of his profession, and he
will do so conscientiously.
Gruet vv'as put to the torture twice a day. On the 9th o( July, in
the midst of frightful torments, he accuses himself of having posted
the placard on the pulpit at St. Peter's.
On the next day, there were new torments, and new avowals ; tho
punishment was suspended and resumed the following day, to be inter-
mitted, and renewed twelve hours after. Gruet was ground during an
entire month. The unhappy man cried out to his executioners : Fin-
ish me, in mercy, I am dying ! But ihe eye of Colladon was watch-
ing the sufferings, and knew the precise moment when breath was
about to leave his victim. Then they unbound him, and revived him
with the aid of some spirits, and two of the assistants bore him back to
the prison. Calvin hoped that Gruet would accuse Francis Favre and
Perrin ; but the poet remained firm, and immoveable. When they
perceived that they would have but a carcass to drag to the scaffold,
Colladon said : enough.
And on the next day, the council pronounced the sentence.
This declares : that Gruet has spoken of religion with contempt, andf
maintained that laws, divine and human, are but pure follies; that he
has composed obscene verses, and taught that man and woman can use
their bodies as they please ; that he has endeavoured to destroy ther
authority of the consistory ; that he has threatened the ministers, and
spoken evilly of M. Calvin; that he has coriesponded and conspired
*Galifre,t. Ill, p. 260-261.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 399
Tf ith ihe king of France against the safety of Calvin and of the country.
On the 26th of July, 1547, Gruet ascended the scaffold. The
sword of the executioner struck off the head of a man already in the
pangs of death.
Calvin was not satisfied ; he wished a prosecution to be instituted
against Gruet's book. You know what this book was : some rags of
paper, found upon the house-tops, in the fire-place, and in the dirt box :
informal fragments, w^hich they adjusted, and out of which they formed
i^ome thirteen leaves. Were these leaves the production of Gruet?
The poet could no longer answer. The council was ignorant how to
institute a prosecution against these hieroglyphics. Calvin was con-
sulted, he drew up the proceedings, and even wrote the very sentence
against the seditious leaves.
Advice, which Calvin gave to the coltjcil in the pkocess which was to
BE instituted AGAINST THE BOOK OF GrUET, PREPARED IN ApRIL OR MaY
1350. — This advice is written in Calvin's own hand.*
Since Messieurs have been pleased to consult me, as to the book of Gruet,
U seems to mc before every thing, that they should juridically cause the hand
to be recognized, not so much as regards the man, who already is sufficiently
condemned, but for the consequence, that it may not be thought, that they
were with levity moved regarding an uncertain book, and also with respect
to the adherents and accomplices.
This done, it seems to me that the abolition of the book should not be as
a sepulture, but with testimony that they hold it in such detestation as it
merits, were this only for the sake of example. True it is, that it becomes
us to abstain from all dishonest words, which should not come from our lips;
that snch blasphemies, so execrable ought not to be recounted; as if we had
no horror of them, but in pursuance of the rule, given to us by our Lord in
his law, it is expedient that faithful magistrates should specify the impieties
which they punish. Moreover, Messieurs, know that this is necessary for sev-
eral reasons which I leave them to consider, although those indicated by God
should be sufficient for us.
The form. It would seem good to me as the first subcorrection, that there
should be a dictum or narrative like the foUov.ing. Though in such a year,
on such a day, James Gruet, as well for enormous blasphemies against God,
and mockeries of the christian religion, as for wicked conspiracies against
the public weal of this city, for mutinies, other sorceries and crimes, had' been
condemned, inasmuch as they have found a book written with his own hand,
us has been sufficiently recognized, in which are contained several blasphemies
so execrable, that there is no human creature who must not tremble in hearing
them, as in general to make sport of all Christianity, even to say of oar Lonl
Jesus Christ, the son of God and king of glory, before whose majesty tlie
devils are constrained to humble themselves; that he is a scoundrel, a liar,
a fool, a seducer, a wicked and miserable man, a fantastic wretch, a churl,
full of boastful and malignant presumption, who merited to be crucified, that
the miracles he operated were but sorceries and monkey capers, that he pre-
tended to be the son of God as the pretend to be in their synagogue,
that he acted the hypocrite, having been hung as he deserved to be, and died
miserably in his folly, a senseless fool, a great drunkard, a detestable traitor
and hung malefactor, whose coming brought the world nothing but all kind
of wickedness, unhappiness and roguery, and all kinds of opprobriums and
♦ Manusc, tire des Arch, de Berne,
400 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
outrages which it is possible to invent. Of the prophets, that they were
nothing but fools, dreamers, fantastic fellows; of the apostles, that they were
marauders and rascals, apostates, gawks, hair-brained persons. Of the virgin
Mary, that it is to be presumed she was a prostitute. Of the law of God,
that it is worth nothing, any more than those who made it; of the gospel, that
it is only falsehood, that all the scripture is false and wicked, and contains
less sense than the fables of iEsop, and is but a false and foolish doctrine.
And not only does he thus villainously rave against our holy and sacred
christian religion, but also he renounces and abolishes all religion and divinity,,
saying that God is nothing, making men like to the brute beasts, denying
eternal life, and vomiting such execrations, as must cause the hair to rise on,
the head of every one, and which are such stinking infections as must render
a whole country cursed, so that all good persons having a conscience should
demand pardon of God, for the fact that his holy name has been thus blas-
phemed amongst them.
Upon this, it appears to me, that sentence should be passed in such or the
like form. Although, the writer of the book already by just judgment has
been condemned and executed, nevertheless that the vengeance of God may
not rest upon us for having endured or dissembled an impiety so horrible,,
and also to give an example to all the accomplices and adherents of a sect, so
infected and worse than diabolical, and even to stop the mouths of all those
who will seek to excuse or hide such enormities, and to manifest to them what
condemnation they merit, the messieurs have ordained.
The sooner, the better; for already has this unfortunate book been too long'
in the hands of messieivrs.
Process against Gruet's book as it- was pronounced. Following the process
drawn up in form in the year 1547, in the month of July, before my very
dreaded seigniors the syndics, judges of criminal causes of the city, at the
instance of seignior, the lieutenant, and of the liscal officer of this city, for
causes standing against James Gruet, as well because of enormous blas-
phemies against God and mockery of the christian religion, as for wicked
conspiracy against the public weal of this city, for mutinies and other sorce-
ries, by liim perpetrated and confessed, for which he was condemned and
executed, be it known to all: that it has since happened, that in the house of
said Gruet next to the roof, in the hearth and dirt-box of said house, a paper
hook covered with parchment has been found, which but recently has been
placed in the hands of justice, and in which, amidst other writing, are con-
tained thirteen leaves written with the hand and letter of said Gruet, against
which justice has been demanded by the fiscal officer of this city. — Item, the
writing of which has been juridically examined by persons worthy of credit
and recognized to be that of said Gruet.— ^Item, in which book and 13 leaves
thus juridically recognised, are contained several blasphemies so execrable,
that there is no human creature who must not tremble to hear them, as in
general a mockery of all Christianity. — Item, and not being only against our
holy and christian religion; but also containing renunciation and abolition of
all religion and divinity. — Item, and in said book are written enormously
damnable, and to the whole world intolerable blasphemies against Gad, the
creator of heaven and earth. — Item, and also specifically and expressly against
his son, our Saviour and redeemer Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. — Item,
and also against the honour and chastity of the glorious virgin Mary, his moth-
er.— Item, and for a commencement of his damnable blasphemies, there is
written something against the person and doctrine of Moses, through whom
/God gave his holy commandments and holy laws to his people, the children
of Israel. — Item, and also all the holy patriarchs and prophets comprised in
the holy scriptures arc by name blasphemed. — It^m, likewise there are false
statements and blasphemies against the apostles of Jesus Christ, and the holy
evangelists and all the disciples. — Item, and also particularly against the
whole of the holy scriptures as well of the Old as of the New Testament. —
Item, and also against the whole mystery of the passion of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, and against all the miracles which he has operated on earth, and par-
ticularly against his holy resurrection. — Item and finally: these 13 leaves
fully written and completed by said Gruet are quite full of such abominable,
horrible, and more thaa evev man saw or wrote, detestable blasphemies, against:
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 401
the divine power and essence of God and all religion, that one dare not from
very horror even read or pronounce them :
Sentence. And we, the syndics of Geneva, judges of all the criminal
causes of this city, having seen and heard the prosecution instituted before us
by our fiscal officer, and the contents of the book written by JamesGruet,
who was by our justice justly condemned and executed for his mis-
deeds in the month of July, 1547, and the recognition of the letter and
hand writing of said Gruet, author of this, having been manifested to us by
good watnesses worthv of credit, and the whole being heard in detail, said
book and writing manifesting to us that this James Gruet wrote enormous,
damnable, detestable, and abominable blasphemies against God, his son» our
Saviour J. C., and the Holy Spirit, the holy patriarchs, prophets, disciples,
apostles, evangelists, the glorious virgin Mary, against all the holy scriptures,
against all divinity, and against the whole christian world.
"For these causes, and in order that God's vengeance may not remain over
us for having endured or dissembled an impiety so horrible, and also to stop
the mouths of all those who would excuse or conceal such enormities, and to
siiow them what condemnation they merit, we, sitting in our tribunal in the
place of our predecessors, after having taken counsel and advice of our fellow
citizens, having God and the holy scriptures before our eyes, saying in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen; — by this,
our definitive sentence, which we render in writing, the aforesaid book being
here before us, sentence, judge and condemn it, to be by the executor of our
justice carried to the place du Bourg du Four, before the house of said Gruet»
writer thereof, and there cast and throvv^n into the fire, till it be burned and
reduced to ashes, that the memory of a thing so abominable may perish, and
to give example to all the accomplices and adherents, if any such be found,
of a sect so infected and v/orse than diabolical, we commend to you our lieu-
tenant this our sentence, to cause the same to be put into execution. On
Friday, May 23d, 1550, this sentence was given and pronounced by N. Claude
Da Pan, syndic, and immediately executed.
A singular prosecution this, instituted against stray leaves of wicked
purport, which are culled from among the sweepings in order to be
invested with the form of a book ! Supposing that Gruet wrote these
impious lines, he repented for this, since he had thrown them to the
winds and rain. The panegyrists of Calvin say that the law was pre-
cise ; that blasphemy and heresy were punished with death, in the
Genevese legislation. Undoubtedly; but if the poet blasphemed, it
was in secret : and God only can punish him in this life and in the
next. Gruet was not amenable to any human tribunal. And Ave are
reasoning in the hypothesis, that these thirteen leaves, "found in the
hearth and dirt-box," are from the pen of the punished man, whilst,
according to GalifTe, ''this book was only produced after Gruet's death,
and there is nothing to prove that he was its author. "■^'
What a lesson is found in the prosecution and death of the poet !
Let the reformation then boast, — as it did when Farel appeared, — that
thought henceforth shall be free. Behold the executioner exhibiting to
a child of Geneva, these words, written in the code of the despot :
" Any one contravening this, either in word or will, is a rebel
against God, and merits grievous punishment."
And the despot, the blessed apostle of Geneva, as he is still termed
in our day, pauses not in his course. Blood calls for blood, and he
* Galitfe, t. Ill, p. 262, note. The writer adds: The most inexcusable
crime of Gruet was, that, on the margin of a copy of Calvin's book against the
Anabaptists, page 415, he wrote: "all fudge."
34*
402 LIFE OF JOHN CALVINc
will pour it out profusely. For a moment he is about to leave the
street to the libertines, who will not have courage enough to pre-
serve their conquest. He has other enemies to combat : behold him
now wrestling with human individuality, in the various religious mani-
festations which it produces :
With the operation of the reformed word, in the Saxon- symbol and
its two representatives, Luther and Westphalius ;
With human liberty, in Castalion ;
With the merit of good works, in Bolsec;
With freedom of thought, in Servetus.
We shall study each of these phenomena in the intellectual life of
Calvin, in which an idea of constant aggression, against every idea
discordant with his theocratical principles,, contintially domineers.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE REFORMED WORD IN THE LORD'S SUPPER.
LUTHER. WEST PH ALIUS.
LU TH E E .
Renewal of the dispute on the institution of the Lord's Supper. — Zurich and
Wittenberg. — Calvin vainly essays to reconcile the two churches. — Luther's,
decree. — Tergiversation in Calvin's language regarding the Saxon monk. —
Luther, the Pericles of the reformation and the servant of Christ. — Moritz
Goltz, the bookseller. — The Protestant reformed churches have never been
able to produce a uniform symbol.
At the death of Zwingle, the church of Zurich was divided into va-
rious sects : the Significatives, the Tropists, the Energicals, the Arha-
benarians, the Adessenarians, the Metaphorists, the Iscariotists, and the
Nothingarians.
The dispute, for a moment tranquilized, was revived again on the
slightest liistorical accident. Melancthon vainly endeavoured to ap-
pease his master. Luther declared, that, as long as there remained a
drop of blood in his veins, or sufficient ink in his inkstand to fill his
pen, he would wage war against the Sacramentarians. In 1543, he
wrote to Froschauer, that the Saxon church could not live in peace with
the heretical church of Zurich. And in his annotations on Genesis,
published the year following, he acted the part of the Eternal Judge^
and condemned Zwingle, (Ecolampadius, and their adherents, to eter-
nal flames. In the meantime, Zurich remained faithful to the word of
its apostle, whom it venerated as a martyr. In honour of the memory
of the soldier of Cappel, BuUinger had just published that work which
was designated as the song of the swan :* the ChristiancB fidei exposu
tio ad Christian, regem : a singular libel, in which Zwingle caused
Hercules himself to chant the hosanna of the blessed in the kingdom of
heaven. " A vile olympus," said a Lutheran, "into which I should be
unwilling to enter, for fear of being knocked down."! The appear-
ance of Zwingle's book occasioned the Sacramentarians to renew the
• Bullinger, Hist. Eccl. fol. 232.
t Lanat, in Hist, sacram. — Floriraond de Raymond, p. 174,
404 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN-,
accusations which they had already circulated against Luther, whonu
they represented as a soul full of hate, puffed up with pride, adoring only
his own inspirations, and nailed to every personal, idea like a murderer
to his gibbet. Luther's wrath knew no bounds, when he was in-
formed that Leo Judae, the successor of Zwingle, and some other min-
isters were labouring at a new translation of the Bible, which, in fact,
was published in 1543.
We can understand the indignation of Luther. To touch that trans-
lation, which Mathesius regards as one of the most extraordinary mira-
cles of God in favour of his church ; to attack that version, in honor of
which Pomer had instituted a festival, called the translation of the
Bible ! In vain did Zurich, in defence of its doctors, cite the fourteen
hundred passages corrupted by Luther, in the New Testament, and re-
peat with Bucer, in the dialogue against Melancthon : Martin is un-
willing for any one to contradict him, let him have himself adored;
Luther laughed at the silliness of his enemies, applauded himself in
his glory, and, in the face of all Germany, set himself up as the god
of intelligence, of fortitude, and of reason.
The Sacramentarians ironically asked Luther, why, in the new-
edition of his translation, he had changed thirty-four passages of the
Gospel of St. Mathew. They wanted him to tell them, how the Holy
Ghost, who had been his Hebrew teacher, had permitted him to commit
such gross mistakes ;* and they said, as two centuries later did Ph.
Odelem : '' Show us then Martin's true bible !"t The Sacramenta-
rians this time had the laughers on their side.
Then, between the Saxons and the Zurichers began, not as former-
ly, one of those rude com.,bats, in which they struck with daggers steep-
ed in the waters of the Limmat and the Elbe ; but a struggle, in which
they fought with pins. It appeared as if both parties had forgotten
how to employ the pen, and had lost the use of that corrosive ink which
effected such wonders at Marbourg and at Augsbourg.
The Zurichers commenced the contest with a pamphlet, the whole
•venom of which is in the title : " A summary of the teaching of the
evangelists of Zurich, chiefly regarding the Lord^s Supper, against the
calumnies, the outrages, and the insolence of doctor Martin.":]:
But the pamphlet did not correspond with the title; Calvin has
given its character perfectly, in styling it '*a libel of a fasting child."
Luther did not take up the gauntlet ; but hatred still rankled in his
breast. Some days previously to his death, he wrote : " Happy the-
man who has not walked in the counsel of the Sacramentarians, who
has not been found in the ways of the Zwinglians, w^ho has not seated
himself in the chair of the Zurichers. "§
* Cochl. De Act. Luth. 2550.
t Welches dann dcs Luthers reclite Bibel sey? — In der abgenothigtcn An-
mcrkurifr liber M. J. Christ. Rochs abgcwicsencn IndifFerentisten, pag. 67..
^ Walirhaftes Bekcnntnis/, derDiener der Kirche zu Zurich, was sie leliren,
insonderheit vomNaclitmalil, auf das Schmahlen, Verdammen und Schelten
von Doctor Martin Luther
§ Bcatus vir qui non abiit in consilia sacramcntariorum, nee stetit in via
Cinglianorum, nee seditin cathedra Tigurinorum. — Ep. Jaeobo Probst, ecclesiae
Bremensis doctori, ITjan. 1546.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIN. 405
Calvin for a moment flattered himself with the hope of reconciling
divided minds, by means of his hermaphrodite system. Farel, who be-
lieved in the futm'e success of the Genevese trope, advised his friend to
go to Zurich, w^here his word, sustained by the Holy Ghost, would ope-
rate a reconciliation, which Piiilip of Hesse had in vain tried to effect at
Strasbourg. Calvin did not allow himself to be deluded regarding the
dispositions of the hostile communions.
" What should I go there to do ?" he wrote to his friend ; *' first, I
have not read the pamphlets which have so violently stirred the bile of
Luther. I know already w^hat the Zurichers would answer me : they
would boast the patience of which they have given proofs, and their ef-
forts to soften down the humours of the doctor. Bullinger himself, in
one of his letters, complained, not long since, of the harshness of the
Saxon, and told me how conciliating he and his party had shown them-
selves. It would be necessary to tame Martin ; but to say to the Zu-
richers that they must ask his pardon ! It is more to be feared, lest
they go and stir up the mud.'"*
Calvin is tormented in contemplating this son of Peleus, as he calls
Luther, who listens to no advice, and marches upon his path, without fear
of thickets and mountains. He would have Luther approximate to Zwin-
gle, and to effect this approximation, he believes in the omnipotence of
his treatise on the Lord's Stepper, which is welcomed no where.
'' But of what terrible malady is your Pericles ill ?" he wrote to
Melancthon. *' Whom has he induced to think with him, by all his
tumults of words ? Let him play his real game of a furious fool.
Certes, I revere him, but he does me wrong. And what is most unfor-
tunate is, that no person is found to repress, or even to calm an impet-
uosity so insolent. "t
The Genevese reformer w^as still more confidential with Bullinger,
because he was acquainted with the dispositions of his correspondent.
He has no fear now that his revelations will be abused ; he writes :
" I learn that Luther, with his insolent petulence, attacks us all to^
gether : I cannot decently hope that you will observe silence ; for,
after all, it is not just to be treated so badly, and not dare defend one-
self. I acknowledge that Luther is a man of fine genius, that he has
received extraordinary gifts from heaven, that he has an admirable for-
titude of soul, a constancy above all trial, and that to this day he has
combated the Antichrist. I have frequently said, that, were he to treat
me as an incarnate demon, I would still not the less rank him as a
great servant of Christ, but also great for his faults. Would to God he
had employed against the enemies of the truth that bile, which he ceases
not to pour out against the servants of Christ \"X
During ten years, the private opinion of Calvin regarding Luther had
undergone no variation. Already, in 1538, he was a man of vanity
and falsehood, labouring under gross hallucination, an absurd doctor,
* Cavere multo ante oportuit ne camarinam movereat. — Farello, 10 oct.
1544. Manus. Gen.
t Ep. Melanch. 28 Jan. 1545,.
X 25 noY. 1544. BuUingero.
406 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
who maintained that material bread is the body of Christ ; an insolent
opponent of the truth,*
But language changes with circumstances. It happens that Calvin
needs Luther's patronage for his book against the Nicodemites; now^
the writer's words are sweet as honey ; and the Augustinian monk is
transformed into a glorious minister of Christ, into a respectable father,
whom God illumines with his Spirit. f For the honour of Calvin, they
ought to tear up his correspondence ; in perusing it, one would imagine
himself at Wittenberg at the cradle of the reformation, when Luther
writes to Leo X. : *' Very holy father, give life, kill, call, recall, ap-
prove, reprove, thy voice is the voice of Christ; "J and at that very hour,,
without changing his pen, he completes his libel "on Adam and
Christ," in which, with joyous heart, he mocks at the Pope and his
thunders.
This morose monk died, bequeathing to Leo Judae, Calvin, and the
Sacramentarians, the following testament, written in his own hand :
" Seeing heresies heaped upon heresies on every side, and that the
devil puts neither limit nor term to his rage and fury, in order that after
my death they may not be able to make use of my writings to
defend the errors of the Sacramentarians, as has already been done by
some brainless fellows, corrupters of the supper of the Lord and of
baptism ; I have desired, before God, and before men, to make my
confession, in which, with the Ijord's aid, I wiah to persevere and pre-
sent myself before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. Should any one after
my death say : If Luther were alive, he would be of another opinior*
regarding such or such article, because he never gave it due considera-
tion. Let such person know, that then I should be of the same opinion
I am now. I have weighed all articles well ; I have, time and again,
reviewed them in comparison with the holy scripture, all of which I
will defend as courageously as I have done the Lord's Supper. I am
not drunk, and I treat of nothing inconsiderately. I know what I say,
and am aware of the judgment I am to undergo at the advent of Jesus
Christ. Let no one, therefore, think that I amuse myself regarding
matters of such great importance ; the thing important, by the grace of
God, I know satan. What would he not do with my writings, since
he has dared corrupt the holy scripture ? — I say, likewise, of the Lord's
Supper ; that in it, the true body and the true blood of Jesus Christ
in the bread and wine, is eaten and drunk, even though those who give
and those who receive it have lost faith, or abuse the sacraments : this
is my faith, all true christians believe it, and also the scriptures teach
it. What was not explained with sufficient clearness, has been enough
expounded in books, that have been published during four or five years
past. I beg upright and pious persons to be witnesses of my confes^
* Ncquo enim fastumodo et malecUcentia deliquit, sed ignorantia quoque et
crassissima hallucinatione.... ilium focdissimc errare judico.... quis tamen non
excusct Zwinglium praj insolenti quam narrant Martini ferocitate'? — Bucero,
Genevoe. l^jan. 1538.
t Vale, vir preestantissime, christi minister. 12 cal. feb. 1545. — See chapter,
entitled : The Libertines, under head of the Pamphlets.
tDas Buchlein von rechten Varstand, und Adam und Christus sey.—
Witt, 1518.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 407
sion, and implore God to give me the grace to persevere and accom-
plish the com-se of my life ; and if, in the struggle of death, tempta-
tion should force from my mouth anything contrary to this, I disavow
it, and by the confession which I make, I protest that such thing can
only come from satan : So help me God. Amen."*
Once Luther was sleeping in his tomb, then began the chants of
Calvin : the monk of Wittenberg, with lips swollen with bile, is no
longer a worthy apostle of Christ; the turbulent Pericles, who became
furious in attacking the disciple of Christ, is a champion that has spent
his life in destroying the Antichrist. f And why, then, these antilogies?
The reason was, that the combat regarding the Eucharist was still
raging, and the Genevese reformer, in order to rally the dissident church.
GS of Switzerland, needed to have it believed that Luther, before dying,
had become reconciled to some of the teachings inculcated in the book
de Ccena ; because, in order to shelter his head from the attacks of his
adversaries, he needed an aureola, made out of the glory which radiated
from the name of the Saxon monk.
Protestants would have us believe that, before his death, Luther de-
nied some of his dogmas, and especially his formulary respecting the
real presence ; they stand in need of this apostacy in order to exalt
Calvin. But this is a pleasure which we cannot allow them to enjoy.
In default of official testimony, they have culled from an obscure writer
an anecdote, which they quote in order to prove that Luther did not re-
gard Calvin as a heretic. We ask nothing better, than to recount this
little story.
At Wittenberg, there was a vender of old books, named Moritz
Goltz, whose house was the resort of students and professors. One
day, and it was the Monday after the Quasimodo geniti, doctor Martin
had just been lecturing on Genesis, and had left the college surrounded
by a group of students, when he paused before the stalls of Moritz
Goltz. — Well, said he to the bookseller, what do they think of me at
Frankfort ? Do they still wish to burn the great heretic, Martin ?
— Not at all, responds the bookseller; but here is a little book
which comes thence, and treats of the Lord's Supper. Its author is
master Johan Calvin, who wrote it originally in French ; Nicholas des
Gallars has translated it into Latin. It is said, that the author is a
young man quite full of science and piety, and that, in this book, he
has manifested how your honour has been misled, and also Zwingle
and (Ecolampadius, regarding this article of the sacrament.
— In verity ! cried Luther, laughing, let me see it, then, Moritz, that
I may glance through it.
Then Moritz went to the shelves of his shop, and took down an
octavo volume, which he presented to the doctor.
Luther seated himself, and began to read with attention the first
pages of the pamphlet ; then he glanced rapidly over the first chapters
♦ Luth. in 3 parte de coena. — Tran. de Fl. de Remond.
t Non dissimulanter testamur eum nos habere pro insigni Christi apostolo,
cujus maxime opera et ministerio restituta hoc tempore fuerit evangelii puri-
tas. — Quanta doctrinas efficacia hactenus ad profligandum Anti Christi regnura
ac simul propagandam salutis doctrinam iacubuitl
408 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
and the table of contents. When lie had done, he returned the octavo
to the bookseller, observing :
— " On my faith ! Moritz, this is a man of faith and science : had
(Ecolampadius and Zwingle treated the question as he does, the dispute
would neither have been so long nor so bitter."
Math. Stoiuss, then a disciple of Luther, and afterwards a doctor of
medicine, has often recounted this anecdote at the court of the Mar-
grave Albert of Prussia.*
But what do they wish to prove by this anecdote ? That Luther had
passed from the Saxon reality to the Genevese trope, and that, seduced
by Calvin'g argumentation, he had, in his old days, abandoned his cher-
ished symbol, and lamented the ink and anger which he had expended
in his dispute with the Sacramentarians ? But, before descending into
the tomb, he has protested, as we have seen, against the part which they
want to make him play. He has really died impenitent, carrying with
:him into his grave, his impanation, his adamantine necessity, his serf-
will, and his anathemas against (Ecolampadius, Zwingle, and the Sacra-
mentarians. If a person were willing to adopt the opinion of certain
writers of the Genevese school, he must sacrifice Luther to Calvin, and
henceforward regard the Saxon reformer as a renegade from Catholicism,
and from the church which he had founded himself.
And how is it, that they do not perceive that Luther's apostacy would
not prove the identity of the Genevese and Saxon symbols ? In vain
would they endeavour to make us believe in the doctrinal unity of the
reformed churches, when the worm of the Lutheran sepulchre, crushed
by the heel of Emser, separated itself into sixty-four different pieces ;
and old Ronsard sang loudly in France :
Comme un pauvre vieillard qui par la ville passe
Se courbant d'uii baton, dans une poche amasse
De vieux haillons qu'il trouve en cent mille morceaux,
L'un dessous un egoust, I'autre pres des ruisseaux,
L'autre sous un I'umicr et I'autre sous un antre,
06 le peuple artisan va descliarger son ventre :
Et puis en choissisant tous ces morceaux espars,
D'un fil il les ravaude et coust de toutes parts,
Puis s'en fait une robe, et pour neufve la porte:
La secte de Luther est de la meme sorte.
But the spectacle of those intestine divisions, doctrinal transforma-
tions, antilogies, of those prodigies of variations, retractations, and con-
tradictions, does not in the least alarm Protestant historians, who, with
great coolness, propound the statement : — That there is unity between
the two churches, the reformed and the protestant church, if not of
teaching, at least of faith in Jesus Christ. But then we will ask Cal-
vin's last biographer, to explain to us the anger of John of Noyon
• This recital seems to be taken from a German work, entitled ; AusfUhrli-
che, wahrhafte und bestandige Erzahlung vom Sakramentsstreit, durch
Christoph Pegel, professor at Bremen, in 1600. He was a crypto-Calvinist,
and is known for his quarrels with the Lutherans, and his book: Examen
Theologiae Melancthonis cum explicationibus. — See, Das Leben Johann Cal*
vins von Paul Henry, p. 501 and the following, t. II.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 409
against Westph alius, Pighius, and Gentilis, Protestants, who apparent-
ly believed in Jesus Christ and in the merits of his blood ?
The Protestant and reformed churches can unite in a common hatred
against the Catholic church; they can repeat what Luther said : —
** Should the Pope cast aside his triple crown, should he descend from
his seat, acknowledge that he is a heretic, that he has troubled Christen-
dom, and shed innocent blood, we could not regard him as a member
of Christ's communion : we should look upon him as tlie Antichrist in
person."* But never will Geneva and Wittenberg elevate themselves
to a common affirmation, and present us a uniform symbol. They
will never deceive us, who have, with our own eyes, beheld the condi-
tion of those dissident sects, agitated by rationalism, mysticism, panthe-
ism, deism, atheism, and all those negations, which spring from the
principle of private judgment. Do you wish to be acquainted with
the two churches : In one, the Lutheran church, a man can call him-
self a christian after having written the life of Christ as Strauss wrote
it; in the other, the Genevese church, one can call himself disciple of
Jesus, after having, like M. Cheneviere, written a pamphlet against the
•divinity of Christ. Strauss and Cheneviere ! behold two living witness-
es, sufficiently magnificent, it seems to us, to prove the misery of the
Protestant principle.
WESTPHALIUS.
Pamphlets of Westphalius. — Dispute with Calvin. — Libels of the Genevese
reformer. — Various citations. — Reflections on this controversy.
Calvin did not meddle with the disputations of the Saxon school
concerning mere ontological problems ; whether, because the fame of
them never reached Geneva, or, because he had need to collect all hia
energies in order to combat the adversaries of the Eucharistic trope,
which was attacked by the German Protestants on every side. Some
of the theologians of the school of Zurich were overcome by lassitude,
such as BuUinger and his disciples, who consented to be reconciled
with Calvin. Joachim Westphalius branded this alliance with the stig-
ma of apostacy, and provoked ardent controversies. f
The signal for hostilities was given by the pastor of Hambourg, in a
Latin pamphlet, entitled : Farrago confusanearum et inter se dissiden-
tium opinionum de CcBna, ex sacramentarioruni libris congesta.
(Magdeburg). This libel, written with vigour, is sown with personali-
ties and insults most manifest. Opinion hesitated. Then Westphali-
us published a second libel, more virulent than the first, in which he
* Wenn der Pabst wlirde seine dreifache Kron weg vkrerfen, und von seinem
rSmischen Stuhl weichen, und ofFentlich bekennen, dasz er geirret, und die
Kirche verwustet, und unschuldig Blut veegossen hat, so konnen wir ihm doch
als ein Glied der christlichen Kirchen nicht wider aufnehmen, sondern wir
tnQssenim fOr den rechten Antichrist halten. — Tisch-Reden, 416, 417.,
t Henke, t. Ill, p. 325. Honinghaus, das Resultat, c. 8
35
410
LIFE OF JOnm CALVIH.
announced, in positive terms, the fall of Christianity, if Sacramentarian^
ism weie not banished from all the cities which it had begun to infect.
The word of the Hamburgher was no vulgar word : minds were excited,
and war was declared between the Calvinists and the Zwinglians.
At this epoch, a colony of evangelists, assembled at London, under
the authority of John de Lasco, debarked on the coast of Denmark^ in
the midst of a rigorous winter, and received orders from the magistrate
to seek an asylum elsewhere. The vessel again put to sea, and the
evangelists found armed men to prohibit their landing, at every point at
which they desired to debark. At Lubeck, at Rosteck, at VVismar,. at
Hambourg, orders were given to repulse the heretical vessel with vio-
lence, and, beaten by waves and tempests, it went to pieces upon the
rocks. Some persons escaped from the wreck with their lives, and, to-
find pity, were compelled to be silent as to their origin, and especially
with regard to the name of John de Lasco, who was accused of having
adopted the ideas of Zurich and Geneva.*
The libels of Westphalius were offensive to the Genevese church.
Calvin had to intervene for the defence of his dearly beloved daughter.
He showed himself full of wrath and hatred. He was not acquainted
with his adversary, whom insult stimulated. Westphalios was a skill-
ful colourist, of the school of Luther ; by his style, he invested the
most vulgar raillery with poetic beauty. He accepted the combat, and
published two virulent books against his enemy. What is remarka-
ble in this controversy is, that Calvin, at the very time he was casting
bar-room insults into the faces of the pastors of Hambourg, chants
his evangelical charity, his dove-like simplicity, and his almost girlish
amiability.
"Very fine," said Westphalius, "I could exhibit certain pages in
which thou hast included more than thirty falsehoods, and as many
atrocious insults ? Each word is impregnated with venom : moreover,,
as all the world knows, these are but the customary ornaments of thy
style."!
And Calvin replies :
" How could I do otherwise in this, than as the proverb runs : Let a
rough ass have a rough rider, that he may not exult too much in his
fury.":j:
" True it is that Westphalius bitterly complains of my evil-speaking,
and in a manner for me very odious, were there any colour for it. I
acknowledge that at times there is a pungent word in my book ; but I
have used this to serve as a grain of salt, the more that I was displeas-
ed to find so little savour in this man, who boasts himself a minister of
* Menzcl, Neuere Geschichte dcr Doutsclien, t. JV, IIS.
t Possem ostendere aliquas pajrellns quae singulse contineant plura quarn
triginta nicndacia et convicia. Alicubi verl)a pene singula sufTusa sunt Iioc
veneno, etc. p. 418, 419. — Apologia confessionis do coena Domini contra cor-
ruptelas et calumnias Calvini scripta a Joachimo Wcstphalo, Ecclesiaste Ham-
burgcnsi. Ursellis., 1558, in-12.
:|: Collection of opuscules, or little tracts of M. John Calvin, in fol. Gene'
va, 1566.
Against the calumnies of Joacliim Westphalius.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 411
the gospel But, as to thee, I know not what spirit moves thee :
for, so much art thou inflated with wind, that if thou dost not, by mouth-
fuls, cast foam on all sides, it seems that thy stomach is full of it, as if
thou didst retain some sad thing which weighed heavy on it.
•' Inasmuch as Westphalius had to deal with a Frenchman, he has
brought forward one of my country, in whose person he renders me odi-
ous. He says that we have revived anew the heresy of Berengariue.
And if thou dost hold this one to be a heretic, why dost thou not forth-
with give the countersign, and enter into the Pope's camp ? But,, in-
deed, we are not to care much in what place thou dost reside, inasmuch
as thou esteemest thyself in good favour with the band of Antichrist.
Behold a hundred and fourteen horned bishops, in the midst of whom
presides Pope Nicholas. These force Berengarius to contradict him-
self. Thou mals.est no difficulty to give thy opinion in approbation of
their tyranny, as if they had justly condemned some heresy."
In retracing this struggle between the two most advanced representa-
tives of the reformation, Westphalius and Calvin, we still behold the
old parchment bound volume, with its corners eaten away by time,
which contains the acts of the dispute. It belonged to a lover of books,
who, to enhance its price, ornamented it with the portraits of the two
disputants. The head of Westphalius, drawn by a pupil of the school
of Albert Durer, floats amid luminous rays, which display this verse of
Horace as a motto ;
Impavidum ferient ruinae.
And, to say the truth, the Lutheran champion exhibits no semblance
of fear.
Calvin has the physiognomy of the blessed ; nothing is wanting to
him but the halo; the engraving of the Dutch artist, rem ar liable for its
ingenuity, has succeeded to diffuse life over features, which engravers
have rarely animated. Below the portrait, are read these four Latin
verses :
Angelas e caelo veniat, num scribere posset
Clarius, an melius verba docere Dei?
Vox tua non hominem sonat, et qui spiritus ex te
Fatur, olympigenos ex?iiperat genios.
Was this an epigram, affixed to the commencement of his little vo-
lume by the lover of books ? In reading some pages farther on, we
had no doubt of this.
" Dost thou hear, dog ! dost thou hear, madman ! dost thou hear,
brute r'^and similar apostrophes, addressed by Calvin to his antagonist,
who, moreover, listens in silence, allows "the angel who has descended
from heaven" to clamour, and rage, and afterwards replies to him :
" Very holy father, why then dost thou preach to us passive obedi-
ence to thy decrees? Why so many menaces, and a hell ready pre-
pared to burn us, if we obey not thy commandments ?"*
* Cur obedientiam nobis stricte impcrat beatissimus pater? Cur et nos dam-
412
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Calvin wanted to remain master of the field of battle. He wrote
his "last warning," Ultima admonitio, in which insults fall thick a3
hail. But the ardent Lutheran responded by new pleasantries.
'•No, no," said he, "I will not be silent ; thy basilisk may vomit on mo
its venomous drivel, in order to poison me, yet I speak, and I will
' ■'*
If there be a question in the world, in treating which the writer
should seek for mild words, in order to convince his adversary, it is the
question of the Eucharist, that sacrament of love. And yet there are
no vulgarisms, sarcasms, outrages, with which Calvin's Institutes have
not inspired the partisans of the reformation. Beza, in defending the
opinion set forth in this book against the Saxon dogma, has imitated his
master. He calls Eilmann, the Lutheran minister who advocated the
real presence, ''an ape, an ass with a doctor's cap upon his head, a dog
swimming in a bath, an asinine sophist, an impudent rogue, a sycophant,
a polyphemus, a monster, half monkey, half ogre; a carnivorous animal,
a Cyclops, a papist."!
Let us see whether science, united with an exquisite politeness of
style, will meet with favour from Calvin. Will Castalion be more
fortunate than Westphalius ?
nat pro lisereticis si non obedienter obtemjxeremus, nisi \it deterritis calamus
«icidat? Apologetica aliquot scripta magistri Joach. Westphali quibus et
sanam doctrinam de Eucharistia defendit, et fcedissimas calumnias sacramen-
tariorum diluit. — Ursellis, apud Nocol. Henricum, 1558.
* Basiliscum suum ita veneno implevisse se putavit, ut facile aspectu inte-
rimeret.
fD'Arligny, Nouveaux memoires d'histoire^ etc., t. II, p. 163»
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CASTALION AND HUMAN LIBERTY.*
Castalion, the type of the learned man of the sixteenth century. — A Poet,
Rhetorician, Philologist. — His sojourn at Strasbourg. — Preceptor at Gen-
eva.— Disputes wiih Calvin. — Is exiled.- -Controversy concerning freewill. —
Polemics of the reformer. — Calvin's pamphlets.— Calvin accuses Castalion
of stealing. — The poet's defence. — Castalion dies from hunger. — His
epitaph.
His real name was Sebastian Chateillon. Spon and Led give, as
his place of birth, a little town of Dombes, of which St. Vincent of
Paul at a latter period was cure. Jn his childhood he was fond of
reciting, with a tragic accent, verses which fill the mouth, and cause a
great noise in their issue from tlie breast. f One day, when, being alone,
he was amusing himself in the actor's art on the banks of tlie Saone,
some person, who was observing the poet, began exclaming : Castalio !
Castalio ! Chateillon imagined himself transported into Greece,
saluted the muse who had just baptised him, and henceforward called
himself Castalion. J
He is the type of the literary man of the middle ages. He laboured
twelve hours a day, arose with the sun, sang Greek in the morning,
Latin after dinner, and Hebrew in the evening.
As soon as he had attained the age of twenty, he began roaming
through Germany, the land of science, securing means of subsistence
by vending Virgil or Homer. Purchasers were, numerous. Castalion
was not difficult to be pleased. He tells us himself, that one of his
grandest repasts was black bread steeped in milk. He^thus lived upon
something less than six cents of our money. In case of need', after
having corrected the translation of liis pupil, he took a saw and cut
wood, or went to the market in search of provisions for his household.
Providence reserved for him a life replete with sufferings, which he
endured like a philosopher.
In 1545, he published, at Bale, four books of dialogues upon histori-
cal passages selected from the Bible. Bale, that ancient city, quite
* Cast. Dcfjnsio. Scaligeriana prima. Bayle, art. CastaZio??. David Clement,
Bibl. cur.
t Poeta et Groscee plane levitatis Musopatagus.
X Quod ego nomen audiens a Musarum fonte Cnstalio derivatum adamavi
alque amplexus sum, mcque omisso deinceps Castellionis nomine patrio, Cas-
taUonc appellavi. — Cast. def. p. 21.
35*
414 LIFE OF JOEN CALVIN,
perfumed with Latin, was filled with wonder; it imagined that Casta-
lion had never lived any where but in the Rome of Augustus. At a
later period, Melancthon, on receiving a copy of the Greek poem of
Sebastian upon St. John the Baptist, was so delighted, that he began,
reciting long extracts from it to his auditors of Wittenberg. But for
the bibical name of the hero, they would have imagined it some
antique fragment brought into Italy by some of those Hellenists, to
whom Rome and Venice at that time offered a refuge. Unfortunately,,
in those days of religious agitation, the muses themselves aspired to be
theologians. Castalion's muse imitated the rest; she left the sweet
shades of the Tiber, to throw herself into the abyss of predestination.
But the poet, so roughly used by God, doubts neither of his goodness
nor his mercy ; like Catholics, he represents Providence, as an affec-
tionate and tender mother, who has predestined her children only to
eternal happiness, while leaving them that free-will, which Calvin and
Luther have changed into an inexorable necessity.
On the arrival of Calvin at Strasbourg, Castalion went to visit the
reformer, who was delighted with the science of the exile. Then be-
tween these two souls began an intercourse, which afterwards was to be
troubled with such melancholy contests. Castalion, with his rustic
confidence, bestowed upon his friends all the treasures of his skill in
languages, and even in medicine ; for, in his perambulations through
the mountains, the young Bressian had studied botany, and he knew
secrets, for the cure of diseases, which few practitioners then possessed.
Calvin had rented him a small room, for which Castalion paid his rent
regularly.* One day, Calvin having use for his little chamber, dis-
missed the poet; but the poet soon returned again. The valet of the
grand lady, " Miss des Vergers," who had taken Castalion's place, fell
sick. He was a native of Dombes; Castalion saved him.
After his recall from exile, Calvin invited Castalion to Geneva, and
caused him to be appointed regent of the college. The reformer
thought he would find in the poet his former table companion of Stras-
bourg. But several years had glided by, and the poet had apostatized,
and turned theologian. Now, figure to yourself a monk of Cologne,
;,with the learning of Melancthon, and the intemperate tongue of Carl-
stadt. The regent set to work to study the Bible, which he resolved to
translate. While labouring at his version, he became desirous to make
a noise like Luther; and, to be more sure of agitating the religious
world, he conceived the idea of denying the canonicity of the Canticle
of Canticles, which he represented as an indecent idyl produced by the
brain of some libertine. The idea was admirable ! Castalion con-
sidered himself too much of a theologian to submit his manuscript to
the eyes of the reformer. Calvin's self-love was wounded. Castalion,
who, when the pest was making such frightful ravages, had offered him-
self to nurse those infected, while the other ministers were concealing
themselves, for fear of death,t placed as slight an estimate upon the
* Castal. defensio, p.26.
t Chitillon, regent, presents himself to be minister of the pest-hospital;
several ministers refuse to go there, saying, that they would rather go to the
devil. Fragments biographiquos des registresde la ville, 1 mai, 1543, p. iO.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVJN. 4j5
courage, as upon the theological skill of the Genevese. He sought to be
made minister, but was refused : they had denounced him to the consis-
tory. Upon the registers of Geneva, under date January 14th, 1544,
we read : " M. Calvin has reported that Bastian, regent of the schools,
is a very learned man, but has some opinion, for which he is not fit for
the ministry; and, besides, he complains of his salary for the school.''
He received the annual sum of four hundred and fifty florins ; Cal-
vin, at that time, had double this amount.
The council gave orders to Castalion to content himself with his
emoluments, and to exercise greater vigilance over his pupils.
Castalion guessed who was his denouncer, and sought to be re-
venged.
He asked to have a discussion with Calvin. The council decided
that the discussion should take place ''between them secretly, not wish-
ing that such things should be published."
In his catechism the minister asked :
" What signifies : he descended into hell ?" The child responded :
" It means that Christ has not only suffered a natural death, which is a
separation of the soul from the body, but also, that his soul has been
distressed with wonderful agonies, which St. Peter calls the pangs of
death." The minister continued : "And for what reason was this
done, and how ?" To which the child answered : " Because, inasmuch
as he presented himself to God to make satisfaction in the name of sin-
ners, it was necessary that he should feel this horrible distress in his
conscience ; and even, as if God had been irritated against him, while
in this abyss, he exclaimed : My God ! my God ! why hast thou for-
saken me ?"*
Castalion had chosen for his text : He desended into hell, (descendit
ad inferos.) His rival was teaching publicly, that Jesus had suffered
in his soul the pains of the damned. It is said that, in this discussion,
the poet was admirable for his logic, his force, and his sarcasm. An-
other time, when disputing with Calvin, he opened his bible at thi3
passage of St. Paul ; "Exhibiting ourselves the ministers of God, full
of charity," and from this text he extemporized an exordium ah irato,
replete with antitheses, which fell like real tongues of fire upon the
heads of all present,
" We, servants of God !" exclaimed the regent ; "behold the real
servant of God, Paul ; but as to us, we are the slaves of our appetites,
and of our passions. Paul passed the night in watching over his be-
loved church, and we pass the night in play; Paul was sober, and we
are drunkards ; Paul was troubled by seditions, and we occasion them;
Paul was chaste, and we revel in debauchery; Paul was cast into
chains, and we bind chains on those who have oflfended us ; Paul lean,
ed upon the arm of the Lord, and we upon an arm of flesh; Paul suf-
fered, and we torture others."!
The ministers looked at each other, rubbed their hands across their
* Oranes poenas sceleratorum persolvit, diros cruciatus damnati ac perdi'.i
hominis in anima pertulit, omnia irati et punieutis Dei signa cxpertus est.
t Farello, 30 maii 1544. Manus. Gen.
416 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
brows, and essayed to disturb the orator, who did not permit himself to
be intimidated, but ended as he had begun, and as Calvin says, like a
veritable gladiator, who wanted nothing but blood.*
Caslalion could no longer remain in Geneva. He therefore aban-
doned the city, but decked with all the laurels of the comb-ii. He car-
ried with him a certificate, drawn up in very honorable terms, which
Calvin had given him. The reformer dreaded Sebastian, and he had
reai^on. Beza has stated, that the regent was obliged to expatriate him-
self; this is a falsehood. Beza must more than once have heard Cal-
vin repeat, that Sebesiian had left the republic voluntarily, without
ihere having been the slightest grounds to reproach him on the score of
morals or doctiine.t Danasus represents him as a demoniac, a scurvy
fellow, of whom, with God's aid, Geneva was fortunate enough to get
t'ld.i Hei would not have spoken otherwise of a Catholic.
Castalion took refuge at Bale, where the senate appointed him pro-
fessor of Greek. The poet was forced to resume the monk's cowl.
Calvin calumniated him.
On the appearance of a work of Castalion, on predestination, the
dispute blazed forth anew.
The theological world was for a long time held in suspense, by the
struggle between these two intelligences, which was often intermitted
and revived. It regarded the greatest problem of philosophy ever agi-
tated by the schools, and upon the solution of which depended, whether
humanity should stand forth, free or enslaved. It was, therefore, a ques-
lion of moral liberty or servitude.
In opening Calvin's book, we perceive that he comprehended all the
importance of the combat ; for he wants to slay his adversary, even be-
fore he has seized his weapons, and upon the blank page of his libel,
he writes : " Reply to a calumniator." From the very beginning of
the work, he hides himself in God, in order to ward off the strokes of
his antagonist. '* The blows which you aim at me," says he, "shall
pass through my bosom in order to reach the Eternal Truth ;§ and this
it is, which forces me to weep."
But Castalion is not like those German monks, who, when too
strongly pressed, seek refuge as quickly as they can, under the soutan
of Scotus or the mantle of Aristotle ; he believes in himself, and only
in himself;
•' Without liberty, there is no evil, there is no good;|| what, then,
becomes of morality ?"
— Morality, responds the reformer, is in the will.
Castalion smiles and replies : " But who operates this will ; is it
God?"
• Fu'.t omnino sanguinaria oratio.
t Non aliqua vitaj macula, non impium aliquod in fidei nostras capitibua
djgnia.
^ Tanqunm spu nd, cxpiiUo, cxpurgata est civitas. Dangers, Epist. dedicat.
de ilasrcst, ad sLMi-it. Gcncv.
J Hoc tantiim dolco quod per latus mourn configitur sacra ilia set srnaque
Dei Veritas. Calv., in Resp. ad calumniatoris prasfationem.
H Cistal., apud Cal. Thcol , p. 629.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVm.
417
Calvin proceeds : " Good results not from the act, but from the
thought : pride, avarice, envy, are not in God, but in man. But how
does he allow the being, whom he has commanded to follow the way of
truth, to sin, how does he nail this being to error ? This is a mystery
which he has concealed?"*
But Gastalion laughed, and exclaimed : " I do not understand thee."
And then Calvin did like Luther, when too closely pressed by
Emser :
" Nor do I comprehend, nor do the angels: I adore ; and those^
who will not humble themselves, are rascals, blackguards, dogs, who
bark at virtue."!
After the punishment of Servetus, whose defence Castalion wished to
undertake, the contest was renewed, but upon a different arena : the
question was, to know whether the reformer had the right to shed the
blood of a heretic. Calvin appealed to God, to sustain the privilege
of the sword.
In order to destroy the ancient regent, he wrote two libels, in which
we meet with full pages of wrath ; one of them is entitled : "Response
to certain calumnies and blasphemies;" the other is in Latin : **Ca-
lumniae nebulonis cujusdam." They constitute a double rhetorical
theme, in which the writer, to vilify his enemy, transforms him into
a thief.
Castalion defended himself nobly. This time, it was not merely his
reputation as a literary man, but his bread, of which they attempted to
rob, not only himself, but his wife and eight children; for, if Calvin
spoke the truth, the poor professor of Greek was obliged to leave Bale,
and die of famine. Happily, Calvin had lied.
Castalion's reply ought to be noble, its language without violence,
its polemics without passion : that is to say, for success, it was necessa-
ry for him to avoid resembling Calvin. This was what he had
promised.
The humanist first responds to what he terms i\\Q farrago of the ac-
cusation.
"In thy libel, oh Calvin! thou heapest upon me all the insultd
which thy hate could inspire; I am a blasphemer, a barking dog, an
ignorant being, an impudent fellow, an impostor, a debauchee, a char-
latan, a blackguard! Thou cryest ; May God close the mouth of this
satan !J But thou forgettest then, Calvin, that thou art the author of
the Life of a Christian, {Vila hominis Christiani ), which contains
such sage precepts, that a certain person has advised me to write to thee
to ask, whether the Calumnies of a blackguard and the Life of a
christian, come from the same pen.§ What then ! Did I resemble tha
* Deum severe prohibcre et vetare constat qulcquid est contrarium suo man-
dato. Cur autem volens errare sinat et arcano decreto errori addicat quern
viam rectam tenere jubet, sobriae modestiee est nescire, Cal., de JEierna prte-
destin.
t Hcec mysteria qui non capiunl ea revercnter adorare et admirari debcnt et
exclatnare: o altitudo.... sunt improbi et irnpuri nebulones, blaterones, canes,
piotati oblatrautes....
■f Compescat te Deus, satan.
S Castal. Defensio, p. 2.
418 LIFE OF JOHN CALV2N.
portrait which thou hast sketched of me ; was I full of pride, ingrati-
tude, fraud, impudence, blasphemy, and impiety? And if thou didst
know all these defects,tell me, then, why, in spite of my repeated re-
fusals, thou and thy friends forced me to accept theregentship of the col-
lege of Geneva ? How ! hast thou selected as teacher for the youth of
the city, which thou hast decorated with the name holy, a man, quite
covered with vices, though thou didst know me so well ? Tell me,
then, why that fine certificate of life and morals, which thou didst give
me Avhen I voluntarily left the city?*
" Thou reproachest me for the food thou gavest me at Strasbourg ! I
lodged with thee, it is true, for about a week ; after which I was com-
pelled to give up my room to Miss des Vergers, who came to thee with
her son and her valet ; but I paid thee for what I ate.f
" Thou and Beza ! how cordially you do hate me ! Whatever evil is
said of me, you believe it, or feign to believe it ; but of the good, you
will believe nothing. Your enemies induce you to accept every thing-
regarding me they please ; you deceive them, as they deceive you, in
telling to them a thousand fables of your own invention concerning
me.J Have you not represented me as a dangerous cabalist, having ia
his employ a host of valets dispersed through the city and the country ;
in such sort, that certain Frenchmen, who came from Strasbourg to
Bale, expecting to find me like a satrap in the midst of a hedge of sate-
lites, quite resplendent with gold, were greatly astonished to meet but
a poor little man, quite needy, humbly lodged, and only thinking of
living in peace with all the world. When the magistrates are unwil-
ling to listen to me, you strive to dishonour me, by accusing me of
things infamous ; you pursue my books with your wrath and your
anathemas ; you write books against me, and you labour to deprive me
of the means of reply."
Having come to the charge of theft, brought against Castalion by
Calvin, the defence continues the same, always calm ; but m the pro-
fessor's reply, there is a revelation of poverty which brings tears from
the eyes ; and Sebastian aimed not at this effect.
" Tell me, then," asked Calvin : "Sometime ago, with thy harpoon
in hand, seated upon the Rhine, thou wast gathering wood to warm thy-
self at home, didst thou not voluntarily steal what belonged to<
others?"§
— " And who has told thee this?" answers Castalion, with tears iri
iiis eyes ; "thy spies have deceived theo. Reduced to the most frightful
misery, and not wishing to abandon my translation of the holy books,
(for I would have preferred rather to beg from door to door), I took a
hook, and went to seek the wood that was floating down the Rhine,
and which belonged to no one ; this J secured, and afterwards burned
** Queero ex te quorum' hominum est puerls instituendis praeficero hominem^.
q«em tu sccleratum esse, scires, idque in ea urbe quam vos sanctam etiam im-
pressis libris appcUatis? Def., p. 18-
t Castal. Def., p. 26. _ t ^^^f., p. 40.
) Qnaero ex te dum proximis annis, tibi harpago in manu erat ad rapienda
ligna quibusdomum tuam calefaceres, an non te propria voluntas ad furanduni^
impulerit? Calvin., in Calumn. nebulonis, p. 748, Tract, TheoL
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 419
at my lodgings, in order to warm myself. Is this what thou callest
stealing /"*
Poor Castalion ! a poet, orator, theologian ; acquainted with Greek,
Hebrew, and Latin, and yet reduced, in order to warm the fingers which
age has begun to freeze, and his poor little children and aged wife, to
watch for a morsel of wood, whicl:i the tempest has uprooted and cast
upon the waters of tlie Rhine ! He tells us himself that, in the morn-
ing, when the Hauenstein was covered with dense clouds, he thanked
heaven, and waited with impatience for the tempest, in its might, to
strew the Rhine with the ruins of the Alpine forests. Did not this
wood, the offering of that good God, as he terms him, belong to the
poet, as the grain of wheat, w^hich the wind drops upon tlie highway, is
the property of the bird ? Calvin, the former friend of Sebastian, was
not as charitable as the tempest : in place of sending some bread to his
brother, he denounces him to all Germany and France, as a robber !
And whilst he was thus leaving the former school-master of Geneva to
die of hunger, his table was covered with white bread, made expressly
for him by the baker, and which was called the bread of M. Calvin.
And Calvin was amusing himself by railling at the poor old man.
'•' When master Castalion drinks," said the reformer, "he has the
custom, before tasting his wine, to say: Tu qiiis es? (who art thou?)
If the wine be tolerable, he replies : Ego sum qui sum ; (I am who
am); If it be excellent : Hie est filius Dei vivi.'' (This is the Son of
the living God.)
But God also abandoned Castalion, who was more unfortunate than the
bird of heaven, which has its nest, its foliage, and its pastures. The
tempest was silent, the forests of Jura were no longer shaken : not the
slightest morsel of wood could he steal from the river, and sell at the
city market, if not needed to cook his food ! Then, he took a line and
went to fish in the river, or a spade to dig in some of those little gar-
dens, with which each house in Bale was ornamented. " I love rather
to fish," he said, "for while waiting for the fish, I study."
Castalion died from hunger,! like that little lamp of which he speaks
in his Moses, which expired for want of oil. Bale understood the loss
it had sustained by the death of Castalion ; but it was too late. Even
the very earth was not to rest lightly upon this professor, whom, misery
continually pursued ! He had been deposited in the tomb of Gryneus: a
tardy homage to so much merit ; but a professor of the family of Gryne-
us caused the tomb to be searched, and was guilty of the impiety of
exhuming the body. On that day of profanation, three Polish gentle-
men chanced to be passing through Bale, and they remembered that
Castalion had been their master, and caused the body to be borne into
the grand church. Whilst placing it in its last abode, the Latin muse
v/as engaged in preparing an epitaph for one of her most cherished vo-
taries : and, in this funeral chant, she included the whole life of the
poet :
♦ Capiebam interdum succesivis horis harpagone ligna quae solet dum exun-
dat Rhenussecum rapta devehere, quibus domum meam calefacerem. Hoc
tu furtum interpretaris. Certo non bonus, neque candidus interpres. Publica
sunt ilia ligna et primi occupantis. Castal. Def., p. 12.
t Mortuus est ex paupertate. Scaligeriana, p. 45.
420 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Jejunas crebro ccenas ct praiuUa nudo
Suincre cum parva prole solcbat agro.
Quit! ctiairi urcntis qiia^ posset frigora brumae
PcUere, vol touues rite parare cibos,
Ex Rheno manibus venientia ligna trahcbat,
Cum gravis ingentcs fuderat imber aquas.
Ncc pudor interdum pisccs captare sub undls;
Ncc pudor ct rastris findere pingue solum,
Utcharam uxorem posset sobolemque tenellam
Hiiic alerc ac sortls damna levare suee.
Montaigne has offered this learned man a tribute of piety, whicfi wc
are delighted to recite :
" I learn, to the great shame of our age, that, under our view, two
persons distinguished for their learning have died from starvation : Lili-
us Gregorius Giraldus, in Italy, and Sebastianus Castalio, in Germany.
And I believe that there arc a thousand men, who would have invited
them on advantageous terms, and aided them, had they known of it.
The world is not so generally corrupt, but that I know a man,
■who, with great affection, would desire to use "the means left in his
hands by his friends, as long as fortune will allow him to possess them,
to relieve from necessity personages remarkable for some sort of worth,
whom misfortune sometimes pushes to extremity, a man, who, at least,
would put them in such condition, that, except for the want of good
conversation, they would be contented."*
*Essais,liv. 1, eh. 34.
The following is a list of the principal works of Castalion :
Dialogorum Sacrorum libri IV. Bas., 1545. — Version of the Sybelline verses
with notes. — A Latin translation of the Psalms of David, and of the Canticles
of the scriptures, 1547. — A Greek poem on John the Baptist, and a Latin para-
phrase of the poem of the prophet Jonas, 1548.— A partial translation of Ho-
mer, Xenophon, and St. Cyril. — A Latin translation of the XXX. dialogues of
Ochino. — Latin version of the Bible, Bale, 1551. — A French translation of the
Bible, Bale, 1555, dedicated to Henry IL Theodore Beza pretends that the
jargon of Poictou, the grossest of all the jargons of France, would seem less
barbarous than the style of Castalion. On the other hand, Richard Simon cer-
tifies that an elegant and polished style is found in Castalion's translation,
(Hist. Crit. du vleux-Test t. II, ch. 25). — A Latin translation of the Theologia
Gennanica, under the name of Joannes Theophilus. — Dialog! de praedestina-
tionoj de electione, de libero arbitrio, de fide. — Dcfcnsio translationis Novi
Testament! contra Th. Bczam. — In capit. 9, ep, ad Rom. comment, deprsedes-
tinatione et justificatione. — De non puniendis hasreticis, also attributed to So-
cinus. — Defcnsio contra Calvinum ot Bezam. — Peter Ramus has given the
following testimony to Castalion: "Utinarn tanti ingenii tamque bonis artibus
acliteris" eruditi vis ilia in hoc unico graecee professionis argumento versari
raaluisset; nihil mcaquidem sententia in isto genero laudis Basilea comparan
dum habuisset." Peter Ramus, in Basilea, p. 52.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
BOLSEC, THE MERIT OF GOOD WORKS.
The pastor Saint-Andre preaches Calvin's predestination at St. Peter's.— -BoU
sec attacks the preacher, who is defended by the reformer. — Bolsec is
thrown into prison, and interrogated. — His defence.— He is retained in irons.
— Interference of the churches of Bale and Berne. — Zurich demands the
death of Bolsec— He is set free, leaves Geneva, and is pursued by the
hatred of Calvin. — History of Calvin's life and morals. — Bolsec calumnia-
ted.— He is vindicated by Protestant writers.
When Luther, seated amidst a group of Germans of the pure blood,
that is, copious beer drinkers, heard the name of the Pope pronounced,
his brow contracted, his eye glowed, and his lips were curled with a
Satanic smile; and then began to fly among the revellers a deafening
volley of ridicule, sarcasms, jests, against the Roman pontiff, that is,
against the precursor of the Antichrist. During the first years of their
joyous meetings, the guests of the Wittenberg tavern, nearly all rene-
gade priests or monks, amused themselves in baptizing the then reign-
ing Pope with the name of Antichrist : among the mountain peasants
of Pollesberg, it was an article of faith, that Leo X. was really the
man of sin foretold by the prophets. After the death of Leo X., Adri-
an, his successor, was saluted with the same name. Adrian having
descended to the tomb, Clement inherited the cursed title. But then
some persons, better acquainted with history, caused the revellers to re-
mark, that, in the space of twenty years, the world had contained three
Antichrists : at least too many by two, if we would not accuse the
prophet Daniel of falsehood. Then, for a moment, the Pope was no-
thing but the precursor, the image, or the mythos of the Antichrist.
To the Genevese Protestants, Bolsec stood in the same relation as
the Pope did to Luther. Drelincourt saddles him with all the sins
which a human being can ever carry in this world : he makes of him
a blasphemer of the holy name of Jesus, a falsifier, a liar, a simoniac,
a man without faith or God.
He opens the pits of the abyss, and, in the midst of dense clouds of
smoke, there comes forth, "a wicked wretch, sold to iniquity, visibly
possessed by a lying spirit ; a monster, more horrible, and more worthy
of public execration, than any ever produced by hell; this is Bolsec."*
This wrath can be explained.
* Drelincourt, Defense de Calvin, p. 100 et passim.
36
422
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIH,
Bolsec, like Westphalius and Castalion, seduced by the new lan-
guage which the reformation spoke in France, had abandoned Catholi-
cism, and sought a refuge at Geneva. There, he went to work, reading'
the holy scriptures, taking seriously the advice given by Calvin, in his
sarmons and writings, to study the inspired word. Unfortunately, after
a sufficiently long examination, he had modified the articles of his faitli,
which he had embraced too precipitately, and, upon predestination, he
had adopted ideas different from those entertained by the author of tha
Christian Institutes : he had not comprehended Calvin.
One day, in the year 1542, Saint-Andre, pastor of Jussy, who would
not have been able to dust the books of a monk of Cologne, developed
this passage from the pulpit, at St. Peter's : " Those who are not of
God hear not his word." Chained, like a galley-slave, hand and foot,
to the fatalism of his master, the preacher maintained that the soul
which God has not regenerated, resists necessarily; that it is nailed to
sin, sold irremissibly to death, inasmuch as it does not possess that gift
of obedience and submission which the Lord gives only to his elect.
We here behold the logical chain of the doctrines taught in the In-
stitutes ': Saint-Andre was repeating the part he had learned.
Now, in the consistory of Geneva, every assistant was allowed to
present his objections to the minister who had occupied the pulpit.
Bolsec wanted to speak ; and, the service being over, he arose and
said :
— " Master, I hold that opinion, regarding the justice of God, to be
false and dangerous ; it springs from the brain of Valle ; it is repug-
nant to the scriptures, to the fathers, and particularly to St. Augus-
tine."
— " Master Bolsec," responds the minister, "my doctrine is entire-
ly biblical."
— " Twist the scriptures as you please," resumed Bolsec, "If God,
for his own pleasure, damns some and saves others, he is a tyrant, and
the sinner has his excuse quite ready : he will say that it is not he that
is guilty, but the fantastical divinity, which you have created with
your own hands."
At these words, a lank, lean figure was seen to arise amidst the
groups, which, casting its eyes around the hall, and then fixing them on
Bolsec, exclaimed : I accuse thee of calumny and falsehood ; for the
doctrine of Saint-Andre is my doctrine. Uost thou pretend that I
make God the author of sin ?
Then one of the auditors approached Bolsec and said to him : 'T
arrest thee !" and they cast him into prison. He had msuUed Calvin.
The ministers assembled, and, in common, drew up seventeen arti-
cles, upon which the accused was to be interrogated.
This was a skillfully composed summary of Calvin's dogmatic teach-
ing on predestination, where they constituted, as articles of faith, the
servitude of man since Adam's fall, the damnation of a part of the hu-
man race, decreed by God even antecedently to the prevision of any
demerit, the necessity of sinning, imposed as a law upon a great num-
ber of creatures disinherited beforehand, and that of doing good, im-
posed on some others, who will be glorified without having deserved it :
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 423
all the things that have been read in the Christian Institutes, and -which at
Geneva must be believed*, under penalty of no longer belonging, or
rather of never having belonged, to that choir of blessed souls imagin-
ed by Calvin,
Bolsec, with energy, repudiates this despair-causing and absurd doc-
trine, falsified by the ideas which God has given us of himself, and by
every experience of our intimate sense. According to the view of the
pliilosopher, there may have been inequality in the divine gifts, a
greater love for a certain number of elect souls ; but towards all, there
is a father's love, in all, an entirely free faculty to do good or evil, to
be saved through grace, or lost through malice. — Do you deny, said he
to his judges, that God warns us by the cry of our conscience, by the
maladies of soul and body, by his love and his benefits ? And what,
then, is this God, who would deceive us thus, who would cause his sun
to shine upon our heads, who would spread upon our fields the treasures
of his love, who, at each beautiful thought, would cause our hearts to
leap with joy ? A tyrant, a vulgar tyrant. With your God, having
a heart of bronze, who himself impells us to crime, and afterwards
laughs at our tears and mocks at our repentance, justice no longer ex-
ists upon this earth : and man, coming from the hands of the Creator,
is but a bitter derision : better for him had he been left in nothingness.
It was difficult to reply to Bolsec. However, the ministers attempt-
ed it, but they involved themselves in the mazes of a terminology, where
they lost what modesty and reason they possessed.
Bolsec evidently grew greater, as all these champions of predestina-
tion diminished in stature, while vainly tormenting th^iselves to avoid
becoming a laughing stock to the whole theological world.
In prison, he conceived the idea of shifting the question, in order,
body to body, to wrestle with Calvin himself. He is admirable in ar-
gumentation, when, illuminating that desolating symbol into which the
reformer sought to breathe a living soul, he causes to issue forth from it
a God, the agent and author of sin ! His accusation is brief, senten-
tious, constructed of dilemmas which uphold each other, which present
a seried front, and, in their numberless threads, entangle the feet of his
adversaries. Calvin needs some means of escape, and he imagines "a
will in God, which cannot fail, and an irresistible instinct of sin in
man. But man wills, and hence the sin and responsibility. So that,
if he do good, it is in virtue of the free will which God gives him by
his Holy Spirit; and if he do evil, it is by the necessitating impulse of
his natural will, which is tainted by corruption. Miserable sophisms !
As if that will, good or bad, Vv^ere not, according to this doctrine, equal-
ly God's work.
The debates were concluded. Bolsec asked to be restored to liberty;
but no one having come forward to go his security, he remained in
prison, endeavouring to sweeten the long nights of his captivity, by
commending himself to the muses, who descended into his dungeon and
lulled him to rest; the unhappy man, forgetting theology, imagined
himself a poet, and began to sing.*
♦ i\'L Picot, in his history of Geneva, gives Bolsec's verses.
424:
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN",
Calvin feared that, once the poet was again roused from his revery,
he would resume his disputatious habits, and attack the dogma of pre-
destination. He procured that he should be kept a prisoner until ad-
vice should be received from the churciies of Switzerland, to which the
proceedings of his trial had been forwarded. Bolsec, condemned,
would have lost his head on the scaffold : this is the opinion of M.
Thourel,* who knew Calvin. But happily for the prisoner, Berne and
Bale guessed the intention of the reformer, whose dogmatic intolerance
had long disgusted them.
Consequently, Berne answered — that care should be taken not to
use violence towards disputatious pilgrims;! that if Christ loves truth,
he loves charity still more ; that Bolsec was neither a wicked nor an
impious man; that these quarrels were only calculated to trouble con-
sciences; that care should be taken not to cast them as food before an
ignorant people, and that, moreover, the dispute regarded words only.
Bale pursued the same course with Berne, and recommended mild-
ness and silence.
But Zurich preached violence, and clamoured for blood. It wanted
the law, which punished the crime of heresy with death, to be applied to
the criminal; and yet, thirty years before, Zurich called Zwingie pas-
tor, who had revolted against ecclesiastical and civil authority !
Bolsec soon learned the decision of the Helvetic churches, and then
the muses, who had for a moment abandoned him, again descended
into his prison, and the theologian commenced to give thanks to God,
and to chant his own restoration to liberty.
But Calvin was watching at the doors of the dungeon ; he, only,
could open them, and he willed that they should stay closed. Then
began a struggle, or rather a comedy, between the council and the min-
isters : the council thought, that full and entire liberty should be re-
stored to the culprit, that no brand of heterodoxy should be put on him,
and that he should be allowed to live in quiet at Geneva. Calvin de-
manded that a sign of infamy should for ever be branded on the brow
of Bolsec, that there should be a corporal punishment. They scolded
each other. The counselors assumed the air of soliciting mercy for
the criminal, pretended to a cold charity and a simulated meekness ;
Calvin, affected, ends by yielding, and the council rendered the follow-
sentence :
We, the syndics, in the prosecution of thee, Jerome Bolsec, by the
criminal lieutenant; it appears that thou hast, with too great audacity,
raised thyself in the holy congregation ; thou hast proposed an opinion
contrary to evangelical truth ; it has been made manifest to thee by the
word of God and by the sentence of the churches, that thy opinions ar©
false; thou hast been unwilling to acknowledge it : therefore, thou art
worthy of grievous punishment. Nevertheless, we are desirous to act
towards thee with mildness, and to commute thy punishment; hence,,
we banish thee for ever from the territory of Geneva.."^
* Hist, de Geneve.
+ Calvin k Geneve, p. 218.
^ Calvin a Geneve, 219..
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. . 425
Bolsec packed up some books, which constituted his library, and the
poetical inspirations of his prison, and went away, cursing a city that
banished him for having rebelled against a mystery, which the reformer
himself acknowledged that he did not comprehend, "nor even the an-
gels of heaven," as he had elsewhere declared.
He was living at Thonon, engaged in his medical profession, when
he learned that the question of predestination was again agitated, and
that Calvin was labouring to obtain, from the judges of Berne, a decree
of exile against him. Then he left his patients, and started for Berne,
where he soon arrived. " And Avhile passing on horseback with the
postillion, he was perceived by Raymond Chauvet, a companion of said
Calvin, who went forthwith to give notice to his friend.'"* The dispute
threatened to be violent; if Bolsec is to be credited, Calvin deserted
the arena. But the reformer should not here be accused of cowardice.
If he left Berne, the reason was, because the spirit of that city was
hostile to the Genevese dogma regarding predestination, and because a
dispute on that subject would have been displeasing to the ministers.
Some days after, one of the magnificent seigniors came to implore
Bolsec "to evacuate" the Bernese territory.
Calvin had been more skillful than his adversary, upon whom, in the
dark, he inflicted a double stroke with the stylet : exile and silence.
Never had man been more bitterly punished for his apostacy than the
physician of Lyons. Seduced by the honied word of the reformation,
he had believed that it came to bring liberty to fallen man ; but, vain
soul, and amorous of noise, no sooner have his lips opened tQ lisp some
doubts against the Genevese symbol, than he is cast into prison, hum-
bled, ignominiously chastised ! And the one who pursues him with such
cruel perseverance, is that young man, whom formerly he beheld, at Par-
is, hiding himself under the robe of an ancient philosopher, in order to
whisper into the ear of Francis I. a few pale words of a dead language
in favour of the Lutheran innovators. The trial had been very severe;
his heart no longer holds to the illusion; he wn 11 re-enter the fold of
Catholic unity, sufficiently tried by the reformation to justify a belief
in the sincerity of his conversion.
He had seen this reformation, represented, in the temple, by those min-
isters of whom Calvin exhibits so sad a portrait; in the consistory, by
those titled spies, whose denunciations w^ere rewarded by fines collected
from the accused ; in the pretorium, by that CoUadon, who tortured his
victims to their last breath ; in the councils, by those citizens who had
laved their hands in the blood of Gruet ; in the doctor's dwelling, by a
young man, ready to perjure himself in order to immolate a man odious
to the reformer ; and in the state, by that theocrat, the living personifi-
cation of hypocrisy, intolerance, and fanaticism. How could he avoids
with face crimsoned with shame, to return to Catholicism ?
But before dying, he wished to write Calvin's life.f When this
* Vie de Beze, par Bolsec.
t Histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, Constance et mort de Jean Cal-
vin, jadis ministre de Geneve, imp. a Lyon, in 8vo., par Jean Patrasson, 1577. —
The work met v^'ith s^reat success. It was reprinted the same year by Mallet,
at Paris, ( Lelong. Bib. p. 78, No. 1741 ); at Cologne,, in 1580.. It was trans-
36*
426 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIBT.
book, for the first lime, fell into our hands, we cast it from us as a
shameful libel^ after we had glanced over the first chapters. All testi-
mony was against Bolsec : Catholics and Protestants equally accused
him.* But, after a patient study of the reformer, we are now com-
pelled to admit, in part, the recital of the physician of Lyons. Time
has declared for Bolsec ; each day gives the lie to the apologists of Cal-
vin. Had they not, up to this day, denied the existence of that letter,
in which the reformer, in 1545, prophesied the fate of Servetus, if ever
he came to Geneva ? That letter has been found again : Bolsec had
not lied about it.
Beza has vaunted the meekness and logic of his friend, in the tourna-
ment with the pamphleteer ; and three centuries later, a voice is heard
exclaiming : " 1 have detected the wrongs of Calvin : Bolsec, in his
theological duel, showed himself wise and enlightened."! When Bol-
sec demands theireformer to account for the blood af Gruet, Beza pre-
sents himself to accuse the writer of blasphemy ; and to-day, M. Ga-
liffe, after having collected the documents of the prosecution, cries out
10 Calvin : " It is thou who hast killed Gruet !" and he says the truth.
Bolsec evokes, one by one, the souls of those patriots whom John of
Noyon put in irons, drove into exile, or hurried to the tomb ; and Be-
za, to every name, ever repeals the same formula: " a^ falsehood !"
But M. Galiffe, in his turn, also awakes those shades, by shaking that
dust in which they are slumbering in the archives of the republic ; and,
like Shakspeare's ghosts, they throng round in funeral array, and each,
in passing, howls his cry of reprobation against the reformer. Refuse,
if you dare, such witnesses ! Who knows ? perhaps at length will be
found at Noyon that fleur de lis, the stigmas of which Bolsec accused
Calvin of carrying on his shoulders. J
We have arrived at the epoch of a literary resurrection : the dead are
coming to life again. Drelincourt and Beza had chanted the sanctity
of all those pretended evangelical labourers, whom Calvin had invited
I'ated into Latin, at Cologne, in 1580, and' into German, in the sarae city,
in 1581.
•Upon his copy, Bunemann had written: "Bolsec et Rescius sunt nobile
par calumniantium, quorum verbis nemo, nisi nullius fidei homOj fidem adjun*-
1461." — In the acts of the national Synod, .held at Lyons, in tjie month of Au-
gust, 1563, we read: "Jerome Bolsec, an infamous liar." — Aymon. Syn.
nationaux, in 4to., t. I, part. 2, p. 49 — Varillas says of the history of Calvin,
that it is written in an extravagant style,.
tCalvin a Geneve, 219-220.. Picot writes: "The too absolute charncter of
Calvin manifested itself in a striking manner in this quarrel. It is difficult to
brlieve that Calvin well understood the arguments which he employed." —
Histore de Geneve, t. II, p. 18.
! For the examination of this question, which we have not the courage tO'
agitate,, consult: 1st. Ombre de Rousseau ^Calvin, in 8vo, printed at Gene-
va.— 2(1. Discours sur le crime contre nature et Ih fletrissure reproches a Jean
Calvin par Rolsselet de Sauclieres, fils, de Nimes, Montpellier, 1839; a pam-
phlet of 107 p vges, in which the writer proves that the accusation had been
made long bef.)re Bolsec: by Surius, in 1558; byTurbes, under Francis I. and
Henry II.; by Simon Fontaine, in 1557; by Stapleton, in 1558; byLaVacque-
rie, in 1560 or 6L;, by de Mouchi, in 1562; by Du.Preau, ia 1560; by Whita--
ker„ before 1570..
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 427
to Geneva ; but a Protestant hand has shaken the manuscripts of the
republic, and one morning, by the light of the sun, rising behind the
Saleve, we read these lines by M. Galiflfe : " Several of the reformer's
colleagues gave grounds for certain scandalous histories, the details of
which cannot he admitted into a ivork designed for the perusal of both
sexes : I shall be able to publish some of them in Latin for the edifi-
cation of hypocrites".*
M. Galitie is as indiscreet as that Lutheran poet, who, speaking of
Wittenberg in the first days of the reformation, said :
'• Whoever passes through this gate is sure to meet a hog, a student,
or a prostitute. "t
M. Galiffe's hypocrites are not monks of Cologne, but beings, knead-
ed out of the clay of Drelincourt, who devoutly believe the story, told
by Luther, about the six thousand skulls of new-born infants, found,
near Rome, in the pond of a convent. J
Bolsec himself awakes, after a sleep of three centuries, and comes
forth from his tomb to listen to this glorious judgment from the mouth
of an adversary :
" Most of the facts, recounted by the physician of Lyons, are per-
fectly true."§
* Galiffe, Notices, t. Ill, p. 381, note.
fKomm zu Wittenberg ins Thor, so begegnet dir ein Schwein, Student odcr
Hare.
:|: Tisch-Reden, p. 464.... Hiitte in demselbigen Teiche bei sechstausend
Kinderkopfe gefunden.
■ \ Galiffe, t. Ill, p. 547, note.
CHAPTER XL.
MICHAEL SERVETUS. 1553.*
'Those V ho accuse Calvin of having been cruel and sanguinary, should examine them-
selves, and should name some one against whom this holy man has practised cruelty, and
whose blood he has shed.— They reproach him with the death of Michael Servetus, the
Spaniard of cursed memory ; but this is with great injustice. On this score, not a word
can be said against Calvin."— Drelincourt, Defence of Calvin, in 12mo., 1667, p.
282-283.
John Frellon, printer at Lyons, forms Calvin's acquaintance. — Servetus, at
Hagenau, writes against the Trinity. — His erratic life. — He arrives at Lyons,
and attaches himself to Frellon. — Leaves Lyons, and establishes himself at
Charlieu. — Afterwards at Vienne. — Peter Palmier protects Servetus. — The
Ptolemy. — The Bible annotated. — Frellon brings Servetus into relation with
Calvin. —Questions of Servetus to Calvin. — Disagreement. — Correspond-
ence.— The Christianismi Rtstitutio. — Some quotations from this work. — '•
Calvin denounces the book to the police of Lyons. — Fruitless pursuit of the
official of Vienne. — Calvin's denunciation. — Arrest of Servetus. — His flight.
— He arrives at Geneva, is denounced, and imprisoned. — His request to the
council. — Interrogatory. — Calvin's insults. — Prosecution and death of Ser-
vetus.
In the year 1540, at the sign of the coat of arms of Cologne, in the
street Merciere, at Lyons, there dwelt one Jehan Frellon, printer and
bookseller. t This was the worthy counterpart of Froben, the book-
publisher of Bale, who, in the morning, corrected a proof of (Ecolam-
padius, and in the evening put to press a manuscript of Erasmus.
Calvin, on his return from Ferrara, had passed by way of Lyons,
and bought some new works from Frellon. The street Merciere, was
then, as in our days, a long, narrow, crooked street, damp and gloomy,
* L'abbe d'Artigny, Nouveaux m^moires d'histoiro, de critique et de littera^
ture, Paris, 1749, t. II, p. 55. — Henri ab AllwcErden, Vita Michaelis Serveti,
Helmstadii, 1728, in 4to.— Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, Geschichte des be-
rtthmten spanischen Arztes Michael Serveto. Helmstadt, 1748.
t John Frellon for a long time had his brother as partner. Father C^lonia,
in the literary history of the city of Lyons, says, that both of them "were at-
tached to the Catholic religion." But Jehan had an inclination for the new
notions, as may be inferred from his connection with Calvin; this is Mo-
sheim's opinion : Allein unter der Hand wax er Reformitt gesinnet und; Kal-
vins starker Freuad, p. 37.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIN. 429
overhung on either side by tall houses, which shut out the sunlight from,
those who frequented it as purchasers. At the farther end of the store^
in which new pamphlets were spread out upon two large oaken coun^
ters, there was a chamber which was made to serve alike for eating-
room, parlor, and work cabinet. There it was that Frellon kept all
suspected books, which he procured, for strangers, from Germany or
Switzerland. He would have taken great care not to sell any of them
to his fellow citizens, so much dread had he of cardinal de Tournon, arch-
bishop and governor of Lyons, and especially of Mathew Ory, "peni-
tentiary of the Apostolic See, and general inquisitor of the kingdom of
France and all Gaul." It appears that Calvin was deceived in regard
to the bookseller, and mistook for religious zeal, tendencies that were-
purely mercantile.
Calvin, at Paris, forgot Frellon. But on returning to Geneva, after
his exile, an epistolary correspondence was established between the
minister and the merchant. Calvin sent to Frellon heretical books,
which, secretly, Frellon sold for high prices ; and for which, most of the
time, he either paid the reformer nothing or very little : both were look-
ing to the interests of their profession.
At this epoch, Frellon was often visited by a stranger, who was born
at Tudelle, in the kingdom of Aragon, and was about forty years of
age ; a veritable literato of the mediceval ages, quite crammed with
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; a physician, theologian, and alchymist :
Michel de ViUerieufve. This was not his real name ; when they were
alone, Frellon called him, master Michael Servetus. But it is proba-
ble that he was ignorant, that ^^his friend was the author of a book pub-
lished at Hagenau, in 1531, under the title : De Trinitaiis errorihus ;^
for Frellon, the merchant, would not, in open daylight, have received a
heretic, who, had he been known, would have been imprisoned by the
inquisition. This pamphlet is the work of a sectary who had lost his
senses, in which the dogma of the Trinity is brutally attacked, and
treated as a papistical vision, a mythological chimera, a metaphysical
ideality.
At Hagenau, the bookseller, the poet, and the author had been em-
barrassed by their fears. The work, printed in a hurry, was full of
* Here is the complete title : De Trinitatis erroribus libri septem. Per
Michaelem Servetum, alias Reves ab Arragonia Hispanuni. Anno MDXXXI,
in-8, 119 sheets. There is no name, either of city or printer: it is a work ex-
tremely rare.
In the fifth book are found different passages which prove that Servetus had
divined the circulation of the blood. We shall cite two of these.
Fit autem communicatio haec non per parietem cordis medium, lit vulgo
creditur, sed magno artificio a dextro cordis ventriculo; longo per pulmones
ductu, agitatur sanguis subtilis. A pulnionibus prseparatur, flavus efficitur,
et a vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam transfunditur: deinde in ipsa arteria
venosa inspirato aeri miscetur et exspiratione a fuligne expurgatur. Atque
ita tandem a sinistro cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolen attrahitur,
apta supellex ut fiat spiritus vitalis.
lUe itaque spiritus vitalis a sinistro cordis ventriculo, in arterias totius cor-
poris deinde transfunditur, ita ut qui tenuior est prsecipue in plexu sub basi
cerebri sito, ubi ex vitali fieri incipit animalis, ad propriam rationalis animse
rationem accedit.
430
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIIT.
faults. Do you imagine that Michael Servetus, admonished by the ery
of indignation which the perusal of his book awakens, is going to re-
pent ? You are mistaken. In his advertisement of his dialogues on
ilie Tiinity,* — another libel, which, the year following, he published
in the same city, — he asks indulgence, not for the blasphemies which
he has spread through the De Trinitatis error ibus, but for the faults
which the ignorance of his proof-reviser allowed to remain uncorrected.
He weeps over the barbarisms of his style,t but has not the least chagrin
on account of his bold impieties.
Germany, which, since the advent of Luther, seized upon every hu-
man teaching, in order to quiet the doubt which devoured it, recoiled,
alarmed at the audacity of Servetus. Melancthon was afflicted with
sadness, and v/rote to the senate of Venice to denounce the follies which
sullied the book of the sectary. J
Then, for the Spaniard, commences a lifie of torments, struggles, and
despair. At Bale, he disputes with (Ecolampadius, and leaves that
city, exulting in his triumph, and begging his bread upon the highway.
Arrived at Strasbourg, his teeth chattering with cold, and not having
eaten any thing for the last twenty-four hours, his most pressing business
is to hurl defiance at Bucer and Capito.§ The challenge is accepted.
They discuss the Trinity, the consubstantiality of the word, which
Servetus boldly denies, without dread of the magistrate. Bucer, who had
heard Munzer and Carlstadt, is shocked at the language of the stranger,
and in place of replying to him, he curses him, devotes him to the tor-
ments of futurity, to the vengeance of the judges of this world, and de-
clares that he will never dispute with a demon disguised in human form,
and whose bowels ought to be torn out by the executioner. 1|
The next morning, Michael, quite proud of having excited such a
tempest of wrath, and regardless of body and soul, journeyed towards
Paris. On the way, the idea seized him of renouncing theology, in
order to practice medicine, and some days after, he was studying under
Sylvius and Fernel, the two celebrities of the epoch. When he had
acquired a sufficiency of science, he took it into his head to make a
noise, and wanted to dispute with the faculty. The combat was pro-
tracted, and ink flowed in floods Seivetus must have a great
victim : he selected Galien. The quarrel grew so fierce, that the par-
liament had to interfere, and give orders to the physicians to live in
peace with the Spaniard. IF
* Dialogorurn de Trinitatc libri duo, de justitia roacni Christi capitula qua-
tuor, per Michaelem iServeto, alias Reves, ab Arragonia Hispanum. MDXXXII,
in-8.
t Quod autcm ita barbarus, confusus et incorrectus prior liber prodierit, im-
peritiee ineee actypographi adsciibendum est.
if Melanchihonis Epistolee, 1539.
^ D'Artigny, p. 60.
ll All the liistorians speak of a dispute with Capito: we do not comprehend
this. Capito was an Anti-trinitarian himself, as is proved by Sandius, inhis
Bibliotheca antUrinitariorum. Freistadii, 1684, in-8vo.
ITServetus published at Paris : Syruporum universa ratio ad Gnleni censuram
dilio-onter exposita: cui postintsgrani de concoctiouc disceptationem, prtescrip-
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 431
Servetus then turned professor of astrology. Students flocked to hear
him in crowds. He foretold the future. One day, he announced to
his auditory that, on the following night, Mars would be eclipsed by
the moon, and that this occultation indicated a general conflagration,
the death of potentates, the ruin of the church, pests, and other things,
*'etali(S.'" The faculty of medicine, through the ministry of M.
Seguier, had Servetus summoned, and injunction was laid on the astrol-
oger, as "on all those who meddle with making almanacs, not to speak
and write de eventibus rerum exlernarum, who ought to be satisfied with
writing and speaking only de ordine rerum iiaturalium*
Disgusted with medicine, and still more with physicians, Servetus
threw himself, body and soul, into the geographical sciences, which
they were then beginning to cultivate. Bilibald Pirkheymer, that dia-
mond of Germany, according to Periander, gemma soli teutonici, had
quite recently (1525) published a Latin edition of Ptolemy. It is this
work that Servetus revises, elucidates, arranges, and desires to present
to the Parisian world : but, among the publishers of the capital, he does
not find conditions sufficiently advantageous, and negociates with a
printer of Lyons, where his Ptolemy appears in 1535.
His wanderings recommence. This man, whom doubt harrasscs,
finds rest nowhere. On his way to Lyons, his star guides him to the house
of John Frellon, who, finding the stranger a man of science, attaches
him to his printing office, in quality of proof corrector. It would have
been a lucky thing for Frellon, had Michael Servetus, who knew
every thing, even to the cabalistic art itself, loved repose and quiet.
But his erratic fancy struck her tent almost as soon as it was erected ;
ever dissatisfied with God, with men, and with herself, being like that
Athelsian of the German poet, who is seeking for happiness in the
clouds, Avhen it would have been so easy for him to find it in his own
heart.
After a few days sojourn at Lyons, Servetus embraces his friend Frel-
lon, embarks on the Rhone, and lands at Avignon, the city of the popes.
Soon again his vagabond whim seizes him : he returns to Lyons, and
there, like the swallow, remains one whole summer; and, the winter
having arrived, he goes to build his nest at Charlieu, a little city adja-
cent, where he resumes the practice of medicine.
In this little town, which, like Tud&lle, his own Aragonese city, was
crowned with mountains, verdant in spring, and cool during summer,
it would seem that he was happy. Bolsec has written : "This Serve-
ta est vera purgandi methodus cum expositione- apliorismi: concocta medicari.
in-8, 1537. Reprinted at Venice in J 545, at Lyons in 1546.
* Seguier, for the rector and University of Paris, and the dean and faculty of
medicine in said city. — Lc'febure, for the dean and rectors in the faculty of
medicine.— Marlhac, for Villanovanus. — The decree runs: Prohibition and
defense to all printers to print an almanac and prognostications forbidden by the
divine and canonical constitution, and the said court has ordained, and does
ordain, that all the ephemerides and prognostications of this year shall be
taken and seized, wheresoever they shall be found, and shall be brought to the
clerk of said court. Done this 8th of March, 1538, Cited by Boulay : Historia
academiaB Parisiensis, t. VII, p. 321 ; contra astrologiam judiciariam.
432 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
tus, who was atrogant and insolent, as those certify who knew him
at Charlieu, dwelt there near Rivoire, about the year 1540; being
forced to leave there on account of his extravagances, he withdrew to
Vienne in Dauphiny."* What extravagances ? Bolsec does not in-
form us. Perhaps Servetus was merely obeying that impetuous passion
for moving, which drove him hither and thither, like another wandering
Jew, Since he had abandoned truth, it was necessary for him to keep
marching ; this was his chastisement.
It was at Lyons, and not at Vienne, that the unhappy man sought
refuge. As he was entering that city, his eyes were attracted by a
figure in violet robes : he once more beheld Peter Palmier, archbishop
of Vienne, whom he had known at Paris : a noble prelate, who was
fond of patronizing the votaries of learning, and whose purse had so
frequently been opened to Michael de Villeneufve, as Servetus called
himself. Henceforward, Michael had an assurance of repose for his
declining years ; the prelate gave him lodgings in his palace at Vienne.
Blessings never come singly. Beside the archiepiscopal palace,
stands the printing office of Gaspard Treschsel, who had been attracted
to Vienne by the liberal patronage of Peter Palmier. This establish-
ment, managed by a skillful man, is rich in Greek, Hebrew, and Ro-
man characters. What more could be desired by the Spanish pilgrim?
While speaking with the prelate, he dreams of a second edition of his
Ptolemy, long since exhausted, and which he will dedicate to his
Mecenas. Already he even arranges in his brain a fine Latin epistle,
in which shall be read : — " Princes, who command the world, must be
acquainted with the world;" — an allusion to Francis L, who so gene-
rously opened an asylum to the muses. " And this knowledge is useful
to those, who like you, have, in quality of ambassador, visited the
■different states of Christendom." — A beautiful eulogy, which the man of
learning addresses to the prince of the church. f
The very morning after their interview, Servetus takes passage on
the barge of Vienne, a miserable bark, which, in those distant times,
as in our days, plied daily between the two cities. Servetus, in the
spirit of a Roman poet saluted the hospitable city, whither he was
going to find such sweet leizure, such warm friends, and such ardent
sympathies. At Vienne, and at Lyons, he had soon won all hearts;
for, a man of the world, he knew how to please and to gain affection.
But soon the demon of vanity came to visit him in his new country.
Servetus could not resist the temptations of his enemy. He neglected
his patients, in order to attend to that dogma of the Trinity which he
was solicitous to overthrow. His Ptolemy had made its appearance,
with the dedication to the archbishop, and had won for him abundant
• Vie de Calvin, p. 9. Ed. de 1664.
t The Ptolemy met with great success in the learned world. But the friends
of Servetus never forgave him for an adulatory correction of a text of the
first edition. In his description of France, speaking of the gift possessed by
the king to cure the king's evil by a simple touch, he had at first said : "I
have seen the king touch a great number of sick. Were they cured? This
is what I have not seen." The reflection savoured of Rabelais. Servetus,
in his revision, wrote : "Have ihey been cured? I have be-en told, yes."
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 433
eulogies. But he wanted noisy honours ; the laurels of Calvin would
not permit him to sleep. Therefore, to work ! the work of an annota-
tor. Hugues de La Porte, another publisher of Lyons, was then pre-
paring a Latin Bible, for which Servetus undertook to write notes. For
his labour, La Porte gave him five hundred francs. The Bible appear-
ed, says Calvin, with ''impertinent" marginal notes.* Servetus was a
rationalist, who rejected the prophetic sense of the holy books.
He had known Calvin at Paris. Both had agreed to enter into a dis-
putation on theological subjects; the judges of the tournament were
selected. If we are to credit Beza, the Spaniard's courage suddenly
gave way, and he dared not come to the rendezvous. Beza affirms,
that he failed through cowardice ;t Servetus, from dread of the lieuten-
ant : the excuse is sufficiently good. Calvin did not spare him, whom
he termed a '-'paltry disputer." Servetus had, since then, read the
Christian Institutes, "a badly composed book," he said, "witliout origi-
nality, unworthy of the noise it has made in the world;" and he longed
to measure himself with the author.
Chance came to furnish him the opportunity. Frellon brought him
into relation with the reformer. At first, Servetus proposed certain doubts
to the Genevese minister, in the form of questions : — Is the man, Jesus,
who was crucified, the Son of God, and what is the reason of this filia-
tion ? — If the kingdom of Jesus Christ (the church) be established on
earth, how does a person enter it, and how is man regenerated ? — Must
the kingdom of Jesus Christ be received by faith, like the Lord's
Supper, and why these institutions in the new alliance ? J
Servetus was playing the part of the tempter ; but Calvin had divined
the ruse. He responded with a self-importance which displeased the
physician. Servetus, in his reply, assumed the tone of a master. Cal-
vin no longer restrained himself, but treated his correspondent as a
mere pupil. From that moment, their epistolary correspondence was
but an interchange of insults, after the fashion of the literati of the
epoch. The reformer did not disguise his hatred of Servetus. ** If
ever he come to Geneva, he shall not go thence alive," did he write to
Viret; "this is my fixed resolution. "§ Servetus was not so wicked.
He amused himself with joyous heart over the system of predestination
• Traites theologiques, p. 826. Getneve 1576,
t Histoiredes Eglises reformees de France, t. I p. 14.
:}: 1. An homo Jesus crucifixus sit filius Dei, et quae sit hujus filiationis
ratio 1
II. An regnum Christi sit in liominibus; quando quis ingrediatur et quan«
do regeneretur?
III. An baptisma Christi debeat in fide fieri, sicut coena, et quorsum htee
instituta sint foedere novo?
^ Servetus cupit hue venire, sed a me accersitus. Ego autem nunquam
committam ut fidem meam eatenus obstrictam habeat. Jam enim constitutum
spud me habeo, si veniat, nunquam pati ut salvus exeat. Bolsec adds: The
letter of said Calvin has come into my hands, and I have exhibited it to several
honourable persons, and I know where it is still. We shall speak of another
letter to Farel.
Bolsec had seen that addressed to Viret, and the superscription of which
was : Eximio Domini nostri Jesu Christi servo Petro Vireto, Lausann. Eccl»-
siae pastori, symmystse charissimo,
37
434 LIF* or JOHN CALVIN.
and the logic of the Christian Institutes, and \eiUghediA the free necessity^
invented at Geneva, in order to explain the sin of the first man ; but he
would not have touched a single hair of Calvin's head. He is a man of
bad judgment, but good heart- To-morrow, if hs meet the reformer, h©
will shake hands with him. What proves how little gall there was in
this soul, is, that he was unable to comprehend that Calvin had given
over writing to him. He complains of the reformer's silence. Frellon
asks an explanation of Calvin, whose answer was not long delayed-
*' Seignior Jehan, as your last letters were brought to me at the mo-
" ment of my departure, I had not leisure to reply to their contents,
" Since my return, I avail myself of the first leisure I have, to satisfy
" your desires ; not that 1 have great hope to benefit sach a man in the
" least, perceiving what are his dispositions ; but to essay if there shall
" be any means to reclaim him, which will happen only, when God
" has so operated in him, that he becomes another man. Because he
" wrote to me in so proud a spirit, I wished somewhat to abate his
" pride, speaking to him more harshly than is my custom. But I
" could not do otherwise. For I assure you that there is no lesson for
" him more necessary than to learn humility. This will come to him
" from the Spirit of God, and not otherwise. But we also should lend
" a helping hand. If God accord this favour to him, and to us, that
" the present answer should benefit him, I shall have occasion to re-
" joice. If he persevere in a style such as he has used hitherto, you lose
" time in urging me to exert myself for him, for I have other duties,
" which are more pressing. And I should make it a matter of con-
" science to attend to them, persuaded that lie is but a satan, coming to
"' distract me from other more useful reading. And yet, I pray you, be
''contented with what I have done; if you behold no improvement,
" Whereupon, after hfiving, with sincere heart, recommended myself to
" you, I beseech our good God to keep you under his protection. This
" Xlll. February, 1546. Your servant and devoted friend, Charles
" Despeville."
The address is : " To sir Jehan Frellon, bookseller, residing at Ly-
ons, in the street Merciere, at the sign of the coat of arms of Cologne."
John Frellon immediately sent Calvin's answer "to his brother and
friend, master Michael Villanovanus, doctor of medicine at Vienne,"
with the following letter ;
<« Dear brother and friend, the reason why a response has not sooner
" been sent to your letter, you will discover from the enclosed, and bo
" assured had it been sooner received, I should not have failed to send
" it by an express messenger, as I had promised. You may be certain
" that 1 wrote to said person, and do not think that it was from my fail-
" ing to write : however, I think you will now be as well contented as
" if it were sooner ; I send you my man, express, in default of having
" any other messenger ; if there be other things that I can do for you^ you
" will always find me at your command, and ready to serve you. Your
" sincere brother and friend, Jehan Frellon.'' And on the envelope ;
*' To my good friend and brother, Michael Villanovanus, doctor of
medicine, be this present delivered at Vienne."
Servetus prepared his revenge ; a large octavo volume of 700 pages,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 435
at which he laboured four years, and in which the Trinity is not better
used than the reformer.* At Bale, Marrin, the bookseller, had been
seized with fear. After having glanced over a few pages of it, he sent
back the manuscript.
Another person would have been discouraged, and then have return-
ed thanks to Providence. Servetus rushed upon death. At that time,
Vienne was a commercial and literary city. In it, were several fine
printing establishments; among others, that of Balthasard ArnoUet,
directed by his brother-in-law, William Gueroult, to whom Servetus
brought his manuscript. ArnoUet and Gueroult perused it. It treated
of theological matters which it was impossible for them to comprehend.
They looked at the author, without replying. Servetus interrupted the
silence : " It is a book," said he to them, "which I have written against
Calvin and Melancthon, but to which I do not want to put either my
name, or that of the city, or that of the printer. I will pay expenses
and correct the proofs. And, besides the price of printing, I will give
a hundred dollars, as a bonus." Arnollet and Gueroult allowed them-
selves to be taken in the snare ; and, three months after, in the begin-
ning of 1553, the work was completed. They had struck off eight
hundred copies, of which Servetus made six packages ; five with this
address : " Let the present bales be sent by direction of M. Michael
Villeneufve, doctor of medicine, to Peter Merrin, type founder, near
Notre Dame de Comfort, at Lyons ;"t the sixth, to M. Jehan Frellon,
bookseller, in the street Merciere ; who was to forward it to that vast
depot of the sixteenth century, for heretical books, Frankfort on the
Mein. Frellon, curious, opened the package and took out several
copies, which he hastened to transmit to Calvin. This indiscretion
was to cost Servetus his life.
In perusing some lines of the thirty letters of the ninth book of this
work, one comprehends the wrath of Calvin. Servetus has taken Lu-
ther for his model. You will not find in it merely, — as some have said,
because they never read the work, — irony, sarcasm, and sometimes gross
peals of laughter ; but the style and imagination of an artist. In hia
♦ Christianismi restitutio, totius Ecclesiae apostolicae est ad sua limina yoci-
tio, in integrum restitutacognitione Dei, fidei christianse, justificationis nostrae,
regsnerationis, baptismi et Gcense Domini manducationis, restitute denique
nobis regno coelesti, Babylonis impiae captivitate soluta, et antichristo cum
fiuis penitus destructo.
This worlc is divided into six parts :
I. De Trinitate divina, quod in ea non sit invisibilium trium rerum illusio,
sed verse substantias Dei manifestatio et communicatio, libri 7. The two last
in form of dialogue.
II. De fide et justitia regni Christi legis justitiam superantis et de charitate;
libri 3.
III. De r€generatione et manducatione superna et regno antichrist!, libri 4.
IV. Epistola XXX ad Joannem Calvinum Gebennensium concionatorem.
V. Signa LX regni antiehristi et revelatio ejus jam nunc praesens.
VI. De mysterio Trinitatis et veterum Disciplina, ad Phil.' Melanchthonein
et ejus coUegas apologia.
The volume forms 734 'pages in 8vo.
t Interrogatory of Peter Merrin, extracted from the archives of the bishopric
4»f Vienne, D'Artigny, p. 117. .
436 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN,
thirty epistles, he has condensed, in a few pages, the i»ost graphic refu-
tation ever made of the Calvinistic fatalism. And at the conclusion
of his reasoning, he throws into his adversary's face, this contemptuous
phrase :
*' Yes, in Cain and the giants, who were animated by a divine breath,
there remained a potent liberty, capable of mastering sin, therefore it
is in thee, unless I be speaking to a mere stone or block of wood."*
In the twentieth letter, Servetus confronts the scripture and tha
church, and defends authority against the mere letter, as Prierias, mas-
ter of the sacred palace, would never have dared defend it.f
Sometimes, as we have seen, he takes his inspiration from Luther,,
and treats Calvin as the Saxon monk did Tetzel ; but Calvin was a
more wily foe than the Dominican.
The Genevese fox had been long watching his prey : it came to
throw itself into his clutches.
Among the French refugees who were at Geneva, was a man named
Trie, who, bavins: been guilty of some misdeeds at Lyons, liad fled tO'
escape the consular justice. Trie had given himself out for an evan-
gelist, concealing himself from the persecution of the Catholics, and
had obtained some aid from the reformer. This refugee had a cousin
at Lyons, a merchant, and a good Catholic, Anthony Arneys, who wish-
ed, at every cost, to win back the strayed soul to the bosom of the
church. There was an active correspondence between the two cousins.
Trie exhibited the letters of Arneys to Calvin,. \sh& dictated the- an-
swers. It is Trie, who is to denounce Servetas. The ruse is admira-
ble. Not a line of the letter of the poor merchant should be lost ; he
speaks theology like one who has devoted his whole life to the study
of it.t
" Monsieur, my cousin, I thank you greatly for so many beautiful
remonstrances which you have made me, and doubt not that you are-
actuated by sincere friendship, when you try to bring me back to the
place I have left. Though 1 am not, like you, a man versed in letters,
I undertake to satisfy you regarding the poiuts anid articles which yoii
allege. So much is there in the knowledge which God has given me,
that I have plenty to reply ; for, God be thanked, I am not so poorly
grounded, but that I know that the church has Jesus Christ for Ijer
head, from whom she cannot be separated, and that she has no life of
salvation, and cannot at all subsist, except in the truth of God, which
is contained in the holy scriptures. Wherefore, I shall hold all you^
shall be able to allege to me concerning the church as a phantom, if
Jesus Christ do not preside therein, as having aiithority, and the word of
God does not reign in it, as the substantial foundation; without this, all
your formalities are worth rwthing. 1 beg you to reffect, that the liberty
* In ipso Cain neqiiissimo et in gig^antihus ex insito et ab origine inspirato
deitatis halitu, supererat libera vis aliqua et dominium in peccatum, teste Deo,
Ergo, in te quoque superest, nisi sis tu sarum et truncus. p. 638.
t De Ecclesia potestate. Ejus potestas quamvis ooeultetur, supra omnes
mundi poteslates, adeo ut angeli et dcemones ei pareant. p. 652.
^ D'Artigny has discovered tbe corresp>o.ndence in the archives of thft axohr-
bishopric of Vienne.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 437
! use towards you, is not only to sustain ray cause, but also to give you
occasion to think better within yourself. But, to be brief, I am aston-
ished how you dare reproach me, among other things, that we have
neither ecclesiastical discipline nor order, and that those who teach us
have introduced a licentiousness which causes general confusion : yet,
God be thanked, I perceive that vices are better corrected here, than
ihey are under the rule of all your officials. And as to doctrine and
the concerns of religion, though among us there be greater liberty,
nevertheless, they do not suflfer the name of God to be blasphemed, nor
bad doctrines and opinions to be spread abroad, without endeavouring
to repress them. And I can adduce an example to your great confusion,
since I must say so. It is, that with you, a heretic is maintained who
well deserves to be burned, wherever be shall be found. When I
speak to you of a heretic, I mean a man who will be condemned by
the papists as much as by us, or at least who ought to be. For, although
we be different in many things, yet hold we in common, that there
is only one essence in God, that there are three persons, and that the
Father has begotten his Son, who, before all time is his eternal wis-
dom, and that he has had his eternal virtue, w^ho is his Holy Spirit.
Now, when a man shall say, that the Trinity, which we hold, is a
cerberus and monster of hell, and shall vomit forth all the villainies,
which it is possible to imagine, against every thing that the scripture
teaches us concerning the eternal generation of the Son of God, and
that the Holy Ghost is the virtue of the Father and the Son, and shall
scoff, with beastly mouth, at every thing the ancient doctors have said,
I pray you in what place and esteem will you hold him ? I say this
to obviate all the replies you might make me, that you would not re-
gard as error every thing we say is such : what I tell you, you not only
confess to be error, but detestable heresy, tending to subvert all Chris-
tianity. I must speak frankly. What a shame is it that they put to
death, those who shall say that we are to invoke one only God, in the
name of Jesus Christ; that there is no other satisfaction, save that which
was made in the death and passion of Jesus Christ ; that there is no
other purgatory, save in his blood ; that there is no other service agree-
able to God, but that which he commands and approves by his word ;
that all pictures and images, which men counterfeit, are so many idols
that profane his majesty; that the sacraments ought to be kept in such
use as has been ordained by Jesus Christ ; besides, they are not satisfied
with simply putting such persons to death, but they cruelly burn them ?
Yet, behold one who will call Jesus Christ an idol ; who will destroy
all the foundations of faith ; who will scrape together all the dreams of
the ancient heretics ; who, even, will condemn the baptism of little
infants, calling it a diabolical invention; such a person will have full
swing with you, and he will be borne with, as if he had not defeated
your zeal. 1 pray you, where is what you pretend, where is the police
of this fine hierarchy which you magnify so much ? The man of whom
I speak has been condemned in all the churches which you reprobate.
Yet is he suffered amongst you ; even allowed to print his books there^
which are so full of blasphemies, that I need say no more of them.
He is a Portuguese Spaniard, named Michae-l Servetus, as to his real
37*
438 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
name, but he calls himself at present Villeneufve, and plays the part of
physician. He has lived for some time at Lyons, and now is at Vienne,
where the book of which I speak was printed, by one Balthazard Ar-
noUet, who there has established a printing establishment. And, that
you may not imagine that I speak from rumour, I send you the first
sheet, as a sample. You say that books, which contain nothing else
than that we should adhere to the simplicity of the holy scriptures,,
poison the world ; and if they come from other places, you cannot tole.
rate them ; and yet you hatch there, poisons designed to annihilate the
holy scripture, and even all that you have of Christianity. I have, as
it were, forgotten myself, in recounting this example, for I have been
four times as long as I intended ; but the enormity of the case makes
me exceed due measure, and for this reason I shall not say much to you
upon other topics. As also, in fact^ it does not seem important to re-
spond to you in regard to each article. I shall merely entreat you to
enter more deeply into your conscience, to judge yourself, that when
you shall be summoned before the Great Judge, you may not be con-
demned. For, to say all in one word, our only debate is, that God
may be heard. Wherefore, coming to a conclusion at present, I shall
beseech him to give you ears to hear and heart to obey. In the mean
time,, may he hold you under his holy protection, and i recommend my-
selC with sincere heart, to your good favour, and that of my cousin,
your brother. Geneva, this XXVI. of February, 1553."
Calvin, as you perceive, knows every thing and tells every thing,
even to the very name of the printer. And yet, as if, after such very
formal indications, he still feared not to be understood, he adds to his
letter the title and first four leaves of the Chrisiianismi restitutio.
Lieutenant Morin, about whom Beza made such a noise, would not
have been more adroit.
Now^ it is for the police to do its duly, and it goes to work promptly.
The letters of Calvin, and the detached leaves of the book of Serve-
tus, are placed in the hands of Mathew Ory, the inquisitor, who com-
missions Benedict Buatier, official of St. Paul, to examine the
affair. This having been done, they gave information of the matter to
cardinal de Tournon,. who was then at his chateau of Roussillon, at
some leagues distance from Vienne. This was on the 11th of
March, 155-3.
On the 12th, Mathew Ory denounces the libel, the printer, and the
author to the sieur de Villars, the cardinal's auditor.
On the 13th, Benedict Buatier leaves Lyons to visit his lordship, th*
cardinal.
On the 15th, the cardinal sends his two general vicars, Buatier and
Louis Arzellier, with a letter to M. de Maugiron, "knight of the order,
and lieutenant general for the king in Dauphiny." The cardinal de-
mands prompt and due justice.
On the 16th, Louis Arzellier and Anthony de la Cour, vice bailiflf,
by order of Maugiron, call on the sieur Peyrollier, chief official. Bene-
dict Buatier gives his deposition.
It imported : "That about fifteen days since, certain letters had been
received from Geneva, addressed to a person Jiving at Lyoas, froia
LIFE OF JOHN GALVIN. 439
which it appeared that, at Geneva, they were greatly surprised, that a
certain M. Michael Servetus, alias, de Villeneufve, a Portuguese
Spaniard, was here tolerated, in face of reasons moie fully specified in
said letters : that from said Geneva had been received four leaves of a
book composed by said Villeneufve; that M. Ory, inquisitor of the
faith, having examined them in the presence of himself, (Buatier), had
become assured that they are heretical, and had written, in consequence,
to the sieur de Viliars, auditor of his lordship, cardinal de Tournon ;
that said deponent was also there present, when the cardinal, having
sent for the general vicar of Vienne, recommended to him and charged
him to give orders for the verification and correction of the above, and
wrote concerning it to his lordship, de Maugiron, to aid therein, and
«end for the vice bailiff, in order that consultation might be had, and
measures taken, the most promptly possible."
On the same day, the general vicar, the vice bailiff, the secretary of
Maugiron, make a visit to the house of Villeneufve : they search his
papers, but discover nothing, except some copies of his apology against
the physicians of Paris. They interrogate Servetus, who responds in
the most unconcerned manner ; William Gueroult, who denies every
thing ; the journeymen printers, who know nothing about it. They had
to give up further pursuit.
But Mathew Ory does not allow himself to be discouraged. There
is a heretic, and he must ferret him out. Behold the stratagem which
he devises : — Arneys shall write to his cousin of Geneva, to forward
to him the complete volume of the Christianismi restitutio. Ory die-
tates the letter.
Poor inquisitor ! the Genevese reformer understands the matter better
than thou. When thou shalt have obtained the complete book of
Michael Villeneufve, what wilt thou do with it ? The title page dis-
plays neither the name of the author, the name of the printer, nor the
name of the city. Shouldst thou show it to Servetus, he would say ;
1 am not acquainted with it.
Patience ! Calvin will come to the aid of Mathew Ory. ''Here are
two dozen pieces written by the hand of the person in question, in
which some of his heresies are contained ; he will not be able to deny
his handwriting."
And Calvin set to work to search his correspondence, and to rum-
mage the letters he had received from Servetus, for the one in which the
anti-Trinitarian doctrine is defended in the same terms, with those of the
Christianismi restitutio.
But Servetus replies : — Master Mathew this is, in fact, my writing,
but these are propositions maintained in the epistolary form between
Calvin, "whom some called a learned man, and myself, sub sigillo
wcrefi, (under seal of secresy), and after the fashion of a disputation,
to see if he would be able to shake my opinion, or I his."*
Wait a moment, Calvin is rich in autographs : " Here are two leavw
printed on both sides, with writing on them, in which Servetus teachea
various heresies."
• Voyez dans I'abbe d'Artigny Tinterrogatoire de Servet,
440
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
— But this book, printed in Germany, responds the physician, is from
a person of the name of Servetus, a Spaniard, and, besidea, I know
not from what part of Spain he is, and also, I know not where he lives
in Germany, except that I have heard said that he is at Aganon (Hage-
nau).
Mathew Ory becomes impatient. — This Servetus, the Spaniard, who
is he?
The reformer answers :
<« This Villeneufve, at present physician at Vienne, is no other than
Servetus, alias, Reves, who has been driven away by the churches of
Germany, to whom (Ecolampadius has addressed various letters with
this title, which belongs to him : Serveto Hispano neganti Christum
esse Dei/ilium consubstantialem patri, and about whom Melancthon
has spoken in many passages of his epistles. As to the printer, there
are two of them, Balthasard Arnoullet, and William Gueroult, his bro-
ther-in-law. The work was printed at the expense of the author, and
the book issued from the shop of Vienne."
Would not a person call this a romance ? here are two letters of Cal-
vin, which, by chance fell into the hands of the inquisitor.
" When, my cousin, I wrote to you the letter which you have com-
municated to those who, in it, were taxed with indifference, I did not
imagine the matter was to be pushed so far. My intention was only
to show you what is the fine zeal and devotion of those who call them-
selves pillars of the church, though they suffer such disorder in their
midst, and yet so rudely persecute the poor christians, who desire to
follow God in simplicity. As the example was remarkable, and I was
aware of it, it appeared to me that the occasion was opportune for
touching upon it in my letters, as appropriate to the subject I was treat-
ing. But, inasmuch as you have manifested what I thought myself
writing to yourself alone privately, may God deign profit thereby to
purge Christendom of such filth, nay, of such deadly pestilence. If
they have been pleased to exert themselves for this, as you inform me,
it appears to me that the thing is not so very difficult, though 1 be not
able to furnish you, as you request, the printed book : for I will put
in your hand more to convict him, viz : two dozen pieces written by
the hand of the person in question, in which some of his heresies are
contained. If the printed book were brought before him, he could
deny it, and this he cannot do in regard to his handwriting. Where-
fore, the persons of whom you speak, having the matter clearly proved,
will have no excuse, if they dissemble longer, or neglect to look to it.
All the rest is indeed here, as well the large book as the other tracts,
written by the hand of the author; but I will confess one thing to you,
that 1 have had great difficulty to obtain from M. Calvin what I send
to you ; not that he is not anxious that such execrable blasphemies
should be suppressed, but because it appears to him to be his duty, since
he has not the sword of justice, rather to convict heresies by doctrine,
than to pursue them by such measures; but I have so im*portuned him,
manifesting to him what reproach of levity might be made me, if he
came not to my aid, that at length he has consented to give me what
you will see. As to the rest, when the case shall be brought into good
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 441
train, I hope, with time, to recover from him a ream of paper or there-
abouts, which is what this fellow has caused to be printed. But it
seems to me that, for the present, you have a sufficient pledge, and that
now there is no necessity for more, in order to seize upon his person,
and institute proceedings against him. For my part, I implore God to
be pleased to open the eyes of all those who speak so badly, that they
may learn to judge better of the desire which animates us. And since,
from your letter, it appears that you are unwilling to entertain further
the proposal you before made me, I dismiss it also, in order not to
trouble you, hoping, nevertheless, that God at length will cause you to
perceive that I have not hastily embraced the party to which 1 hold,
commending myself to your kind favour, I pray God to keep you under
his protection. Geneva, this 26th of March."
The second letter is still more important, and it reaches Mathew
Ory in a manner equally mysterious,
" I trust, my cousin, that 1 shall, in part, have satisfied your demand,
by sending you the handwriting of him who has composed the book,
and even in the last episile, which you have received, you will find
what he declares about his name, which he had disguised, for he ex-
cuses himself for having caused himself to be called Villeneufve,
though his name be Servttus, alias Reves, saying that he has taken his
name from the city in which he was born. As to the rest, I will, if
God please, keep the promise, that, should there be need, I will fur-
nish you the tracts which he has caused to be printed, which were writ-
ten with his own hand, as well as his epistles. I should already have
taken the trouble to secure them, had they been in this city ; but
for the last two years, they have been at Lausanne. Had they been in
the possession of M. Calvin, I doubt not, for all they are worth, he
would have sent them back to the author; but as he had also addressed
ihem to other persons, these have retained them. Nay, from what I
have formerly heard, the said gentleman, having answered what should
have been sufficient to content a reasonable man, and having seen that
this was of no use, in regard to such a work, did not deign to read the
rest, because already he was too much annoyed by the foolish reveries
and babbling, which the other merely reiterated, ever singing the same
song. And, that you may know, that it is not now for the first time
that this wretch endeavours to trouble the church, trying to seduce the
ignorant into the same confusion with himself, twenty-four years since,
he was rejected and driven from the principal churches of Germany,
and had he been found in the place, never would he have left it.
Among the letters of (Ecolampadius, the first and second are addressed
to him, with this title, which belongs to him : " To Serveius, the Span,
iard, who denies Christ to be the Son of God, consubstantial with the
Father." Melancthon also, in some passages, speaks of him. But it
seems to me that you have an easy task to furnish proof from what I
have already sent you, not only to commence the whole, but to push
the matter forward. As to the printer, I do not send you the grounds
upon which we have concluded that the work was printed by Baltha-
sard Arnoullet, and William Gueroult, his brother-in-law; but we are
well persuaded of this; and in fact, it cannot be denied. It is very
442 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
possible that it will have been done at the author's expense, and that^
with his own hands, he will have received the copies; but you will cer-
tainly find that the impression came from ihe office which I indicate-
Inasmuch as the messenger requests to be despatched quickly, having,
besides, presented your letters very late, for fear, as I believe, of being
solicited to do well, I have made my answer brief, and I beg you to ex-
cuse haste. It appears to me that I forgot to write to you, that, after
you shall have made what use you please of the epistles, you would not
lo.se or destroy them, but return them to me. Here I will conclude for
the present, ever commending myself to your kind favour, without for-
getting my cousin, your brother, being rejoiced that God has blessed
him with issue, as you write to me. Also, I desiire to be recommended
to all the family, praying God to direct you by his Holy Spirit, to do
what may be agreeable to him. Geneva, this last of March."
Servetus is now in the hands of ecclesiastical justice : Mathew Ory
must perform the functions of his office ; the laws of the country re-
quire it, and he has no means of evading it. But, thanks to Calvin,
the inquiry, the interrogatory, the re-examination of the criminal, the
proof of the crime, — all these things will take but a moment. Whilst
preparations were in progress for the commencement of the prosecution^
Servetus was confined.
In the prison, there was a garden, with a platform, whence a person
could leap into the court-yard of the pretorium, the door of which was al-
ways open. What bungling jailors were these inquisitors, who placed
Servetus in a prison, open on every side, left with him his servant, aged
fifteen years, and ordered that he should be treated "honestly, and ac-
cording to his station !"* In our days, justice would take other pre-
cautions ; she would not allow the sum of three hundred crowns to b^
given to the accused, as was done by the grand prior. Let an angel
now come to liberate him : one appears, having assumed the features of
the only daughter of the vice bailiff, a child of fifteen, whose life the
physician had saved, and who, with clasped hands, and weeping, suc-
ceeds in softening the heart of her father. The vice bailiff gave orders
to the jailor to shut his eyes, and he was obeyed. Perhaps, also, and
this is believed at Vienne, Peter Palmier favoured the escape of the
prisoner.
He shall be free ; may God guide and reclaim this poor silly man, to
whom we are indebted for one of the most beautiful ascetic books, pos^
sessed by Catholicism,! whose brain has been injured by the perusal of
the pamphlets of the reformation, and who, like Luther, Melancthon,
and Calvin, wanted to become the head of a sect, from a love of glory.
He said to himself: *' Carlstadt and Zwingle have attacked the real
presence ; (Ecolampadius and Capito have made war on the sacraments
of the church ; Calvin has blasphemed the divine foreknowledge ; I
will attack the Trinity, and the world will talk about me." This
* D'Artigny, p. 100.
t The Thesaurus anima. Christiana^ which Servetus published under ih©
name of DesideriusPeregrinus, at first in Spanish, and which since has been
translated into Latin, French, Flemish, and reprinted a thousand times.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVllf. 443
world, which, as yet, had only reached the edge of the abyss of ration-
alism, was afflicted with sorrow, and it abandoned Servetus.
On the 7th of April, then, at four o'clock in the morning, with a
night-cap on his head, and concealing his hat and doublet under his morn-
ing-gown, Serveius asks the jailor for the key of the garden, and ob-
tains it. He has soon leaped from the platform, scaled the wall, tra-
versed the palace court-yard, and reached the gate of the pont du
Rhone. Whither shall he now direct his steps ? It is his plan to go
to the kingdom of Naples, and there live by the practice of his pro-
fession. But, whether because he dreaded to fall into Catholic hands,
or feared to inquire his way, he takes the route for Switzerland, instead
o{ that to Piedmont ; and after about three months of traveling, alarms
and sufferings, he enters Geneva, on the 15th of July, and stops at the
tavern de la Rose. He had already spoken to the hostess, and given
her commission to procure for him a barge to transport him to a point,
whence he might easily reach the road to Zurich ; but, the lake being
in commotion, his departure was delayed to the next day. What kept
Servetus at Geneva on this and the following days ? This has never
been known.
On the 13lh of August, the chanter, followed by a syndic selected by
Calvin,* presents himself at the lodgings of the stranger, arrests him,
and conducts him to prison. Servetus was making preparations for his
departure. The person who denounced him was an infamous being,
formed from the same clay with that Nicholas de Trie, whose acquaint-
ance we have made. He was called Nicholas de la Fontaine, former
cook for the family de Falaise.f Calvin called him "my Nicholas. ":|:
In the Genevese legislation, the denouncer had to give himself up as
prisoner, and submit to the penalty of the Talion, or law of retaliation,
in case he had lied : this was done by Nicholas. The judges assem-
bled, and the accusation was produced, containing thirty-nine articles
upon which he desired Servetus to be interrogated. These thirty-nine
articles, drawn up by the reformer, were selected here and there from
the writings of the prisoner : the block and stone of the Christianismi
restitntio had not been omitted.
Servetus responded calmly. His judges were entirely unacquainted
with religious matters. La Fontaine had accused the Spaniard, "that,
in the person of M. Calvin, minister of God, in the church of Gene-
va, he had, in a printed book, defamed the doctrine which is preached,
pronouncing all the insults and blasphemies which it is possible to in-
vent." But Avhen Servetus had demanded that these insults and blas-
phemies should be specified, the valet, embarrassed, knew not what to
answer.
* Tandem hue mails auspiciis appulsum unus ex syndicis, me auctore, in
carcerem duci jussit. — Calv. ep. ad. Sulzerum. 9 septemb.
Nee sane dissimulo mea opera eonsilioque in careerem fuisse conjectum. —
Ref. err. Serveti, p. 187.
t Is famulus fuit aliquando coquus nobilis cujusdam nomine Falesii. — ^Hist.
demort Mich, Serveti. Mosheim, 448.
■\. Nicolaus meus ad eapitale judicium poenSB talionis se ofTerons ipsura voca-
Tit.— Genevae, 20 aug. 1553. Cal. Farell.
444 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
On the 16th, the interrogatory was resumed, but this time in presence
of the ministers, wiiom the judges had called to their aid. Servetus,
on beholding Calvin, could not repress a shudder of terror : the session
was stormy. If we must credit the reformer, Servetus there developed
and defended pantheistical ideas. Calvin, scandalized by these doc-
trines, was unable to restrain his wrath ! — How then, wretch, he ex-
claimed ; if every thing be God, this pavement which we trample under
foot is also God ? — Yes, undoubtedly, replied the Spaniard, this floor
and every thing that Ave behold around us, is but the substance of the
Divinity ! — So, then, resumed Calvin, the devil would be God ?— And
do you doubt of this ! murmured the prisoner, smiling.*
Servetus desired an arena Avhere he could, at leisure, hurl his thun-
derbolts of wrath into the face of Calvin. On the open field, he loud-
ly accused his enemy, called him calumniator, spy, informer, and man
of blood. — He has in such sort pursued me, he exclaimed, that it de-
pended not on him, that I have not been burned alive. He added :—-
that Calvin had several times insulted him, and even by printed books. f
On that day, and during the entire duration of the prosecution, Cal-
vin mounted the pulpit in order to insult his enemy.} In his prison,
they had left him paper, pen, and ink ; but its doors were closed against
all who might have had either the pity or courage to visit the heretic.
For La Fontaine's counsel, Calvin had selected Germain Colladon, a
fiery apostate, a bloodthirsty man, who often discharged the double office
of jurist and hangman's valet. The books of Servetus were in Latin,
and not one of the judges understood that language. § Colladon chose
the passage which he translated before the accused, who had been un-
able to obtain counsel. On the 16th of August, Colladon and La
Fontaine asked to be allowed to read various writings of Melancthon
and (Ecolampadius, regarding the doctrine of Servetus, who vainly pro.
tested against the reading of them.
They opened the Ptolemy, published at Lyons, and edited by Serve-
tus, and Colladon commented on the passage, where "the holy land is
represented as a sterile country, in opposition to the account of Moses,
who boasts of its fertility." " An atheistical speech," repeated the
judge. — Listen to the response of Servetus : I have done nothing but
translate ; it is Ptolemy who is the atheist.
You imagine, perhaps, that this is unanswerable. Calvin speaks :
" I was very glad," says he, *'to stop the mouth of this miscreant, and
I asked him why he had endorsed the labour of another ? and so much
was this vile dog confounded by such pressing reasons, that he could
only snarl, and say : let us proceed, there was no harm in this."]]
» Si quis pavimentum hoc calcando se Deum calcare tuum dicat, an non te
pudebit tantee absurditatis? Tunc ille, ego vero et scamnum hoc, et quicquid
ostendes, Dei substantiam esse non dubito. — Refut. err. Serveti, p. 703.
t Interroff. Mosheim, 157.
^ Ipse cum in carcere absentem quotidianis concionibus ad populum inti»
diosissime traduxit, etc. — Contra libellum Calvini, p.^ 25.
^ Sicuti Genevenses magistratus ex opinione Calvini Servetum judicarunt,
ipsi ignari totius rei, quippe homines illiterati.— Contra libell. Calvini, p. 62.
Q Traites th^ologiques, p. 846.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVm. /t45
Tliey passed to the examination t>f the Bible. They interrogated
the accused upon the fifty-third chapter of Isaias, the prophetic sense of
•which they charged him with having perverted, by attributing to Cyrus
what regards Christ, "as to the effacing of our sins, and the bearing of
our iniquities."
" To which the said Servetus responded, that the principal is to be
understood of Jesus Christ ; but as to the history and the literal sense,
it must be understood of Cyrus, and that ancient doctors have given to
the Old Testament two significations; viz: the literal and mystic
sense."
Calvin pressed the accused :—" Vere languores noslros ipse tulit ;
dolores nostres ipse portavit^ afflictus est propter peccata nostra:'*
Truly he hath borne our griefs > he hath carried our sorrows; he was
afflicted for our sins : The blackguard, says the reformer, continued
obstinately to behold in these prophetic words concerning Christ, no-
thing but his king Cyrus !*
The dispute ispon the Trinity was long and animated. Servetus
admitted three persons in God, but to personality, he gave a signification
very similar to that given it by the ancient Sabellians. In his opinion,
the hypostasis represented a quality, and not an entity. With all the
energy of his soul-, he repelled the blasphemy which they attributed to
bim, in a comparison of the Trinity with the head of Cerberus.f
If, in the unity of the Divine nature, there be not three realities of
persons, what theia is Christ ?— The man Jesus, responds Servetus, is
called the Son of God, because he is composed of the three elements
which are found in God, — fire, air, and water; which, moreover, are
only in God in the condition of iclea, as are all other substances. And
he proceeds to explain his philoso^phic system, in which God, the uni^
versal essence, absorbs all bodies, is the fountain and principle of ©very
thing that exists, the whole and part, commencement and end ; who is
not diffused through existence by fractions, but reposes therein in all his
plenitude.
La Fontaine demanded his liberation, J according to the terms of t^e
law : the tribunal accorded it, as Calvin had foreseen. §
In the interrogatory of the 21st of August, the dispute again turned
upon the Trinity. In the mean time, Servetus had time to collect a
host of texts from the writers of the primitive church, to prove the
orthodoxy of his doctrine. Calvin brought forward a passage from
Justin, which was to settle the question. "But," says the reformer,
* 'Servetus did not know Greek ! Seeing himself thus caught, he be-
,gan to exclaim : Give me a Justin in Latin ! And how is this ? I
said to him, there is no Latin translation ; what, then, dost thou not
understand Greek, and pretendest to be perfectly acquainted with Jus-
* Calv, Refut. errorum Serveti, p. 703.
t Calv. Refut. err. Serveti.
\ Dismissus est e careers Nicolaus die tertio quum frater meus so sponso*
tern dedisset: quarto absolutus est.
\ Auctor ipse tenetur in carcere A magistratu nostro et prope diem, ut speto,
daturus est poenas.— Calv. Eccles. JPrancoford. Pastorlbus S. D, Genevae, $
•cal. sept. \55t.
446 MFE OF JOHN CALVIjr.
tin ! Where, then, are all those fine testimonies with which thou ex-
ertest thyself to ovenvhelm me ?"
Servetus, "a paltry scholar, who is not even acquainted with the
alphabet of his own language !"* Observe that, in order to publish
his Ptolemy, he had to collate a large number of Greek and Latin
manuscripts, a fact well known to the reformer ,' and further, that in
his theological writings, he frequently quotes the Septuagint, and for
the explanation or illustration of passages of the New Testament, he'
searches Greek writers not yet translated. But Calvin then had never
opened the Christianisimi restitutio? On the title page of the booky
there is an epigram in two languages : Greek and Hebrew.
Servetus was conducted back to prison. If we shall credit the au-
thor of the Contra libellum Calvini, they resolved to cause the unhap-
py man to die amid the torments of the torture ; the instrument wa»
already prepared, but Peter Vandel, one of the members of the coun-
cil, threatened to reveal the crime, if it were accomplished If
Servetus, who had faith in the justice of men, had addressed the fol-
lowing supplication to the magnificent seigniors :
" Michael Servetus, accused, humbly supplicates, setting forth, thai
it is a new invention, unknown to the apostles and disciples of the
ancient church, to institute criminal prosecution for the doctrines of the
scriptures, or for questions antecedent to them. This is manifest, first,
from the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 18 and 19, where such accusers
are dismissed and sent to the church, when there is no other crime but
questions of religion. Likewise, from the time of Constantine the
Great, when there were great heresies of Arians, and criminal accusa-
tions, as well on the part of Athanasius, as of Arius, the said emperor^,
by his counsel and that of all the churches, decreed that, according to
ancient doctrine, such accusations should not have place, even when
there should be a heretic such as Arius was. But that all their ques-
tions should be decided by the churches, and that whoever should ]}e
convicted or condemned by these, and was not willing to return by
repentance, should be banished : which punishment has been, at all
times, observed against heretics in the ancient church, as is proved by
a thousand other histories and authorities of doctors. Wherefore, my
lords, according to the doctrine of the apostles and disciples, who never
permitted such accusations, and according to the d'octrine of the an-
cient church, in which such accusations were not allowed, the said sup-
plicant begs that the criminal accusation against him be dismissed.
" Secondly, ijiy lords, he begs you to consider, that he has never of^
ended on your territory, or elsewhere, and has neither been a disturb-
* Atqui graecnm sermonem nihil magis legere qnam puer alphabetarius
potuit. Turn se turpiter deprehensum videns, stomachose latinam translatio-
nem sibi dari petiit.— Ref. Err. 703.
t Idem facere probabant Genevenscs Serveto, si verum audivi. Cum emm
de libro et de omni veritate sua sponte confessus esset, admotus est insuper ad
gehennam, sic vocant illi patrio sermons tormentum, et excarnificatus esset,
nisi intercessisset Fetrus Vandalus senator et idera Calvino summus inimicus:
ut intelligatis eos qui sunt paulo clementiores non posse esse Calvini araicos.—
Contra Calv. lib., p. 63.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 447
er nor a seditious person. For the questions, treated by him, are diffi-
cult, and addressed only to learned persons. And during the whole
time he was in Germany, he never spoke of these questions to any but
(Ecolampadius, Bucer, and Capito. Also, in France, he has spoken
of them to no man. Besides, he has ever reprobated and reproved the
Anabaptists, who were seditious against the magistrates, and desirous
of making all things common. Therefore, he concludes, that, for hav-
ing brought forward certain questions of the ancient doctors of the
church, he ought in no wise for this to be molested and detained by a
criminal accusation.
*' Thirdly, my lords, inasmuch as he is a stranger, and unacquainted
with the customs of the country, and ignorant how to speak or pro-
ceed in trial, he humbly supplicates you to give him an advocate, who
may plead for him. Doing this, may it be well with you, and may our
Lord prosper your republic.
" Done in your city of Geneva, August 22, 1553.
" Michael Servetus, de Villeneufve,
'' In his own cause, ^'
The judicial tribunal being in session on the 23d of August, the lieu-
tenant read thirty questions, which he was about to address to Servetus ;
they regarded his family connections, his literary relations, and his
U'avels.
They asked him : '' If he has been married, and if not married, how,
in his virility, he has been able so long to refrain from marrying ?"
Servetus replies : "That he has never married, quia imyotens erat,
quum ex una parte ablatus, ex altera ruptus esset."'
They wish to know why, in his writings, he has declaimed so violent-
ly against Calvin.
Servetus excuses himself, maintaining that Calvin's language has
been greatly more violent.
On the 27th, he reappeared before the tribunal for the last time.
They required all the intervening period to prepare a reply to the suppli-
cation of the accused. The response was the work of Calvin : it is
brief, dry, and dogmatic*
Servetus said: '' Secondly, my lords, he begs you to consider that he
has never offended, on your territory or elsewhere, that he has neither
been a disturber nor a seditious person."
The judge replies : '' That the heretic is not like the disturber, that
his crime troubles society, which has the right to punish him any where
he is found."
Servetus resumes : " but, at least, my lords, inasmuch as I am a
stranger, and ignorant of the customs of this country, and how to plead,
you will allow me an advocate who will speak for me."
They answer him, that a heretic is outside the pale of the common
law.
And the interrogatories recommence. This time, they proceed to
scrutinize the private life of Servetus, to find some folly of his younger
years, some scene of debauchery, some grand infraction of the sixth
* Act. Jud. MSS.
4.48 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
commandment. The lieutenant wants to discbarge the physician's of-
fice ; he seeks to find out whether the accused lias not represented him-
self incorrectly, and asks him, ubi absoluivs fuit hicimpotentice casus,
and he is not satisfied with the answer : " When I was very young."
He wants to know whether, in him, the flesh never has been rebel-
lious.*
Servetus answers : Never.
And the lieutenant pursues the matter :
— In joking with the hostess of la Kose, you said to her that there
were "plenty of women, without marrying."
— " Truly," said Servetus, "I made that speech, and joked in order
to create an impression quod impotens non eram, for I had no reason
to let it be known.
What magistrates ! what a tribunal !
In the mean time, fear or remorse had seized some of the judges.
In order to renew their courage, they requested Calvin to furnish a for-
mal refuftation of the errors of Servetus.
The minister employed nearly fifteen days in this work : his letter
to Sadolet had cost him only a few hours labour. In the mean time,
the unhappy Spaniard lay upon straw, devoured by vermin. On the
15th of September, he addressed a new supplication to liis very dear
seigniors : his letter, after the lapse of three centuries, still has the
power to cause tears to flow.
"My VEEY HONOUEED SeIGNIORS,
" I very humbly entreat you to be pleased to abridge these
long delays, or liberate me from this prosecution. You perceive that
Calvin is at the end of his devices. Not knowing what to say, he, for
his own gratification, seeks to keep me in prison, that I may rot here.
I am devoured alive by lice ; my breeches are torn, and I have no
change of doublet, and no shirt, but a very mean one. I had presented
to you another supplication, which was drawn up according to God ;
and to defeat it Calvin has alleged Justinian. Certes, he is unfortw-
nate in citing against me what he does not himself belreve. This is a
great shame for him, and still greater, because now have elapsed five
weeks that he has kept me here strongly imprisoned^ and never has
brought forward a single passage against me.
" My lords, I had also demanded of you a lawyer or advocate, as
you had allowed to, my opponent, who did not need one so much as I do,
since I am a stranger and ignorant of the customs of the country.
Nevertheless, you have allowed one to him, and not to me, and have
liberated him from prison before the cause has been investigated. I re-
quest my case to be transferred to the council of the Two Hundred; to-
gether with my supplications; and if T can appeal there, I do appeal,
protesting for all expenses, diamages, and interests, and for the pcena
* Zii welcher Zeit er denn so jrebrcchlicli ^eworden ware, wenn mfin ihn
jjeschnitten, wenn er den Bruch, liber den er klagte, bekommen habe? Die
Antwort war: er wisse dieses so eigentlich nicht, dorcli mogte er ohngefahr
fUnf lahr alt gewesen seyn^ da ihn dieses UnglUck betroffen hatte.... Ob er
nieraal's Unzu'cl)t:g:etriebea;habe? Sie ward k^uiz mit I?,.eia beaawortQt.— »M5t»'-
sheieftvp. IB2.
LIFE or JOHN CALVIIT. 449
talionii, ( law of retaliation ) as well against the first accuser^ as
against his master, Calvin, who has made the cause his own.
" Done in your prisons of Geneva, this 15th of September, 1553.
"Michael Sekvetus,
" In his own cause. '^
Tiberius would have been softened. The council desired that a
shirt and some linen should be given to Servetus, but Calvin opposed
it, and he was obeyed.* It is not a Catholic who says this.
Then the unhappy man, bewildered in mind, seized a pen, and drew
up the articles upon which he wished to be interrogated :
1. If, in the month of March past, he ( Calvin ) caused a letter to
be written to Lyons by William Trie, full of things about Michael
Villanovanus, called Servetus. What are the contents of the letter,
and wherefore ?
2. If, with said letter, he sent the half of the first form of the book
of said Servetus, on which were the title, the index or table, and some
of the commencement of said book, entitled : diristianisimi Res-
titutio.
3. If all this were not sent to be exhibited to the officials of Ly-
ons, to have the said Servetus accused, as actually happened.
4. If, about fifteen days after said letter, he sent immediately,
through the same Trie, more than twenty epistles in Latin, which said
Servetus had written to him : and sent them in consequence of the re-
quest of those persons, that the said Servetus might the more surely be
accused and convicted, as in fact followed.
5. If, afterwards, he have not heard that, because of said accusa-
tions, the said Servetus has been burned in effigy, that his goods were
confiscated, and that he would have been burned in person, liad he not
made his escape from prison.
6. If he be not well aware that it is not the office of a minister of
the gospel to be criminal accuser, or to prosecute a man to death in a
court of justice.
My lords, there are four great and infallible reasons why Calvin
should be condemned.
The first is, because matters of doctrine are not subject to criminal
prosecution, as I have shown you in my supplications, and as I could
more amply prove by the ancient doctors of the church. Wherefore,
he has greatly abused criminal justice, and sinned against the office of
minister of the gospel.
The second reason is, because he is a false accuser, as the present
inscription shows to us, and as will be easily proved by the perusal of
my book.
The third is, that, by frivolous and calumnious reasons, he seeks to
oppress the truth of Jesus Christ, as shall be manifested to you by refer-
ence to our scriptures, into which he has introduced great falsehoods,
and most wicked things.
The fourth reason is, that, in great part, he follows the teaching of
Simon Magus, contrary to all the doctors that ever were in the church.
* Galiffe, Notices ge.iealogiques, t. Ill, p. 442.
39*
450
LIFE OF J OHM CALVIN,.
Wherefore, magician as he is, he ought not only to be condemned, but
he ought to be exterminated and rooted out of your city. And his
goods ought to be adjudged to me, in recompense for my own, which he
has caused me to lose, for which thing, my lords, I entreat you.
Done, the abov« day, 22d September.
Michael Servetus,
" Jn his own cause."
No answer, was^ returned to his petition. He again wrote to his-
judges :
Very honoured seigniors,
I am detained under criminal prosecution on the part of John
Calvin, who has falsely accused me, saying that Lhave written :
I. That souls are mortal ; also,
II. That Jesus Christ took from the Virgin Mary, only the fourth
part of his body.
These are horrible and execrable blasphemies. Among all here-
sies, among all crimes, none is so great as to make the soul mortal, for,
to all others, there is hope of salvation, but not to this. Whoever says-
this, does not believe tlrnt there is a God, and admits neither, justice, the
resurrection, Jesus Christ, the holy scriptures, nor any thing else, hold-
ing that every thing perishes, and that man is one with the brute. Had
I said this, and not, only said, but publicly written it, to deceive the'
world, I would condemn myself to death.
Wherefore, my lords, I demand that my false accuser be punished by-
the pcena talionis, and be detained a prisoner like myself, till the cause-
be defined by death to him or myself, or some other penalty. And to
effect this, I inscribe myself against him, under the said law of retalia-
tion. And I am satisfied to die, if he be not convicted, as well of this-
as of other things, for which I shall arraign him. I ask of you justice^
my lords, justice, justice, justice.
Done in your prisons, September 22d,,l 553-.
Michael Servetus,.
" In his own cause."
Ever the same silence.
And still once more Servetus cries out in behalf of that body, which
they abandon to "miseries," that he dares not even name.
Magnificent seigniors :
For the last three weeks, I have been desiring and entreating
you to give me a hearing, and have never been able to obtain one. 1
beg you, for the love of Jesus Christ, do not refuse me what you would
not refuse to a Turk, who asked you for justice, I have some very im--
portant and necessary things to say to you.
As to what you had ordered, that something should be done to keep
me clean, no attention has been paid to it, and I am in a worse con-'
dition than ever. And, besides, the cold torments me greatly, be,cause
of my colic and rupture, which brings upon me other miseries, which
I should be ashamed to describe to you. It is extreme cruelty that I
have not even permissian to go out to remedy my necessities. For the
LTFE OF JCHN CALVTi:-. 451"
love of God, my lords, give ordeps for this, or else from pity or a sense-
of duty.
Done in your prisons of Geneva, October the tenth, 1553.
Michael Servetus.
Always, the same silence.
On the 21st of October, the tribunal assembled : the deliberations
lasted during three days. Some of the judges, but these were few in
number, were of opinion, that the punishment should be imprisonment ;
nearly all decided for capital punishment. The kind of death remain-
ed to be determined : death by fire obtained the majority. At first,
Ami Perrin had affected to be sick, in order, at the day of judgment,
not to have to answer for the blood of Servetus ; but this blood at
length clamoured so loudly, that Ami arose from his bed and came to
the council.
Calvin has dared cast a stigma on this glorious action.
" Our tragic comedian," he writes, "after having feigned to be sick
during three days, came to the council, in order to save this wretch, and
blushed not to demand that the case should be called before the council
of the Two Hundred; but the sentence was rendered without contro-
versy.'^*
" The sentence having been passed, with the advice of the ministers
of the churches, they handed over the said accused Michael Seivetus,
to the good will of Messieurs, and to show cause from day to day."
On the morning of the- 26th of October, they came to warn Serve-
tus that the sentence of the judges would be executed on the next day.
At this terrible information, the prisoner began to weep and to sue for
mercy. Calvin has found means to insult these tears.
'' Let not blackguards," says he, *'boast of the obstinacy of their
hero, as if it were a martyr's constancy. It is the stupidity of a brute
beast that he exhibited^ when they came to inform him of his fate. As
soon as he had heard the sentence, he was seen, sometimes with fixed
eye like an idiot, and again howling like a madman. He ceased not,
after the manner of Spaniards, to bellow, mercy ! mercy !"t
Be thou praised, Castalion ! thou hast found some- noble words with
which to brand Calvin.
" But the warrior also> trembles at the sight of death, and his alarm
is not that of a brute ! Ezechias sighed when they came to announce
to hini) a death less cruel than the one destined for Servetus ! Job,
that hero of patience, caused lamentations to resound like the meanings
of a. dove, when his enemies brought him infomiation less frightful than
* Caesar comicus, simulato per triduum morbo, in curiam tandem adscendit
ut sceleratum istum poena eximeret. Neque enim erubuit petere ut cognitio
sd ducentos veniret. Sine controversia tamen damnatus est. — Ep- ad Far.
t Ceeterum ne male feriati nebulones, vecordis hominis pervicacia quasi
martyrio glorientur, in ejus morte apparuit bcUuina stupiditas^, unde judicium
facere liceret nihil unquam serio in religionem ipsum egisse. Ex quo mors
ei denuntiata est, nunc attonito similis heerere, nunc alta suspi'ria edere, nunc
instar lymphatici ejulare. Quod postremum tandem sic invaluit ut tantum
hispanico more reboaret wtSfirtcorfiiV, misericordia, — Cal. op. Gen.. 1597* All.'
woerden, p. 101..
452 LIFE OF JOHN CALVm..
that heard by Servetus. And did not Christ, from- the tree of the cross^
exclaim ; My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?"
On the next day, the day of the execution, William Farel, by order
of the council, presented himself to accompany Servetus to his punish-
ment. After some vain words to procure a recantation, the minister ad-
vised him to reconcile himself with Calvin, before dying. Servetus
consented to see the reformer, who soon made his appearance, attended
by two members of the council. — What do you want with me ? said
Calvin to the Spaniard. — To ask you to pardon me, if I have offended
you ?*
" God is my witness," replied Calvin, "that I have not retained
memory of the evil that may have been done me. Towards my ene-
mies, I have only employed mildness ; towards yourself, I have mani-
fested nothing but good will, and you have responded only by outrages.
But I beg you, let us not speak of me : you have no time except to
think of God, and to recant."
Servetus kept silence : Calvin believed his part ended, and took
leave of the unhappy man without embracing him.
The doors of the prison were thrown open. The people were moved
to compassion, on beholding that living skeleton, whose head had be.
come white amid his chains, gazing from side to side, as if he had ex-
pected the angel of the Lord. Some eyes were even moistened with
tears.
The procession paused before the city hall, and the clerk, with a
loud voice, read the sentence of death. Servetus listened in silence.
*' We, the syndics, judges of criminal causes and of the city, having
seen the process drawn up in form, and brought before us, at the in-
stance of our lieutenant, in said causes, against thee, Michael Serve-
tus de Villejieufve, of the kingdom of Aragoii in Spain, by which,
and by thy voluntary confessions made in our hands, and several times
reiterated, and books produced before us, it is to us manifest and evi-
dent that thou, Michael Servetus, hast for a long time set forth false
and fully heretical doctrine; despising all remonstrance and correc-
tion, thou hast, with malicious and perverse obstinacy, perseveringly
sown and propagated it, even to the printing of public books, against
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; in short, against the
true foundations of the christian religion, and for this hast tried to
cause schism and trouble in the church of God, whereby many souls
may have been ruined and lost : a thing horrible and dreadful, scan«
dalous and infectious, and thou hast not had sham.e or horror in op-
posing thyself totally to the Divine Majesty and Holy Trinity, but
hast taken pains, and exerted thyself obstinately to infect the world
with thy heresies and thy stinking heretical poison. A case and crime-
of grievous heresy, detestable, and meriting grievous corporal punish-
ment. For these causes, and other just ones moving us to this, be-
ing desirous to cleanse the church of God from such infection, and to cut
ofif from it such a rotten member; having consulted with our fellow
* Dasz er ihm alles dasjenige, womit er ihm b«leidiget» verz^iken mSge..—
Mosheim» p. 223.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 453
" citizens, and invoked the name of God, to give a righteous judgment^
" sitting as a tribunal in the place of our elders, having God and
" his holy scriptures before our eyes, saying : in the name of the Father,
"and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; by this, our definitive sen-
" tence, which we here render in writing, we condemn thee, Michael
" Servetus, to be bound and taken to the place de Champel, and there
" to be attached to a stake, and burned alive, with thy book, as well
" written with thy hand as printed, until thy body be reduced to ashes ;
" and thus shall thy days be ended, to give an example to others, who
" might wish to commit like offence. And to you, our lieutenant, we
" commend our present sentence, commanding you to put the same
" into execution."
When the reading of the sentence was concluded, a valet struck,
with his staff, the condemned man, who fell upon both knees exclaim-
ing : *-'The sword ! in mercy ! and not fire ! or I might lose my soul
in despair! .... If I have sinned, it is through ignorance/' Farel
raised him up and said to him, urging him : ''confess thy crime and
God will have mercy on thy soul." — I am not guilty, replied Servetus,
I have not merited death ; may God be ray help and forgive me my
sins. "In that case, said the minister, I must abandon thee." Ser-
vetus, became afraid, and was silent. At intervals he lifted up his
eyes to heaven, and murmured : " 0 Jesus, son of the living God,
mercy ! mercy !" *
Having reached the place of punishment, Servetus fell on his face
upon the earth, uttering frightful yells.
Farel turned towards the people, to whom with his finger he indicated
the unhappy man, who was biting the dust with his lips. — "Behold !
said he to the spectators : that man whom they are about to burn, is a
learned man, who perhaps wanted to teach nothing but the truth ; but
behold him in the hands of the devil, who will not release his grasp. f
* Die Geschichte des Michael Servetus. 1. Buch. p. 222, and the followingr:
The account of the last moments of this heresiarch is taken from an unedited
letter of Farel to Ambrosius Blauren, which Henr. Hottinger has cite 1 in his
history of the Swiss reformation, p, 804, and from the Historia demorte trucu-
lenta Michaelis Serveti hispani, inserted in the work entitled : Contra libel-
lum Calvini quo ostendere conatur haereticos jure gladii coereendos esse, p.
t The anonymous writer, who has refuted the book of Calvin Je harelicis.
vuniendls, makes use of the recital of Farel to prove that Servetus was not
guilty of error. "Si quid male scripserat errans fecerat, sicut ipsemet Farel-
lus ad populum ante rogum Serveto testatus est." Contra libellum Calvini,
p. 68.
This, moreover, is not the only Protestant testimony which is favourable to
Servetus.
M. R. Watson, author of a history of the life of Wesley, several times re-
printed, quotes a passage extracted from a manuscript journal, in which Wes-
ley affirms that he had read in the collection of the acts in the prosecution of
Servetus, found in the Bodleian library, this confession of the unfortunate
Spaniard: " I believe that the Father is God, that the Son is God, that the
Holv Ghost is God."
Wesley, after a confession so formal, believes himself justified in accusing^
Calvin of calumny.
From this account of Watson, it would appear that the acts of the trial of
454 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Keep good watch over yourselves, for fear satan should do the same
with you."
Then the minister bending down to the ear of Servetus, who had
risen and was kneeling, said to him : " Servetus, there is still time,
wilt thou make the avowal of thy crimes, and recommend thyself to
the eternal Son of God ?" — Servetus murmured : " To Gcxl ! to God" !
— " Is that all ? resumed Farel." The victim looked at him fixedly
and replied. *' What do you want from me ? To whom can I better
recommend my soul than to God, my creator ?" Farel continued :.
" There is a notary here who will note thy last wishes ; hast thou left
a wife and children ?" The victim shook his head. The minister ad-
ded : "Dost thou not wish to recommend thyself to the prayers of
those assisting?" Servetus said, yes, and Farel exclaimed : "Servetus
here asks you to pray for his soul ;" and, drawing near to the sentenced
man, he conjured him for the last time to confess Jesus Christ the eter-
nal Son of God : the Spaniard's lips remained closed. Then, Farel,
turning towards the people, said with a loud voice ; " Hearken, Satan
is about to seize upon this soul ;"* and he went away to some distance..
At Ghampel there was a stake deeply fixed in the ground. To this
they bound Servetus by means of an iron chain. His neck was fast-
ened with four or five turns of a thick rope ; his head was covered
with a crown of straw well sprinkled with sulphur; the book of the
Trinity was suspended to the stake. He remained a long time in this
attitude, exposed to the gaze of an immense crowd. He besought the
executioner to abridge the preparations for punishment. The execu.
tioner, whose hand trembled while amassing round the victim, in the
form of a circle, fagots of green wood, was unable to proceed faster.
He put fire to the pile, which ignited slowly, and the flame of which
blazed and enveloped the Spaniard with a luminous net-work. The
feet of the sufferer were concealed in the fiery focus, his head swam
amid clouds of sulphur and smoke, through which his lips could be
seen moving in prayer. At the moment that the flames rose up to
devour his face, he uttered a IjowI so frightful, that the silence of death
fell upon the iiTimense multitude. Some of the people, moved with
compassion, ran to aid the executioner, and to stiffle Servetus under
flaming fagots. But one more murmur was heard : •' Jesus, eternal
i>on, have mercy on me." Servetus appeared before God — and Cal-
vin closed the window where he had come to seat himself to assist at
the last agonies of his enemy.f In returning to his lodgings, the re-
former collected in his mind the elements of the book destined to just^
tify him in the eyes of the reformed world. The book made its
appearance in 1554, under the title : A faithful exposition of the
Servetus, have passed from Geneva to England; but at what epoch, and how?
This is not indicated.
The proceedings, against Servetus which formerly existed in the archives
of the Archbishopric of Vienne, are no longer found there. The revolution (\
93, has dispersed all the records.
♦ Calvin a Geneve, p. 230-231 .
t James Fazy, Essai d'um precis sur I'hist. de la republique de Geneve, t» ,'
p. 276; d'Artigny, p. 152.
LIFE or JOHIf CALVIN. 455
errors of Michael Servetus, and a brief refutation of the same, ivherein
is taught that heretics are to be coerced by the right of the sword.
He stood in need of absolution from the guilt of blood, shed in con-
tempt of all laws human and divine ; for, a usurper, at Geneva, of the
civil and ecclesiastical power, stained with heresy, a stranger to the
city, he had no right to sit in judgment upon Servetus, whose crime,
moreover, ought to have been punished only in the place where it had
been committed.
The people, horrified, withdrew in silence, and Farel left Geneva
and returned to Neuchatel.
Some days previously he had written to Calvin : " I cannot com-
prehend how you- could hesitate to kill corporally a wretch, who has
killed so many christians spiritually ! I cannot believe that there are
judges sufficiently wicked to ispare the blood of that infamous heretic."*
The copy of the Christianisimi Restitutio, which we have used in
writing this biography, belonged to CoUadon, one of the judges of
Servetus, "who decided for the torture, even after the confession of the
accused, in order to learn something more."! Upon the title page is
found the name of the jurist. The heart is wrung with compassion on
beholding this mute witness of the agonies of the Spaniard. In it,
we behold the heretical passages which the eye of Calvin has detected
in the volume, and which are recognized by the transversal lines traced
by the pen of CoUadon. What hand has rescued the pamphlet, the
margins of which still bear the marks of the flames ?± We know not.
» FarelL Calv., 8 septembre 1552. Calv. ep., p. 156.
t Galiffe, t. II, p. 566.
'\ At the head of the work there is a Latin note signed Mead, and thus
conceived :
Fuit hie liber D. CoUadon qui ipse nomen suum adscripsit. Ille vero simul
cumCalvino inter judices sedebat qui auctorem Servetum flammis damnarunt.
Ipse indicem in fine confecit. Et porro in ipso opere lineis ductis hie et illic
notavit verba quibus ejus blasphemias et errores coargueret.
Hoc exemplar unicum quantum scire licet flammis servatum restat: omnia
enim quae reperire poterat auctoritate sua ut comburerentur curavit Calvinus.
The index, placed at the end of the volume and written in the hand of Col-
ladon, commences thus:
Index
Horum quae in impurissimo hocce opere continentur.
CoUadon had read this book attentively; for in various passages he has
marked typographical faults, of which no mention is made in the Errata.
Mead, physician to the king of England, does not tell us the origin of his
copy.
The bales, addressed from Vienne to Merrin, the typefounder of Lyons<
containing a part of the book of Servetus, were found untouched in the shop
of the founder, and burned at Vienne; the copies, sent from Lyons to Frank-
fort, were destroyed by the agent to whom Frellon had addressed them, as is
apparent from a passage of one of Calvin's letters.
Verum institor typographi vir pius et integer quum admonitus foret nihil hie
praeter immensam errorum farraginem contineri, suppressit quidquid habebat.
—Gen., 6 cal. sept. 1553.
The books of Servetus, says Grotius, were burned at Geneva and else-
where, through the agency of Calvin;
Serveti libri nonGenevse tantum, sed et aliisin locis perCalvini diligentiam
exusti sunt.— In voto pro pace^ Op. <. IV, p. 655,
CHAPTER XLl
THE REFORMATION AND THE BLOOl) OF SEKVETyS.
X.etter of Calvin to Farel, 1546. — History of this document. — George David
writes to his brethren of Holland in favour of the Spaniard. — The Helvetia
churches consultedv^*-Advice of Berne, Schafl'house, Bale, Zurich. — Me-
lancthon and Bucer congratulate Calvin.«^Castalion attacks the reformer's
pamphlet, de Hctrelicis puniendis.
In 1546, long previously lo the punishment of Servetus, Calvin said
to Farel :
*' Servetus has written to me lately, and to his letter has added a
large book of his reveries, with certain arrogant boastings, that I should
see in it things until now unheard of, and ravishing. He promises to
come here, if I agree to it ; but I do not wish to pledge my word ; for,
if he come, and if my authority be considered, I shall not permit him
to escape without losing his life."
We here quote the translation of Varillas.
In 1687, this historian wrote (Revolutions that have taken place in
Europe in matters of religion, tome 8. in-12): " The publication of
the letters and little tracts of Calvin, in which he avows in express
terms that the prosecution of Servetus was instituted by his advice, has
not deterred Drelincourt and several other ministers from an attempt to
justify him. But that their brethren may no more undertake a cause so
desperate, we here warn them, that all the letters of Calvin, regarding
the matter in question, have not been printed, and that one exists, the
original of which is in safe hands. It was addressed to Farel in 1546,
that is to say, seven entire years previously to the trial of Servetus.
In it, appears a resolution maturely formed to destroy him, and for
which only the opportunity was wanted."
Grotius had seen it in the library of Paris.*
UUembogoert had read it at Paris in the library of the king.
Yet, even till this day the existence of that letter had been obstinate-
ly denied. Mosheim, in his "history of heresies" proves admirably
that it is apocryphal : and when one has read some of the arguments
of the German writer it is difficult not to doUbt it. It was worth
while to verify a fact of sftch great importance. Our researches have
not been fruitless : the letter is in the library of the king ( Bibliothe-
que du Roi) in the chamber of manuscripts, n. 101-102, of the Du-
• HoTum Calvinus autem is est qui antequam Servetus veniret Genevanf
scripsit ( exstat istius Lutetise manus) ad Farcllum, si quid sua Valeret auctof
iias effecturum ne vivus abiret.— Grotius, t, IV, p. 503.
LIFE Of JOHN CALVIK. 457
puy collection ; it is entirely in Calvin's hand, and very difficult to be
read, as is every thing written by the reformer ; it is dated February,
15-46; We present it in a note.*
Of Avhat use here would bean angry commentary? A few lines
will suffice.
In 1546, the reformer wrote : " If Serv^etus come to Geneva, he
shall not leave it alive.'"'
An age later, Drelincourt printed these words :
" They reproach Calvin with the death of Servetus, the Spaniard of
cursed memory ; but it is with great injustice. On this score, not the
slightest word can be said against him."
* S. De fratrib'js quieto nunc animo eris post acceptas Claudii literas.
Nuncius qui attulerat, cum a concione redirem post horam nonam, rogavit an
mese esseat paratae; negavi, sed jussi ut domi meee pranderet cum uxore
( eram enim ipse invitatus a Macrino). Statim a prandio adfuturum me
promisi ut paucis responderem. Non venit, sed momento se proripuit ut stu-
perem tarn subito discessu. Et taraen visus mihi fuerat juvenis alioqui non
malus. Utinam cogitent fratres sibi omnes difficultatesitaexpediri Dei manu
quo citius festinent. Non oportuit cessare Israelitas cum patefactus illis esset
exitus, quin mox ad fugam se accingerent. Hoc fuissel epistolae argumentum
nisi nuncius me fefelliset. Verum ultro eos ardere confido.
Nunc venio ad vestra certamina. Si quid adhuc raolestiae vobis improbi
faccssant, cum istae literes venient, breviter complexus sum quaenam agendi
ratio mihi placeat. Velim autem primum agi viva voce; deinde hoc scriptum
aut simile tradi. Ridebitis forte quod nihil nisi vulgare proferam, cum a me
reconditum aliquid et sublime expectaveritis. At ego me vestra opinione ob-
stringi nolo, neque etiam aequum est. Malui tamen ineptus esse ita scribendo
quam tacendo committere, ut preces vestras a me neglectas putaretis. Si ra-
tionibus et hac legitima via nihil fuerit effectum, clam apud Bernates agen-
dum erit ne feram illam ex cavea emiitant. De federe non satis assequor
mentem tuam, nisi, quod suspicor, quo Bernates auxilio vobis sint te ad ali-
quam conjunctionem animum adjicere. Ut quemadmodum jure civitatis lib-
ertatem populi tuentur, ita honesto aliquo titulo tueantur ministros in officio
suo. Si id est non improbo; modo memineritis ai Ace extraordinaria remedi*
tunc demum esse confugiendum, ubl ultimx necessitatis est excusatio. Deinde
ut omnes cautiones adhibeatis ne quid in posterum vobis noceat semel fuisse
adjutos, ac pactionis nunc translatee ma^is vos pceniieat quam pristine servi>
tutis. Marcurlius certe jam locum sibi despondit. Fratrum enim consensum
nihil se morari preedicat quia a magistratu et populo expetatur, nee fremere in
te dubitat. Denique cum ante tempus malitiam animi sui prodat, machinis
omnibus repellendus est, ne emergat in locum unde efficere quod minatur pos-
sit. De iis qui sub prassidii specie perpetuam dominationis sedem tigere hie
volebant rumores sinamus in utramque partem vagari. Civiliter et placide
occursum est eorum impudentiae, ita ut eos sui pigere debeat; spero quieiuros
nostris quantum possum suadere ut securi dormiant. Servetus nuper ad me
scripsit ac Uteris adjunxit longum volumen suorum deliriorum cum Thrasoni-
ca jactantia me stupcnda et hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat hue
se venturum recipit. Sed nolo fidem meara interpouere; nam si veiurit^ modo
valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar.
Jam elapsi sunt ultra quindecim dies ex quo Cartularius in carcere tenetur,
propterea quod tanta protervia domi sues inter cenandum adversum me debac-
chatus est, ut constet non fuisse tunc mentis corapotem. Ego dissimulanler
tuli nisi quod testatus sum judicibus, mihi nequaquam gratum fore si cum eo
summo in re agerent. Volui eum invisere; senatus decreto prohibitus fuit
nditus. Et tamen boni quidam viri scilicet me crudelitatis insimulant, quod
tam pertinaciter meas injurias ulciscar. Rogatus sum ab ejus amicis ut de-
precatoris partes suspicereia, facturum me segavi, nisi his duabus exception!-
39
458 I/IFE OF JOHN 0ALT7N.
Whilst the trial was pending, George David* addressed to his breth*
ren of Holland and Switzerland, a letter quite full of tears, in behalf of
the poor prisoner. George, driven away from his own country, risked
his own life in his wish to save that of his brother of Geneva. Sale
would have had no mercy on an exile, who should have pleaded the?
cause of Seivetus; George was aware of this, and concealed himself
under the name of John de Bruck. The secret was not known tili
after his death ; and then the ministers demanded that the body of
George should be exhumed, that it should be burned, and the ashes
scattered to the winds, and the senate obeyed them.
The letter of George came too late : the heart of the reformed
churches was closed against pity. They had been consulted, and
Zurich had replied : — Divine Providence has furnished you with a
very fine opportunity to prove to the world, that neither your church
nor ours favours heretics : vigilance and activity : may the contagiorj
of the the pest be arrested, and may Christ illumine you with his wis-
dom."!
ScHAFFHOusE : — We are certain that you will exert all your efforts
to prevent heresy from devouring, like a cancer, the flesh of the chris-
tian body. Let there be no disputes. To dispute with a senseless:
man, is to be foolish with fools. "|
Bale : — To heal the soul of the unhappy man, you will employ all
the wisdom that God has given you ; if he be incurable, you will have
recourse to that power with which God has armed you, that the church
of Christ may cease from suffering, and that new crimes may not be
added to old ones."§
Beene : May God give you the spirit of prudence and of fortitude,
by the aid of which, you may be able to rid both your own church and
ours from such a pest."||
Servetus having been burned, then came the songs of bloody tri-
umph.
Melancthon wrote to Calvin •
" Reverend personage, and my very dear brother, I return thanks to
the Son of God, who has been the spectator and the judge of your com-
bat, and who will be the rewarder thereof : The church also, both
now and in time to come, will owe you her gratitude. I am entirely
of your opinion, and I hold it as certain, that things having been done
bus, ne quse suspicio in mc rcsideret, atque utChristi honor maneret salvus.
Jam defunctus sum. Expccto quid senatus pronunciet.
Vale frater et amice integcrrime; cum sororibus nostri omnes vos salutanr.
Fralribus dices plurimam salutem meo et symniistarura nomine.
Dominusvobis semper ac vestris Sanctis laboribus benedicat.
Genevae idibus februarii 1546.
JOAA'XES CaLVINUS tUUS.
* Den edeien, gestrensfhen, crenuesten, vromcn und wysen Herren der
evangeliischcr Steden iu Swytserland.
t Refut. err. Scrveti, 724. Ep. et Rosp., n. T59, p. 297.
t Cal. Resp. etEp. 158, p. 296.
J"Ep. et Rcsp., n. 160, p. 302.
II Mos'u'im, p. 214. Schelhorn, has given a more explicit reply of the Ber-
nese min's'ers in his acta historico-eccles, sec'iili XV, and XVI, p. 217.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 459
in order, your magistrates have acted according to law and justice in
putting this blasphemer to death.''*
And Bucer ; " Servetus deserved to have his bowels drawn out and
torn to pieces. "t
But Calvin's canticle is a real poem, in which, to justify the murder
of his enemy, he invokes Moses, Aaron, the prophets, Jesus, the apos-
tles, the Old and j^ew Testaments, the two legislations, the Hebrew,
and the christian. One is in marvel at the sound of all these glorious
names which Calvin cites : il is an endless choir of doctors, fathers,
even popes, with whom he is acquainted, and whose testimony he pro-
duces. He has forgotten bat one thing, viz : his book of Institutes,
where in so many passages, now effaced, he formerly defended the
heretic against the sword of the law.
Happily, an old schoolmaster of Geneva, Castalion, essayed to give
Calvin a lesson of tolerance and of memory. Concealed under the
pseudonyme of Martinus Bellius, against Calvin's writing regarding
the punishment of heretics by the sword, he published various pam-
phlets, in which he shows himself serious without pedantry, Jocose
without triteness, devout without hypocrisy : It is Aristophanes, dis-
coursing upon matters of theology. Castalion has here taken good
care to breathe neither the spirit of Luther nor of Tetzel. To give
more life to his Avord, he sometimes has recourse to the dialogue. He
imagines a drama with two actors, Vaticanus and Calvin. The reform-
er could not complain : Castalion cites him verbatim.
We remember, that, at the moment he was going to death, Servetus
wished to see Calvin, who went into the prison, attended by two coun-
selors; and then a strange scene took place : Servetus asked pardon of
the minister, who, calling God to witness, protested "that he never
thought of avenging personal injuries ; that meekness is the only
weapon that he has employed to reclaim the unfortunate man ; that
already, sixteen years since, he essayed, at the peril of his life, to save
a soul that was rushing to its ruin."$
Vaticanus does not allow him to conclude : §
*• In truth ! you are about to be made acquainted wiih the good will
of Calvin for Servetus. In the commencement of his commentaries
on St. John, there is a preface, in which Robert Estienne eulogizes the
meekness of the reformer, in magnificent terms. I open the book, and
in the very first pages, behold what I read : *•' Servetus, that Spanish ras-
cal," *' Servetus superbissimus gente hispana 7iebulo.'* I extract an-
other example from the book on scandals. Liber de Scandalis, p. 59 :
" From these pages, replete with the drivel and bitings of this mad
dog, (he is speaking of Servetus), you may judge what spirit animates
the writer : with a stomach craving glory, he swallows the most silly
* Drelincourt, Defense de Calvin, p. 285.
t id. ib.
X Me nunquam privatas iujurias persecutum;..., quanta potui niansHetu^
dine admonuil Defensio ortliodoxae tidei.... ubi ostenditur haereticos juts'
gladli coercendos esse.
^ Contra libellum Calvini, in quo ostendere conatur haBfetioos jure gladii
cajrceaJos esse.
4.60 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
follies and becomes intoxicated with them."* Come now, he that chooses
may believe that Calvin offered his life, as he says, to save this hydro-
phobic dog !
CALVIN.
As 1 perceived that my exhortations were useless, I did not want to
be wiser than the rule, and, according to the precept of the Apostle St.
Paul, I abandoned the heretic.
VATIC ANUS.
This is the holy rule : Admonish the guilty person secretly, — after-
wards, call one or two witnesses, — then denounce him to the church.
You have proceeded differently : insults, — the prison, — the stake.
CALVIN.
Let us shed tears over the present condition of the papistical church,
which can only sustain itself by violence, and where the pastors, forget-
ting the sacred duties of their office, have nothing but laws of severity
to promulgate.
VATICANUS.
Thy hands were still dripping with the blood of Servetus, when thou
wrotest these lines ! But thou, also, the pastor of the Genevese church,
nay, the intruding pastor, thou hast nothing but severity. Here is an
edict, decreed on a certain occasion, when a man, named Trouillet, was
bold enough to criticise thy Institutes :
''After having heard in council the learned ministers of the word of
God, masters William Farel and Peter Viret, and after them, the re-
spectable master Jehan Calvin and master Jehan Trouillet, and their
sayings and reproaches, regarding the Christian Institutes of said M.
Calvin, having been often debated, and all things having been well con-
sidered, the council decrees and concludes that all things having been
well heard and understood, it has pronounced and declared the said
book of Institutes of said M. Calvin well and holily made ; his doc-
trine, the holy doctrine of God ; that he be held as good and true min-
ister of this city, and that, for the future, no one here presume to speak
against said book or its holy doctrine. We enjoin on such persons,
and on all, the duty of being guided by this. Wednesday, which was
the ninth of November, in the year one thousand live hundred and fifty,
two."
Writers have been found sufficiently blind to undertake a justifica-
tion of Calvin, but of all stains, that of blood is the most difficult to be
removed. At Chateau de Blois, they still show the spot which Guise-
reddened with his blood in falling under the poniard of Henry III.
Not long since, at Geneva, the pastor, Jocob Vernet, implored M. de
Chapeaurouge to communicate to him the papers containing the records
of the prosecution of Servetus. M. de Chapeaurouge, secretary of
state, presented this rer^uest to the council, which refused it. M. Yeu
Ibid.
LIFE OF JOriK CALVIK. 461
net insisted. ''He desired," says M. Galiffe, *'to prove that they had
liOt refused a coat and linen to- Servetus, for his money." Tke syndio,
Calandrini, replied to the pastor. Here is the letter,, whichs M. Goa-
lifFe has in his possession, and which maiy be read in tke third volume
of his Notices gejiealogiques :
" Sir, and very dear cousin,
" The council, interested in preventing the criintnal proceedings
against Servetus from being made public, does not wish them to be
communicated, either altogether or in part, to any person ; the literary^
character of a man can obtain him no privilege in regard to this. The-
conduct of Calvin and of the council, known from the Notes on the-
History of Geneva, is such, that it wishes every thing to be buried in
profound oblivion. Calvin is not excusable ; Servetus placed the light
before his eyes, concerning the conduct which should be pursued in re-
gard to heretics, and has not allowed him to avail himself of the plea of
invincible ignorance. M. de la Chapelle has justified him, the best he
could, from the reproach of having been instigator of the process insti-
tuted against Servetus at Vienne. For this, he has supposed a fact,
which was to be proved by our registers, but which they will not prove.
You think to justify by our registers the severity exercised towards Ser-
vetus, in his prison, and from these same registers you would find that
those favourable orders were not executed ; that, in fine, after the event,
Calvin, instead of bitterly deploring it, maintains a thesis, which no
christian can defend, and that too, by arguments unworthy of so great
a man, even in the opinion of M. de la Chapelle. Avail yourself cf
the excuse afforded by your sickness, to dispense yourself from a work
which can only be prejudicial to religion, to the reformation, and to
your country, or which would be little conformable to truth. The
trivial reason, that the reformation was not regarded as the protector of
anti-Trinitarians, may have closed the eyes of Calvin to the great truths
of the christian religion; let us take care not to permit that the dread of
being considered advocates of I know not what, should cause us lo prcv-
voke questions which do not suit us," &-c^ 6tc.
39*
CHAPTER XLII.
THSODOEE BE.ZA. 1549 1562.
His infancy. — His poems. — Fears the parliament and leaves France. — Arrives-
at Geneva, and is welcomed by Calvin. — Opposition of certain ministers. —
Beza attempts to justify liimselL — Appreciation of his apology. — Opinion of
the Lutherans.— Disputation with Baudouin ( Balduinus ). — He pleads in fa-
vour of the punishment of heretics.
Beza tried to justify the punishment of Servetus,. less as a jurist than
a theologian. They published, that heresy is not amenable to the tribu-
nal of men : Beza proves that the magistrate is armed with a two-edged
sword, which he is bound to use for cutting off the head of any one
who troubles society.
Let us pause a moment to study the only writer of imagination, of
whom the Genevese reformation can boast.
Behold, in what terms Beza gives us an account of his early years:
" Well, playing, as is the custom with small children, with some ser-
vants, without caring for the contagious malady that then prevailed at
Paris, miserable that I was ! I caught the scaldhead, a malady in its na-
ture distressing and obstinate, and still at that time incurable, because,
although it was in that famous city of Paris, the ignorance of physi-
cians was such, that they could only cure it by means of painful and
violent medicines. I feel horror in recalling the tortures I then en-
dured ; the anxieties of my uncle,, who sought every means, but in
vain, to effect my cure. I will recount the singular benefit which God
bestowed upon me. The surgeon who had undertaken to cure me,
was accustomed to come to the house to bandage me, my uncle, so
greatly did he love me, not being able to suffer me to be touched even
with the end of a finger in his absence. But he could not support the
pain of seeing me suffering so much, which caused him to entreat the
liost to conduct me every day, together with one of my cousins, who
was afflicted with the same disease, to the surgeon's house, not having
even the heart to witness me suffering so much misery. My uncle
lodged in the University, and the surgeon not far from the Louvre, the
bridge aux Musniers being between the two places. We had, every
day, to pass over this bridge, followed by our servant, who, as is cus-
tomary with such persons, did not take such care of us as he should.
I remember ( and certes, the very remembrance fills me with horror )
that ray cousin, who had the spirit of a. soldier and warrior, often. ex>
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 463
horted me, to put an end to so many evils, by precipitating ourselves
head foremost into the depths of the river. In the beginning, ( for I
am naturally fearful and timid), I was frightened at such counsel ; but
at length, yielding to his importunity, and overcome by pain, I agreed
to follow him, after he should have first leaped over. Now, we were
on the point of putting our design into execution, the devil holding us
by the necks for our ruin, when God, taking pity and compassion on us,
sent our uncle at that very instant, not thinking of this the least in the
world. On beholding the servant following us at a distance, he com-
manded him to conduct us to the house, and engaged the surgeon to
come henceforward to treat us in our chamber. Behold how God then
miraculously rescued me from the jaws of satan."*
Theodore Beza was born at Vezelay, in Burgundy, in the year 1519,
and was baptized in the church where St. Bernard had preached the
crusade. His paternal uncle, Nicholas Beza,t caused him to come to
Paris, resigned to liim the priory of Bois-les-Villeselve, and sent him
to Orleans to study under Melchior Wolmar, that learned jurist, who
had given lessons to Calvin.
Now, imagine to yourself a fine looking youth, vested with a coquet-
ry truly feminine, w^earing gloves after the Italian fashion well per-
fumed with essences, a dress of striking colours, a ruffle nicely plaited,
and which he changed four times a week ; skillful in all exercises,
sitting a horse admirably, wielding arms like a fencing-master, playing
at tennis like a courtier, and extemporising Latin verses as well as
Catullus : such was Theodore Beza.
He had given moderate attention to the study of law ; his whole passion
was for the Latin muses. He dreamed only of Iambics, trochees, dactyles,
and he made some of them, which, it was said, were undreamed of by
the chanter of Lesbia's sparrow. When he returned to Paris, he pub-
lished a collection of his lyrical productions,} where, on the frontis-
piece of the volume, he caused himself to be represented v;lth a crown
in his hand, with these two verses In form of a garland :
Vos docti docta picecingiie tempora lauro,
Mi satis est illam vel tetigisse manu.
Unluckily, the author had imagined himself in pagan Rome, and
celebrated infamous amours, which the parliament condemned to the
flames. Among the epigrams of the collection, there was one, especi-
ally, which made great noise ; the one, in which he chants a student of
* Beza, Epistle to Wolmar, translated byFlorimond deRemond.
t Theodore wrote, for his uncle Nicholas, an epitath in tliree languages, and
caused it to be painted on his tomb, in the parochial church of St. Cosmas and
»St. Damian, where Ite may be seen represented on his knees between two can-
dlesticks and lighted tapers, praying before the image of his uncle. The
Latin epitaph commences :•
.Marmore de Pario nullas hie stare columnas. Launay.
X Theodori 13ez8^ Vezeli poemata, Luteti^. Ex officina Conradi Badii sub
prelo Ascensiano, e regione gymnasii D. Barbarae M.DXLVIII. Cum prlvile-
gio senatus ad triennium. And at tlie end : Lutetiee, Roberto Stephano Regie ty^
pographo et sibi Conradus Badius excudebat,. idibus Julii.M.DXLVIII, in 8v0c^
p. 100. See David Clement, art. Beza,
464 LIFE or JOHN GAiYUSr.
Orleans^ named Audibert, and Candida, the wife of a dress-maker, -whet
dwelt at Paris, in the street la Calandre.*
Beza had dedicated his poems to his professor, Melchior Wolmary
"who had discovered nothing reprehensible in them, any more than did
Joachim Camerarius, two famous Lutherans, as all are aware. j
The parliament, more scrupulous, was about to have the poet cited
to answer, when he took to flight, after having sold or farmed out his be-
nefices, J and he sought refuge in Geneva, under the name of Thibaut de
May.
The minister Launay has not spared the reputation of his co-religion-
ist. "After he had defiled himself," says he, "with all kinds of infa-
my and sin, which he has not himself concealed, he debauched his
neighbour's wife, sold his benefices, and took to flight, not to escape
persecution,, bat the punishment and penalty of his crimes. But before
departing, he deceives his farmers, and causes advances to be made him
upon the revenues of his benefices, to which he no longer had any
right ; for which we were greatly annoyed during the conference of
Poissy; for one of the widows, with her children, came to clamour
after him for satisfaction. This poor woman told me, that he had de-
prived them of more than twelve hundred francs. To prove his con^
version, and that he was assisted by the Holy Ghost, he composed the
epistle of Passavant : a fine burlesque against president Liset, to
whom he wished the evil of death, because he had condemned him
to make restitution of the chalices and ornaments of the people of
Burgundy, whose agent he had been in the University of Orleans, and
he had gone to sell them on the Pont-au-Change, without saying fare-
well to his companions, who obtained his arrest."
Beza was still young when he arrived at Geneva, bringing along with
him that plebeian muse of the street la Calandre, whom he had chanted
under the name of Candida : at Paris, she bore that of Claudine..
Calvin was charmed with the grace, the fine appearance, the flowery
language of his former school-companion, and particularly with that
fascination of manners which announced the man of ton and rank.
He was another Melancthon, sent by heaven to the Genevese Luther..
He was feasted by the reformer, who, at first, had him appointed Greek
professor at Lausanne.
The professor met with brilliant success : they flocked to attend his
lectures, from Berne, Fribourg, and even from Germany. His language
was well cadenced and very correct. Those who listened to him im-
agined themselves hearing Melancthon. " He had," they said, "the
harmonious and abundant style of Luther's disciple, but more warmly
coloured."
He was soon promoted to be lecturer in- theology, and his auditory,
* Launay.
t Ad hcec accessit gravissima tui judicii authoritas, quse quidem una tantura
apud me potuit at simul atque ex iis literis quas ad me Tubinga dedisti, haac
nostra intellexi tibi et Joachimo Camerario mirum in modum probari, nihil
habuerim antiquius quam ut ea in unura velut corpus congererem. — Epist*.
Bezae.
X Registres du parlement..
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 465
without being more numerous, was changed in its character. The
ladies crowd to hear his sermons ; they had never seen any one like
him in the pulpit. The orator perfumed his dress as well as his lan-
guage. He was a dandy, seeking to win souls to the gospel by means
of worldly airs. Calvin, who had waged so rude a warfare against
the head dresses of women, had nothing to say against the curled and
perfumed locks of his disciple. Beza, who had seen the gay world of
the capital, was a courtier in perpetual adoration before the reformer,
whom he intoxicated with the incense of adulation. Calvin was desi-
rous to attach him to the evangelical ministry, but he met with some
resistance on the part of his colleagues. Cop, the former canon of No-
tre-Dame-de-Cluny, Raymond, ex-Jacobin of Toulouse, and the school-
master Enoch, — ministers and members of the consistory, — opposed the
ordination of this prior, '-scented, curled, buckish, still acting the fop,
and, though his hair was growing gray, chanting the nymphs of Parnas-
sus and the cupids of antiquity."
In the dedication of his poems to Wolmar, Beza has mentioned the
scruples of certain souls, who were unable to comprehend how a new
Corydon should be promoted to the ministry; but he adds that the holy
assembly decided that an erratum or a sliy of the "pen should not be
urged as a crime against a poet, who had but just passed over from the
papism to Christianity.* Moreover, in 1559, in a new edition, he has
attemptedto justify the infamous amours, with which he was reproached
by the Catholics. " We behold them," said he, "hurling at my head
little verses ( for they are unable to reproach me with anything else );
but what can they make of these ? Very little, [n my poetical squibs,
I amused myself with an imaginary Candida, whom they wish to make
my wife; but a word will serve to confound these sanctimonious gen-
try ; I recommend to the gods, Candida, who is about to be confined :
now, it is well known, that I never had any children by my wife.f As
to Germain Audebert, of Orleans, I addressed to him, in mirth, some
hendecasyllabic verses, in which I manifest to him how great is my de-
sire once more to see him, in order to renew our former bonds of friend,
ship. And these abandoned souls, these pedants, finally, these monks,
blush not to transform this Audebert into an Adonis !" But the con-
fession is not complete, we are certain. Audebert, who had lived in
* Turn quod iniquum plane videretur ei qui ad Christum a papismo, velut
paganismo, transiisset, erratum istud imputare.
t Candidam praegnantem superis commendem, quum nuUos unquam liberos
ex uxore susceperim. — Epist. dedicat. ad And. Dudithium. Gen. 14 maii 1569.
I Gruterus (Gruytere) has inserted in his Dellclce poetarnm GalJorum, the
pieces of poetry, which Beza dared not publish: Adeodati Seha Veseliensis
juvenilia.. The critic has changed the sir-name, Theodoru^s, into Adeodatus,
and anagraramatized Beza's name into Seba. The epigram of Candida and
Audebert, is found in this collection, p. 617. There are other pieces to Candi-
da which elsewhere would in vain be sought for; in such sort, says Ant.
Fayus, in the life of Beza, vita Th. Beza, that Gruterus may be ranked as the
greatest enemy of Beza. These juverulia were composed from 1536 to 1539,
a period when the author had sufficiently long ceased to be a Catliolic. M.
Alexander Martin has, in his tine collection of autographs, a letter of the
scholar of Vezelay, which leaves no doubt regarding the religious dispositions
oi ilie poet at that epoch.
466
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Paris, was well acquainted with other poetical sins, with which Beza
might have been reproached ; sins still unpublished, which the Orleans
youth knew by heart, and which have been collected by Gruterus, in
his DelicicB 'poetarum Gallorum : real priapics, in which the poet has
chanted sad realities.:}:
Calvin carried the day, and Beza was promoted to the ministry.
Geneva had obtained a man of talent; for what were Cop, Enoch,
and Raymond ? mere pedants, dusted over with Latin of the kitch-
en; whereas, Beza knew enough philosophy to converse with learned
men, enough theology to dispute with monks, and had sufficient know-
ledge of the world to play the part of the ascetic of the Thebaid ;
moreover, he was a gallant with women, a tactician with courtiers, of
admirable self possession in an assembly of cardinals, a flippant rather
than an abundant coUoquist, prompt in his replies, sarcastic when in-
sulted, a gay reveller, and, in case of need, an expert swordsman.
In a disputation, where he acted as Calvin's vicar, against the jurist
Balduinus, Beza Imd found means to give his adversary a real homily
upon frugality. Balduinus, who had frequently dined at Beza's table,
was unable to restrain himself, on hearing this eulogium on ceno-
bitical life, from the mouth of the ravisher of Candida, the wife of the-
Parisian dress-maker.
You must know, that the Calvinist had compared the jurist to a fam-
ished dog, prowling around the kitchen, and snuffing the odours of the
frying viands.
This dog was, naturally, a snarler, and, if touched with the foot, he
was accustomed to bite. Beza had his robes torn, and his leg mangled;
and what was more unfortunate for him, they allowed him to cry in his-
pain, without showing him the least sympathy in the world. Listen to-
the jurist :
*' Thou shalt first be informed, that Balduinus, even when deprived
of his patrimony, would be under no necessity to turn beggar; there-
fore, there is no ground of surprise, that he has been able to come to
the aid of Gallas and his family. What, then, dost thou mean by these
words : I imagine that I behold him, now, amidst that city of unem-
ployed labourers, again, in the palace among the throngs of jurists and
advocates, with his nose in the wind, scenting a dinrior ? I would be^
glad to know what honest man has ever scented for thy repasts, after
the style of Sardanapalus and Heliogabalus, debauchee that thou art?
or thy sacrilegious suppers, where vice came to seat herself, thou inces-
tuous Amphitryon ? Who ever drew near thy dining room without
Slopping his nose, suffocated by those brothel odours which exhale from
thy nocturnal banquets? Who would set foot in tliy lodgings without
fear of being defiled ? Odours and smells, abundant even to suffocation..
With thee, unfortunately, one is compelled at times to use other than
chaste terms ; and when there is necessity to speak of Theodore, woe
to chaste ears ! But I trust that honest persons will pardon me, if my
pen allows itself liberties to which it is not accustomed. In truth,,
thou drunken Satyr, when, being seated by the side of thy Pallas, ihoiM
actest the little Plato, Balduinus would have been so happy, had he been,
able to quaff a similar nectar, and inhale so sweet an ambrosia!." Hsr
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 467
then sets to work to paint a bacchanalian scene, in which Beza does not
figure alone, and which sufficiently recalls one of the suppers celebrated
-by Petronius ; he afterwards proceeds :
" 0, pious repast, 0, evangelical love^feast, 0, philosophic supper !
Balduinus, the rustic, would have been jealous to share it; he, who is
so little accustomed to the elegance of grand houses, and so great a stran-
ger by nature to such mysteries!"*
The Lutherans have not dealt more lightly with the scholar of Veze-
lay. Hesshus reproaches him with "not having been satisfied to have pol-
luted his youth with villainous amours, but with having, mereover, been
bold enough to write out his sacrilegious adulteries, and have them
musically chanted. And, nevertheless," he adds, "to hear him speak,
you would say that he is some holy man, another Job, or one of the
hermits of the desert, even greater than St. Paul or St. John, so much
does he every where trumpet his exile, his labours, his purity, and his
admirable sanctity of life."
As soon as he went forth from his table, he cast off his worldly airs,
and, in ascending the pulpit, assumed the gravity of a doctor.
His translation of the Psalms obtained great success.
To cause them to be more generally received, they had them set to
music : they selected the most popular airs. For instance, Praise God
all ye nations, was sung to the sound of bagpipes ; another was chant-
ed to the village air, fetite camusette, or to the tune of the song :
Mon bel amy, when far away,
Then think "ot' Pienne.
But when he added all these psalms to the Genevese catechisms, the
authorities forbade their use, and "to chant a psalm, made one a Luth-
eran," says Florimond de Remond.
The apparition of Beza at Geneva was a real joy for the reformer,
assailed as he was by diseases, exhausted by incessant contests with
the factions of the city, and disgusted with life. Had the soul of Cal-
vin been more poetic, he would, in verse, have hailed the advent of
this muse which heaven seemed to send him, in order to mingle a little
honey in that cup of gall and tears, which he was doomed to quaff to
the very dregs. In his tilt against Catholicism, he could not avail
himself of the pen of any of his colleagues, who by their silly vani-
ties would have spoiled the noblest cause. Farel had in a [ew years
worn out all the greenness of his youth, too turbulent and ardent to be
» O religiosum convivium, O, agapenl O coenam eruditam quam Balduinus
et subrusticus, et talis eleganties imperitus, et talium mysteriorum ignarus,
atque etiam ab iis natura adhorrens appeteret ! — Bald. Responsio ad Calvinum
et Bezam. Colonife, 1564, 81, 82.
At the end of this tract, there is a refutation of Calvin's calumnies regarding
the scriptures and tradition. Refidotio caluniniaruvi de scriptura et traditione.
It is a complete treatise on this point, where the writer, to defend tradition,
employs law arguments, nearly as M. Dupin of our days docs, in his dispute
with M. Salvador concerning "the judgment and death of Christ. At each in-
stant, when we stir the dust of the old libraries, we discover these treasures of
contraversy, to-day, unhappily, either forgotten or too much neglected.
468 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
durable ; Viret could use but a weak and nerveless phraze. Beza^
stesped in Greek and Latin, promised to be as learned and as obedient
as Philip the disciple of Luther, and he kept his word. The
friendship of these two men lasted through life, and at the death of
Calvin, it seemed to gain strength in the bosom of Beza, who vowed a
veritable worship to the memory of his father. But there is a senti-
ment still more holy than friendship, which is truth, and which Beza,
through passion, so often abandoned, in his attacks upon those intelli-
gences whom Calvin already had pursued with his wrath. One is
filled with sadness, on seeing such streams of insults against the ene-
mies of the reformer, fall, from those flowery lips, as if they had never
drunk out of any cup but that of Luther. He denies all the glories
which Calvin contests. He finds Westphalius destitute of science,
Pighius without scriptural knowledge, Bolsec without theological com-
prehension. He calls Balduinus a spunger, a parasite, Castalion a
thief, and Servetus an incarnate demon. He has nothing to award to
the pitiful translation of the Bible corrected by Calvin, but eulogies,
and he, who never knew a word of German, takes it into his head to
denounce the version of Wittenberg. " Truly" said the Lutherans, "it
well becomes a French merry-andrew, who does not know a syllable
of our language, to teach the Germans how to speak !"* Bayle him-
self is frequently forced to indicate the errors, into which Beza, from
his admiration for the memory of the reformer, voluntarily fell, either
by misrepresenting historical facts, by calumniating the Lutheran
or Catholic writers, or by palliating the faults of his coreligionists.
In the question of the Nicodemites, he defends the opinion of Cal-
vin, who required a visible profession of faith : but when he had
become the leader of a party after the reformer's death, he was one of
the first to advise Henry IV. to re-enter the bosom of the Catholic
church, t
His production, concerning the punishment of heretics hy the civil
magistrate, is a soporific theological treatise, in which, to prove the
right of the sword against the heretic, he has amassed together all the
texts, sacred and profane, that his reading could furnish him. His con-
clusion is formal :
If the civil powerj have not chastised the heretic even to the
effusion of blood, behold here comes a disciple of Schwenkfeld, of Osi-
ander, or of Servetus, who proceeds predicating from the house-tops and
at the street corners. The church drives him away. He essays pros-
elytism and spreads abroad confusion and disorder. If an attempt be
made to arrest his progress, he cries : " Let no violence be done to
conscience !" and there he goes, continuing his march and enrolling
his proselytes. What will the church do ? " She will cry out to the
* Schluss. Theol. Calv., lib. 2.
t In the library of Gotha, there are some precious documents regarding the
ne^J-ociations between Sully and Beza, on the subject of the return of Henry
IV. to Catholicism.
1 De heereticis a civili magistratu puniendis, adversus Martini Bellii ( Cas-
t^lionem) farraginem et novorum Acadeniicorum sententiam.— Gen, 1570, p.
144etseq.
LIFE OFaJOHN CALVIN, 469
Lord, you say, and the Lord will hear her." But the man who is
hungry waits not till an angel descend from heaven and bring him
bread, after the example of Elias ; if he wishes God to come to hi3
assistance, he aids himself, and seeks for food."
And he adds — that the blood of Servetus, the anti-Trinitarian, was
holily shed.
Were Beza to return to life, what would he say to professor Chene-
viere, who, at Geneva, tiow quietly sells his pamphlets against the
Trinity and the Divinity of Christ ?
Men and doctrines — every thing, then, in the reformation undergoes
a change, to suit the caprice of the slightest circumstance.
In 1528, the monk of Wittenberg wrote to Linck :
*' In no case, can I allow that false prophets should be put to
death."*
And some years later : " Drive away the angel Gabriel himself,
descended from heaven, if he come to announce another gospel than
mine, and hand him over, as a seditious blackguard, to the execQ-
tioner."t
* Quod quseris, an liceat magistratui occidere pseudoprophetasT Ego ad
judicium sanguinis tardus sum, etiam ubi meritum abundat. Tum in hac
causa terret me exempli sequela, quam in Papistis et ante Christum in Judaeis
videmus, ubiquum statutum fuisset pseudoprophetas occidi, successu temporis
factum est, ut nonnisi sancti prophetae et innocentes occiderentur, auctoritate
eps statuti, quo impii magistfatus freti pseudoprophetas et hasreticos fecerunt
quosquos voluerunt. Quare nuUo modo possum admittere, falsos doctores oc-
cidi, satis est eos relegari; qua pcena si posteri abuti volent, mitius tamen pec-
c&bunt, et sibi tantum nocebunt. — Luther's Briefe, — De Wette, t. Ill, p. 347.
t Licet angelus esse videatur, imo Gabriel de coelo, tamen non modo pro di-
aboli apostolo habendum, verum etiam si desistere nollt ab instituto, carnifici
-'committendum velut nebulonem, qui seditionem machinetur.—Com. Luth. in
I'sal.Tl, t. V. Op. Jenae., p. 147.
CHAPTER XLIII.
I-ALL OF THE LIBERTINES. 1552 1557*
Continuation of the struggle between the patriots and Calvin.'^-Variou;^
changes of fortune. — Philibert Berthelier is accused before the consistory
and excommunicated. — Sensation of Geneva.-— Communion at St. Peter's. — '
Refusal of Calvin to distribute tlie Lord's supper to the Libertines. — The
council resumes the right of excommunication. — -Scene played by Calvin. — '
The council yields. — Francis Daniel Berthelier. — Calvin's motives of hatred
against this citizen. — He seeks his ruin — Plot brev«red by the police. —
Death and exile of several patriots. — Daniel is accused of conspiracy against
the State. — Tortured by CoUadon. — Stratagem to extract confessions from
the victim. — Punishment of Berthelier. — Historical reflections.
Is not the struggle, between the old Genevese race and the tyranny
of the man whom they have chosen for their master, a curious specta-
cle ? For fifteen years past, there has not been an hour of the day^
during which, "the sons of the city'' have not courageously combated.
The noblest among them have fallen, and their last gasp was a cry of
liberty, which God has not heard, because every attempt against au-
thority is a crime, which sooner or later he punishes, and because the
patriots have sinned.
Yet it is very difficult to refuse a tribute of pity to unsuccessful
courage, especially when it battles with unequal arms. On one side,
is Calvin, with all his geniiis, his cunning, and his hypocrisy; with
his informer.s, hi.s elders, his laws of blood and fire.; with Colladon
and his engines of torture; with his pulpit, ever open to stigmatize his
enemies ; and his councils, crammed with refugees, on whom he has
conferred the rights of citizenship ; on the other, are a few souls marked
by public opinion with the name of libertines, without leaders, with-
out unity, and, for the most part, without fortune, having no auxilia-
ries except the instincts of independence, so deeply rooted in the
people. They are not discouraged, and they combat the theocrat by
means of raillery, a weapon, feared indeed by despotism, but only in
great states. The tavern, as formerly, was still their tribune. All
the efforts of the reformer had been unsuccessful to tear away from the
people this last asylum of liberty. It was there she came, with still
bleeding wounds, to bewail the fall of her sons, whom the despot was
daily consigning to exile or death. She had tears for all that were
oppressed, no matter to what creed they belonged. It was in these
drinking rooms, that the first copy of the pamphlet of Bellius had been
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
47i
read, translated, and expounded. Sometimes the flow of tears was
interrupted by maledictions against the tyrant, and prayers to God.
The maledictions were heard by the tyrant; the prayers were not heard
by God. In the meantime, the struggle, which seemed terminated,
was at intervals revived, and it suddenly changed its aspect. From
1551 to 1552, the libertines saw happy days : they caused a large
number of refugees, the sold creatures of Calvin, to be rejected from
the corps of citizens; they obtained that those inhabitants, who were
neither burghers nor citizens, should be disarmed, and that the minis-
ters should be excluded from the general council.*
Montesquieu has said : " There is no tyranny more cruel than that
which is exercised under the shadow of law and with the semblance
of justice, when, so to speak, they drown the unfortunate by means of
the very plank, upon which they had sought safety."!
This was the snare which Calvin laid for the patriots. Ir^ the pul-
pit, he even by name designated the citizens, who, during the year, had
not approached the Eucharistic table. The cainlike brand was inef-
faceable, and whoever bore it on his brow, was exposed to the male-
dictions of the preachers, and the thunders of the consistory.
We must bear in mind that the right of excommunication at first
belonged to the council. It was the patriots that had torn it from the
consistory, after a struggle of several years. The combat was renewed,
and this time the patriots were vanquished : Calvin's perseverance
secured the victory.
Philibert Berthelier had been summoned before the ecclesiastical
tribunal. J They reproached him with nocturnal visits, libertine repasts,
and infamous discourses. Philibert defended himself courageously.
Without trembling in the presence of the pastoral vesture of some oi
his judges, he cast into their faces all that he knew of their scandalous
morals. A sojourn of some weeks at Noyon had revealed to him
strange mysteries regarding the early years of the reformer. He was
interdicted from approaching the Lord's supper. §
Philibert quite excited, goes to the council, pleads his cause, and
triumphs : The council decides that Berthelier shall be able to receive
communion.
On learning this decision, Calvin appears before the senate, and
threatens to abandon the city, and to die, if they allow the Lord's sup-
per to he profaned.
The council persists, and maintains its decision. 1|
On the Sunday following (December 1553), the communion was
to take place at St. Peter's; Calvin was to distribute it. IT The church
was filled with an immense crowd, all the pastors were at their posts.
The libertines had loudly proclaimed their intention to commune.
Calvin ascends the pulpit, and for half an hour, angrily declaims
* Fazy, Precis, etc., p. 277, t. I.
t Grandeur et decadence des Romains, ch. XIV.
■j: Registres du conseil d'Etat, 1552. — Drelincourt, defense de Calvin,
^ Gaberel, Calvin a Geneve, p. 107.
\i Id., p. 111., Gaut. VIII. Isaie Colladon, Mem. snr rexcommunication,
\ E^V Vliieto,, Gen,evae. pridie nonas septembtis, 1553.
472 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
against the sacrilegious souls who profane the Eucharistic sacrament.
The sermon over, he descends, approaches the table, displays the sym-
bols of the Lord's supper, and brandishing his scrawny arms; "cut
off these arms, he says, grind my limbs to powder, deprive me of the
breath of life ; but none of you shall force me to cast holy things to
the dogs. Here is my blood, take it, I give it up, but my soul,
never."*
This was boldness, a theatrical boldness which produced its effect.
The people imagined the name of God implicated in these entirely
liuman disputes, bowed before the minister, and let the libertines pass,
who left the temple.
The patriots resumed courage, and came forward, once more, to
contest the right of excommunication with the consistory. Their
cause was popular ; they defended it with so much eloquence, that the
council decided, that henceforward to itself alone should belong the
right to excommunicate incorrigible sinners. Then was reproduced
that scene which already we have so frequently v/itnessed. The pas-
tors send in their resignations, and make their preparations to leave.
The council becomes alarmed, sends in all haste for Calvin, mutters
some words of repentance ; they embrace, and swear on the gospel to
forget the past, and to sacrifice all hatred to the interests of religion.f
This was another act of cowardice, added to all those., of which the
civil power had been guilty, from the time it had chosen Calvin for its
master. We shall not be astonished at this if we observe, that the
council, perverted in its representation by the incessant intrusion of
French refugees, daily lost some dro.ps of natioiial blood. The re-
former availed himself of his character to destroy his enemies in the
opinion of the public. The multitude came at length to see in the
Ami Perrins, the Vandels, the De Septs, the Favres, nothing but
fallen christians, abandoned to the demon of concupiscence. Ami
Perrin passed for an adulterer ; Favre for a corrupter of maid servants ;
Philibert Berthelier for a frequenter of wicked places. When the
patriots appeal to the people to save liberty, Calvin hurries into the
pulpit, and points to their lips sullied with blasphemies, v/ine, and
impurity. The tears of despair, which gushed from their eyes, he calls
comedy ; and as if it were not enough to stigmatize their morals, he
seeks, moreover, to dishonour their wives^ whom he transforms into
public prostitutes, shameless adulteresses, and daughters of hell. And
these ladies, the elite of society, were allied to counselors, captains of
the civil militia, and syndics.
We have already seen with what outrages he pursued Ami Perrin^,
who at last fell, and was replaced in the syndical magistracy by a
creature of Calvin. Peter Vandel, Balthaser and Michael Sept,
Peter Verna, after a struggle of fifteen years, met with the same fate as
Perrin; J Favre and Balthasar Sept were expelled from the council of
the Two Hundred. Despair seized upon the most energetic spirits.
* Calvin a Geneve, p. 111-112.
t Fazy, Precis etc., t. I, p. ^79.
:{: James Fazy. Precis, etc., 1. 1, p. 279,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 473
Francis Daniel Bertbelier owed it to the very name he bore, to resist.
He was the last libertine that would not bend his head : Calvin
brought it down.
The blood, which flowed in the veins of the patriot, was not
Berthelier's only crime in the eyes of the despot. The brother of
Francis Daniel had made a journey to Noyon, for which the real
motives could never be ascertained. He amassed in Picardy precious
documents regarding the first years of the reformer. At Noyon, they
said at that time, what is repeated in our days — that Calvin had shown
himself a wicked son, an ungi-ateful pupil, a simonical cleric. They
had, it is said, opened the registers of the city to the gaze of Philibert,
who in them had read, how Calvin had been condemned to the flames
for sodomy,* and that, "by a singular favour of the bishop and magis-
trates, the penalty had been commuted into branding on the back."
Bolsec says that with his own eyes he saw, "in the hands of Berthelier,
the attestation of the fact written by a sworn notary. "f Drelincourt
accuses the physician of Lyons of falsehood, but he has also denied
the existence of Calvin's letter to Farel, which we have cited entire. J
That journey came near costing Philibert dearly.
In concert with other patriots, — Ami Perrin, Hudriol Dumolard,
Balthasar and Michael Sept, Claude de Geneve, and Peter Verna, —
he had decreed a grand measure for the public safety : this was to
assemble the general council without convocation, unknown to the
syndics and inferior councils, and to reinvest the civil power with the
right of excommunication. § This appeal to the general council was
not a violation of the constitution ; the commune had resorted to it in
its struggle with the duke of Savoy. 1| The conspirators, like the con^
federates of Grutli in former days, had bound themselves to each other
by a religious oath.
" We promise God/' they had sworn, "to maintain his word and the-
* Inspiciuntur etiam adliuc hodie civitatis Noviodunensis in Picardia srcin
ia et rerum gestarurrt monumenta; in illis adhuc hodie legitur Joannem hunc
Calvinum sodomiae convictum, ex Episcopi et Magistratus indulgentia solo
stigmate in tergo notatum, urbe excessisse. Nee ejus families honestissimi
viri adhuc superstites, impetrare hactenus potuerunt, ut hujus facti memoria,
quae toti familiee notam aliquam inurit, e civicis illis monumentis ac scriniis
eraderetur.-— Lessius.
This falsification might the more easily have taken- place, as the registers
consisted of some quires of simple paper not bound. According to Lessius,
the falsification will have been made before 1610, as that is the epoch at which
he wrote.
Consult : Discourse on the crime against nature and the stigmas with which
John Calvin is reproached, by Roisselet de Sauclieres Jr. Montpellier, 1839.
t "Bolsec, calumniated in an infamous maner by Calvin and Theodore Beza,
during his life, has also in our days been-scandalously belied. The biogra-
phies from the pen of Bolsec contain many inacuracies of detail, but most of
the facts are perfectly true. As to what he advances concerning the adventures
of Calvin at Noyon, I know nothing about them, and consequently will neith-
er admit nor deny them." Galiffe, appendix to the article Calvin^ t. HI. Noto,
Genealog. p. 647, note.
X See chapter entitled : The blood of Servetus^
k Fazv, Precis, et€., t. 1, p^ 261.
Ij Id., 'ibid.
40*
474 Lli-E OF JOHN CALVIN,
city of Geneva towards and against all, and to live and' die for sneh a
quarrel."*
Calvin was awake and watching. Some days previous to the time
fixed upon by the patriots, a commotion, provoked by the reformer, took
place on the breaking up of a banquet, at which the libertines had
beforehand celebrated their triumph. The watchguard was composed
of young men who had taken the places of the libertines in the coun-
cil.f They commenced by insults, and then recurred to more violent
demonstrations ; the guard proved the stronger, and the brothers Com-
paret, both under the influence of wine, were arrested and cast into
prison.
And, on the next morning, Geneva on awakening, learned that a
conspiracy, set on foot by the libertines, and fortunately frustrated,
had menaced her very existence. The word treason was whispered
round. Perrin, Balthasar Sept, Verna, and Philibert Berthelier, had
barely time to effect their escape from the city. Two days after, the
fugitives were condemned to death.
Daniel, master of the mint at Geneva, was then at Dole. Scarcely
had he set foot in his native city when he was arrested, cast into pri-
son, and a prosecution was instituted.
He was accused of conspiracy against the state. J; Colladon, by
means of the torture, wanted to extract avowals. Berthelier opened
not his mouth. The inquisitor imagined a stratagem, which was de-
signed to vanquish the obstinacy of Berthelier.
Let us allow Bolsec to speak : §
" This Berthelier, generous and heroic, could be induced, neither
by remonstrances nor deceitful promises, which the seigniors of justice
knew how to make to him, nor by the ministers, who, by Calvin's-
persuasion, tried to lull the poor calumniated persons with fine words
and promises, to say or do any thing against conscience ; • for which he
■was rudely put to the torture. But, however embarassed by the cord
or rack to which they subjected him, he could not be subdued, though
the weight of the stones, hung to his feet, was so great, that the cord,
with which his hands were tied up, broke three or four times. Seeing
this, the seigniors of the council came near bursting with spite ; and
among them there was one called Amblar Come, who said to him :
" Thou shalt confess this, or else we will give thee enough strokes of
the cord to rend away thy arms and legs; for their lordships will
never be vanquished by thy obstinacy." Nevertheless the said Berthe-
lier, persevering ever in the same constancy, and not being willing to
say any thing against truth and conscience, they devised a new scheme,
which was to send after the mother of the said young prisoner, whO'
♦ Id. ib.— -The historian adds : certes, these words manifest no bad thoughts,,
either against religion ( the reformation,) or the state.
t Fazy, Precis, t. I, p.282.
t In the act of accusation we read: he has said; "I do not believe in pre-
destination, whatever your Calvin may say about it."
"He has formed the design of withdrawing the right of excomraunicatioii-.
from the consistory to remit it to the council of the Two Hundred."
6 Bolsec, Vie de Calvin.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 475
had retired to the country of Faucigny, on account of the horrible
cruelties practised at Geneva.
This Amblar Corne, one of the seigniors of the council, a very ardent
and devoted disciple of Calvin, undertook the charge of going to the
said old woman, to bring her to Geneva, for the good and honour of
her son, who was in prison, resolved, as it is said, rather to die under
the torture, than to say any thing against truth, his conscience, and his
neighbour. The said Amblar Corne knew very well how to enchant
the old woman with deceitful words and false promises, on the part of
the seigniors of the council, declaring that not only her son would be
restored to liberty, but moreover, exalted in honours and office, if he
were willing to obey the said seigniors, and simply confess what they
wished, namely, that the thing was true wherewith he was accused ; and
that Ami Perrin, and the other aforesaid fugitives from Geneva, had so-
licited him to be partaker of their conspiracy and enterprise; but that
he had been unwilling to listen to them. Confessing only this little,
he would be restored to entire liberty, and raised in dignity in said
council. Well, he knew so w^ell how to say this, that he lulled the
old mother, and persuaded her to come to Geneva, for the preservation
and delivery of her son.
'' Having reached the city, she went forthwith to the prison, in which
her son was confined, much bruized and cut to pieces with the cord,
and showed to him the will and deliberation of the council, to cause
him to perish miserably in prison, sooner than that he should overcome
the seigniors of the council. Wherefore, the miserable mother exhort,
ed and entreated him to agree to the wishes of the seigniors, and to con-
fess what they desired him, though even it were contrary to truth and his
conscience, and that, through this means only, would he be set at liber-
ty, established indignity, offices, and honours; that promises to this
effect had been made her by Amblar Corne, on the part of the whole
council. So well knew the miserable mother how to weep, and to so-
licit her son, that if he had no pity for himself, he should, at least, have
some for her, who w^ouid be left desolate, without children or support,
after his death ; and assuring him, regarding the promise which had
been made her, on the part of the said seigniors ; that the poor young
man yielded and promised his mother to do so : whereupon she gave
intimation to the said Amblar Corne and others of the council, who,
immediately assembled, interrogated him as before, on the aforesaid
points, which he boldly confessed, confiding in the words and promises
made to his mother. But no sooner had he confessed, and his confes-
sion been reduced to writing, than the sentence of death was decreed
and published, and executed the same day. The wretched and sorrow-
ful mother, seeing that it had fallen out contrary to her hopes, and con-
trary to the promises made to her by a member of the council, and in
behalf of the whole council; seeing, I say, her son dead; considering
herself the cause of this, and a traitress to her own blood, she came
near killing herself out of spite and shame. Well, like a maniac, she
instantly left Geneva, and went, crying and filling the air with regrets
and complaints, to Berne, to Zurich, to Fribourg, and to other cities of
the cantons, declaring the detestable and inhuman deed^ committed by
476 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
her at the persuasion of the seigniors of Geneva, especially of one
Amblar Come, their messenger and agent to effect such treachery ; and
she demanded justice from God, and from the seigniors of the cantons,
against the seigniors of Geneva."
Claude, of Geneva, and the two Comparets likewise perished on the
scaffold.
The patriots, who fled from punishment, took refuge in Berne, whith-
er Calvin pursued them. He wanted them to be expelled from Switzer-
land. Berne refused to co-operate with the reformer in his vengeance,
and feared not to manifest aloud its admiration for courage in misfor-
tune. This protection caused Calvin's hatred against the patriots to
increase. He obtained, from the councils, a sentence of banishment
against the wives of the libertines, tlie sequestration and confiscation of
their property, the suppression of the post of captain general, and the
punishment of death against every citizen who should speak of recall-
ing the exiles.^
Geneva had a calif.
Thus terminated the contest between Calvin and the patriots. Blood
only could bestow victory upon the party bold enough to shed it. if,
during tliis long struggle, the libertines were not deficient in courage,
it cannot he denied, that they had not enough of that audacity which is
necessary for revolutionists. To the last moment, they imagined that
bar-room epigrams could kill a man of Calvin's temperament. At
Geneva, ridicule was not deadly. Had they known how to rid them-
selves of the despot by means of assassination, the whole population
would have upheld them, and on the day after the homicide, St. Peter's
would have been filled with citizens, assembled to return thanks to
heaven for the downfall of the tyrant. Suppose thought free at Gene-
va; a few printed lines would have done justice to Calvin. In case of
need, the stiletto might have taken the place of the pamphlet ; but
the libertines dared not employ it. We do not blame them for this ;
we will merely say, that they were much bolder in presence of Peter
de la Baume. The reason was, that the old bishop always forgave,
"and often," says M. Galiffe, "out of season, whilst the new one never
pardoned."!
But a people cannot be killed without their blood crying to God for
vengeance. And Calvin already endured the penalty of his cruelties.
The despot grew old before his time ; his nights were full of torments ;
by day, he was in dread of snares and ambuscades; his soul was gradu-
ally invaded by despair. If you penetrate his dwelling, in the street
des Chanoines, you will discover him writing to Farel : " Alas ! I have
presumed too much on my strength : egotism is the monarch that rules
mankind : a national spirit, love, charity, morals, no longer exist at
Geneva : my heart is stopped I tremble for the future."
We shall pause a moment,, to contemplate the reformer in his private
life.
» Fazy, p. 28.
Cursed, here says M. Galiffe,, cursed be the memory of this drinker of blood,
who caused the son of Philibert Berthelier to perish on the scafibld.— Not..
Gen. t. Ill, p. 552.
t Not. Gen., t. Ill, p. 552.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PRIVATE LIFE AT GENEVA. 1541 1560.
The learned man of the revival. — Luther and Calvin, — Political and literary
labours oi" the Genevese reformer. — Solution of different cases of con-
science.— Intellectual fecundity of Calvin. — He loves to consult his friends.
— His co-labourers. — His correspondence. — His soul. — Death of Idelette. —
Calvin at table. — In his dwelling. — His usual reading, the Bible. — Calvin
with his theological adversaries. — Never knew any thing but hatred. — At-
tempts to justify his acrimony of style. — Maladies. — Domestic troubles.
In the lives of the literary men of the middle ages, there is something
of the marvelous, in their passion for study, which manifested itself on
all occasions, — at table, in bed, in their walks. Erasmus, while on
his way back from Italy, and when crossing the Alps on horseback,
arranged the plan of his eulogy of folly, of which, in the evening, he
struck out several chapters, in one of those taverns which he so wittily
traduces. Castalion, obliged to fish in the Rhine for the support of his
family, while waiting for the fish to bite, wrote upon placards, which he
had torn down from the columns of the cathedral of Bale. Luther, in
order to escape the importunate babbling of his doctoress Ketha, took
from the kitchen some bread, salt, and melted butter, and shut himself
up in his study-chamber, for three days and nights, with locked doors,
having concealed the keys, and he would not open, till his wife, oui of
all patience, threatened to send for the locksmith. Never, also, was the
passion for study more prolific ; Luther's works, reduced to octavos,
would form a real library of our times.
At the age of twenty-seven, Calvin had written the Christian Insti-
tutes, a book in itself as voluminous as the Bible, and in which all the
questions, that will ever trouble the world to the end of ages, are ex-
amined thoroughly. This was his labour and task as sectary and
philosopher. His hours of recreation were passed in the composition
of a commentary on the book of Seneca concerning Clemency : a
laborious work, which runs along some hundred folio pages.
At Strasbourg, he preaches twice a day, has the administration of the
French church, gives public lectures on the holy scriptures, keeps up a
religious correspondence with his friends of France and Germany, and
finds time to labour at various interpretations of St. Paul's Epistles.
This activity of the brain seems to be redoubled after his return to Ge-
neva. You will find him every where, and frequently occupied in thiie
478
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
details of ordinary life, which he will abandon to no one. At the tem-
ple, it is he who supervises mere material labours ; who causes the pul-
pit to be lowered, that the preacher's voice may be more easily heard;
who replasters the mutilated walls ; who removes the statues and im-
ages; who effaces the monumental inscriptions. From the temple, ho
passes to the council, where he confers with the syndics and counselors,
concerning the municipal administration, the political affairs of the
city, the police of the streets, matters of litigation, of civil legislation,
and the distribution of alms. From the council, he returns to his lodg-
ings, where he finds his table loaded with letters, consultations, com-
plaints, denunciations, to which he replies immediately. The night
comes, and he still toils : three hours sleep are enough for him. Du-
ring summer, in the evening, he amuses himself with some of the
counselors in playing at a game, the skill of which, says Morus, " con-
sists in knowing how to push some keys the nearest possible to a long
table."* Throughout his whole life, he was ill from inability to sleep,
dreams, and attacks of fever, produced by a fiery blood, which he
never even tried to soothe. '' On the day, when it was not his time to
preach, being in bed, he caused them, about five or six o'clock, to bring
him some books, that he might excite himself to composition, having
some one to write under his dictation. If it was his week, he was there
always ready at two o'clock to ascend the pulpit, and after having re-
turned home, he would retire to bed, or throw himself on the bed in
his clothes, and having some books, pursue his labours."! Calvin loves
to speak of all these great intellectual exertions. Balduinus, one of
the luminaries of French jurisprudence, for a long time acted as his
secretary. J
He writes to Farel : " In truth, I cannot recall to mind a more pain-
ful day during the whole year. The messenger, with my letter, must
bear the commencement of my work. Twenty sheets to be corrected,
my lectures, my sermon, four letters to write, some parties to reconcile,
ten persons waiting to consult me ! I hope you will pardon me, if 1
do not entertain you more at length."
This was Luther's life; obliged to write, to give answers, to learn,
by heart, to dictate, to open his doors to the visits of electors, of learn-
ed strangers, of poor persons, and to soothe the poutings of his wife.
Idelette, every thing considered, was a far better companion than Bora :
she does not occupy the least place in the life of the French reformer.
Happily for Calvin, was this; for had his choleric temperament been
continually excited by family troubles, what would have become of the
republic ?
If we wish to become acquainted with the unveiled soul of the theo-
logian, we must study Calvin's correspondence. Here are some cases
of conscience, of which the solution is characteristic.
They present to Farel an infant to be baptized, the daughter of a
* Morus, Eloge de Calvin, en tete de I'lnstitution, p. 115-116.
t P6ze, Vie de Calvin.
I Balduinus olini fumiliaris et scriba Qijus. Papyr.us Masso. — Drelincourt;
p. 230.
LIFE OF JOH^ CALVIN. 479
Catiiolic, "who had been unwilling to renounce the Antichrist,"* and
who says to the minister : " I wish to follow my husband's faith."
Farel refuses the baptismal water, and consults his friend, who answers:
" You have done well ; it would be absurd to baptize those who do
not wish to form part of our body."t
Loelius Socinus, the anli-Triniiarian, demanded of Calvin : *' Mas-
ter, what say you of a christian who marries a Catholic wife?"
Calvin answers : " A christian is not permitted to ally himself with
a woman who has deserted Christ. Now, all papists are in this case.
He adds : papist and Mahometan, it is nearly the same thing."J
D. Gossin Zenell said : "It often happens that I have to eat at Ca-
tholic tables, where they say the benedicite and grace ; what ought I
to do ?"
Calvin responds : "Keep your hat on your head; for, to uncover
your head, is performing an act of papistry. "§
He wrote in Latin with astonishing facility. His mind, fertilized by
reading, observation, meditation, and study, poured itself forth without
torment or fatigue. He nearly always composed under inspiration ;
and his language then fan more rapidly than his pen. He took but
one day to draw up his response to Sadolet, In general, as we have
already remarked, he paid no attention to images ; with him, form is
scarcely ever brilliant. He addresses reason, and never touches the
heart. His wrath but rarely sparkles. It is a brutal wrath, such as is
produced at college ; it will bear no comparison with that of Hutten,
which glows like a burning coal.
At times, it happened that his brain, appealed to in vain, remained
sterile ; that his thought, in spite of all his efforts, swam in vacuum ;
that his very language showed itself indocile or rebellious : an acci-
dent very frequent in the life of authors. Calvin, master of himself,
did not weary himself with chasing an idea which he was certain of
finding again. He sometimes waited for entire weeks, and one morn-
ing, on rising from his couch, the thought and the sign came to present
themselves, of their owm accord. Whilst he was occupied at his trea-
tise concerning Scandals, \\ he experienced one of these attacks of men-
tal paralysis, which lasted several weeks, and which, in no wise, alarm-
ed him : the Epistle to the Galatians was his physician; St. Paul
cured him.
Under similar circumstances, Luther would have straightened him-
vself against satan, to whom he would have imputed this mental sterility,
and very probably, satan, after a serious struggle, would have yielded.
* Epist. Farelli, Neocomi, 14 julii 1552.
t Absurdum esse ut eos baptizemus qui corporis nostri censeri nequeunt.—
Farello, 16 Cal. Aug. 1553.
1^ Homini christiano fas esse nego ^e uxori adjungere quee sit a Christo alie-
na. In eo autem scimus onines papistas. — Laelio Zozino 7 idus decemb. 1549.
^ Quod ad mensae benedictionem precesque privatas spectat, quisquis retec-
to capite, eas audit, non obscure declarat illis se subscribere. — D. Gossin Ze-
nello, Genevae, pridie Idus Manias, 1558.
II Opusculum de Scandalis inchoatum, quia noa ex veto fluebat stylus, ad
tempus remisi. — Ep. MSS. Gen. oct. 154&.
480 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Calvin believed much less in the influence of the demon than did the
Saxon monk. He attributed these returns of intellectual debility to
secondary causes : to indigestions, to chronic hemicrany, to caprices of
the brain. He then plunged into the excitement of business ; he
preached, he disputed at the consistory, he read, he wrote to his friends
from whom he had not even the coquetry to conceal his slight infirmi-
ties. For his consolation, he kept the Christian Institutes in his library,
an enormous folio, which he contemplated with a sort of pride, and
which erected itself, in all its majesty, to inform the numerous visiters,
what treasures of words and thoughts were stored in the head of the re-
former*
He was fond of dictating aloud. The mechanical motion of the pen fa-
tigued him, and he imposed this task upon a secretary. The work nearly
always was allowed to remain in its primitive form, such as it had
issued from ihe brain of the master. One would not understand, with-
out having read him, how very pliant and docile for him is the old idiom
of the Roman land, whilst the French muse often jilts him. More than
once, do we find evidences, on the paper, of the violence to which she
was compelled to yield ; a mutinous maiden, that could only be in-
duced to obey by means of chastisement. Hence, on solemn occasions,
when he is desirous to bring about some remarkable conversion, to sus-
tain a learned thesis, to attack the Pope to his face, Calvin makes him-
self a citizen of Rome, of the Rome of Seneca, and he thinks and
writes in Latin. His phrase then is certainly more regular than Lu-
ther's; but it wants that life, that nerve, that fire, which are so abun-
dantly diffused through the polemics of the Saxon. Luther, whether
writing in a dead or a living language, is always a creator. Has he
need of a word ? If the Teutonic language will not furnish him with
it, he invents it. And, wnth swollen gorge, he laughs when he is asked
to show in what lexicon he has come across this unusual term ? And
what does it matter if it be a barbarism, provided the reader have com-
prehended it ? Do they still insist^ he answers : ** I found it in that
inkstand which I threw at the head of the devil, who was tormenting
me in my study-chamber, as you are now doing."
Calvin was more chary of his literary reputation. He loved to con-
sult his friends. Farel was his usual judge : it is to him that he sends
** The Antidote to the Council of Trent," which the minister of Neu-
chatel returns to him, having designedly left in it all the brutalities of
language, against the fathers of the church. Calvin is beside himself
with joy; he writes : " Truly, my Antidote begins to please me, since
it has received your approbation, for I was not at all satisfied with it :
considering my daily contests, you must pardon me if my book is no
better ; what astonishes me is, that I have been able to write anything
passable.'**
Des Gallars, a French refugee, who, at a later period, appeared at
the conference of Poissy, and in 1571, was preacher to the queen of
Navarre, was one of the co-labourers of Calvin. The reformer, in va-
rious letters, lauds the zeal and intelligence of the writer, who, under
* 28 d^cembre 1657.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 481
his name, published a virulent pamphlet against Caroli, in which Cal-
vin's claw is manifest, even in the very title.* Des Gallars was not
the person to have branded a learned man, like Caroli, with the name
of Theologaster, The libel, at every page, shows the impress of the
hand of John of Noyon : it has his correct but pedantic form; his airs
of insulting grandeur, his magisterial surliness, and his doctoral fatuity.
There is nothing more easy than to divine Calvin. In his smallest
billets, you will detect an odour of religious or worldly aristrocracy,
which quickly reveals him. In vain does he seek here to persuade us,
that des Gallars has presented himself as an ally to his anger : this
refugee was too obscure a man to contend with Caroli. Calvin has be-
trayed himself in his letter to Farel : "If you find that Caroli is re-
futed with sufficient skill, you must thank me for it ; a little more, and
I should have allowed him to bark, so much did I fear lest the form of
argumentation should awaken tempests; but the die is cast. May God
bless us ! I was in such good nerve when I seized the pen, that 1
reached the goal immediately. This style, which runs and flies, is easily
comprehended : I had assumed a mask, and I was playing under a
fictitious name."t
Though this letter had been left without a signature, we could have
named its author. Calvin has rhetorical figures peculiar to himself.
When he is desirous of killing his enemy, he calls him a dog. Thus
has he done with Caroli, with Servetus, with Castalion. If his adver-
sary be of considerable intellect, then the dog is mad-l In his wri-
tings, the dog plays the same part that satan does in those of Luther.
But, even in this, does the poetical inferiority of the Genevese manifest
itself. When Calvin's dog has howled, slavered, bitten, he lies down
and goes to sleep; but Luther's demon, after having howled, foamed,
and bitten, transforms himself into a serpent, a frog, a theologian, even
a monk of Cologne ; and each metamorphosis furnishes the doctor with
new images.
John Gerard, or Girard, and James Bourgeois, both printers at Gene-
va, have published most of the productions of the reformer. In 1.551,
John Gerard issued his little tracts (Opuscules), and in 1553, the
French translation of the Institutes. Colladon is the author of the
tables of these works. §
Calvin has left several thousand letters, without counting those which
are lost, or which have not been discovered. Nearly all of them treat
of theological matters ; dogma, exegesis, morals, are therein often treat-
ed at the same time. Most of them are addressed to Farel. The pas-
tor of Neuchatel, is the man of the reformation whom he most dearly
loves. He rarely scolds him, for always does he do the will of his
master, obey all his caprices, show himself humble, submissive, and
•docile. It is a marvelous thing to contemplate how rapidly time has
* Pro Guil. Farello et collegis ejus adversus Petri Caroli theologastri calum-
nias, defensio Nicolai Gallasii, in-8, 1545. — Senebier, t. I. p- 342.
t Man. de Gen., aofit 1545.
^ Tantum canina ilia mordendi latrandique rabies quam ebulliunt omnes
«jus scriptorum paginse satis testatur qualis hominem spiritus instiget.
i Epist. N. Colladon ad Marcuardum.
41
4S2 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
worn out the energies of soul of this preacher, at first so full of enthu-
siasm. At the first hair that turned gray on his head, Fare! lost his
vigour of speech, his poetry of language, his epileptic gestures, his in>
flamed eye. You would no longer recognize the dwarf with the red
beard, who, in 1532, came to Geneva, to challenge the canons, drive
away the bishop, break the bells to pieces, and set up the abomination
of desolation in the holy place. His religious ideas have been changed;
he has tendencies towards Anabaptism, and never has he freely adopts
ed the dogma of predestination ; but he takes care to conceal himself
from the reformer. His whole desire is to die in peace, and he would
be very careful not to come into contact with Calvin. This is submis-
sion, or if you please, philosophy : I did not wish to say, egotism.
The handwritir]g of the Genevese is often similar to that of the ste-
nographer, replete with abreviations, the key of which must be sought
for, and which render it very difficult to be read. At a first view, a
person would pronounce it one of those scrawls of the sixteenth centu-
ry, which are found in some old study-room of an attorney. Had Tetzel
written after this sort, Luther would have lost all patience, and would
not have failed to attribute such scrawling to the devil. Besides, Cal-
vin was among the first to laugh at his own hieroglyphics. One day,
Beza had addressed to the wife of Coligni one of Calvin's letters, with-
out a signature : the reformer hastens to excuse himself:
" It was not from my foolishness or carelessness, that my letter waa
sent to you without the name to it, but the too great hurry of M. de
Beza, who took it whilst 1 was sick, and, without looking if it had
name or date, folded it and put it in the package. But it is indeed suf-
ficient that you have been able to divine from whom it came ; for my
hand is little indebted to the graces. Another time, however, I shall be
more careful."*
Nearly all Calvin's letters are sealed. " The seal bears a hand and
wrist, issuing from the right side of the shield and holding a heart. "f
Jn perusing Calvin's correspondence one thing strikes us forcibly; it
is the writer's want of heart. You may turn over, leaf by leaf, the
large volume of his private life, and no where will you surprise one
sigh of tenderness, one tear of pity, one impulse of love. And yet
there are some pages where you would look to be affected : if he relates
the death of his first-born, it is in a few lines ! In Luther's correspond-
ence, at each instant you behold appearing the figure of old Hans,
that miner of Mansfield, who so ardently loved his son; the charitable
Cotta, who gave an humble mite to the child of God ; the little Mar-
garet, that beauteous angel, whom God so hastily snatched from h'm
Paradise ; and those mementos of the son, the father, the friend, the
monk with his eyes suffused with tears ; and struggle how you may, yoo
cannot help weeping. Calvin had a father, whose eyes he closed in
death. He has described that last scene, in a letter to one of his friends,
an did Luther, at an age when tears flow so readily ; and he could not
♦ Geneve, 5 nofit 1563.
t Galiffe, t. Ill, p. 113.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 483
find a single tear ! Notice whether his soul ever directs her flight to
that spot where the remains of his mother repose ? He has even forgot-
ten the memory of the good abbe d'Hangest.* God frequently visited his
friends, and among the rest, Farel, who for a moment was at death's
door ; but never did Calvin cast himself on his knees, to implore the
mercy of heaven ; never did his lips mutter a single beautiful prayer.
Idelette, his wife, was in danger of death ; he writes to Viret : " Sa-
lute your wife in my behalf; my wife is like your own, dying slowly.
I fear for her ; we are already sufficiently unhappy : may God come to
our assistance."!
The accomplishment of Calvin's presentiments was not long delay-
ed. Idelette, after protracted sufferings, died in April, 1549 : he is
about to narrate to us the last moments of the Anabaptist widow :
" You have received news J of my wife's death ; I use every effort I
can to k^ep from succumbing under my sorrow. My friends, on their
part, forget nothing to alleviate my sufferings. At the moment your
brother left us, all hope vanished. On Tuesday, our brethren assem-
bled and began to pray. When Abel came to recommend faith and
patience to her, she gave us to know, by a few words which she articu-
lated with difficulty, such was her debility, the whole thought of her
heart. On the next day, she recommended her soul to God. Bourgo-
ing, our brother, stayed by the bedside of the suflferer till evening,
speaking to her of eternity. Whilst he was speaking, she said ; 0
God of Abraham and of our fathers, thy children have placed their
hopes in thee, and those hopes shall not be confounded ; I also confide
myself to thee. It was rather murmurs than distinct sounds, tliat issued
from her lips; already she could no longer hear, but she manifested
the faith which animated her. At six o'clock, I went out ; at seven,
she became very feeble, but could still speak : pray for me, did she
say to the assistants, and implore the Divine mercy. I then returned ;
she lost speech, but still gave signs of faith. I said some words to her
concerning the mercy of Christ, her future happiness, our union on this
earth, and that other country where we should meet again, and other
pious words, which she heard and welcomed with a lively sentiment of
love. At eight o'clock, she slept so calmly, that those, who were watch-
ing by her bedside, did not perceive that she had passed away. In spite
of all my grief, I do not forget the duties of my charge, and am making
preparations for the combat which the Lord destines for me."
Here is a narrative, not one word of which affects us ; this is as it
should be. How far more affecting would such a scene have been, had
it taken place in the chamber of a dying Catholic ! We would believe
in the efficacy of that prayer, which issues from the lips of the priest
and the assistants, and wings its flight to the God of mercy. But if
Calvin's system of predestination be true, of what avail are those sighs,
those effusions, those appeals to Jesus ? If the being, who is about to
* See the chapter entitled: Privaie life of Calvin at Strasbourg.
t Uxori tiune plurimam salutem. Meailli socia est in lentis morbis. Vereor
ne quid prester votum accidat. Sad satis nos urgent mala preesentia. Dominus
se propitium nobis ostendat. — Ep. MSS-, decemb. 1547.
I H ap. Farello, 1549.
434 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
die, from all eternity, has b&en destined to exist under the influence of
an iron necessity which impels it to good or evil, is it not predestined,
from all eternity, to light or darkness, in order to glorify the justice of the
Creator, by its twofold immortality of happiness or misery? Does not
Calvin teach this pitiless dogma, in his Institutes ? and probably under
the empire of this very fatalism he has described the death of Idelette :
and therefore was his eye barren of tears, and his mouth destitute of all
external sign of sorrow : miserable man, who can neither pray nor
weep without denying his own doctrine !
Calvin continued a widower the rest of his life. He was determined
to make his adversaries liars, who, laughing, said that the reformation
isad undertaken a new Trojan war* for a woman's petticoat. Erasmus
made this sally, and gave it in its plainest form. The Batavian philoso-
pher, on an occasion of gaity, had let drop this saying, which took the
rounds through Germany : " The reformation resembles a comedy^
which ever winds up with a marriage." And, whatever Calvin may
say to the contrary, at Geneva, as well as at Strasbourg and Witten-
berg, it equally ended with a nuptial feast, except, that, at Geneva, there
was no elector as at Wittenberg, to send the bridal parties a tun of
Malvoisie, to contribute to the festal rejoicings.
Yet, the Genevese council showed itself generous towards its guest.
It had purchased and furnished a house for him ; every year, besides the
salary of about one thousand francs,t it gave him twelve dozen bushels
af wheat, two tuns of wine : " A considerable token accorded him,''
say the registers, "in consideration of his being very learned, and put to
much cost by persons passing !"
And, in fact, at his table, the reformer often received strangers of dis-
tinction, Swiss ministers, or French refugees. His table was well sup-
plied, and especially with wines, presenting always the Sauvagin, the
best production of the environs of Geneva, and "the sweetmeats of
Spain, both green and dry," which were sent to him as presents. He
had a baker, who furnished him with bread made out of the finest flour,
kneaded with rose-water, cinnamon, and anise-seed, which was called
the bread of Calvin. The refugees whom he visited, loved to enter-
tain him well ; " In such sort," says Bolsec, "that game and choice
pieces of meat began to grow dear, on account of which were produced
at Geneva both murmurs and scandal, because of the gluttony of
foreigners, and of the Fren-ch especially, who bought up every thing
*- Fingunt advorsarii nos mulierum causa quasi trojanum bellum movisse. — ■
Tract, de Scandalis, p. 8G.
t Wc have before us one of Calvin's receipts, which runs tlnis:
" Wc, the undersigned and the council of Geneva, to our w^ell beloved trea-
surer, greeting, and wc recommend you to give to our well beloved, respecta-.
ble M. John Calvin, minister of the word of God, for liis salary of the current-
four months, tlie sum of 125 florins, for which, exhibiting these presents, we
shall give you credit. Given the sixth of March, 1500.
"Signed: Bernard."
And below :
" I acknowledge tJiereceipt of the above sum from the hands of the treasurer
Tkie :th of March, 1560..
** Signed '. Cauxin J*
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. '485
liiat wasbrougiit to be sold at the Moulard.* Calvin's devotees, those
u-ho wore his portrait as a charm, declared that the reformer took no
pleasure in good cheer, and this testimony is rendered him by Beza and
Drelincourt, Both also laud his disinterestedness; but a modern his-
torian, after having investigated the archives of the city, affirms, "that
he was abundantly paid; that they continually made presents to him,.
and also presented his brother with what their lordships might have
claimed for fines and other things, so that, annually, they drew more
than at that time was consumed by several families together/'f
The council frequently gave him presents. In 1546, it gave a hun-
dred francs for the expenses of sickness; in 1553, thirty francs for his
travel from Geneva to Berne; on the 28th of December 1556, wood
for his fire ; on Alay 14th 1560, a tun of excellent wine. The coun-
cil was far more generous towards the reformer, than the elector of
Saxony towards Luther, whose wine cellar was kept much better sup-
plied than his wardrobe. It is true that the wine, with which the
German princes were so very liberal, had been stolen from the cellars
of the convents. Moreover, Calvin was the only minister at Geneva
who was treated so magnificently. Some of them were so badly re-^
munerated, that they were compelled to send their sick children to the
hospital. In the archives, under date of July the 8th, 1566, we read :
"A present to one of the respectable ministers, v/hose poverty is so great
that often he makes his repast on less than a monk's mess." From
1550 to 1560, the salary of elders was fixed at four sous per sitting:
that of counselors at six, that of each member of the Two Hundred
at two only.
The house, where Calvin dwelt, was situated in the street des
Chanoines ; it was simple, and like all the rest which surrounded it.
One day, Cardinal Sadolet, passing through Geneva iiicognito, was
curious to visit the reformer whom he had so gloriously combated. He
knocks at the door, and a man with lank jaws, grizzled hair, and clad
in a well worn garb, came to open for him; it was Calvin himself.
Drelincourt describes to us the astonishment of the prelate, who, him-
self a courtier of the Medicis, and a guest of a city full of gold,
precious stones, and marble, was expecting to behold this great glory
of Geneva, environed by numerous domestics; as if the secretary of
Leo X, had not had time enough to forget the pomps of the Vatican !
It is Calvin, who would have been astonished had he come to knock at
the episcopal palace of Carpentras, the courtyard of which, the anti>
chambers and apartments, he would have found filled with beggars^
paralytics, blind persons, whom the good priest termed his children
and his courtiers.
The libraries of the Saxon and French reformers, bore some resem-
blance to each other. In both, were found the Vulgate, the fathers ol
the church, and religious pamphlets. Calvin and Luther read little ;
the Bible was the only book they loved to peruse ; they almost kne-^
* Bolsec, Vie de Calvin, p. 45-46.
• Galiflfe, t. Ill, p. 111-112,.
41*
4!86 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
it by heart. In their view, St. Paul was the noblest reflection of tho
thought of Christ.
Luther compared the Bible to a vast forest of trees, which bore fruits
of every savour, and he affirmed that there was not one of these fruits
which he had not tasted. Calvin said, that, in the branches of these
beautiful trees, there was placed something for all the birds of heaven.
In his study chamber, Luther through his whole life kept a wooden cru-
cifix, before which he knelt and prayed : his wedding ring was orna-
mented with a figure of Christ on the cross. Calvin had no love for
images ; he thought, like Carlstadt, that man ought not to carve any
image with his hand, for fear of falling into the sin of idolatry. Eras-
mus, as well as Luther, had replied to this iconoclastic argument.
Calvin had caused all material representations to be abolished in his
temples, from not understanding that images are the Bibles of such as
know not how to read. If, during the progress of his life, he meets with
a pearl or a flower upon his pathway, you may be certain that he will
not stoop to lift it. We sometimes figure to ourselves Luther at Gen-
eva, in Calvin's habitation. Wliat fine inspirations would he havft
derived from the spectacle of those mountains and streams, that lake,
those snows, that verdure, and those glaciers ! What chants at sunrise !
Then indeed would he have said to Justus Jonas : "could death and sin
be removed from this earth, I should delight to dwell in this paradise ;
but when the old form of this world shall be renewed, and an eternal
spring shall breathe upon these worn out robes, what new transforma-
tion, what a land of Eden !"* In perusing Calvin's letters, it seems as
if the reformer had been doomed to pass his life amid Sarmatian stepps,
or Northern forests. f The absence of all emotion at the sight of objects
which appeal to the imagination so forcibly, manifests all the coldness
of the heart of the Genevese ! That sterility of soul is his lot and
appanage : he bears it with him as his chastisement. Behold him,
Avhen Servetus, on the point of going to death, causes him to be called,
that the poor victim may kiss his hand and ask his forgiveness ! Study
liis countenance, you will not detect in it a single symptom of pity :
. he is like an old judge who has seen weeping all his life, and who has
begged God to deprive him of the gift of tears. Also, has he never
felt an emotion of love ; nor do any love him. They dread, they fear
him : but not a soul is attracted towards him by the least sympathy.
His heart has no room for anything but hatred, wrath, and envy. All
who have known him withdraw from him, because they are unable to
endure his arrogant speech, his bilious egotism, his bursts of vanity,
and his immeasureable pride. Melancthon reproaches him with a mo-
roseness which nothing can bend ;{ Bucer, with the disease of evil
speaking which has passed into the very blood, like the virus of a
mad-dog ; § Papire Masson, with an insatiable pride and thirst for
* Da sprach der Doctor: wenn nur SUnde und Tod weg waren, woUten wir
uns an solchem Paradiose {rcniigen lassen. — Mathesius.
fPaul Henry, p. 485, t.T.
j Praefractam ejus morositatem vitupirabit Melancthon.
fScriptor malodicendi studio infectus,. c.nis rabidus.- -Pap. Masso, Vita
Calvini, p, 24.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 487
blood,* under the mask of modesty and simplicity; Balduinus, with an;
intolerable self sufficiency of which every one complains. f If he be
such as his admiring biographers represent him to us, how did it happen,,
that one by one he lost all his friends, even the most devoted ? Caroli,
at the disputation of Lausanne, had tendered him the noblest pledges
of devotedness. And Caroli, whom at first he had lauded, at length
was nothing better than "a. mad dog." The reason, is that Caroli
was unwilling to sell his liberty to the reformer. Castalion was one
of his beloved disciples, whom he had placed at the head of the col-
lege of Geneva; but Castalion falls into disgrace with Calvin, because
he understands the descendit ad inferos of the Athanasian creed differ-
ently from him ; and he becomes a mere theologaster, Avho not being
able to support life by means of his science, steals wood at Bale for his
subsistence. Pighius, whose learning he had admired, is transformed
into a beardless scholar, as soon as he questions the reformer's au-
thority. • Bucer is compelled one day to exclaim; "thou lovest and
thou hatest without any other motive than that insupportable self-love,
which annoys all that are acquainted with thee." Luther, whom at
first he regarded as an angel, soon becomes a wicked woman, who
would do much better to employ the gift she has received from God in
correcting her own faults, than to be sustaining her shameless blas-
phemies of the real presence. J Search all the pages of Protestant or
reformation biography, and you will not encounter a single reputation
that he has not attacked, torn to pieces, vilified. He calls, " Luther,,
in ridicule, the Pericles of Germany; Melancthon, an inconstant
person and a coward; Osiander, an enchanter, a seducer, a savage
beast; Augiland, minister at Montbeliard, proud, strife making, wrath-
ful; Capmulus, a nobody ; Heshus, a stinking babbler; Stancer, an
Arian ; Memnon, a miserable Manichean." Hence they were wont
to say at Geneva : '-better be in hell with Beza, than in paradise with
Calvin. "f
Hatred was as necessary to Calvin, as love to our Vincent of Paul.
If upon his way he encounters some tender soul, he torments himself
till hate begins to take possession of him. In vain does it attempt
to invoke the law of love which Christ came to bring to mankind ;
to love is a word that he comprehends not ; he seizes it and drives it
beyond Christianity into the abyss of past time, when the ancient law
held sway. And he writes : ".And as to what I alledged to you that
David by his example instructs us to hate the enemies of God, you
reply, that this only regarded those times under the law of rigour
which permitted the hatred of enemies. But, madam, such an inter-
pretation would tend to overturn the scriptures, and therefore should
* Vindictae appetens et sanguinis fuit, facie cum modestn, ad~~tmiaem sim-
plicenKjue liwuram cornposita, tegens latentem intus superbiam et Philautian,
Pap. Masso, Vita Calvini, p. 26.
t CoUegee tui conquenmtur de tua intolerabili arrogantia.- -Id., p. 26.
:j; Lutliorus magnis vitiis laborat; intemperiem qua ubique ebullit, uiinam
magis frenare studuis.set I utinam suis vitiis rocognoscendis plu.s operain do-
disset.— -Cal, Ep.
II Genovenses inter jocos dicebant malle se apud inferos cu'n B-za, qaaoi
apud supsros esso cum Calvino;r — Papyjius Masso, p. 4.
48&
LIFE OF JOIO CALVIN.
be avoided as a deadly pest. . . . And to cut short all dispute, let us
content ourselves with the fact, that St. Paul applies to all the faithfiU
this passage, that the zeal of God's house ought to devour them.
Wherefore our Lord Jesus Christ, in reproving his disciples, who wished
him, as Elias did, to cause the lightnings of heaven to smite those who
rejected him, does not alledge to them that they are no longer under
the law of rigour, but only shows them that they are not moved by an
alTection such as that of the prophet. Even St. John, of whom you
have retained nothing but the word charity, well shows us that we
ought not, under pretence of love for men, to grow indifferent as to the
duty we owe to the honour of God and the preservation of his church,
since he himself forbids us to salute those, w^ho, as far as lies in their
power, turn us from pure doctrine.'"*
The wrath of Calvin, like his heart, is cold and prosaic. When
the Saxon monk gets angry, he hurls at the head of his adversary
every thing within reach of his hand ; the poetry of the holy books,
and expressions of a trooper, gold and lead ; he has no time to select,
for the blood has rushed to his brain. But Calvin does like the coquet
who searches her casket for the pearl which produces the most effect.
He ransacks his dictionary of bad terms ; he gathers one by one the
billingsgate terms he wants, and sets, adjusts, arranges them as he
would diamonds. In contemplating the trouble he gives himself, his
enemies laugh loudly. Westphalius shrugged his shoulders at the
triple apostrophe : " Hearest thou, mean fellow ? llearest thou, mad-
man ? Hearest thou, brute V'j And he said : *' I am. certain that
at the Moulard, on any market day, they could insult me more poet-
ically."
And, in truth, what lazzarone of the Largo Castello of Naples is
there, who would be willing to undergo the exertion of getting into a
rage, for sake of such miserable sallies against the fathers of the
council of Trent ?
"Hail, Tridenticolists, soldiers of Neptune, ignorant, stupid men,
asses and ninnies, legates of Antichrist, slothful bellies, putrid carcas-
ses, horned fathers, sons of the Roman faith, that is, of the great pros-
titute."J
Insults without horns, as Luther would have said, and which must
have caused the white beards of the council to smile with pity ! What
is marvelous is, that Calvin, after calling Westphalius a mad dog,
Servetus, a blackguard, {nehulo,) Bolsec, an animal, the cardinals of
Trent, legates of Antichrist, Balduinus, a jackdaw, screech-owl,
"passed master in the art of theft," imagined that he had followed the
prophets and Christ as his models. We speak seriously.
" It is easy for master Joachim to object to mc that my language is-
*Letter to the Duchess of Ferara.
t Audisut; hilrator?— -xVudisnn, phrenetice?-— Audisno, bestia?
*■ Tridenticolas, sub Ncptuiii auspiciis militantts, iiidoctos, quiisquilias, ami-
nos, porcos pecudes, crassos boves, antichristi Icgatos, otiosos ventres, pntrida
eadavera, blateroncs, patres cornutos, exitialia monstra, romanee fidei, id est^,
magnaj merotricis tlUos, patres ad sescpiipedem auriU)s..
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 489
Sprinkled with a black salt of pleasantry, wanton and without savour,
and of a biting rudeness after the style of a calumniator. If I am to
be called an insulting man, because, master Joachim being too blinded
amid his vices, t have held up to him the mirror, to cause him to
begin at length to be ashamed of himself, he must necessarily address
this censure to the prophets, the apostles, and Christ himself, who have
made no scruple sharply to reprove the adversaries of holy doctrine,
even those whom they beheld proud and obstinate."
''We are agreed on both sides, that injurious words and the idle
stories of jokers in no wise become christians. But inasmuch as the
prophets themselves do not at all refrain from using taunts, and Christ
taxes deceivers and false-teachers in pungent terms, and the Holy Ghost
every where attacks such sort of gentry, crying against them without
sparing : it is a foolish and inconsiderate question to demand if it be
allowable to reprehend severely, rudely, and intentionally, those who
expose themselves to blame and infamy."*
We should see with what pious candour Drelincourt undertakes the
defence of him, whom he continually terms "the saint of Geneva, the
disciple of Paul, the child of Christ." Balduinus had said to Calvin :
" Thy companions complain of thy insolent haughtiness and thy in-
supportable pride." Drelincourt beomes excited, and, in his reformed
zeal, he responds to Balduinus, "thou hast lied." And then sets to
work to recount the fine words of the reformer "in refutation of the
viper tongue of master Balduinus."
"Recharges me with being unable to endure any colleague ; but
my moderation in bearing not only with my colleagues, but also with
those who are under me, and not only in bearing with them, but also
in loving them, is so well known, that there is no need of refuting a
calumny so futile."
Who would not be ensnared by this very honied language, which
would be supposed to have fallen from the lips of some child ?
But Drelincourt has never perused the correspondence of his father in
Christ, and Calvin has forgotten the lines, which he wrote to his dear
Bullinger in 1538."t
»Opusc., p. 18-21.
t See chapter entitled : Return to Geneva.
Here are some fragments of a manuscript letter of Calvin, from which w&
may be able to conceive some idea of the forms of style usual with this writer.
Vie must bear in mind, that it regards one sieur de la Vau, who took the liber-
tv to say, that he comprehended nothing of the system of the reformer con
cerning predestination.
" Although this poor fellow, la Vau, has nothing but his silly glory, whicK
dazzles his eyes, without his perceiving the ill and injury which he causes :
yet, in well considering a certain letter which he wrote from that place, you
will clearly perceive, that satan so impels and guides him, for your deception
and the destruction of our labour, which we designed for the advancement
of your salvation, and also to aid him to break that holy union which, with all
our power, we should strive to strengthen and preserve. Now, as I have to
reply to a man who has conversed with you, I cannot obviate the scandals
which he has endeavoured to occasion, without briefly pointing out to you
things regarding his person. By those who understood him, he has always
been considered a very presumptuous man* &ven to readering himself ridicu-
490
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Do you not now perceive that Balduinus was very wrong to- speak
of the arrogance of Calvin, and, in quoting the following lines against
Westphalius, to say to him : Read then ?
" If Westphalius be unwilling to obey tliis last admonition which I
give him, I shall have him in such esteem as St. Paul tells us to hold
heretics. The others also who have censured my doctrines : such a&
those of Saxony, Magdebourg, Bremen, etc., are so immersed in error
that their oldest theologians do not even understand what we teach little
children in the catechism. They do not know what the Lord's supper
is, nor what its object : they are brutal men, they have no sense oF
honest shame, do nothing but cavil, advancing the hyperboles of their
Luther, studying only lo deceive the people, and to please the world,
not caring for the judgment of God, nor of his angels. They are-
lous. And would to God, that he had estimated himself according to his own
littleness; for he would discover nothing of whicli to be proud. But in him
the proverb must find its verification, that there are none so bold, as those
who are ignorant. Hence the pest, which is the most fatal in the church of
God, is too dominant in him, viz: foolish presumption.
"He would far rather be impudent than acquiesce in the truth. I remem-
ber, that being at supper, four years ago, when he had foolishly advanced that,
at the resurrection, all the children of God would be equal in glory, and 1
brought against him a passage of St. Paul, directly contrary to this, seeing
himself confounded, he had the hardihood to say to me: Well, this is a pas-
sage of St. Paul. What could one do with such a phrenetic fellow, who would
rather batter his horns against God, than humble himself by confessing his
error? You already, my brethren, in part, behold the causes of the divorce,
which this wild beast has caused amongst us.
" Nevertheless, as to the -pursuit vjhlch he accuses us of having made, in order
to bring blasphemers to the gibbet, I assure you that he has lied. But I would be
glad to know since what time he has taken it into his head to adhere to Cas-
talion, in this article, seeing that when here, without being required to do so,
he pretended great zeal against him. And let him not say, tliat he was at my
instance solicited by one of my friends, to pluck the worms from the noses of
those with whom he now has allied himself. For though our brother, master
Jehan Vernon, familiarly entreated him to discover the truth, this was only be-
cause he could not believe that the common rumour was true, or rather, when
la Vau had known them to be authors of so wicked a book, that he would de-
test them without further investigation. Yet this was done without my
knowledge : so far from there having been any grounds to accuse us of suborn-
ing. You will be able, consequently, to perceive from his letter what I'essons
he has received in that new school, in order to defame me with our whole
church. He says, that every body here is obliged to kiss my slipper. I think
you have enough evidence as to what pomps I display, and how I seek to have
court paid me. I am very certain, if he held my place, he would make far
o-reator parade. For, since, being nothing, ho is so puffed up, the acquisition
of but one degree would makb him burst altogether. But he proves what a
venomous reptile he is, by being sad at seeing such concord here. For this is
what he calls kissing my slipper, that they do not revolt against me and against
the doctrine I teacli^ to despise God, in my person, and, as it wore, trample
jiim under foot. Those who are so great enemies of peace and union, show
that they are animated by the spirit of satan. He accuses me of so causing
my books to be authorized, that no one can be bold or hardy enough to contra-
dict me. To which I answer, that the least that could be done by the seig-
niors, to whom God has entrusted the sword and authority, is to prevent per*
sons from blaspheming in their city, ao-ainst the faith in which they are taught.
But it is very well, that the dogs, which bark after us so loudly, canuot bil*
us "
LIFE OF JOHN CALVm. 491
impetuous, furious, light, inconstant men, full of doggish impudence
and diabolical pride. They are cruel, destitute of humanity, and per-
sons of the greatest obstinacy. They are hair brained men, cyclopses,
of a proud Titanic faction, phrenetics, savage beasts, bold, boastful,
obdurate. They think us unworthy that the earth should bear us, and
say that if we be not soon exterminated, we should at least be banished
among the Scythians and Indians. Finally, they clamour against
the inactivity of tlieir Protestant princes, because they do not destroy
us with their swords."*
The reformation has often stirred up the dunghill of Ennius ; but
Luther found pearls in it sometimes, and Calvin never. In the pulpit,
Calvin regaled his auditors with the terms, scoundrels, dogs, pimps,
prostitutes.
All these contests, at the street corners, at the temple, the council, in
his lodgings, at length so inflamed the blood of the reformer, that he
could not endure the slightest contradiction. He was a despot, whom
it was more perilous to disobey than the king of France himself. f
One day, a citizen of Lyons came to knock at the reformer's door :
" What want you ?" was he asked. '* Js the brother in ?" said the
stranger, in a supplicating tone. — " The brother?" responded the do-
mestic, "my master is grand enough for you to give him the title of
monsieur.'' The solicitor was dismissed. J
Every thing was compelled to bend under his rod ; at the least word
he fell into a swoon, and was seized by the megrim. §
This was a disease to which he had been subject from his infancy. I|
He was often obliged to keep his bed for several hours, in order to as-
suage the great sutierings in his head. In his correspondence, he com-
plains of these at every moment; but pains, however pungent, could not
diminish his courage.
" Yesterday," he writes to Viret, "I was in bed, sick of my hemi-
crany; the struggle was protracted: three days of torture. But at
Merlin's arrival, I arose and went to seek the envoy of Berne; after-
ward.s, my pains returned even more violent ; but this did not prevent
me from going into the pulpit."?
To the megrim was added a catarrh, which the fine days of spring
could not drive away. With an astonishing energy of character, he
* Admon. ult. ad Westp., tit. 3. Translation of Feu Ardent.
t Denique sic dominatur GenevcB, ut eum offendere sit longe periculosius
quam regem Galliee in ipsa regia.— -Contra libellum Calvini.
% Venit enim in ejus eedes quidam pauper simplex homo qui queesivit an
frater esset domi. Cui responsum : "Quid Irater? Satis magnus est ut a te do-
minus appelletur!" — Contra libellum Calvini.
§ Si Quis in eum liberius locutus est, solebat cadere statim in morbum suum
quern henucraniam appellant. — Contra libell. Calvini. p. 172.
II Besides his disposition naturally inclined to wrath, his wonderfully active
mind, the indiscretion of several persons, the number and infinite variety of af*
lairs regarding the church of God, and, towards the end of his life, great and
usual maladies, had rendered him peevish and difficult.— Beza vie de Calvin.—
Drelincourt, Defense de Calvin, p. ^Q5.
IT Mai, 1548.
492
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
bore up, and continued to labour. In 1559/ Geneva was menaced by
the house of Savoy ; ihe hand of God had afflicted the reformer, who,
contending with his ills, came with the rest of the ministers to aid in
the fortifications. The disease proved the sironger, and he was pros-
trated : but though his brain was paralyzed, his eye still lived.
Domestic troubles soured his disposition, but could not shake his
soul. An attack was made on the morals of his wife ; Calvin, in a
letter to his friend Farel, energetically denounces the lying asseriions
made by a minister regarding Idelette. He forgets that he has calum-
niated the morals of all those whose doctrines he had combated, and
among the rest, of Gabriel de Saconay, a priest of Lyons. But he has
not attempted to palliate the disorders of his brother Anthony, whose
scandalous life was well known at Geneva.*
In the midst of these illusions of the heart, these sufferings of the
body, these private troubles, these seclusions from the exterior world,
Calvin devoted himself to his Bible, and sought in the inspired volume
for words of consolation against his various ills ; but, by a wonderful
logic, the word, which furnished him powerful aids, soon also wrested
them from him, as we are about to see.
* The family of Anthony Calvin, the refonner's well beloved brother, gave
an example of complete disunion and great faults.— Galiffe, Not. Gen. t,
III. p, 111.
CHAPTER XLV.
LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS.
To manifest the abyss, into whichhaman reason must necessarily bfe
precipitated, when not walking by the light of faith, I shall select
some of the proudest glories of the reformation. Gentilis,'Ochino, ior
■a moment allied in friendship with Calvin, had revolted against the
principle of authority. Both, in their search after truth, had started
-from the same point- — the Bible. After long wanderings, Ochino ar-
rived at the deification of polygamy, and Gentilis at the apotheosis of
■deism. How, then, has the reformation inscribed the names of these
two men, with such dissimila-r doctrines, on the same page, at the head.
tDf which she has written : To the defenders of truth? If God has re-
vealed himself to Ochino, he has concealed himself from Gentilis; or
'^else light and darkness are identical substances.
^■Ochino at Sienna. — Success and estimate of his preaching.— Tempted and
seduced by the demon of pride. — Revolts against authority.- — ^^Is summoned
to Rome, and refuses to appean*— Insults the papacy. — Flies to Geneva with
a young girU — Associates with Calvin. — Desire^s to be free. — Is denounced
and banished. — His dialogue on polygamy.
At Sienna,* in the convent of th-e Capuchins, quite recently institu-
ted, there was a young monk, who lived, as did Luther in the Augus-
tinian cloister, the life of an ascetic, and whom the demon of doub-t
came to visit in his cell. It is Ochino himself, who has furnished us
with an account of his first contests with the flesh.
" In vain," he writes, in his diolagues, "did I try to mortify my body,
to fast and pray : the ajDpetites of the soul became more and more irri-
tating. At length, I read the scriptures, and my eyes were unsealed ;
then Christ revealed to me three great truths :
'• That the Lord, by his death on the cross, has fully satisfied the jus-
tice of his Father and merited heaven for his elect;"
* De vita, religione et fatis Bernardini Ochini, ^enensis, by Gottlieb
■Struvius.
42
494
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN,
" That religious vows are a human invention ;"
'•' That the church of Rome is abominable in the eyes of God."
The poor child, for at that epoch he was scarcely twenty, had nc?
need of aid from the Holy Ghost to discover these three rays of lights
diffused through the whole length of Luther's work, de Caplivitate
Bahylonica, and stolen by a Saxon monk from a merchant of Lyons,
of the name of Waldo,
In possession of these treasures of novelty, brother Bernardino as-
cended the pulpit and began to preach, but skillfully dissembling the
venom of his errors.
Imagine to yourself a style of language, warm as the sun of Naples^
splendid as Rome, coloured like the vegetation of Venice, and the ef-
fect of which was heightened by a dark eye, the complexion of an an-
choret, and theatrical gestures. The hearers Vi^ere enchanted. Italy
could talk of nothing but the extempore discourses of brother Bernar-
dino. Learned men, fashionable ladies, priests, monks, and the mass
of the people particularly, crowded the doors of the church where he
was to preach. Charles V., on coming forth from the temple,- had ex-
claimed ; " Here is a young man that would make the very stones
weep."* Sadolet compared him to the orator of antiquity. f One day,
Venice, with her doges, her patricians, her artists, her gondoliers came
to the palace of Bembo, to solicit to be allowed to hear Bernardino
during the station of Lent. Bembo wrote immediately to the marquis
de Pescaro, to implore him to induce Ochino, his protege, to come and
preach at Venice. The brother consented.
Afterwards Bembo wrote to the marquis : " Our brother Bernardino is
setting every body crazy : men and women, every body is beside hinv
self on account of the preacher : what eloquence, what fascination !":j:
Again, on the next day, he wrote to the cure of Venice : " My
Very Reverend Sir, forget not, if need be, to compel brother Bernardi-
no to use meat ; for if he does not give over trying to observe the lent--
en fast, he will never be able to endure the fatigue of preaching. ^'"§
Bernardino was living the life of a christian of the desert, j] He-
• Schrockh, Christliche Kirchengeschichtc scit der Reformation, t. II, p, 785,
t Sadoleli Epist, in op Palearii, p. BB\j.
\ Lctterc di Piotro Bembo, voL IV, p. 108, Operc, vol, VIII.— Milano, ISIO.,-
^ Letterc di Bembo, t. IX, p, 497.
II Here IS a frai^ment of one of Ocliino's discourses "on letters," which we
reproduce with the orthography and syntax of the epoch r
"Le litere saere in se sonno buonc, dono di Dio c dallo Spirito santo, neinte-
dimeno possano da noi usarsi e bene e male, si come 8 noto per esperientia, chc
dove gl'eletti sene servano in honore di Dio-, i rcprobati sene servano in suoy
disonore, pur per defetto loro, e non delle scritture. Pcro, atteso la malignita
de gl'impij, forse hanno pia nociuto, chegiovafo al mondo. Ben che Dio, coii
I'inlinita sua bonta al ultimo tutti li disordini reducaa suo honore e gloria. In
prima, le litere c le sacre hanno nociuto a moiti, i qu;ili sonno stoti c.iligentissi-
niiin havere libri molti, e ncgligcnti in studiargli, gl' epnrso d' essere pieni di
litere, poi chehanro la libraria plena di libri, Planno anco a molti nociuto, i
quali studiando non lianno atteso a imprimerse nella mcnte le verita che truovor-
no; ma a scriverle in cnrte, tal chc restando ignorantissimi, tutto il loro sapere
C ne loro scritti, i quali se si perdesseno, si pcrderebbe anco la loro scientia.
Questa fu una dcUe cause per le quali Socrato danno le litere, c disse che gl*
huomini innanti che si truovaj-seno lo litere erano piu dotti che di poi,perch8
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIX. 495
walked, as contemporary accounts inform us, with naked feet upon the
-stones, amid snows and thorns, with head uncovered, and exposed to all
the inclemencies of the weather, begging alms from door to door, never
drinking wine, but slaking his thirst at the first streamlet he found ; at
nightfall, placing his sack at the foot of a tree, he slept till the
chant of the birds aroused him in the morning. The great had prepar-
ed very splendid tables, and very soft beds, for him; but Ochino, when
in a city, preferred a little fresh straw to feathers and down, and black
bread to the most exquisite dishes. When persons saw him pass, with
his beard wiiitened prematurely, and reaching down to his girdle, with
his eye extinct from maceration, his visage that of a martyr about to be
cast to the wild beasts of the circus, they knelt down from an involun-
tary impulse of surprise and respect. And no body imagined that, un-
der the plies of that floating beard, under that hood thrown back upon
the shoulders, in those sandals purposely filled with holes, there was
twining a serpent which would crush the poor monk to death. Brother
Bernardino wanted to make a sensation, and stood in need of the chants
of the multitude, of the homages of the great, of the eulogies of the
learned,* in compensation, undoubtedly, for the interior joy he had lost
ill the convent, from the moment he had ceased to believe.
Paul III. made an extensive promotion of bishops and cardinals, and
he forgot to give the mitre or the hat to brother Bernardino, who was
then preaching with great success in the church of the Capuchins, at
Naples. The ascetic of the Thebaid w^as piqued to the heart. Among
his auditors, there was a Spanish refugee, named Valdez,t an apostate,
who desired no better occupation than to hunt after all those imagina-
tions that were tormented by doubt, the malady of the sixteenth centu-
ry. He knew how to read the preacher's eye. The sermon over, he
followed Bernardino, flattered him, intoxicated him, seduced him, and.
cast him into Zwinglianism. It was Faust tempting Margaret. The
brother determined to revenge the neglect of Paul III. The pulpit
was the theatre of his vengeance ; where the orator declaimed against
the papacy. Paul summoned the turbulent monk to Rome ; but the
monk was alarmed, and took to flight, leaving his sack, his sandals,
and his white beard in Italy, and carrying with him a young girl, whom
lie had seduced.
scrivevano ncllamente, quello che di poi hanno scritto in carte. Lasso stare,
che molti tutt', il tempo clella vita, loro hanno gittato, imo e speso iu disonore
di Dioin leggere, e scrivcre cose curiose e pernitiose alia salute. Et molti trans-
portaii dalla curiosita, hanno voluto tanti libri vcdere, che si sonno confusi e
restatisenza frutto, si come il campo, nel quale si gettatroppo seme. Ed alcuni
per questo perseno il giuditio, ma quello che importa molto piu e che hanno
pensato, che la vera scientia della theologia sia nelle litere, e questo falso."
Sermones Bernardini Ochini Senensis. Stampato inVenetia, 1543, die tertia
novembris, in-l8, Sermone 13. — Delle imagini et reliquie. Printed at Geneva,
three parts in one volume. 2-3, with the motto: "Pressa valentior."
La quarta parte delle prediche di M. Bernardino Ochino. en leltres aldines.
* Bock, Hist, antitrini., t. II, p. 485. Graziani, Vita card, Commendoni, vol.
U, cap. 9.
t Sandius ( Bibl. antitri., p. 2) has ranked Ochino, Valdez, Wolfgang, and
Fub, Capito, with the anti-Trinitarians.
4% LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
After his^ flight,, he had amassed materials far a reply to his adversa.
jiies. It is a libel, replete with calumnies against Paul MI., so disgust-
ing, that the Protestants themselves have been ashamed of it. There
waa only one man, whose brow was brazen enough to avail himself of
it as historical testimony : we have designated Calvin.*
It was to Geneva that Ochino went, in order to behold and con-
verse with the man who then made most noise in the world. There-
former, in magnificent terms, hailed the new comer. " We have here,'*
said he to Melancthon, " Bernardino of Sienna, that illustrious many
whose flight has produced such a sensation in Italy. "f
These two persons, who tenderly embraced each other, could not re-
main long in union. Ochino wanted no master. To attract attention,
he sets to work to teach surprising fancies regarding the Trinity, and*
having been soon denounced by Calvin, he is driven away from Ge-
neva.
Then Ochino sets out again, still on foot, as he had traveled in Italy,
with his wife hanging to his arm ; and with his heart full of those things
which, for nearly twenty years^ had kept him from sleeping, he pursues
truth, which ever flies before him like a dream. In order to catch her,
the Capuchin brother, at every step, casts away some one of those doe-
ttines which em.barrass his march ; but truth, like an ignis fatuus, con^
tinues to sport before him, without his being able to secure her. Whenr
he arrives at Zurich, his symbol is so exhausted, that the ministers de-
mand from him a profession of faith. He obeys, and swears to live
and die in the bosom of the church of Zwingle ; and scarcely has he
pronounced this oath, when he repents it. He mounts the pulpit, and
makes an assault on some of the dogmas of the Helvetic commune ;
but no one is moved. He appeals to his pen, and in his Lahy'n7ithi,%
lie denies almost every truth of Christianity ; and still he creates na^
sensation. He is determined to make a noise, however ; for this is his
manna. Hence, one day, he secretly sends to Bale a collection of his
dialogues, the work of a fancy, which, already on its return, still dreams
of worldly conquests, of incense, and smoke, and essays to command at-
tention by means of its follies. It is tiien that he writes that dialogue-
* History of the Reformation, by Sleidan, t. Ill, p. 47.
Ochino,'in two letters, has given the motives of his flight. The first was
written to Mutius Giustinopolitanus:.:
Bernardino Ochino senese 4 Mutio Guistinopalitano, dove rende la ragione-
della partita sua d'ltalia.
The second, to his friends of Sienna, in which he thus expresses himself:
Trovandomi in quel caso, consigliandomi con Christo et con li pij amici dissi
infra me stesso: tu sal che costui, il qual ti chiama, e antechristo, al quale non
sei tenuto obedire. Costui ti perseguita a morte, per che predichi Christo, la
Gratia, I'Evangelio, e quelle cose le quali con esaltareil figliolodi Diodestrug-
gano il suo regno. Pero, questa o una impresa a ossi di state, sella non fusse
opera diDio, si dissolverebbe, sie come disse gia Gamaliel, ma ia va semperr
crescendo. Bernardino, alii signori della cita di Siena.
Aug. Beyer., Mem. Lib. rar, p. 259-261, thinks that this second letter is but
a translation of the first. This is a mistake.
t Sylloge epist. Burmani, t. II, p. 230. — Letters of Calvin, to Jacques de-
Bourgogne.
.^ Schelhorn, Amoanit.,,t. Ill, p. 9164.
hJTE OF JOHN CALVIN. 497
fipon polygamy, which at first the reformation desired to represent as a
mere artistic caprice, the play of an adventurous mind, a literary wager;
but it is one that really contains a philosophic thought, the triumph of
which is sought for by Ochino.* Let the reformation laud private judg-
ment as much as it pleases. Behold, to what it conducted one of the fin-
est intellects of the sixteenth century ! To the apotheosis of polygamy!
It is thought that the original work of Ochino f was translated into
Latin by Castalion. The manuscript, placed in the hands of Amerbach,
the rector of the University of Bale, was submitted to the examination
of Coelio Secundo Curione, who, at a later period, pretended that he
never had approved the work.
At the apparition of such a book, the theologians of Zurich sent forth
a cry of horror, and the magistrates issued a decree of banishment
against its author.
It was in the midst of winter : Bernardino asked permission of his
judges to stay at Zurich until the next spring : the reformation mani-
fested itself to be destitute of pity.J
Ochino, already advanced in years, and the father of four children,
therefore sets forth upon the way of his exile. The voice, which in
the convent had said to him : " Take and read," no longer sounded in
his ear. It is probable that the Holy Ghost did not refuse him a final
admonition. — The unfortunate man was unwilling to hear it.
And Beza wrote to Dudithius: ''Bernadin Okin is a wicked de-
bauchee, a favourer of Arians, a mocker of Christ and his church.""
GBNTILIS.
Gentilis, being attracted to Geneva, preaches his opinions concerning the Trin-
ity.— Is attacked and combated by Calvin. — Imprisoned. — His retreat. — He
is banished from the city. — Decapitated at Berne..
Will Valentinus Gentilis be more fortunate? Ho belongs to that
society which is called "'the College of Vicenza,"§ and composed of
certain silly imaginations, who believe that the Holy Ghost ought to-
reveal the secret of the word of God to every one capable of readino-
• Some writers have pretended that Ochino should not be accused of hav;-
ing defended polygamy; but I tliink. that no one can peruse his dialogues with
impartiality, w-ithout being led to a contrary conclusion. — ^Histoire de la Rei-
fnrme en Italic, par Maccrie, p. 437. j
t Bernardini Ochini senensis dialogi XXX, in duos libros divisi, etc. Basi-
Jes&, 1563, in-8.
The XXI. treats de Polygamia.
The XX. de ratione exslrucndi regni Christi et destruendi antiehristi.
In the XXVIII. guopacto tractandi sunt hceretlci, Ochino establisJies the ne-
cessity of punishing heretics with death.
The title of the XXX. is, de humana diaholica arrogantia,
X Schelhorn, Amcenit., t. Ill, p. 2022, 2166, 2174.
k Mosheim, Eccles. cent. XVI. — Maccrie, History of the Reformation, p. 173:
and the following:
^Luther had attacked tlie authority of the church, of tradition and the fa-
42*
498 IJIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the scriptures. Lcelius Sbcinus, Gamillo Renato, Francesco Negri^
Ochino, Alciati, Blandratus, were its founders. The association waa
denounced to the authorities, and its members hastened to fly from Italy
and seek an asylum in a foreign country, bearing with them that book
of life, in which each of them sought and found his symbol :.
Hie liberest in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque,
Invenit pariter dogmata quisque sua.
Gentilis came to Geneva. He had heard wonders related of that
hospitable city, where thought was allowed, with full liberty, to indulge
all its caprices, togive up to all sorts of reveries^ to teach every kind
thers; the scripture, according ta^ this thBologian, was the oaly rule of faith,
aJid each individual was the interpreter of the scriptures.
" The christian, abandoned to himself even in the interpretation of the scrip-
turesjiad no other guide than his own knowledge; each pretended reformer
discovered in the scriptures only what was conformable with th€ opinions and
ideas which he had received, or with the principles which he had adopted for
himself; and, as almost all heresies were nothing but false interpretations of
the scripture, nearly all past heresies reappeared in an age when fanaticism and
licentiousness had spread the principles of the reformation almost over all
Europe.
"From the bosom of the reformation, .therefore, were seen to issue sects,
which attacked the dogmas that Luther had respected : the dogmas of the Trin-
ity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the efficacy of the sacraments, the necessity
of baptism.
" But these sects, nearly all the offspring of fanaticism and ignorance, were
divided among themselves, and fdled Germany with divisions and troubles.
"Whilst Germany was torn to pieces by.these factions, the principles of the
reformation, carried into countries where the' fire of fanaticism did not inflame
tlie minds of the people, germinated, as it were, 4uietly, and acquired consisr
tency in societies which piqued themselves on their capacity to reason.
"Four persons, most distinguished for their rank, their employments and
titles, in 1546, established at Vicenza, a city of the Venetian states, a sort of
academy, in order to confer together on matters of religion, and especially on
those points which^ then caused greatest noise.
" The species of confusion which then reigned almost throughout Europe,
the gross and shocking abuses which had penetrated into every state, supersti-
tious and ridiculous or dangerous beliefs which were spread abroad, caused
this, society to think that religion needed to be reformed ;, and that, as all
a»reed that the scripture contained the pure word of God, the surest means to
dtsengage religion from all false opinions, was to admit nothing but what was
taught in the scriptures.
'•"As this society prided itself on its literature and philosophy, it expounded,
according to the rules of criticism which it had adopted for itself, and in ac-
cordance with its philosophic principles, the doctrines of the scriptures, and
admitted as-revealed nothing but what it saw clearly taught therein, that is,
what reason was able to conceive.
" In pursuance of this method, they reduced Christianity to the following
articles:
"There is one supreme God, who has created all things by tlie pow^r of his
word, and who by this word governs all things.
"The word is his Son, and this Son is Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, a ver-
itable man, but a man superior to other men, having been begotten of a Virgin,
and by the operation of the Holy Ghost.
"This Son is he whom God promised to the ancient patriarchs, And whom hd
g:iv£S.to men : it is this Son. who has announaed th€ gospel, and who has shown
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIJf. 499
q( doctrine, without being in dread, as in Italy, of the eye of the in-
quisitor. Now, by dint of meditating the Bible, Gentilis had become
an anti-Trinitarian.
He said : "Trinity, is a word which you will no where find in the
Bible, any more than those purely human terms, essence and hypostasis.
There is but one God, the God of Israel, who has bestowed his divinity
iipon Christ his Son. Christ is but an image : he is the symbol of the
glory of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the divine power, set in action.
" Calvin adores a Quaternity in place of a Trinity; for he teaches
that the separate hypostasis still remains the divinity, and that each
person is truly God : therefore there are four Gods.'"'*
Poor Gentilis ! who, with such infantile simplicity, confided in the
tolerance of Calvin. Why did he not remain at Vicenza, with his
friends the anti-Trinitarians ? He was then ignorant, that, in all Italy,
there was no tribunal more terrible than the consistory, no inquisitor in
Spain more cunning than the refugee of Noyon, no country where the
soul was less free than in reformed Switzerland! At Venice, they
sometimes indeed put the obstinate heretic to death, but the judge did
men tlie way to heaven, by mortifying his flesh and living in purity. This Sou
died by order of his Father, to obtain for us the remission of our sins; he was
resuscitated by the power of the Father, and he is glorious in heaven.
" Those who are submissive to Jesus of Nazareth, are justified on the part of
God, .and those who have piety in him, receive the imm.ortality which thev lost
in Adam. Jesus Christ alone is the Lord and leader of the people who are
.•iubject to him ; he is the Judge of the living and the dead : he will come back
to men at the cansummation of ages.
" Behold the points to which the society of Vicenza reduced the christian
religion. The Trinity, the consubstantiality of the word, the Divinity of Jesus
Christ, etc., according to this society, were nothing but opinions derived from
tiie philosophy of the Greeks, and not revealed dogmas.
" The meetings of the society could not take place so secretlv, but that the
ministry were informed of them. It caused some of the members to be arrest-
ed, who were put to death;, the others escaped, of whom were Leiius Socinus
Bernard-Okin, Pazuta, Gentilis, &c., who withdrew into Turkey, Switzerland,
and Germany.
" The chiefs of the pretended reformation w.ere not less inimical to the new
Arians than the Catholics; and Calvin had caused Servetus to be burned:
hence the exiles of Vicenza were unable to teacli their opinions freelv in pla-
ces where the civil powers were obedient to the reformers. Therefore they at
length withdrew into Poland, where the new Arians freely professed their
aentiments, under the protection, of several Polish lords, whom they had se-
duced.
" In Poland,, these new Arians had ckurches, schools, and assembled synods,
in which they passed decrees against those who maintained the dogma of the
Trinity.
" Leiius Socinus left Switzerland and souglit refuge among these new Ari-
ans;,he there carried a taste for literature, the principles of criticism, the study
of languages, and the art of dialectics; he wrote against Calvin, he made
comments on the holy scriptures, and taught the anti-Trinitarians to explain in
a figurative or alegorical sense, the passages which the reformers brought
against tliem, in order to oblige them to recognize the Trinity and the Divinity
of Christ. He would, without doubt, have rendered still greater services to the
new Arianism; but he died, at Zurich, on the sixteenthof march, 1562, leav-
ing his property and writings to his nephew, Faustus Socinus." — Dictioa-
naire des htresies, by Pluquet.
* Calvin a Geneve, par Jean Gaberel, p. 232-235,-
500 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
not insult him ; at Geneva, they caused him to be burned, and the exe-
cutioner, a witty fellow, while waiting for the hour of punishment,
amused himself by jesting at his expense. At Geneva, there was a
prophet, who said : •' U Servetus fall into my hands, he will be burn-
ed." And Servetus was burned.
Gentilis did not die, because he had not the courage of Servetus :
his was a vulgar soul, and he grew pale in the presence of his judges
and retracted.
Calvin pursued him with hatred and jeers : the hatred was ardent,
the jeers were ignoble. He wrote against Gentilis a libel entitled :
"The impiety of Valentinus Gentilis openly exposed,"* in which
he makes no attempt to discuss the subject with his adversary, but tries to
tear him to pieces. He calls him — a man of nothing, who ofTers, to be
quaffed, the mud and slime which he has collected from the reveries of
Servetus, and wants to persuade persons of corrupted taste that it is a
sweet liquor and wholesome beverage ;"t whereas, Gentilis had never
read the writings of the Spanish physician, but had asked to dispute with
the Bible in hand. Anti-Trinitarianism was making progress; it
was publicly taught in the Grisons, in Transylvania, in Poland,{ at the
o-ates of Geneva, at Lyons itself, where, as Calvin informs us, poets
put in verse the system of Gentilis.
" Whereas, now a-days, many steep their fangs in the troubles, the
dissensions, and havoc made upon the true doctrine ; it is not wonder,
ful that at Lyons is found some boaster, who has vomited from his mouth
the venom of which he is full. There is even a poet, who has pushed
himself forward to embelish the theology of Valentinus by his verses..
Among other things, he makes no difficulty to advance this fine sen-
tence, as a maxim — that the uneven number is agreeble to God ; very
well ; but babbler, suppose I place before you, on the other hand, the
number three, multipled by three, there will result a marvelous num-
ber of Gods."§
The quiet of Geneva was compromised. The Italian church, found-
ed by Calvin, menaced the very existence of the reformed communion.
The Italian refugees could not bear the theocrat's yoke without mur-
muring ; they wanted to be free. Calvin, comprehending the necessity
of a uniform doctrine, drew up a formulary which the foreigners were
to subscribe. Valentinus Gentilis imitated the rest of his fellow citi-
zens : he made oath to the confession ; but he soon repented, and be-
gan again to preach his reveries.
" 1 confess, said he, "that the God of Israel, whom the holy books
propose to us, as the true God, and whom windy sophists deny to have
a Son, is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that this Jesus Christ,
whom he has sent, inasmuch as he is the Word, is the true and natural
Son of the Holy God, the Omnipotent Father." ||
* Opuscules, p. 1921.
t Opuscules, p. 1921.
J: Porta, Hist. Ref. EcclcSr Rhjcticarum. — Bock, liist.- Antitri., t. IL p 410,
411. — Maccrie, p. 177.
^ Opuscules, p. 1923.
y Opuscules de Culvin,.
LI5E OF JOn^ CALVIN. 501
When we reflect that this Genevese population, which voluntarily
had renounced the xnagnificent teachings of the Catholic school, is
taken by these foolish words, the issue of a sick brain, we feel a mel-
ancholy astonishment !
Calvin caused the Italian to be put in prison; and the unhappy man,
who thought himself illumined, accused his judges, and implored God
to enlighten them ; and as the light did not descend from heaven
rapidly enough, he wrote to them :
" Faithful ministers of the word of God, (he was addressing the old
apostates, Cop, Remond, and Enoch), Calvin calls my opinion a
revery. In my view it would be desirable that the ancient doctors had
thus dreamed : never would they have so greatly obscured the under-
standings of men with darkness. But it does not well become me to
speak of myself; if what I propose is true, the praise thereof belongs
only to God, and not to me, who never should have had a taste of
such things, had I not learned them from God. The father of the
Word is the God of Israel, the Word is the God of Israel. These two
propositions are both true ; but if they be reversed, they will not both
be true ; for if you say, the God of Israel is the Father of the Word,
this is false, because the Word denotes the quality of the Son and the
essence, but the term God, as that of the Father, only the essence."*
Calvin responds :
"By thy last writing, we have known thee to have a depraved mind,
to be full of intolerable pride, and of a venomous nature, imbued
with a malignant spirit, and finally an obstinate heretic. . . . Exclaim
as much as thou pleasest that thou recognizest Christ as true God, if
his Father alone be only God, and the God of Israel, thou openly
rejectest him from the degree in which thou placest his Father alone in
regard to him."
Then the shade of Servetus appeared to Gentilis, who began to
tremble, and asked to recant. He therefore wrote from his prison a
confession, in which he disavowed every thing he had published upon
the Trinity, and praised the piety, the science, and the inspiration of
Calvin. The reformer made use of clemency : the judges pronounced
a sentence of mercy, as it is called by Protestant historians ; here it is ;
"In the name of 'the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
"Although the malice and the wickedness which thou hast manifested,
well entitle thee to be exterminated from amongst men as a heretical
and schismatical seducer, nevertheless, having regard to thy repen-
tance, we condemn thee, Valentinus Gentilis, to be stript even to thy
shirt, having thy feet naked and thy head uncovered, holding a lighted
torch in thy hand, to kneel before us and ask pardon, of us and of
justice, destesting thy writing, which we order thee with thy own hands
to put into the fire here lighted, to be reduced to ashes, as full of per«
nicious lies."
On the 5th of September^ Gentilis left Geneva, without uttering a
single complaint against a city, which thus ignominiously expelled
^'the true disciple of Christ." Scarcely had he traversed the city,.
• Op.uscules, p.. J842«.
002
LIFE OF JOHN CALVJiT.
when that heavenly light, which every where accompanied him, ojice
more shone before his eyes. It irradiated from the book which he
carried under his arm — the Bible. — The unhappy man again resumed
his habitual chant :
** The Father of the Word is the God of Israel."
He wanted to continue singing it on his entry into Berne; but in
the name of the reformation, the executioner came to interrupt his
canticles, and some days after the knife had disposed of the theological
poet.
On his way to execution, Gentilis shook his head and said : " Oth-
ers have shed their blood for the Son, I am the first that will have the
honour to shed my blood for the glory of the Father."
You behold to Avhat, an abandonment of the principle of authority
has brought Ochino and Gentilis ! The first to exile, 'the last to the
block. And had either discovered a single truth by his apostacy !
Not one, Calvin is compelled to banish them from his republic, which
they threatened to corrupt. And for v/hom shall the principle of pri-
vate judgment have been an ark of safety ? For no one, if Calvin be
the Noah of that ark ; for, according to Sandius, Ochino is an anti-
Trinitarian. Gentilis a deist, Valdez, in his cento c died consider ationi,
a blasphemer ; and, as Beza says, Mino Celso, and the two Socinus are
heretics. And yet, the two Socinus, Mino Cclso, Valdez, Gentilis
and Ochino, are honoured by Protestant historians as martyrs of truth.*
There is one question to be asked. At the time of which we now
speak, where is that truth ? At Geneva, in the Pasquillus of Csslio
Secundo Curione ? At Verceil, in the pulpit occupied by Peter Mar-
tyr Vermigli ? At Milan, in the book of Paleario, il heneficio di
Christo ? At Locarno, in the lodgings of Benedetto ? At Bentivo-
glio, in the boudoir of donna Helena Rangone ? At Vicenza, in the
cenacle of Faustus Socinus, Camillo Renato, and Blandratus ? At
Venice, in Angelo Buonarici's explication of the apostolical epistles ? .
, . . Let one of these sectaries come to Geneva. Calvin will drive him
uway as a disciple of satan.
Wiiere then is the truth ? It can be no where else than in that
church, the head of which Calvin is preparing to insult in the style of
a demoniac; in the midst of that Catholic clergy, the fidelity of whom
he has vainly tried to shake ; among those French populations, whose
nationality he will endeavour to destroy, by snatching away their faith,
as he has wrested it from the people of Geneva.
* Th. Maccrie, in his history of the progress and extinction of the refor-
mation in Ital)^ in 8vo., London and Faris, places near 300 sectaries, of whom
not one represents Calvin, among tho reformers, that is, among the defenders^
of the gospel.
CHAPTER XLVI.
tHS CLERGY OF LYO^S. GABRIEL DE SACOiJAY.* 1560 1563*
■Calvin's congratulation to Gabriel de Saconay. — Some pages of tiiis libel; —
Bretschneider vaunting the urbanity of the reformer. — Who Saconay was.—
His love for letters. — Ho is attacked by Calvin on the subject of a preface
placed at the head of tlie Assertio of Henry VHl. — Idea of Saconay's com*
mentarvv— Insults of Calvin. — Explained.— The clergy of Lyons, the sa*
viours of our liberties and our faith*
"In our timeS', there was a chanter of the cathedra] church of Or
leans> named Correau, a great gossipi allowing hunself all licence
m reviling and evil speaking ; who nevertheless possessed this
cunning, that in order to disgorge more boldly whatever came into his
mouth, he commenced with himself, traducing himself, so that nothing
could be retorted on him, and by this means, he anticipated every
thing which might have been advanced against him, shutting the
mouths of all and leaving them without reply. Now, it was at least
a sort of propriety as well as shame for so abandoned and dissolute a
man, that he spared himself no more than he did all those at whom he
cast his sneers ; but there is a chanter or precentor ( as he calls him-
self) in the church of Lyons, viz : one Gabriel de Saconay, of a very
different mould. For having assumed the mask of a grave man, and
being well disguised to counterfeit the theologian, he puts himself for-
ward as if he were mounted on a scaffold. Being thus bolstered by
his gibberish, or rather mounted upon his cratches he boldly and
even with confident audacity^ treats of the sacred mysteries of scrip-
ture ; as if from his infancy he had been nurtured in the school of the
apostles and prophets, and quite supplied with the doctrine requisite to
him who speaks in such capacity. Si Lugduni quaritur faniosum
iwpanar, domus ejus primas tenebit. Omiilo cJioreas et saltationes
quas severi castique homines tocarent lenocinta. He frequents many
nouses full of villainies> and scents their stench like a hunting dog>
running after them as if they were very agreeable. If he enter some
* Congratulation a venerable prestre N., touchant la belle preface et mig-
nonne dont il a rempare le livre du roi d'Anglotcrre.
Collection of Calvin's tracts. Geneva, 1556, p. 1822-1850.
Calvin has published this same pamphlet in Latin, with this title:
Gratulatio ad venerabilem presbytcrum Dominum Gabrielem do Saconay^
priEcentofcm ccclcsiec Lugdunensis, de pultjhra et eleganti praefatione quara
libro regis Anglise inscfipsit. I^GD.
504 Lift 0^- JOttJJ CALVIN.
houses more honest and better regulated^ he fails not to infect them,
with defilement
" How then, villain^ whose mouth is so filthy that nothing but
stench could issue from it) didst thou dare utter the word chastity ? He
makes invectives against debauchery> which he boldly affirms is preva-
lent amongst us, as if he were narrating fables of the New Islands."
'' I know not with what confidence he is femboldened to affirm
transubstantiation with open moiith, as if there were no difficulty in
it : if, possibly, it seem not to him as easy to transubstantiate bread
into the body of Jesus Christ, as to transform a woman into a man."*
We have forgotten to place at the head of this chapter, as epigraph,
these lines from the pen of Bretschneider :
"Calvin, reared in the bosom of a civilized capital, polished by social
life, full of modesty and urbanity, accustomed^ by the study of juris-
prudence, to avoid personalities and to weigh all external considera-
tions, refined by his extensive intercourse with the worldj always kept
within the bounds of decency. "f
Behold how Protestantism has, for three centuries past, been acclis-
tomed to write history ! Certainly, the name of M. Bretschneider of
Gotha is honourable ! But, is it possible for any one to do greater
violence to truth ? The writer has read the works of Calvin; and, ill
the face of Germany, he publishes that the reformer has nearly always
ke'pt ivithin the bounds of decency. To morrow, the eulogy of Bretsch*
neider will serve as a text for some neophyte to chant a hymn to the
reformer.
But the same thing, that here is done by Bretschneider, has been
done by all the apostles of the reformation before him. It is impossible
to say with what audacity they have deceived posterity and their contem^-
poraries. Nay, before Ave had made ourselves acquainted with Saxon
Protestantism, how often were we ourselves seduced by the word of
Luther ! How cheerfully did we laugh at those ignorant sallies, which
he causes to fall from tlie lips of some monk of Louvain or Cologne.
Did we, upon our route, encounter one of those cenobitical personagesj
whose faces he has smeared over with the lees of wine, we were una-
ble to repress an inclination to mirth, and every time that a pupil of
Hogstract's school passed by us, with a book under his arm, we were
on the point of asking the monk to tell us the title of the work ; for
we felt persuaded that he was ignorant of every thing except how to
eat and drink. But we chanced to enter one of those cells which
Luther termed ''troughs," and in Avhich there dwelt one of those "un^
clean animals," whom he could not imagine to be created in the image
of God. And then, we avow the fact ! we folt as if just awaking
from an attack of nightmare. These monachal intelligences for the
most part came down from heaven ; it was easy to divine this from all
the treasures contained in their brains ! How Luther has trifled with
us ! But the lesson has not been without its value. A complete
* What we here cite can furnish no idea of the outrages which" Calvin
lavishes upon Gabriel de Saconay : our pen refuses to transcribe them,
t Calvin et I'EgUse de Geneve, p. 33.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 505
revolution took place in our ideas. We sought for the truth : soon by
dint of examination, inquiry, comparisons, we were led to this twofold
historic formulary : — Regard every thing as false which Luther gives
as true. — Hold as glorious every thing that he cries down or outrages.
Apply these, whenever you have to estimate a fact or person according
to Luther or Calvin, and you will never be mistaken.
There is the head of a precentor or chanter, which Calvin has
blackened in a singular manner. Never in Germany, that classic land
of conventual debaucheries, as represented by Protestants, did there
live a priest such as Gabriel de Saconay, whose likeness is not found
in Luther's collection. Uh'ich von Hutten himself, with all his talent
for calumny, never could have designed a fancy sketch equal to the
one here furnished by Calvin. Not one of the capital sins v^as there
uncommitted, by this being, created expressly for the amusement of
the refugees who frequented the fairs of Geneva. Saconay is avari-
cious, envious, gluttonous, proud, lazy, choleric and lustful ; hence at
once, if you have studied the history of the reformation, you may be
certain that Saconay is like all the other priests of Lyons at that
epoch, that is, a man of morals, science, evangelical zeal, a good
ecclesiastic, a good patriot, a man of one God, one faith, and one
baptism.
A body of clergy, quite worldly, and like those of certain circles of
Germany who went to sleep and allowed revolt to march apace, would
better have suited Calvin's taste, who desired to stifle popular liberty
throughout the Lyonese and other provinces. But he had to deal with
souls strengthened by faith, who feared neither outrages nor martyr-
dom. Seated as sentinels at the gates of Lyons, our priests allowed
no admittance to those libels, signed Despeville, in which Calvin in-
sulted every thing dear to Catholics; in which, as in his treatise on
relics,* he demanded that the heads of our martyrs should be cast into
the charnel house; as in his antidote against the Sorbonne, that they
should shut up that school of the sacred sciences, "a veritable semi-
nary of idolatry ;" as in his brief exposition of the epistle of Popo
Paul III., that they should, by a conflagration, destroy Rome "that
impure sink of all vices." In vain did he conceal himself under ficti-
tious names, the Priest of Lyons had divined the deserter of Noyon,
and he knew a multitude of secrets concerning the reformer, which he
made public from the pulpit. He arrested the Genevese colporteurs,
denounced them to the authorities, and had them expelled from the
city, amid the joyous acclamations of the populace.
In 1543, Geneva had been visited by a frightful pest, which deci-
mated its inhabitants ; some germs of the malady, having been carried
to Lyons, developed themselves rapidly, and we have told already
what then took place.
At Geneva, the ministers presented themselves to the council avow-
ing "that it would be their duty to go and console those infected with
* Admonitio de Reliquiis, Genevae, per Joannem Gerardum, 1648, in-I2. —
This treatise also appeared in French. The Latin edition, like the Opuscules,
carries the flaming sword, with this motto: "Non veni ut mitterem pacem,
sed ffladium,"
43
606 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
the pest, but that none of them would have sufficient courage to
do so, begging the council to pardon their weakness, as God had
not accorded them the grace to confront peril with the necessary
intrepidity."*
And Calvin manifested himself still more cowardly in presence of
death ; for he obtained a prohibition to select master John to go and
assist the sick, "in consideration of the great need the church and state
had of him."t
Now all this is recorded literally, and preserved, as an eternal mon-
ument of shame to the memory of the Genevese priesthood, in the
archives of the republic. J
At Lyons, on the contrary, at the- very first news of the pest, all the
priests, the sick, even the infirm, had presented themselves before the
archbishop, soliciting to be sent to carry succour to their brethren, and
to die the martyr's death, if God were good enough to crown their
devotedness. Also, in that contest of the two principles which took
place at Lyons on the public square, there were no defections of the
people from the Catholic ranks. At intervalf?, some noble seignior,
such as governor de Saulx, made terms with the enemy ; but the peo-
ple remained faithful to the banners of their patron saints. God and
Our Lady of Fourviere, is the cry of alarm and of safety in the mo-
ment of danger. If death come to surprise them while combating for
their faith, they are sure to find by their side a priest of whom necessity
has made a soldier, and who in the ear of the dying christian murmurs:
The heavens open for you, God is waiting for you in a better world.
Among the champions of the sacerdotal militia, the least courageous
is not Gabriel de Saconay, whom Calvin has sought to vilify, but
whose name he has contributed to immortalize. But for the mud
with which he has bespattered the visage of the precentor, perhaps his
name would never have come down to our times : at least we should
not have attempted to seek for it in that holy phalanx, which so glo-
riously combated for our civil liberties.
Now, Gabriel de Saconay was in fact, as Calvin relates, chanter of
of the church of St. John ; but he has forgotten to tell us that this
chanter was also count of the chapter, consequently of a noble family,
and that he had been deputy to the States of Orleans from the pro-
vince of Lyons; a choice, which necessarily supposes distinguished
birth, science, and good morals, and Gabriel possessed all this. Had
he been but a vulgar priest, Calvin would have left him in his ob-
scurity.
At Saconay, in the diocess of Lyons, Gabriel possessed a chateau,
» Registres de TEtat, 5 juin 1543. t lb.
\ What ought a minister to do in time of the pest? Quid tempore pcstit
agendum ministro ? is a question which has been discussed, and variously an-
swered by Protestant theologians. We have before us a book, entitled: "Va-
riorum Tractatus theologici de peste. Lugd. Bat. apud Joh. Elzevirium
(1655)." It contains: "de Peste a Theod. Beza, ubi questionos duae expli-
catae: una sit ne contagiosa, altera, an et quatenus sit christianis pet seces-
sionem vitanda." — " Andreae Riveti epistola ad amicum," on the same subject.
— Et "Gilberti Vcetii Tractatus de peste."
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 507
whence have been dated some of his works, and where he had col-
lected a valuable controversial library full of good books, of all the
doctors both Greek and Latin, who had, in different ages, defended the
integrity of Catholic dogma. He had turned over the leaves of these
books, read, and re-read, meditated and annotated them, with a real
monachal passion. His style savours of all kinds of ascetic perfumes :
in reading Saconay, we, at each page, perceive Tertullian, Origen,
Augustine, Chrysostom, Jerome, whom he knows by heart, and whose
treasures he moulds into his own narrative with a skill, which Erasmus
himself might have envied. Gabriel delights to tarry amid these an-
cient glories. He has often been most happily inspired, while holding
communion with these illustrious dead : from one of them, Vincent of
Lerins, he has taken an admirable portrait of the heretic, which shows
you that he was a skillful master of language.
" In all heresies, the devil thus transformed into an angel of light,
uses a diction and words replete with craft, and fortifies himself with
the title of truth, which is the word of God, to cause his frauds and
falsehoods to be received, well knowing, as Lirinensis says, that their
stench can suddenly please no one, if cast into his face alone and undis-
guised; for this they sprinkle them with a celestial language, like a
fine aroma, that he, who immediately would despise human errors, may
not easily contemn divine revelations. Wherefore, they act like those
accustomed to sweeten certain bitter drinks for little children : they
first tinge the rim of the cup with honey, that this simplicity of chil-
hood may not suspect bitterness when only tasting sweets."*
Do you know what advantage Gabriel had derived from living thus
in his fine chateau amid the dust of those illustrious dead ? He had
acquired the skill to recognize a heresy at the first glance, no matter
under what mask it appeared, whether or not it had honied its phrase,
whether it came on foot like prose, or gaily chanting like music. In
his book, "concerning the True Body of Jesus Ghrist,"t from which
we have just cited a few lines, taken casually, we should see how
ironically he hails each word lisped by the Genevese reformation to
justify its doctrine. — This has been stolen from Berengarius. — This
trope, about which you make so much noise, is found in Waldo's
book, and here is the very page. — This heretical scolium had been
thrown into the dirt-box of a monk of the twelfth century, it was there
you went to seek it, in order to exhibit it to us as something new.
And what is admirable here is not so much the science as the angelic
meekness of the writer, who never once has allowed himself to fall
into the sin of anger, which, as far as we are concerned, we should
willingly have pardoned him !
At this epoch of religious fever, theology was not the business of
priests only, monarchs also dealt in it. Henry VIII. of England had
composed an apology of the sacraments of the church, a strong work,
• Du vray corps de J. C. au sacrament de I'Autel. A Lyon par. Guit.
Rovelle, a I'Escu de Venise, 1567.
t Assertioseptem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum, Henrica
VIII» Anglieerege, auctore.
508 LIFE OF JOHIsr CALVIN.
written against Luther, who on the evening be received it slept not
before he had blackened some pages in response to his adversary.
You remember the exordium of that philippic : '' Eh ! what then !
shalt thou, Henry, king of Great Britain, be allowed to spit thy stale
lies into my face : to hurl thy stinking filth at the crown of my king
and Lord ; while I should not be allowed to daub thy royal diadem
with thy own drivel !"
Now, the Assertio septevi sacramentorum of the English monarch,
enthusiastically received at Rome, had agitated the whole theological
world. The struggle between the prince and the monk was a curious;
spectacle. Gabriel de Saconay conceived the idea to reprint a part
of the defence of the king of England, to distribute it among the Catho-
lics, and even to cast it into the very capital of the French reformation.
He therefore went to work, and soon completed his task.
It is this writing that provoked Calvin's anger. Saconay had not
encountered the reformer as Henry VIII. did Luther : in the preface
of his edition he had attacked heresy, and scarcely said a word about
John of Noyon ; but Calvin could not endure that a royal hand should
tear away its mask from the reformation, to expose, to the gaze of all
passers, that leprous face, which was represented to us as quite angelic.
More, chancellor of England, says that Luther, to compose his
response to the king of Great Britain, had borrowed the dictionary of
bath house servants, coach drivers, market women, and characters
whom we dare not name. Calvin has excelled Luther : Let his be
the crown !
When the Assertio septem Sacramentorum appeared, Luther pre-
tended that it was the work of some "blackguard" of a bishop (Lee)
who had whispered to the prince all the arguments, with whicli his
book is crammed. Had they robbed him of his kingdom, Henry VIII.
could not have manifested greater anger. Now, without a complete
ignorance of history, how could Calvin publish that the king of Eng-
land had disavowed his work ? It is impossible to believe that the
Genevese reformer had not read the answer of Henry VIII. to the
insolent assertions of the Saxon monk : and yet see what he dares
write :
" And this book then is concocted by some monk and hypocrite,
versed in contentious loquacity, and this king, being persuaded by
wicked advisers, allows it to be printed in his name, and, as he has
since repented his inconsiderate zeal, and the book is so dull and weak
that the memory thereof would soon perish, it has remained hurried
during the spate of thirty years."
Do you see with what boldness Calvin here deceives us ! The As-
sertio of Henry VIII. in oblivion, when the stalls of the booksellers
of Frankfort and Strasbourg, display it to the view of all, in German,
in Italian, in English and in French, and when his friends, Bucer,
BuUinger, and Beza, have it in their libraries ! *
Gabriel de Saconay would not content himself with the mere office
• In 1522, The Assertio was printed at Antwerp in two forms: in eedibus
Michaelis Hillenii.
^ LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.] 509
of interpreter; he had too much science to allow himself to be held in
leash even by a royal hand. He was desirous to show that, in default
of a diadem, he had a pen which he knew how to use. I have already
mentioned the preface wherein the writer exerts himself to display
those glorious characteristics of unity, which render Catholicism so illus-
trious. By agitating the ashes of the dead, and especially those of the
Pothinuses and Polycarps, who occupied the see of the church of
Lyons, he proves that our Gallic faith dates from the very cradle of
Christianity.
It is curious to observe how Calvin leaps at the name of Ireneus !
One would say that the holy bishop had come forth from his tomb.
The reformer is troubled, recollects himself, then, after a moment of
silence, hurls at Gabriel's head every thing that he can lay hands on :
two or three pitiful arguments taken from the Institutes, and a host of
insults culled we know not where.
<' Had this mastif known some pages of the books of the doctors
from whom he quotes, the common saying of Ireneus would have oc-
curred to his mind, — that in the sacrament there are two things : the
one, terrestrial, which is bread ; the other, celestial, which is Jesus
Christ. Does the villain dare set in opposition to our doctrine the
blood of martyrs, which he here furiously tramples under foot ? The
blood of Ireneus not only fills his paunch, but furnishes him with
money to spend in debaucheries, rioting, and other kinds of dissi-
pation."
Saconay, who knew Calvin as well as M. Galiflfe does, bethought
him to demand miracles of tolerance from the theocrat, all covered as
he was with the blood of Servetus and of Gruet ; miracles of evan-
gelical purity, from Beza, the poet of equivocal amours ; miracles of
chastity, from the sacerdotal colleague of men of most abandoned
morals ; nay, he addressed the reformer in the language which Luther
used with Thomas Munzer ! — Where are the signs of the divinity of
thy mission ? Calvin does not now imitate the Anabaptist : he glori-
fies himself as a real prodigy of virtue.
" As to Messire Gabriel's attempt to be facetious in demanding
where are the sanctity, the chastity, the fasts and vigils of Calvin; by
his efforts at sottish taunts, he manifests that he knows not what it is to
be facetious. It were desirable that the enemies of the gospel, — and f
speak not of such hogs as Saconay, but of those who have some ap-
pearance of honesty, — would come near his virtues, which cause the
most furious advocates of the papacy to burst with spite.'*
And he continues :
<■' Will this dog still dare growl, saying that Calvin speaks with,
out scripture ? Rather, being ashamed to see the sunlight, let him go
and hide himself in the bosom of some prostitute. Nevertheless let
us follow this babbler for the gratification of his ambition, since, in the
very face of God, he has pushed himself forward in this matter. As
this scamp has profited so little by the scourge of his masters when yet
a child, who will not be of opinion that he ought to be instructed with
good stripes, or put to work upon the tread-mill?"
And Calvin, quite full of the spirit of God^ as he assures us, cotQf<
4a*
510 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIBT. ^
pleted his pamphlet, in which Saconay is introduced in the guise of all
the characters of ancient mythology : in which he is made to bark like
a dog, to howl like a wolf, to butt like an ox, to slaver like a harpy, to
bray like an ass. After which the reformer says : the Lord he 'praised.
In the meantime, under the shadows of his solitude, Gabriel contin-
ued his apostolic labour, without regarding this deluge of words steeped'
in wine and mud, which fell harmlessly upon his head. He found-
consolation in his cenacle of fathers and doctors — in that holy society
which formed his joy and delight, — for all the outrages of the reformer.
It was amid that choir of evangelical labourers, that he composed his
treatise "on the Blood and Body of Jesus Christ," a noble controveisiat
work, which one might imagine to be from the pen of the well beloved
disciple, admirable for its unction, its faith, charity, ascetic science,
frequently beautiful for its style, fragrant with a sweet ambrosia, and
reflecting the divine word.
And God blessed the zeal of his servant. The pamphlets of Saco-
nay were spread abroad among the people, and contributed to preserve
their hostility against a heresy, which was menacing our national unity.
Instead of the Lyonese clergy, devoured by zeal for the house of God
and the interests of the city, suppose, for a moment, a priesthood like
that of Geneva, and perhaps the people Avould have allowed themselves
to be seduced by the cajoleries of the reformation. Error would have
come to Lyons, as it had to Berne, concealed under the mantle of a
primitive christian, with a pilgrim's staflT in hand, the book of the gos-
pel under its arm, soliciting merely a small spot beneath the sunlight,
where it might adore God in spirit and truth ; and once it had secured
a foothold upon our soil, watered by the blood of our martyrs, it would
have preached, excited the populace, stirred up families, broken our
crosses, overturned our temples, mutilated our images, driven away our
bishops, confiscated all our liberties and franchises that it could have
reached. Then it would have taken a chisel and engraved upon a
high wall, as it did at Geneva in 1535 : In the year .... of our Lord,
Lyons was liberated from the chains of the Antichrist.
Do not the streets, the public places, and the edifices of that city
still show the traces of the terrible march of the reformation ? One
day, in the year 1562, it seized upon Lyons by surprise, and behold the
recital left us by Calvin, in a letter addressed to one of his brethren :
"Very dear brethren, for a long time have we been expecting letters
from you, that we might have occasion, in our reply, to unburden to
you our heart of things which lie heavy on it. But since the change
which has taken place at Lyons, we have not received a single word
from the company of elders, which causes us to think that there has
been much disorder, inasmuch as we are solicited by none to come to
the aid of a church, and you have paid no attenUon to this, even when-
the sieur Jerome des Gouttes passed this way, though he requested that
ministers be sent to aid you, he declared that no letters had been given
him. In the mean time, we hear news that has caused us great distress.
We are well aware that in such commotions, it is very difficult to be
moderate, and avoid committing excess, and' v/e easily excuse you, if
you have not held the bridle so tightly as woold have been desirable ;
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 511
but there are some things insupportable, for which we are constrained
to write to you more harshly than we would de^sire. But we should be
traitors to God, to you, and to all Christendom, in dissembling what you
have done to our great regret. It is not a decent thing for a minister to
make himself a mock soldier or captain : but it is much worse when
one quits the pulpit to bear arms : the worst is, to go to the governor
of the city with pistol in hand, and menace him, vaunting force and
violence ; for here are the words which have been repeated to us, and
which we have heard from witnesses worthy of credit : " Sir, you must
do so, for we have the power to make you." We tell you, roundly,
that this speech appears to us a horror and a monster. We have also
s:rongly detested the exclamation made by the governor and the ministers.
We place in the same category the passports and similar thin^^s, the
enormity of which has disgusted, nay, has alienated many from the
gospel, and troubled and saddened all persons that have the least piety
and modesty. Yet, this was not enough, but they must scour the coun-
try for booty and pillage of cows and other cattle, until Monsieur the
baron des Adresses came there with authority, who did not approve
such insolent acts, in which those, who make boast of beino- ministers of
the word of God, were not ashamed to take part. Now, these old
wounds have been opened afresh when we learned that the spoils taken
from the church of St. John were exposed to sale, to the highest bidder,
and sold for a hundred and twelve crowns. Nay, that they promised
the soldiers to distribute to each his portion.
'' True it is, that M. Rufi is by name charged with all these thin^-s ;
but it seems to me that, in part, you are guilty, for not having prevent-
ed them, as you had the liberty and power to do so. For, if he will
not submit to correction, let him seek and erect a church for himself.
We cannot mildly call your attention to these things, which we could
not bear without great shame and bitterness of soul. Now, though it
be late to apply a remedy, yet we cannot refrain from entreatino- you,
in the name of God, and exhorting you, as far as is in your power, to
compensate for past faults, and especially to prevent all these rob-
beries and spoliations. Far better abandon such persons, and with-
draw from them, than expose the gospel to such opprobrium, by re-
niriining in association with them. Already was there inconsiderate
zeal in committing such ravages as they have been guilty of in the tem-
ples, but what was done in hot blood, and from a certain zeal, those
who fear God will not judge rigorously. What can be said of this
booty? Under what title will it be lawful to take what beion^^s to no
individual person ? If thieves are worthy of punishment, it is a double
crime to- steal public property. Wherefore, if you do not want to be
haled and detested by all good persons, see that reparation be made for
such offences, • for, if you delay this, we very much dread that you never
will accomplish it in time. In which, we implore God to give you un-
derstanding and prudence, to direct you in equity and justice, to fortify
you with constancy and virtue, that the exertions you make may not be
useless ; but that your doctrine may fructify to the increasing glory of
bis name. Geneva, May the 13th."*
♦ Lettres Manus. Biblioth^ue du roi, coll. Dupuy, vol, iOl-102.
512 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
A beautiful letter, undoubtedly, and one for which we would gladly
give credit to the reformer ! It is unfortunate, that he who penned it
has been silent regarding those abominations, of which the reformation
was guilty at Geneva. Why has he not protested against the sacking,
of St. Peter's, against the pillage of the episcopal palace, against the
breaking to pieces of crosses, and the spoliation of monasteries? He
has beheld all these saturnalia, and looked on unmoved ! Has he so-
licited a little bread for those priests, whose place and bed he has usurp-
ed, and who are living at Chambery on charity ? Is not his habitation
furnished with articles which were stolen from the convents of La Rive
and Saint Claire ?
This letter is the production of a politician, and nothing more.
Calvin is well aware that the reformation can never triumph at Lyons
by pillaging churches, and he hastens to denounce the devastators. But
let the soldiers of the baron des Adrets do, what those of the bailiff of
Berne did in the pays de Vaud;'\ let them not leave a single cross in
the city, a single church standing, a single convent wall untouched, and
let them say : All this is ours ; then will Calvin exclaim : '• The Lord
has passed over these ruins/' and he will come from Geneva to seat
himself at the table of the leader of the expedition, and, out of the very
glasses of the monks and priests, he will drink the triumph of the word
of God 1
But the city will never again allow itself to be taken by surprise;
the lesson has been terrible ; and, besides, God has given to Lyons a
writer who will at once watch over our faith and our liberties. Let
Spifamus, the renegade, ( at a later period hung at Geneva for bank-
ruptcy), ambition the see of Ireneus; Gabriel de Saconay has some
ink left, and this will be sufficient to dissipate all the fine schemes of
the reformation If
We are now about lo see of what worth is a priest, who is able to
diffuse among the mass of the people the noble zeal, with which he
burns for the glory of his God and the honour of his city.
"On the very day, then, of their conspiracy, they attempted to sur-
prise France, and renew there the Sicilian Vespers, leaving no village
where they did not make some effort : in which, also. Divine Provi-
dence has displayed itself greatly propitious, and even in this city of
Lyons. Here, where president Birague, established governor in the ab.
sence of the duke de Nemours, though he had advices of these designs,
being from long experience wise and provident, dared, nevertheless,
make no deaioiistration, nor even openly keep on his guard, as he had
command to attempt nothing new, lest he should give occasion or colour
to the disturbers of the public peace for a commencement of troubles.
Besides the Catholics of the said city were poorly united, in no wise
foreseeing their approaching ruin which had evidently been resolved
on ; so that on Sunday, the Vigil of St. Micliael, the night when the
conspiracy was to be put in execution in said city, though indeed they
♦ Haller, Plistoire de la Revolution religieuse clans la Suisse occidentale,,
p. 33r.
't The church of Lyons implores us to give it James Spifamus Sr. de Passy»,
for minister. Registers of Geneva.
LIFE or JOHM CALVIN. 513
had some warning thereof, yet with great trouble could some of them
be assembled, as by order of the consulate was required, in the hotel of
the archbishopric, to provide for the safety of the city. But on a sud-
den, without having conferred together, these lethargic people of Lyons
were hurried and stimulated by Divine Providence : in such sort, that
about four o'clock in the afiernoon, and at the very moment that their
majesties, by the Divine Goodness, had been safely conducted to Paris,
news was received by means unheard of, as it neither came by post
nor had been despatched by express : that, on the night before, the city
of Mascon had been surprised by the rebels, who had there practised
great cruelties.
" Then, these Catholic populations, impeled by the Spirit of God,
went to the house of the governor to receive his orders : where they
learned that the rebels were resolved to seize upon the place de Confort.
Having promptly received orders, in less than an hour, all the places,
streets, and quarters of the said city were occupied. In which all con-
ditions exerted themselves so skillfully, guided and commanded by said
governor, that there was no murder, effusion of blood, outrage or vio-
lence, but even less noise than in time of great peace : it being a mo-
ment when the hearts of said Catholics were so agreed and united, that,
in such a city, composed of people of so many nations, it might have
been said that there was but one heart, one will, and one mind. On
the contrary, the adversaries of God and man, with all their devices,
intelligence, monopolies, prudence and worldly strength, had their pride
crushed, prostrated, humbled, and dissipated ; for God, in spite of their
great numbers, having suddenly deprived them of courage and power,
they did not dare appear, nor utter one word, nor even their very wives,
being seized with such dread, and no one being bold enough to come
forth and show liimself, they came near perishing with famine in their
houses."*
And now, honour be to Gabriel, whose writings exerted such a pow-
erful influence upon the religious instincts of his fellow citizens : he
has deserved well of his church and his country ! Let the church in-
scribe his name among her most eloquent defenders, and let Lyons re-
serve for him the crown, which she owes to the patriot who preserved
her from the yoke of the reformation.
Deprive Lyons of Gabriel de Saconay, of father Henry, of the order
of Capuchins ; of father Pyrus and father Maheu, Jacobins ; of father
Ropitel, of the order of Minims; of father Possevin, a Jesuit, and that
city will no longer belong to France : in losing her faith, she will lose
her nationality.
♦ De la Providence de Dieu snr les roys de France tres Chretiens, par Gabri-
el de Saconay, precenteur et comte de Tegise de Lyon. Lyon, 1568, in 4to.
The biographers of Lyons represent, that Gabriel de Saconay was born a:
Lyons. We tind the tollosving lines regarding this controvertist in the His-
torical Memoirs concerning the house of Savov, by 3L de Costa, t. I, p. 240.
"Gabriel de Sacconex, or" an illustrious familv, in the province of theGene-
v»-se, and in 1540, dean of the chapter of St. John of Lyons, was the author of
some controver.'iial works, in his time much esteeenied."
CHAPTER XLVII
ANARCHICAL PROPAGANDISM.
Means of propagandism employed by the reformation.— Nocturnal assemblies.
— Sermon with closed doors. — Colporteurs. — Libels introduced into the con-
vents.— Calvin's pamphlet against Paul III. — Notion of this work. — Protest-
ants, after the death of Calvin, reproduce his anarchical doctrines. — Dia-
logues of Nicholas de Montard.— The goods of the clergy,— The convents,
— The Maximum.
Were we to say, that in the sixteenth century there existed a society,
the chief delight of the members of which was, to calumniate their
brethren, in their morals, in their faith, and in their intelligence ; to
transform the Pope into the Antichrist, our bishops into sons of satan,
our priests into satellites of ignorance ; to decry our doctors, our holy
fathers, our sacred writers; to sully all our glories, defile all our monu-
ments, and all the pages of our history ; to excite the populace against
our doctrines; to deny us the least spark of divine inspiration ; to close
heaven against us, as idolaters ; one could scarcely believe in the exist-
ence of such hatred and injustice ! Yet this is so. Whence issued the
Protestant reformers, if not out of our schools, which they represented
as the sinks of ignorance ? Whence did they derive that science, of
which they considered themselves privileged possessors, except from the
book of some monk, whom they meanly calumniated? Who had
taken them up, fed, and clothed them ? Bishops, whom they devoted
in this life to the contempt of God and of men. But for Catholic
priests, what would have become of Melancthon, Luther, Calvin,
Capnion, and all the glories of reformed Germany ? See what happens!
Luther, who, in a convent, tasted the very first drop of the milk of po-
lite learning, passes his life in degrading monks; Calvin, who lived on
the alms of the abbe d'Hangest, sees in the Catholic priest nothing but
a devil incarnate; and Ulrich von Hutten calls that city, whence came
light to enlighten the world, the modern Babylon.
We must show you what means the reformation at first employed for
the propagation of its doctrines in France.
It had subterranean cells, in which the neophytes of both sexes clan-
destinely assembled. Cellars, whence no noise could issue, were .se-
lected by preference. The brethren had received warning on the
evening previous, as to the place and hour of rendezvous. Theper.son
who gave warning kept order. These nocturnal as.semblies, more thar*
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN, 615
once, gave rise to scenes that were not very edifying. The notifier,
very often the go-between of two lovers, was placed at a distance.
Sometimes, the a^isemblies were held in some isolated house, which al-
ways had several entrances, in order not to awaken the curiosity of
persons passing.
The minister, on his arrival, saluted the assembly, drew a Bible from
his pocket, read some verses, closed the book, and extemporized a ser.
mon against the papacy. The French reformation imitated the Protestan-
ism of Saxony; it called the Pope, the Antichrist of Rome ; the city of
Rome, the great harlot ; the cardinals, children of hell ; our priests, greas-
ers and mass-mumblers.*
Whilst the Council of Trent was in session, it smiled scornfully,
and called Paul III., Neptune, king of the seas; the bishops, Tritons,
because Trent signifies Trident; Anthony, provincial of the Carmel-
ites of Lombardy, the brother of Venus, because he was named Mari-
niero ; Robert Cenal, bishop of Avranches, a kitchen-boy,t from al-
lusion to his name.
In France, as at Wittenberg and at Erfurth, at the end of each ser-
mon the reformation predicted the downfall of "the papism," the ruin
of the episcopacy, the end of the Catholic priesthood. When the min-
ister had concluded, it prepared a table, took biead, which it cut into
small pieces, and distributed to the assistants, saying : *♦ My breth-
ren, this is the bread of the Lord, which we are about to eat in memo-
ry of his death and passion;" afterwards, some wine, which it gave to
be drunk, saying : " This is the wine of the Lord." The communion
being over, the minister commenced to return thanks, and always con-
cluded his thanksgiving with a violent philippic againt the Antichrist:
if the Pope died, the Antichrist still lived ; this was a burden which the
successors of St. Peter transmitted one to another. Li some of the
mountains of Wittenberg, the peasants still believe that the Pope is the
Antichrist, but the ministers neither believe in the Pope, the Antichrist,
the devil, nor even in Christ himself. — •' Lord Jesus," says Thiess,
"overwhelm, these impious rationalists in the lowest depths of hell. "J
At the end of each meeting, the assistants, in a low voice, swore to
observe secrecy concerning all they had just heard. Ordinarily, when
the assembly took place in some private house, the minister came with
his pockets full of dice and cards, which he threw upon the table
at the sign of the approach of some imp of satan. In the mystic Ian-
guage of the reformation, imp of satan signified simply an agent of the
police. The police did its duty, and saw through the stratagem ; and
then in place of dice, story-books were substituted, which, when the
man in black knocked at the door, the brethren seemed to be busily
reading. If the police agent confiscated the dice and books, and took
some of the assistants to prison, the reformation cried out: — tyranny. At
Geneva, it was even unwilling to leave with the Catholics some ancient
images, which were family heir-looms and treasures of childhood : if
♦ Christian Institutes, passim.
t Ut nomini suo respondeat Cenalis, ad culinam revertetur. Calv.
X Homiletisch-liturglsches Correspoudenzblatt, 1830, n. 49, p. 783.
616 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
the christian resisted, it condemned him to bread and water; if he grew
angry, it banished him j and this was called evangelical justice.
It was at Poitiers', in a garden of the street Basse-Treille, that Cal-
vin presided over the first meeting of the reformed christians. There,
were present Anthony de la Duguie, professor and doctor ; Philip Ve-
ron, procurator for tlie see; Albert Babinot, lecturer at la ministrerie,
the hall in which the professor expounded the Institutes ; John Vernon
Jr.; John Boisseau, sieur de la Boderie, advocate; Charles le Sage,
doctor. These were the first apostles who went into the provinces to
preach the Luthero Calvinistic doctrine. For fear of creating sus-
picion, nearly all changed their names. Babinot was called 7^171-
ister, because, as we have seen, he lectured in the hall la miniS'
trerie, and this name came to be applied generally to the reformed
pastors; another was named le Ramasseur, a title of honour given
to him by Calvin, who was acquainted with the neophyte's zeal.
" Le Ramasseur," says Cayer, "beat the bushes, and left no coi-
ner of Poictou, Xaintonge, or Angouleme, which he did not exa-
mine in order to see if he could catch any thing." He was of cunning
mind, acute, and knew well how to appeal to the passions, flatter the
interests and excite the imaginations of men : he met with great suc-
cess in Guyenne. Vindocrin, regent of Agen, seduced by his exhorta-
tions, made a public profession of Calvinism, and preferred death to
abjuration. Andre Melancthon, John Carvin, Andre de la Voye, pro-
fessors of Tonniens, Villeneuve, of Agen and Sainte-Foy, boldly con-
fessed the new faith and only escaped punishment by means of money
and influence.
The Calvinistic symbol taught, that the use of meat was a thing in-
different. All the students of the University, who were wont to pass
Thursday night in parading the streets, were delighted to be allowed to
eat meat on Friday. The reformation was very successful in the
schools; it also met great favour from certain ecclesiastics, to whom it
preached marriage ; from indifTerent souls, who felt burdened by a host
of observances, fasts, and mortifications, which it retrenched from reli-
gious life as useless for salvation. It had expressed itself in formal
terms with regard to auricular confession, which it held to be a mere
human invention : this is the article of the formulary which found
most favour at court, and particularly am.ong the ladies. The reforma-
tion attacked the moss, as a popish action. It was in one of the cellars
of Poitiers that Calvin, after a very warm debate, caused the abolition
of the sacrifice of the mass to be decreed. Certain Catholics were de-
sirous to defend this institution. Charles, called le Sage, one of the
most learned of the disciples of John of Noyon, who was unable to
endure contradiction, took his cap, threw it into the midst of the assist-
ants, and raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed : " Lord, if, at the day
of judgment, thou reprovest me for having renounced the papist mass, 1
will answer thee : Here is the book of revelation, show me the page
where thou givest the command to hear mass : there is no sacrifice but
that of the cross."
At Geneva, the reformation kept in its service poets, who had no
other duty but to chant " the mass-mumblers." Calvin supplied them
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN, 617
with jokes wKich they had to turn into ihyme. At Geneva and Wit-
lenberg, in the jargon of the reformation, they said that " the mass
made the priest's kettle boil." One would scarcely believe how many
verses have been made on this theme ! When the rhymster's genius
began to flag in denouncing the Antichrist, he seized hold of the papist
Helen, as Calvin termed the mass, in order to revive it,* and God
knows what beautiful inspirations he had, v/hich they printed on flying
sheets for the use of the towns and country places ! U they delected
one of these colporteurs slipping these seditious fantasies into a barn,
and cast him into prison, then you were sure of a dreadful clamour at
Geneva against the sacerdotal tyranny, which would not allow the faith
of a whole nation to be insulted in prose or in verse.
They caused anti-Catholic libels to be printed upon all the points in
dispute betw^een the two communions. There v/ere some especially
designed for convents. To cenobites they manifested : that their obli-
gations were null before God ; that the divine law never created slave-
ry; that, on the contrary, it had made humanity free ; that all vows
were superstitious inspirations ; that the vow of poverty v/as onerous
to the state ; that the vow of virginity diminished the population ; that the
vow of obedience was an outrage upon conscience." Themes, which
were again taken up at the epoch of our revolution and reproduced
to a surfeit. In perusing the pamphlets of '93, we meet again, con-
cerning the priesthood, celibacy, and convents, the ideas, and even the
very expressions of Calvin.
In these convents, there were souls who had embraced the austerities
of cenobitical life from purely human motives, and who remained in
the cloister only because the world would have passed the sentence of
its reprobation upon the rupture of those ties which were regarded as
sacred. But when they had come to preach to them that such vows
were not binding in conscience; that Christ no where had made a pre-
cept of continence, and that, in this world the prejudices of which they
dreaded, there were good persons ready to protect and defend them ;
then they were driven out of their monasteries by an ardent desire of
liberty. Scarcely had they breathed the atmosphere of the large cities,
when they were like intoxicated persons, and yielded to all the im-
pulses of the flesh. t The reformation had no missionaries more ardent.
Under the garb of men and women, they were real tempters, whose
greatest joy was to be able to seduce som.e poor girl, or some youth
quite recently devoted to the service of God. At Geneva, they em-
ployed these renegades to scour the country. Thanks to their entirely
mystic language, they obtained access to the convents, and commenced
to play the part of the fallen angel. As many souls as were deceived, so
many songs of joy and messages to the reformer. Sometimes it happened,
indeed, that the eye of some ancient sister portress or brother janitor
divined the trick, but the tempter was not discouraged ; in case of need,
he threw into the convent garden, or clipped under the parlour grate, or
* Christian Institutes.
tPlank, Geschichte d«r Entstehung'des protestantischen LehTbegrifTs, t. IV-,
'^. 83.
44
his LIFE OF JOHN CALVIW.
placed on the praying desk of the chapel, some leaves of parchment
like those which we put in prayer books, and quite full of texts of
scripture, falsified, against the vow of chastity, and more frequently
against the Pope.
Here is one which we came across in the library of Mayence, and
which appears to have been printed at Lyons.
" The Apostle St. Paul desires that the children of a christian pas-
tor should be of good morals, and well nurtured in the fear of the Lord,
Pope Paul Frenese has had a son, and his son has children, and bas-
tards besides ; and this old m.an, who is on the edge of the ditch, and
that half-rotten carrion
" What is Peter Loyse ? 1 will tell you the most horrible thing that
ever was heard of : and yet I will tell you nothing but what is true.
Italy never has produced such a monster. Why sleep you here. Sir
Pope, since the execrable debaucheries of your son have ascended to
the very heavens ? Oh ! detestable Pope ! does not the judgment of
God await thee ? If God has not spared Heli, what torment shouldst
thou expect ! But I must still urge thee closer ; what is the condition
of thy see, which ought to be to thee like a family ? What are thy
vicars doing ? On what merchandize do they traffic in thy court ?
How are thy clergy governed ? Can there be found a Sodom, where
more unrestrained license is given to all wickedness, and where sins
are less punished ?
*' Thou callest thyself successor of St. Peter, thou, who art no
more like him than some Nero, Domitian, or Caligula. If, perchance,
thou wouldst not rather choose Heliogabalus, who joined a priesthood
or new sacrificial office with the empire. Thou wilt be vicar of Jesus
Christ ; thou, whose every thought, whose every effi)rt, and whose every
act, tend to this object : to abolish Jesus Christ, provided the useless
name remain, which thou abusest, like a painted prostitute ! Thou
wilt be vicar of Jesus Christ; thou, whom all children know forcer-
tain to be the Antichrist? What Jesus Christ wilt thou forge for us,
if thou wishest his image to be recognized in thy tyranny ? We per-
ceive that thou art the prelate of all impiety, the standard-bearer of
satan, the cruel tyrant of souls, an inhuman executioner ; and as to
life, that thou art a monster made up of all w^ickedness; and, to say
all in one word, that thou art the son of perdition, of whom St. Paul
speaks, and shall we repute thee the vicar of Jesus Christ ! We see, I
say, a wolf devouring the sheep of Jesus Christ ; we behold a thief,
who drives them off; we behold a brigand, who kills them ; and shall
we esteem thee vicar of Jesus Christ !...."
The leaf bore no signature, probably, in order that at Lyons and in the
neighbouring cities they niight be able to attribute it, as the reformers said
of every pamphlet, to some ^'converted" Catholic. We are ignorant
whether or not at that time they guessed the hand that penned it : But
at the first words, Vv'e named Calvin as the author and we were not mis-
taken : it is an extract from his Brief Exposition.'" ^
* Briefve exposition sur TEpistrc du pape Paul III., envoy^e k I'empeiew^
Charles V. — Opuscules, p. 450,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 619
In fact, Calvin is the only man capable of reproducing the infamous
Gissertions of Ochino, which made even the protestant historian Sleidan
blush with shame.
It was that great pope, Paul III., who had instituted the order of the
Jesuits, and convoked the council of Trent. Now, of the disciples of
Loyola, Calvin said :
" Scoundrels, who ought to be hung, or, if the stake be not conve-
nient, driven away, or overwhelmed by calumny."*
And of the general council : " A gang of brigands and asses."
But see how, that great scourge of God, truth's lame foot moves on-
wards ! Here are three Protestants who vindicate what Calvin has
:hought proper to calumniate.
" God," says Molan, "has promised to assist his church to the con-
summation of ages, and he could not have allowed error to prevail in
those grand religious assises which are called councils."!
•'' The consecration of the Catholic dogma by scripture and tradi-
tion," says Fessler, '-'was the work of the Council of Trent. "J
•'When Paul III.," says A. Menzel, *'had read the plan of the new
Institute of the Jesuits, he exclaimed : The finger of God is there.
Protestants have always hated the disciples of Loyola, the most ardent
adversaries of the reformatio n."§
For the destruction of Catholicism in France, Calvin indicates three
means : the ruin of the papacy, the secularization of convents, and the
sale of the property of the clergy; the same, indeed, that had been
employed at Wittenberg and Geneva. In Saxony and Switzerland,
the possessions of the clergy served for the support of Protestant schools,
pastors, and preachers. Luther considered the unfrocked monk a pow-
erful auxiliary of the reformation, which he enriched by the numerous
progeny that he left behind him. The idea of increasing the popula-
lion by means of the monachal race has not escaped Calvin. In his
little tracts, there are various works of exegesis upon the crescite et mul-
tiplica7nini {'increase and multiply ), which our modern economists
often have done no more than recopy, without indicating the source
* Jesuitae vero qui se maxime nobis opponunt, aut necandi, aut si hoc com-
mode fieii non potest, ejiciendi, aut certe mendaciis et calumniis opprimendi
sunt. Calv., apud Becan., t. I, op. 17, aph. 15, de mode propagandi Calvin-
i^mum.
Basil was not the first to say : calumniate. Probably, Beaumarchais had
read the following lines in Luther's correspondence: Noshic persuasi sumus,
papatum esse veri et germani antichrist! sedem, in cujus deceptionem et ne-
quitiam, ob salutem aniraarum nobis omnia licere arbitramur. De Wette, Lu-
mbers Briefe, t. I, p. 378, n. 201.
tChristus ist durch alle lahrhunderte bei seiner Kirche, und laszt nicht zu,
dasz in solcht' einem Konzilium ein dem Glauben zuwiderlaufender Auss-
pruch gesch. Molan, Explicatio alt. Method, reunionis eccelsiee : cited by
Hoeninghaus, p. 145-146.
:}: Auch das Werk der zu Trient versammelten ehrwQrdigen Vater, war die
durchaus solgerichtige Festsetzungr der Katholisch-kirchlichen Glaubenslehre
ausgemittelt, aus derheiligen Schrift und apostolischen Ueberlieserung. Gesch -
Ichten der Ungern, t. VIII, p. 384.
9 Die Protestanten erkanhten und haszten in den Jesuiten ihre gefahrlich-
Sten Gegner.
520
LIFE OP JOHN CA'LVIN.
whence they derived their views. Calvin,, while affecting to pity the
condition of the Catholic populations, in several of his works, advises,
as a plan for ameliorating the lot of the poor, the sale of our reliquaries.
He had scarcely shut his eyes upon the light of this world, when his
disciples of France developed the theories presented in his Acts of the
Council of Trent,* in his Treatise on Relics,t in his Brief Exposition,
and urged France to an insurrection against the nobility and clergy.
The whole of our revolution, even to the Maximum, is contained in
dialogues from which we are about to give a few extracts. The au-
thor, Nicholas de Montand, in several places of his work, affirms that
he is but a modest workman content to enchase the diamond polished
by master Calvin 4
THE G0OD& or THE CLERGY.
HoNOEATus. The question regards incorporating with the king's
domains, the dukedoms, counties, baronies, goods and seigniories of the
clergy, in proportion as prelates and other beneficiaries shall die, or
even if they would do better, dis'possessing them immediately.
TuBALCAiN. Thou hast bit the nail on the head, Honoratus, and I
am not surprised that thou hast left the war to come after this most sa-
voury and delicate morsel that is in all France.
Honor/tus. Let us come to the matter of relics. Thinkest thou
that the finest money can be made out of the silver which will be ob-
tained from this source ?
TuBALCAiN. Why not ? as well as has been done with other relics
which have been employed for this purpose : but it is necessary to bo
in haste and lose no time in securing the articles, for fear lest they take
wings and fly away.
HoNOKATUs. Should there be some detainers and receivers of these
relics, who obstinately should persist in declaring that they had neither
concealed nor retained the reliquaries, it will only be necessary to set
apart some money for informers who shall discover them, and the nest
and birds will easily be found. . . There is no canon so little, from the
largest to the smallest, but has some nuts worth picking, and especially
in his cabinet each has, besides the relics of their temples, all the ap-
paratus necessary for the game of goblets on the altar, just as any jug-
* Acta synodi Tridentinse cum antidoto.
t Treatise on Relics, or a very useful admonition of the great advantnge
which would accrue to Christendom, if inventory were made of all the bodies
of saints and relics which exist as well in Italy as in France, Germany, Spaia
and other kingdoms and countries : by J. Calvin.
\ The note book of the conferences of the diocess of Lyons, (year 1840)
drawn up by M. Catet, an ecclesiiistic well versed in the history of Protectant
heresies, first put us upon the trace of the book of Nicholas de Montand, to-
day very rare, and a copy of which we found in the library of the Arsenal.
Here is its title : Le Mirroir des Francois, "compris en trois livres ; par Nico^.
las de Montand, 1581. in-12; Those who desire to write the history of Pro-
testantism in France, ought to consult the very curious letter of Scipio and
Milo, commissaries of war, to Gregory, bishop of Rome.. M.Daunou, author
of the Essay on the Temporal Power of the Popes, has evidently availed hiiu*
self of this document for the C'Smposition oi" his work.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 621
^ler may have for his tricks and pass-pass. It is true, one has his table
utensils of silver, another of tin.
TuBALCAiN. Perhaps they will have to mix these with the silver
of the reliquaries, and none of the same should be used till it be
accurately known how many marks of silver there are in bars, and
how many quintals of bell and other metals^ and should they desire to
use some of it for casting artillery, they would be unable to find any
better material.
HoNORATDs. Consider a moment in your own mind how many
bells there are in Paris, how many relics may be there, and how
many canons who separately have their chalices and other garniture
for the altar, and calculate w^hat will be obtained from other cities and
towns, such as Toulouse, Naibonne, Carcasonne, Bordeaux, and other
cities which have not yet been despoiled, accumulate all this into an
inestimable treasure.*
When then, search shall be made for relics,, it will be proper to
look seriously to other saints who have been richer than the Virgin and
more worldly, and they will find that if this good lady, who had given
birth to the true Emmanuel in a manger, has after her death possessed
so many dresses and rings, that the others must be much better fur-
nished with richer articles in comparison with hers, who was but a poor
little woman ; besides I think she looked higher than her silver and
sandals.f Then will they stop fabricating and making saints of both-
sexes, when the others, which the king will seize, shall have been
melted down.
THE CONVENTS.
TuBALCAiN. Your remark is good and salutary ^ but let us speak
of other things. And in fact, I know not what course they will
pursue to deliver that nursery of persons existing in the sink of the
convents.
HoNOKATUS. I think there will be no need of much pulling at the
ears of most of the monks to make them come forth from their den.
TuBALCAiN. When once out of their convents, enough occupation
can be given them, if they will put hand to the work.
HoNOKATUs. To economize well, they should observe the law of
the two emperors, Valentinian and Valens, by which it was ordered that
those, who should follow the monastic life, thereby flying from public
duties, should be forced out of their hiding places, and either con-
strained to serve their country, or deprived of all other necessaries,
which should be transferred to those who sustain the labours and dan-
gers of the republic.
TuBALCAiN. Thou commenccst to make terrible regulations ; but
what ? would it be necessary that the four mendicant orders, the white
monks, the black monks, the Celestins, Mathurins, Jesuits, Capu-
• Miroir, etc., page 170.
t Id.. page 175.
44*
522 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
chins, Carthusians, good men, canons, priests and other gentry of the-
clergy and even our masters of the Sorbonne, should throw off their
habits and till the earth. How could this be done ? More than a
third of those who did nothing would be constrained to labour. And
then, if they married, (as in fact they might do were they to frequent
the world freely) there would not be half enough towns to support the
population, which in twenty years would multiply and cover the earth.
HoNOEATUS. The earth Avould be no more filled with people than
it is now ; for whilst each one will have but one wife, it is sufHciently
manifest that conventual and monastic men are entirely carried away
and enflamed by their concupiscence, shamelessly scouring the country
after their sensuality and pleasures, like bulls, so that the land is pol-
luted by their bastard boys and girls, Avho come from the unchaste
amours of these shameless villains, and I much regret to hold such
language, for fear my readers be horrified, in reading what I say, to
learn such wicked and abominable things.
TuBALCAiN. When all these things shall be well considered, it
"will be found that there are great disorders in this monachal life, and
that it Avould be requisite to allow those to marry who have not the
gift of continence, for it is a pure folly in men to have vowed chastity,
and given a promise to keep it, if they look no higher than their own
strength ; for it is not given to all ; and all those vows are to be con.
demned which are not sanctioned by the word of God, such as those
of monks and nuns, as the author to the Hebrews warns us that mar-
riage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled; but God will judge
debauchees and adulterers, and in the first epistle of St. Paul to the
Corinthians, it is said': " Do not deceive yourselves : neither fornica-
tors, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the shall possess the
kingdom of God." Hence, Honoratus, I yield to thy opinion; and
it is my will that it be soon well executed provided they proceed there,
in with requisite civility and honesty.
Honoratus. The steps proper to be used for this would be, that
honest persons should withdraw their brothers, sisters, and near rela-
tions who are in the cloisters, nunneries, and convents, from that nursery
where they live, and keep them for a time with themselves to admon-
ish them, cheer theui in the Lord, encourage them to learn some honest
employment in order to pass through this frail and deceitful life, and
not give them occasion to be sad for having employed their time so
badly, but rather remind them of God's goodness in withdrawing them
from the idolatries and pollutions in which they were plunged, to lead
and conduct them back to a belief in one only Jesus Christ who was
crucified,
TuBALCAiN. The order which you propose has great appearance
of being well devised as far as concerns young persons and others who
are forty years of age and under : for they will be able to learn some
employment by which to support life according to their rank; some
could be employed in agriculture, others in some honest trade to which
their taste shall incline them, others could be college rectors, principals,
or professors. But those who are over forty years of age, and shall
have been from childhood in a claister,. should, in my opinion during
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 525'
life only,, receive some small annuity from the domain and revenues of
their convent, that, with this and what they may derive from their
labour, study, and industry, they may finish their days in peace.
HoNOKATus. Some of these old persons will be fit for keepers or
masters of hospitals, others will be able to study and benefit the public
in future, and can be employed in good universities, others who know-
how to make some thing unusual, such as bitters and cordials, and
the greater part, who love the management of country houses, can labour
there in taking care of the stock, so that if this take place, never has
there been such harmony, such abundance of grain, of wine, and all
good things as then will be seen, for each one will take pains to cul-
tivate the earth well, to clean, polish and level those rugged places,,
which grow full of bushes for want of cultivation.
TuBALCAiN. Thou Still fofgcttest the principal point; which is
that should any sworn enemy of the country want to make war against
our king, he could raise the finest and largest army ever monarch
levied in Europe.
HoNOKATus. Ink and paper would fail me should I undertake to
set forth all the advantages which will result from this new change ;
for whilst at present artizans can be found only at great expense and
with difficulty : we shall then have a choice of them : so that silks,
woolen cloths, leather, and generally all other articles of merchandize
would be cheaper, and, what is more, some of these cloistered gentry
will invent several good, elegant,, and useful things, not yet seen, made,.
or used.
THE MAXJMUM.-
RoNOKATUs. My soul leaps with joy at seeing our plan so well
matured : but we must ornament it with a regulation for all goods and
merchandize whatever, that they may ordinarily be at the same price.
For the greatest of all disorders,, at present, pervades all goods and
merchandize which are sold wholesale and retail, and if things be not
amended and equalized, it is to be feared lest in a short tiaie, the nour-
ishment of a man will require as much gold as he will weigh. To
obviate which, nothing will be better or more expedient than to make
a catalogue, and a rate of price for grain, wines,, meats, poultry, which
shall be sold in market, at the butcher's stalls, and the hotels, and to
fix up said catalogue and rate, at the street corners and most remarka-
ble points where said markets, butcher's stalls, and hotels are found,
giving express command to venders and purchasers, under penalty of
imprisonment and pecuniary fine, to observe the said rate,, and to the
police to use strict watch and requisition that his majesty be obeyed.
TuBALCAiN. Since we have a mode of life well adapted for our
France,. I shall present it to the States, to know their good pleasure,.
and as soon as I have perceived that it will be conformable with our
own, I shall place the papers on. the table, and cause them, to be readi
to them. . . .. ."
524 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
Do you now comprehend the fears entertained by the clergy and
the people of Lyons for their faith and their nationality ; the severity of
the civil power, if you choose so to designate it, against those politi-
cal agitators who came from Geneva quite full of the spirit of the
theocrat, and spread themselves over our provinces, in order to
preach up disobedience to our laws, revolt against our priests, con-
tempt for our liturgical forms, pillage, murder, incendiarism ? Gen-
eva was the grand rendezvous of all the malcontents of France.
There, was concocted the conspiracy of Amboise ; there, was devised
tlie attack upon Lyons, and its capture by stratagem. There, they
gave up to one Spifamus the first see of the Gauls ! And had not God
placed in the hearts of the people a faith so pure, in his clergy a
devotedness so ardent, in the magistrates a vigilance so active, and in
Calvin the germs of a premature death, who knows what would have
been the fate of our southern provinces ?
CHAPTER XLYIII.
Calvin's death. 1564.
The Reformer is afflicted by various maladies. — His letter to the physicians of
Montpellier. — Causes of his last sufferings. — His doctrines abandoned by
Zurich. — His adieux to the council. — His last testament. — The approach of
death. — His last moments. — His funeral.
At the age of forty Calvin already presented all tlje signs of decre-
pitude, his back was stooped, his face emaciated, his lips were discol-
oured, his hair was grey, and his brow despoiled. His eye alone
preserved its habitual fire. From infancy he had been subject to
various maladies which time had only served to aggravate ; when at
college he already complained of the megrim, which afterwards sud-
denly smote him like a thunderbolt, when at tabJe, at the council, or
in the pulpit. The approach of the infliction could be discerned by
the purpling of his lips, the contraction of the facial muscles, the feb-
rile irritation of the brain. In perusing his later writings, it is not
even difficult to indicate the very passage at which the malady seized
him : his phrase, usually dull, then emits a few pale sparks. But
this over excitement of the brain soon troubles the intellect of the
writer, who is compelled to pause, to cease from labour, and even
to suspend the exercise of thought. Luther also was tormented with
vertigos, during which his head Avas filled with the roar of crumbling
mountains, the din of tempests, and the hiss of serpents ; but he had
early begun to resist the assaults of the demon by whom he imagined
himself visited at such times, and his word, forced to work its way
through the thick strata of white clay beneath which satan wanted to
hold it in bondage, resembled the lightning flashing athwart the dark
clouds, and fell upon the paper in torrents of fire. Calvin, who did
not, like the monk, believe in the domineering influence of the evil
spirit,* paused when his pains were too violent. He then invoked
obscurity to his aid ; he shut himself up in his room, drew thick cur-
tains before his windows, cast himself on his bed, and allowed the
disease gradually to exhaust itself. Towards the end of his life all
these sedative expedients had become inefficient. His head continued
to burn for entire hours, and the volcano emitted no flames. A suf-
focating catarrh nailed him to his bed, deprived him of sleep, of the
* See chapter entitled: The Devil and the Antichrist.,
526
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIHT.
power to move his legs or arms, and even of the ability for serious re-
Section. During his last years, and particularly in winter, he passed
the nights before a large fire quite covered with woolen blankets.
Beza says that at intervals he calmly slept "the sleep of childhood."
Did Calvin then escape the chastisement of those who have stained
their hands with blood ! More than once must he have been visited
by the shades of Berthelier, Servetus, Gruet, and of all the patriots
whom he had handed over to the executioner. God is just ! and those
attacks of cholic, those spasms, that gout, those piles, that gravel, those
cancerous wounds, and that train of maladies, which assailed him at
the same time just before his death, were but a temporal expiation o(
all the tears and sufferings he had cost humanity. He had no joy,
because joy, says St. Thomas, is the fruit of charity, and he had never
loved.*
Some time previously to his death, Calvin had addressed to the phy-
sicians of Montpellier a letter in Latin full of details regarding the
various torments which he was enduring at that time, and a part of
which we here translate.
" When Sarasin, my ordinary physician, had informed me of the
remedies you advised in my case, I said to him : But who then, with-
out my knowledge, has applied to the doctors of Montpellier ? — It
was, said he, at the express solicitation of your colleagues, that I drew
up a consultation, setting forth all your infirmities. — Your answer man-
ifests the interest your feel for me, and the desire you entertain to pro-
long my existence.
" Twenty years since, learned doctors had the idea which you ex-
press to day : they wished to cure me. But at that time I was not
tormented by the gout, the stone, the gravel, the cholic, the piles, nor
by an internal hemorrhage ; all these maladies have at once pounced
upon me like an inimical hord. The quartan fever has scarcely left
me, when I am seized with cramps in the calf of the legs, which at
first allow me some respite, and then are converted into a pulling and
hauling of the muscles from the foot to the knee. And here I am
through the whole summer a prey to a frightful neuralgy. The mo-
tion of the horse has become insupportable to me, and I have tried a
litter or portable chair ; in returning from a little excursion to the coun-
try, I wanted to walk : I had scarcely gone a league when I was com-
pelled to stop : my legs were swollen. Having reached home I went
to bed, and experienced nervous pains which the efforts of art were
unable at first to alleviate. The malady yielded, after I had passed a
stone so large that it injured the arteries and caused a hemorrhage which
was finally arrested by the probe. Since then several stones have
come away, and my nervous pains are somewhat assuaged; but I have
no hope of cure, for I can neither take exercise on foot nor on horse-
back ; add to all these ills, a debility of stomach so great that the food
I take remains entirely undigested. But in place of returning you my:
* Gaudium est efTectus charitatis.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 627
ihanksj I am afflicting you with all these details which serve no other
purpose than to give you alarm."*
When on the point of leaving this earth, he beheld his work going
to ruin. The Consensus Tigurinus and the Consensus pastoruin
Genevensium were about to be divided : Zurich was returning to the
ideas of Zwingle regarding the Lord's Supper. Berne decidedly re-
jected predestination.! Lyons, thanks to what the reformation in its
pamphlets called the "papal vermin and low priesthood," drove Viret
beyond its walls.:}: The blood of the Franci5cans,§ with which the
Soane had been crimsoned, had cried to God and been heard. Henry
d'Albon, Saconay, and Auger, aided by the people, rescued the city
from the yoke of the sectaries. The conspiracy of Renaudie, i| con-
cocted at Geneva, failed; France preserved its God, its faith and its
king.
In the month of February 1564, Calvin ascended the pulpit for the
last time : in the midst of his discourse he was seized with violent
attacks of coughing.
On the 27th of March, he wish to make his final adieux to the
council. Two men supported him upon the steps of the hotel de milt.
He was only able to articulate a few words of sympathy : "I am
about to die, said he to the counselors, nature can hold out no longer."^
On the 2d of April, Easter day, he assisted at the services, and after
the sermon received communion at the hands of Beza.**
His strength was exhausted ; God afflicted him in the most potent or-
gan of the understanding. His brain, rendered sterile, could no longer
obey the impulses of thought without causing his body to suffer most
poignant agonies. His hand was paralyzed as well as his head: at that
moment it could not have written as it did in 1546 : If Servetus come
to Geneva, he shall not leave it alive. His fingers, which had traced
so many calumnies against Catholicism, blackened so many glorious
reputations, vilified so many noble spirits, shaken up so much gall and
wormwood, signed so many decrees of exile and death, were frozen, as if
already stiffened with the cold of the tomb. He was like the sick
man of Dante, who, in turning from side to side on his bed of pain,
vainly tries to elude death.
E, se ben ti ricorda, e vedi lume,
Vedrai te simigliante a quella 'nferma,
Che non puo trovarposa in su'le piume,
Ma con dar voha suo dolore scherma. ft
* 8 fev. 1564.
t Schroeckh, Amosnit. t. II, p. 204, t. V, p. 177-181.
:j: See : Discourse concerning the vermin and low priesthood of Lyons, ex-
pelled by the mighty arm of tlie Lord, 1562. — Lyons and the just puiiishment
\)f God on the papal vermin.
^ Les Grands Cordeliers deLyon, par I'abbe Pavy.
IJEpist. XVI, 1561.
V Life of Calvin, for the use of Protestants schools, by E. Haag. 1840.
*♦ Discourse of Theodote Beza, containing a brief history of the life and
death of master John Calvin, 1564, p, 45-49.
tt Purgatorio. C, VI.
628 LIFE Of JOHjJf CALVIN,
He became aware that his final hour was about to strike, and before
bidding farewell to Geneva he wanted first to dictate his last will.
On the twenty-fifth of April he caused the notary Chenelat to be
called, who took down the testamentary dispositions of the dying re-
former. The thing which occupies the mind of Calvin, at the mo-
ment of his appearing before the tribunal of God, is the judgment of
the world which he is about to leave. On his death bed, you will still
behold the same despot who sought to deceive posterity as he had
deceived Geneva, and to induce us to believe that, in the whole course
of his life, he never used ''cunning and sophistries ; but always pro-
ceeded roundly in defence of his quarrel." The reformer did well to
abolish confession, for the Catholic priest who should have come to
visit him would never have suffered the dying man to lie thus to God
and men. He would have opened the windows of the sufferer's cham-
ber, and, with his finger, pointed to that hill of Champel, where, by
searching carefully, some of the ashes of Servetus might still have
been found. Here is the last page that Calvin signed before he gave
up his soul to God.*
" In the name of God. Be it knownand manifest to all, that in the
year one thousand five hundred and sixty-four, on the twenty-fifth day
of the month of April, I, Peter Chenelat, citizen and sworn notary of
Geneva, have been called by the respectable M. John Calvin, minister
of the word of God in the church of Geneva, and burgher of said
Geneva, being sick and indisposed in body only, who has declared to
me his wish to make his testament and the declaration of his last will,
praying me to write the same as he should dictate and pronounce ; his
said request I have complied with, and I have written it under him and
according as he dictated and pronounced it word by word, without
omitting or adding anything, in the form which follows. Tn the name
of God, I, John Calvin, minister of the word of God in the church of
Geneva, feeling myself so prostrated by various diseases that I cannot
think otherwise but that God designs shortly to withdraw me from this
world, have desired to make and record in writing my testament and
the declaration of my last will, in the form following.
*' In the first place, I render thanks to God, not only because he has
had pity on me, his poor creature, and rescued me from the abyss of
idolatry into which I was plunged, by attracting me to the light of his
gospel and making me participator of the doctrine of salvation, of
which 1 was too unworthy, and also because, continuing his mercy, he
has borne with me in so many vices and so great misery, which merited
that I should a hundred times have been rejected by him. But what is
more, he has extended to me his mercy, even so far as to make use of
me and my labour to carry and announce the truth of his gospel : pro-
testing my wish to live and die in that faith which he has given me ;
having no other hope or refuge except in his gratuitous adoption, on
which all my hope of salvation is grounded : embracing the merit of
his death and passion, that by this means all my sins may be buried,
■end beseeching him to so wash and cleanse me with the blood of that
* Vie de Calvin, par Bclze.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN, 529
great Redeemer, which has been shed for all poor sinners, that 1 may
be able to appear before his face, bearing his image. I protest also, that
1 have endeavoured, according to the measure of grace which he gave
me, to teach his word purely, as well in sermons as by writing, to ex-
pound the scriptures faithfully. And even in all the disputes which I
had against the enemies of the truth, I have used neither cunning nor
sophistry; but I have proceeded fairly to maintain his quarrel. But
alas ! the wish, and the zeal I had, if I can so call it, has been so cold
and pusillanimous that I feel myself very responsible throughout and in
all things; and but for his infinite goodness all the affection I have
would be only smoke ; nay-, the very graces he has given me would
render me so much the more culpable : so that my only recourse is,
that as he is the Father of mercy he may show himself a father to so
miserable a sinner. Moreover, I desire that my body, after my death,
should be buried in the usual way, to await the day of the happy resur-
rection. Regarding the little property which God has given me here to
dispose of, I name and appoint as my sole heir my well beloved bro-
ther Anthony Calvin, yet this being only honorary, as all that J leave
him in his own right, is the cup which I have received from M. de Va-
rennes; praying him to be satisfied wdth this, as I am sure he will, as
he is aware that I do so for no other reason but in order that what I
leave behind may be enjoyed by his children. Afterwards, I bequeath
to the college ten crowns, and as many to the purse for the poor. Item,
to Jane, daughter of Charles Costan and my half-sister by the father's
side, the sum of ten crowns. Then, to Samuel and John, sons of my
-said brother, being my nephews, forty crowns each. To my nieces,
Anne, Susan, and Dorothea, thirty crowns each. As to their brother,
my nephew David, as he has been light and inconstant, 1 only give
him twenty-five crowns by way of chastisement. The sum of this is
all the property that God has given me, as well as I have been able to
estimate, considering books and furniture, table utensils and other
things. Yet should the amount be found greater, I wish that it may be
distributed among my nephews and nieces, not excluding David, if God
give him the grace to be more moderate and more sedate. But I be-
iieve as to this article there is no difficulty : especially when my debts
shall have been paid, as I have enjoined on my brother, on whom J re-
ly, naming him executor of this present testament, together with respect-
able Laurent of Normandy, investing them with all power and author!-
ty to draw up an inventory, without the forms of law, and make sale of
my moveables to reduce the same to money, in order that what is here-
in written may be accomplished. This twenty-fifth day of April, one
thousand five hundred and sixty-four. Thus be it.
"John Calvin."
" After having written as above, at the same instant the said respect-
able Calvin has with his usual signature signed the very document of
said will."
" And on the next day, which was the twenty-sixth day of April, one
thousand five hundred and sixty-four, the said respectable Calvin caused
me immediately to be summoned, together with the respectable The-
odore Beza, Raymond Chauvet, Michael Cop, Louis Enoch, Nicholas
45
530 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK,
Celadon, James de Bordes, ministers of ihs word of God in this churchy
and respectable Henry Seringer, professor of arts, all burghers of Ge-
neva, in the presence of whom he declared that he caused me to write
under him and his dictation the said testament, in the form and in the
very words as above ; praying me to read it in his presence and that of
said witnesses to this request and demand ; which 1 did aloud and word
for word. After which reading, he declared that such was his will and
last testament, wishing that it should be observed. And, for further
approbation of this, he besought and required the above named persons
to subscribe it together with me : which also was done on the day and
year before written, at Geneva, in the street called des Chanoines, at
the house of said Calvin. In testimony whereof, and to serve as proof,
I have placed the present testament in the above form, to be sent to
whom it shall belong, under the common seal of our honoured seig-
niors and superiors, and with my accustomed sign manual.
'' Signed : P. CnEifELAT."
There is one Pope, whom Calvin treated as Luther did Henry
VIII. , covering his face with mud : this was Paul III., who, v;hen dy-
ing, forgave all his enemies after the example of the Saviour on his
cross. If you have witnessed the last moments of our Catholic glories,
you must have seen exhale with their final breath a word of love for
those who caused them to suffer in this life : without this evangelical
wish, the priest never would say to the soul : Depart, christian soul
( Proficiscere, anima Christiana). Calvin, in his last hour, pardoned
nobody. Would Beza, who undertakes to describe the last moments
of his friend, have forgotten to record the words of mercy which he
should have heard 1
On the 27th, the disease augmenting, Calvin wished to bid farewell
to the counselors, '"but,"' relates the historian, "the good seigniors made
answer, that because of his debility and so great indisposition they be-
sought him earnestly not to take the trouble, but that they themselves
altogether would go to visit him, which they did, going to his lodgings,
from the council-chamber, accordins: to their accustomed order."* Then,
the reformer collecting ail his energies, v;hich were perceptibly failings
retraced to the assistants all the different phases of that long and painful
struggle in which they had assisted ; the perils they had encountered ; the
graces which God had poured out upon their city, and he said to them ;
"Persevere, walk ever in the way of the Lord, and by the light of his
holy word."
On Friday, the 28th of April, f the ministers of Geneva and the en-
virons assembled in his bed-chamber. Calvin conjured them to per-
severe in the way which he had opened before them, never to lose
courage, but to brace themselves up against the assaults which undoubt-
edly the demon would make upon them. " God will support the city,'""
he said, "and the church and doctrines which I have preached to you.
Behold, naturally I am timid and fearful, yet, by the aid of the Lord,
I have foiled my enemies, both external and internal, for God has
• Beze, Vie de Calvin.
t Calvin tind the Swiss reformation, by John Scott, p. 394.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 531
Strengthened me to remain firm in doing what was right." He added,
"let each one fortify himself in his vocation and observe due order ;
let him watch over the people, to keep them always in doctrinal obedi-
ence ; that there were some good persons, but also there were some
mutinous and rebellious."*
Then he raised his icy hand and presented it to be kissed by each of
those present.
Old Farel, broken down by age and sufferings, having been inform-
ed of the dangerous condition of his friend, was about setting out to
embrace him, when he received a letter in which he recognized the
signature of the person he had loved with an affection so ardent.
'' May you be well, very good and very deai- brother, since it pleases
God that you should remain behind me, live, mindful of our union, the
fruit of which awaits us in heaven, as it has been advantageous to the
church of God. I do not wish you to undergo any fatigue on my ac-
count. I breathe with the greatest difficulty, and am hourly expecting
my last breath. It is enough that I live and die for Christ, who is in
life and death the greatest gain for those who are his. I recommend
you and the brethren there to God. Geneva, this 2d of May, 1564.
" Yours devotedly,
"John Calvin."
But Farel started and arrived at Geneva barely in time to embrace
fiis friend and say farewell, t
Beza stayed with Calvin, who, at intervals^ lifted up his eyes to-
ll eaven and murmured ; Gemeham sicut columha.
On the 19th of May, the vigil of Pentecost, a day on which it
was customary for the ministers of Geneva to sup together, Calvin
intimated a wish thai the repast should take place as usual, but in his
chamber. An arm-chair had been prepared for the sick man, who took
his seat. "My brethren," said he to his colleagues, "I come to see
you for the last time, and after this, I shall never more sit at table."
Then his lips opened and murmured some words of prayer. But soon
be asked to be alone. " They are about to remove me to my bed-
room," said he to them ; "a wall shall not prevent me from being with
you in spirit."
He passed a bad night : the air which the sick man breathed painful-
ly revolved in his lungs like columns of fire, whilst the coldness of
death seized upon his legs, his right side, his tongue, and paused around
that eye which had so long held the consistory in awe : this was the last
organ that expired in Calvin. On the 27th, he lost consciousness, and
the agony commenced : at eight o'clock in the morning he had ceased
to breathe. " On that day," says Beza, ''the sun went down, and the
greatest luminary that ever came into the world for the direction of the
church of God was withdrawn to heaven. On that night and the fol-
lowing day, there were great lamentations throughout the city : the
prophet of the Lord was no more. "J
* Beze,
t Calvin and the Swiss reformation, p. 395
% Beze, Vie de Calvin.
332
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN..
Reza adds : " There were many strangers who came from a distance
and marvelously desired to see him, dead as he was, and urged to be
allowed this.... But, to prevent all calumny, he was taken away
about eight o'clock in the morning, and about two hours after noon, he
was borne in the usual manner, as he had ordained, to the common
burial place, called Plein-Palais, without any pomp or parade what-
ever ; there he now lies, expecting the resurrection which he has tauglit
us, and for which he has so constantly laboured."
This calumny of which Baza here speaks was public rumour, which
recounted strange things regarding the last moments of the reformer.
It was said that no one had been allowed to enter the death chamber,
because the body of the deceased bore traces of a desperate struggle
v/ith death, and showed a decomposition in which the eye would have
seen visible signs of divine anger, or marks of an infamous disease ;
also, they had hastened to veil the face of the corpse Avith a black cloth,
and to bury it before the rumour of death had been spread through the
city, so great fear had they of indiscreet looks ! But it chanced that a
young student, having glided into the chamber of the dead man,, lifted
the cloth, and beheld the mysteries which it was their interest to keep
concealed. No one had asked him to reveal the secret. He wrote :
" Calvin died, smitten by the hand of an avenging God; the victim
of a shameful disease which ended in despair."*
This student was Harennius, who had come to Geneva to attend the
lessons of the reformer.
The funeral was simple, as Calvin had desired. The counselors, pas-
tors, professors, a crowd of strangers, accompanied the coffin to Plein-
Palais.
'' He had: lived,, as to this mortal life, during the space of fifty-five
year^, less one month and thirteen days, of which he had passed the
hal^ precisely in the holy ministry, preaching and writing, without ever
haying changed, diminished, or added any thing as regarded the doctrines
he announced."
Beza is mistaken, as Liebe has acknowledged : Calvin, at differ-
ent times, had revised the Institutes which contain his whole symbol. f
" The Lord, adds his panegyrist, tried the blessed reformer with
regard to persons who were very dear to him ; but worse happened to
Jacob and to David." Bteza intends here to refer to the family of
♦■Calvinus in desperatione finiens vitam obiit turpissimo et foedissimo mor-
bo quern Deus rebellibus et malediclis comminatus est, prius excniciatus et
consumptus, quod ego verissime attestari audeo qui funestum et tragicum illi-
us exitum et exitiumhis meis ooulis prjesens aspexi. Joann. Harennius, apud
Pet. Cutzenum.
t We have already called the reader's attention to various alterations made
by Calvin in his primitive work ; let us here add that in the edition- of 1539.,
in fol : Argentorati, apud Vuendelinum Rihelium, mense augusto, the dedi-
cation to Francis I. is altered in different passages, for instance page 6, Uses,
3 to 19, page 10, lines 2.4 to 3/5.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 633
Anthony, which " gave the example of complete disunion and great
faults."*
♦ Galiffe, Notices, t. Ill, p, 111. Here are the details given by the histo-
rian concerning Calvin's family.
Anthony Calvin, received burgher of Geneva on the 3d of August 1546, gra-
tuitously, out of consideration for his brother ; one of the Two Hundred in
1558; of the Sixty, in 1570; died in 1573. He made his will on the 28th of
March 1569. He had for wives:
1st. Anne, wife of Nicholas le Fert, divorced for adultery, and again mar-
ried to the noble John Louis Ramel;
2d. This I4th of January 1560, Antoinette Commelin, widow of the noble
John de Saint Andre, minister, daughter and heiress of Toussaint Commelin,
burgher of Douay. By the first wife, he had :
1st. Samuel Calvin, a disobedient son, reduced to the third of an hereditary
portion, living in 1590;
2d. David Calvin, still more disobedient, reduced to the sixth, born in 1551 ;
3d. Anne, wife of Firmin Bachelier, who was received burgher of Geneva,
gratuitously in 1565, out of love for his father-in-law;
4th. Susan, who died of the pest at the age of twenty-one, in 1571, and by
the second marriage;
5th. John;
6th. Dorothea;
7th. Judith;
8th. Marie ;
These last three fell victims to the pest in 1571.
John Calvin, one of the Two Hundred in 1590, died in 1601, being destitute
of children, he made his will, on the 10th of July 1590, in favour of his mother,
:o whom he substituted her brother Peter de Saint Andre.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CALVIN, CONS-IDEEED AS A) WRITEE.
Calviii and, Luther in the pulpit. — Causes of Calvin's oratorical inferiority, — -
He disdains images. — The Genevese and the Wittenberg auditories.— Self
predominates in Calvin.— The Libertines. — In what different degrees the
reformers are masters of their style. — Is Calvin one of the creators of the
French language? — Syntactical procedure.
The reformation can boast of but one writer. Luther, in the pul-
pit an orator and exegetist, is a type which has no model in Protestant-
ism. The doctor has studied profoundly the holy books, the fathers of
the church, and the poets; he knew by heart, Virgil, the prophets, and
especially the Saxon people. Mathesius exhibits him to us, descend-
ing into the mines in order to hear the conversations of the workmen,
seating himself amid the fields to speak of agriculture with the hus-
bandmen, pausing before the stall of some butcher to learn all the parts
of a slaughtered animal ; interrogating the lapidary to learn the names
of all the precious stones which ornament the ducal crown; and on
market days studying the language of the peasants, the merchants, the
nobles, and soldiers. From these various dialects, he had selected
technical terms, market-house proverbs, bar-room tropes, in order to
mould them into an idiom, the secret of which he reserved to himself.
One day, he wants to strike the imagination in a lively manner, he is
about to speak of the emperor Charles V. After having summoned to
his aid the worm of earth, the clay, the slime, comparisons which the
sacred writers employ to paint to us our magnificent nothingness, he
rummages the carpenter's vocabulary for expressions known to every
journeyman, and he nails the living emperor in his coffin, apd planes it,
lor these are his terms, and the frightened auditory look to earth as if
the monarch were descending.into his tomb.
The Saxon had appeared at the very moment when all the evangeli-
cal truths were in their blossom. Hence that inexhaustible variety of
entirely Catholic images of which he could avail himself in preaching
the gospel. In his sermons, he invokes the seraphim whom the refor-
mation can no longer summon, since it has transformed them into pure
allegories ; he commands satan and his legions, whom it has consigned
to an imaginary world; he sounds the trumpet of the last judgment,
which it has broken to pieces ; he caused the rich man to cry for
mercy, out of whom it has made a fable; he opens the deep abyssof
eternal fire, which it has closed ; in fine, in order to arouse sleeping
LrFE OF JOHN CALVI2f, 535
souls, he employs tropes which, since the inroad of rationalism, it has
banished from its language. Had Calvin then been even as admirably
organized as Luther for the pulpit, his relative inferiority could easily
be explained ; when he appeared, reason had prevailed against faith ;
the source of those images, so powerful with the mass of the people
because of their poesy, had for him been completely dried up ; the
tree of life had been despoiled. To the relinquishment of the syllogistic
argument, Luther was indebted for his noblest successes. Calvin
thought to continue the monk's work by the aid of the Aristotelian
formula, and made himself a pulpit logician; that is, in order to sacri-
fice to the Lord, to borrow the picturesque expression of his rival, he
ascended the mountain with his ass ; whilst Luther was of opinion
that one should imitate Abraham, and leave the ass in the plains below.
Luther possessed another advantage over Calvin ; he spoke a Ian*
guage which of right becomes the property of the first comer, which
yields to all the exigences of the philosopher, to all the fancies
of the poet, to all the caprices of the artist; w^hich amid its ceaseless
transformations is ever new. Fortunately was it for that noble Teu.
tonic language, that the man who had to represent it in the pulpit was
at once a theologian, a historian, an orator, and especially a linguist.
A person opening one of Luther's sermons, imagines himself at Rome,
at Athens, and at Jerusalem : it seems by turns a Jewish elegy on the
banks of the Jordan, a harrangue of the Gracchi, and a satire of
Juvenal. '' Look at him, he goes, comes, breaks down, burns the
hedge which he cannot leap, thunders on like a descending rock, scam-
pers away over mountain and valley, after the fashion of the devil." *
Calvin's figure was supple, his breast contracted,, the veins of his
neck were prominent, his lips of a bluish colour,, his mouth was well
made, his brow, large, bony and furrowed with wrinkles. There was-
no inspiration in his face,, but there were many premature wrinkles,
which bore witness to extraordinary labours. On beholding him, one
divined an organization which needed the silence of meditation to make
itself prolific ; and in his- preaching, there came nothing unexpectedly,
Luther, in ascending the pulpit, knew not, as he informs us, what he
was about to say to his auditors. The Bible,, opened by chance at any
page, a cloud which passed over the temple, a ray of sunlight which
pierced the windows, the last remark of one of his disciples from whom
he had just parted, are for him so many sources of inspiration. More
than once has it happened to him to take, as text for a harrangue
against the papacy, some of those fantastic figures which the architect
has afiixed to the walls of the church. Calvin also extemporized; but
he had need to rub his brow with his hand in order to recall to mind
the discourse prepared beforehand. His memory was wonderful; he
said every thing that he had thought,, and in the very order in which
the ideas had been produced. Ask him not for flashes, flames, colours ;
it is not his part to dazzle, to surprise, to inflame, but merely to reason,
and to convince. As he has never wept himself, he seeks not to open
the fountain of tears in his auditory, but he wants those who hear him.
* See : Reformations Almanach fttr Luthers Verehrer, Erfurth, 1817.
536 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
to give him their silent attention, and often he forces them to grant it,,-
Calvin possesses neither the knightly language of Luther, the harmo-
nious period of Melancthon, nor the adventurous phrase of Zwingle ;
but he is the superior of all of them in propriety of expression ; remove
or change a word, and you risk depriving him of an idea. Obstinate
as master Martin, he has not the scruples of conscience of master
Philip ; once he has resolved,, he imitates Luther, and dreads neither
rocks nor hedges ; except that if he perceives his adversary, he squats
in order to wait for him. He is of the serpent's nature : his strength
lies in his cunning. To the very moment of his appearance before
God, he resorts to artifice. His act of "candour" dictated to the notary
Clienelat, his "moaning of a dove" before Beza, are profound traits of
character. Perhaps he thought to deceive God as he had deceived his-
fellow-citizens. The whole history of the reformation presents no more
skillful comedian ; the part he played in the prosecution of Servetus is
his triumph. Gibbon has said : " I am more deeply scandalized at the
single execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed
in the Auto-da-Fes of Spain and Portugal." To be just, he should
have added, that the inquisition of Venice had never acted clemency
so well as Calvin.
Calvin compared the sinner to an enemy, the divine word to a
sword which must strike the guilty before he has time to anticipate or
parry the blow.* His voice was slow, interrupted, and painfully ex-
haled from a breast oppressed by an hereditary asthma ; also, at the
end of his sermons, his words were found entire on the paper of a scribe
who sat at the foot of the pulpit to collect them, and who gained bis
livelihood by means of this oral transcription. f The auditor had full
time to follow the preacher, often to divine what he intended to say,
and, if he had come there with an indocile heart, to revolve in his
brain some objection to the minister's argumentation. Here Luther
still had the advantage.
The Saxon auditory in no wise resembled that of Geneva. When
* Letter to Sommerset.
tVir quidam erat Genevee qui in Calvini concionibus scribendis victum sibi
comparabat. Asthmaticus erat et lente loquebatur, ideoque facile erat scribere
quee pronuntiabat. Multo magis mihi placent Calvini conimentarii quam ejus
condones quas nunquam scripsit. Scaligeriana secunda. Calvin's manuscript
sermons, to the number of two thousand and twenty-three, form 44 volumes
IM folio, in the library of Geneva. Senebier, hist. litt. 1. 1 et II, p. 256 a 258.
Catalogue raisonne, p. 312 a 314. These sermons embrace a period of only
eleven years, from 1549 to 1560. Those which he preached in 1536, during
t'le time of his first sojourn at Geneva, at Strasbourg in the French church,
at Frankfort, are perhaps still more numerous. Dennis Raguenier, who-
wrote them in the church, has collected the evangelical discourses; John
Bude and Charles de Joinvillers his lectures to the theological auditory. Nich-
olas des Gallars, Francis Bourgoing, and John Cousin, stenographed some of
his sermons. Andre Spifamus transcribed the sermons on the epistle to the
Galatians (Seneb., cat. 314), which have since been printed, and those on the
epistle to tlie Romans, left in manuscript, and to be found in the library of
Berne. There still exists of Calvin, Cop, and Beza, a collection of different-
sermons or homelies on the Old and New Testaments, MSS. n. 15. The dis-
courses which he preached in France, and always ended in the same way: If
God be for us who shall be against us? have not been collected or. have beem
lost.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 537
Martin ascends the pulpit you see crowding to the church of All
Saints, apostate monks, who under the impulse of the grosser instincts
have cast away their cowl, nuns, escaped from the convents, who are
■waiting for the husbands that were promised them, electors, just from
the abbeys where they have been copiously drinking the wine of the
Catholic presbyteries, cavaliers, who hunt down the monks on the high-
ways, doctors, in labour with a new spiritual Jerusalem, jurists, desirous
of remodeling the written word, Jews, who are expecting a messiah, stu-
dents, who have burned Aristotle and the decretals on the public square,
peasants, tired of the yoke of their seigniors, poor souls who are seek-
ing for the truth. For each of these intelligences, the orator has
different and appropriate words and figures.
If you place yourself among the people who are listening to Calvin
in the church of St. Peter, at Geneva, you will not discover around
you such a variety of individualities as strikes your view in the temple
of All Saints. The auditory is partly made up of merchants who
were lately Catholics, and who have exhibited more courage in defend-
ing their shops than their faith, and adopted the reformation, less from
love for the new symbol than from antipathy to the ducal house by
which they imagined their independence threatened. These people
have defects and vices : they are vain, detracting, indocile, restless,
lying, but they are not yet gangreened aud sullied like the Saxons,
nor have they exhibited such great scandals of lust, avarice, and im-
piety, as afflict us in reading the recital of the contests of the electors
with the peasants of Suabia.
Calvin has taken the pains to collect together in one of his sermons
the principal features of the religious physiognomy of Geneva, at the
commencement of the Sixteenth century. You shall see whether the
wounds of a community which had just repudiated Catholicism were
sufficiently'profound to cause their cure to be despaired of.
''• Some practice the old proverb of being near the mill and far from
God, others have their ears tingled and their hearts in no wise affected.
God omits no means to secure our salvation ; let us then fear that re-
proach which he makes in [saias the prophet, chapter LXV : I have
daily stretched forth my arms to this rebellious people. If those who
are wandering through the deserts of the papacy shall not be spared
for not having walked the right way, what will become of us who are,
as it were, nourished in the house, under the eyes of our heavenly fa-
ther ! Some have abandoned the land of their birth to enter a christian
church, others have had more privileges because God has visited them
in their nest. Now, if those who are natives of a place do not recog-
nize such a blessing by giving themselves entirely to God, who has
thus drawn near them, shall such ingratitude remain unpunished ?
Rather let them say : Lord, thou hast built thy temple and erected thy
altar in the midst of us, grant us then the grace to purify ourselves,
that we may not by our defilement pollute the sanctity of thy gifts,
nor turn the glory of thy benefits into opprobrium."*
* Sermons on subjects suited to our times. — On the sacrifice of Abra-
ham.— On the ten commandments. — On the birth, passion, death, resurrection
aad ascension of Jesus Christ. — On Providence and Eternal Election.
533 LIFE OF JOH>J CALVIX.
Now behold the picture of the new church ; it is a curious moral
study. The preacher here becomes historian.
" Let those who have come from afar see that they conduct them-
selves in a holy manner, as becomes the house of God. They might
indeed have lived elsewhere in debauchery, and to lead dissolute lives
it was not necessary for them to have budged from the papacy. And
in fact there are some, who would have done better to have had their
necks broken than set foot in this church to conduct themselves so wick
edly. Some unite themselves with merry-makers in order to render thenc
obdurate in their malice, others are gourmands and drunkards, others
again seditious and quarrelsome. There are some households where
husbands and wives live like dogs and cats. There are some who ex-
alt their condition and counterfeit seigniors, without propriety, they are
given over to pomps and worldly superfluities; others grow so delicate
that they no longer know how to work, and are never satisfied with
tlieir food. There are backbiters and detractors, who would find fault
with the very angels of heaven ; and though ready to burst with vices, ^
they make all their sanctity consist in mocking their neighbour. Y^
all seem to imagine that God is greatly indebted to them, for having
made a journey to Geneva, as if it would not have been better they had
remained on their dunghill, than have come here to cause such scandals
in the church of God."*
The orator has not told the whole : he wanted the necessary cour-
age. He should have seized that great sword of the Lord, of which he
lately spoke to us, to smite all those bankrupts, those felon merchants,
those pickpockets, who had fled from Lyons, not to avoid the eye of
God for whom they felt but slight concern, but to escape creditors, who
have not, like the Lord, an eternity at their service, and human justice,
whose limping foot might at last have come up with them, had they re-
mained on the French territory, and had them strung upon the gibbet.
The absence from the reformed temple of an audience made up
of strongly characterized individualities, has exercised a fatal in-
fluence on the style of the orator : and were you even to lend
Calvin that admirable German language, so powerful in its resour-
ces, you could never elevate him to the level of his rival. What
we admire in him, is a frank speech, a luminous style, a close
logic, and sallies rather than sustained outpourings of eloquence. At
times, the preacher seems moved ; his lips swell, his eye lights up, and
tiie auditory is all expectation. Do you know what can thus change
Calvin's nature, warm his soul, and inflame his style ? Look round
you, and you will observe among the columns some ardent enemies of
tlie French refugee, known by the name of libertines. You will easily
recognize them by their mocking air, the smiles that play round their
lips, and their physiognomy bearing the impress of disdain and ridicule.
Cursed " merry-makers,*' who listen to the minister with the mirth of a
student, remain cold as marble under his evangelical transports, and,
on leaving the temple, make comments to each other on the discourse-
• Literary Studies upon the French writers of the Reformation ; hy A. Say-
ous, Geneva, 1839, in-Sv^o.
et 1
.d \
Jo >
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIlf. 539
of master John, and revenge themselves for his attacks, by quoiibets
which reach his ears in the old sacristy of the temple, whither he has
retired to wipe his brow and rest himself. These laughs last through-
out the whole day, and in the evening are again renewed in the Gene-
vese bar-rooms. Calvin is merciless towards these "jesters," he presses
on them, claws them, pursues them with his wrath ; his word is not
like smoking tow, as it was but lately, when he was handling those
mercantile gentry who had been driven away from Lyons for their
crimes ; but it sparkles like a flaming bush ; for these merry-makers re-
present all wicked citizens, the denouncers of the minister ; Calvin's
part has become more grand, it is that of a tribune. Behold him in
presence of the libertines; listen to him :
*' I care little for scoffers who say that we speak of them ac=
cording to our pleasure, nor are they attacking me, since there
is here nothing of my invention, as they imagine. The same
I say regarding all philosophers, who pronounce their opinion
without knowing wherefore : for since they will not hear God, who
speaks to them in order to instruct them, I adjourn them over to his ju-
dicial tribunal, there shall they hear his sentence, against which there
Avill be no question of replication. As they now disdain to listen to
him as their master, they shall then feel him as their judge, in spite of
their teeth. The most skillful and cunning will here find themselves
out in their calculations. Let them be trained as much as they please,
to overturn or obscure what is right; their furred caps in which they
contemplate themselves, and in viewing themselves are blinded, will
not insure the gaining of the cause. I say this, because these gentle-
men counselors, judges, and lawyers, not only undertake to plead against
God, to have privilege to scoff at him, but in rejecting the holy scrip-
ture, disgorge their blasphemies, as if they were sovereign decrees. And
such little monkies, after having said their say, are so proud, as not to
he able to endure the truth. I take occasion to tell them, that it would
be far better they would reflect upon the horrible vengeance that is pre-
pared against such as cliange truth into falsehood. Let these chamSer
and table doctors be careful not to assume a degree too elevated for
them, thus to argue against tlie heavenly Father, to whom it be-
comes us all to give ear. Fine titles will here be of no avail to ex-
empt any one, except that messieurs the abbots, priors, deans, and arch-
deacons shall be constrained to lead off the dance of condemnation
which God will ordain. If messieurs, the courtiers, have been accus-
tomed to content men with their blessed water, let them not expect to
do the same with God. Let all merry-makers cease to strike with their
beaks, and cast abroad their usual jests, if they wish not to feel the
strong hand of him, before whose word they should tremble. It is an
abuse too silly, to indulge the belief that in making an attack on me they
will not have God for their judge. Let them spatter my name on their
papers, as regards this matter, yet I pretend nothing but that God should
be heard and obeyed, and seek not to govern consciences according to
my notion, or to impose necessity or law upon them. — As to others who
do not with such pride reject the word of God, and yet are so infirm and
pusillanimous, that they cannot be moved, I exhort them to reflect a little
540 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
better upon their conditiorij and not flatter themselves as they have
hitherto done. Let them open their eyes, etc. etc."
This substitution of man for God, of the creature for the Infinite, of
the eye of flesh for eternal light, is not merely accidental in Calvin, it
is a form in which he takes pleasure, a human artifice which robs his
w^ord of all dogmatic influence. For Calvin, the libertine is like Ban-
quo's ghost ; it haunts him at every moment; but the preacher's phan-
tom cannot terrify like that of the poet. You shall judge :
•« We behold other dissolute deeds, so that every place is full of them,
and debaucheries now become entirely common ; and yet these low fel-
lows will come here to play pass-pass ; when one of them shall be con-
victed of fornication, they will say: — Ho ! it is not he, but another who is
a hundred leagues away; and not only will try to mock men but God;
and cause his name to be profaned and exposed to disgrace. When,
therefore, all things shall be well calculated and weighed, and when
the matter shall be considered, it will appear that the word of God no
longer avails us except to give light, that they may contemplate us from
afar, and that the papists and other infidels be there appointed to judge
us for the enormities and villainies which are prevalent amongst us.
As to myself, 1 can declare that I am ashamed to preach the word of
God in this place, where there are such villainous confusions, as are
here seen, and that if I had my own wish, I would desire God to with-
draw" me from this world, and not allow me to live here three days
amid such disorder as exists."*
Two centuries ago, we Catholics also one day beheld a priest ascend
the pulpit, and, pointing to his locks whitened in the holy ministry,
tremble with dread in contemplating the God who was soon to judge
him. But that bishop, for it was Bossuet, asks not to abandon the post
which has been assigned him by Providence. He desires to die, saluting
with his last gaze that holy church which the Lord has confided to his
care. It is in the midst of his career, that these words of grief fall
from Calvin's lips : " I would desire God to withdraw me from this
■world, and not allow me to live here three days amid such disorder as
exists." Calvin, therefore, has not yet "accomplished the moral regene-
ration of an entire people, and given to a new society, formed of such
various elements, that force and solidity which, in the institutions of this
world, ordinarily result only from the duration of tradition !''t Other
wise, what does his cry of despair signify ?
In perusing those pages on which the stenographer's skill has been
so long collecting the reformer's word, the heart is pained by the inces-
sant apparition of that self, which is called Calvin. And yet this ora-
tor had it in his power to discover light, had he wished ; he should
cease to look to earth ; and this he did sometimes, as in the following
representation of the wickedness of man :
" The hire of those who shall have laboured for our profit, if retain-
♦ In einer Predigt liber die ersten Epistel an Timotheus wider seine Gegen-
parthei in Genf, steht man unter andern auch, wie es seine Art war, von dem
gliilienden Zorn zu einer apostolischen Warme iiberzugehen. Paul Henry,
t. II, p. 80, Beilage 6.
t Literary Studies, by Sayous,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 541
ed by us, will cry to heaven, and all creatures will be forced to give
testimony against our wrongs and extortions which we shall have com-
mitted against our neighbours; as the prophet Habacuc declares, thut
the walls of the houses which shall have been built by frauds and rob-
beries will cry aloud and clearly, will take the parts of chanter and
sub-chanter ; will respond from either side ; that one will say : Behold
blood ! the other, behold murder ! one, behold fraud ; the other, behold
cruelty ; one will cry, pillage ; the other, avarice ; here is perjury, here
is larceny, here is malice/'
We have seen that Luther created for himself an idiom which no
one after him had the gift to speak, because it was the reflection of the
orator himself, in whom the Saxon people loved to discover the com-
plete personification of an ideal world. Sent by God to revolutionize
German society, the doctor had felt the need of a manifold language
with which to address priests, monks, knights, jurists, students, and the
people especially, who alone have the power to convert transitory ac-
cidents into historical facts. He did not exclude the grossest terms from
his vocabulary, but with a master's art, he knew how to disguise the
rudeness of their presentation. This was rarely Calvin's fortune.
The two reformers here present us specimens ;
" Children," says Luther in one of his Postillae, " there is a milk
sweeter than that of your motiier, a broth worth more than that which
you eat in the house of your father ; it is the milk of the Divine Word, it
is that manna descended from heaven which you will find at the holy
table."*
Calvin, in consequence of his contempt for forms, often changes
the pulpit into a drinking-house :
•'Now a-days, as soon as children are ten years old, they imagine
themselves men ; it would be necessary to switch them fifteen years af-
ter they have begun wearing the insignia of manhood ; for they are but
nasty little things; and, as to any correction or doctrine, they will none
of it : it seems to them that this would be doing them a wrong or in-
jury These little rustics act like brave fellows and toss up their
horns : they in no wise understand what discipline is : they are but
dirty little sucklings, and yet they want to imitate men. And we see
that the sons of Job, who were of age, and had conceived a notion to
have their own households, were still kept under the government and
authority of Job."t
We now comprehend how Calvin, with so gross a contempt for im-
agery, was necessarily inferior to his rival as a pamphleteer. Both,
during their lives, attacked popes and emperors. Calvin with his tem-
perate style, could not rise even to caricatures, whilst Luther, with his
sparkling wrath, has produced some magnificent pictures. We should
follow them in their struggle with Clement VIL and Paul IIL The
object is, to despoil the papacy in its human personification. Calvin
stirs up the rivulet and throws its mud at the head of the pontiff, as
* Mathesius.
t Second sermon on Job,— Paul Henry, U I, p, 205,
46
542 LJFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
would have been done by Crespin, the theological book-binder of Gene-
va ; whilst Luther summons to his aid that grand figure of the holy
books, called the devil, who takes possession of the body of the vicar
of Jesus. In all his duels, the demon is his ordinary second ; a second
who assumes every kind of form ; becomes seraph, frog, serpent,- bloody
spectre, angel and man. Satan also appears in Calvin's work, but
enveloped in such obscurity, that one cannot divine if he be a real be-
ing, or an illusion.
In his contests with Catholicism, Luther constantly persevered a he-
liever in legends; Calvin seems to have rejected all that belongs to the
marvelous. The blood of the rationalist runs in his veins.
Even syntax itself assumes an entirely different aspect with the two
reformers. Luther is the king of his style. From the moment of his
very first combat wiih Tetzel, obliged, in order to make himself under-
stood, to borrow the language of the convents, he used principles of
language peculiar to himself, and v/hich belong neither to St. Thomas
nor to Cicero. He invents and creates ; his Dodorculus, his Sanctulus,
his Perdiabolus are found rieither in Varro nor in Scot. At a later
period, he sets to studying Greek and Hebrew^ speaks German to his
auditors, and while his diction g.low& with oriental colours he still re-
mains a German. The monk is- as much a demagogue in his syntax
as in the propositions he attached to the walls of the church of All
Saints : he treats words as he does the Pope ; he respects no crown.
During his theological life, Calvin has spoken two languages ; at first
Latin, afterwards, French. With this twofold idiom, his phrase has
nearly always an uniform aspect. It is perceiveable that he studied
Rome less as an artist than a scholiast. He is the imitator of Seneca
the philosopher ; he follows him throughout, derives inspiration from
him, and thinks and writes according to him ; the same artifice, the
same procedure, the same attractions of style. At a later perioel, he-
abandons Seneca for St. Augustine, but the sun of Africa is not able
to inflame his imagination. He treats language as the sculptor does
the block of marble, plastically.
Even when remaining master of the material sign, he is generally
ruled by the usages of syntax. From the moment he began to have
need of a vulgar instrument, in his schemes of religious propagandism,
he subjected himself to the Latin influence. In that dedication to
Francis I. the finest page he ever wrote, we perceive throughout the-
student who has worn out his energies amid the grammars of Mathurin
Cordier ; he is a translator, who never experiences a more lively satis-
faction^ than when by dint of labour he has succeeded to invest his syn-
tax with a Roman physiognomy,*
* M. Sayous, in his beautiful Literary Studies, has presented several exam-
ples of this attachment of Calvin lor Latin constructions. We will cite some
of these:
*■' Vous mesmes nous pouuez estre tesmoin, sire, par corabien fausses caloiB-
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 543
Hence, notwithstanding all his fine qualities of style, his perspicuity,
abundance, richness, Calvin has no right to rank among the creators of
the French language. In place of forcing it out of the pathway of the
Latin, he retains it there. He was no revolutionist, whether considered as
a sectary or as a writer ; his style is Gallo-Roman, his symbol Reformed
Protestant.
nies, elle est tous les iours diffamee (la Reforme)."
" Cette fraude Bt trahison que sans eesse elie est notee de sedition et rnal-
6fice."
" Ici est ote le conge d'ouurir la bouche."
"Et ne pensez pas que je tasclie A trailer ici ma defense particuUere pour
impetrer reiour aupays de ma nais?ance."
CHAPTER L.
INFLUENCE OF CALVIN,
Calvin has bestowed upon the world no truth. — The principal articles of his
symbol are rejected by the Protestant School. — ^He has corrupted the morals
of Geneva. — ^Testimony of M. Galiffe. — He has perverted the instincts
of his co-religionists. — Mania for disputation introduced into theology. — The
cultivation of the arts neglected. — His despotism survives the reformer and
only yields place to anarchy of doctrine^
In 1835, a proposition was^ made to Geneva to erect a monument to
Calvin in the cathedra^ of St. Peter. On a granite rock they were to
write : ''To the Reformer of the Laws and of Religion."
The proposition was not accepted.
The venerable company of pastors, remembering that in 1535 Gene-
va had engraved on the walls of the hotel d& Ville the titles of Calvia
to the gratitude of the christian world, decided that this inscription suf-
ficed. You are acquainted with it.
IN AUGUST, 1535,
THE tyranny of THE ANTICHRIST AT ROME
HAVING BEEN PROSTRATED,
AND HIS SUPERSTITIONS ABOLISHED,
THE HOLY RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST
HAVING BEEN RJB-ESTA BLISHED IN ITS PURITY,
AND THE CHURCH REPLACED IN GOOD ORI>ER.
AT THE SAME TIME,
THE ENEMY HAVING BEEN REPULSED AND PUT TO FLIGHT.
THE SENATE AND THE PEOPLE OF GENEVA
HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT
EOR A PERPETUAL MEMORIAL OF THESE THINGS,
AND HAVE PLACED IT HERE
TO TESTIFY
TO THEIR DESCENDANTS
THEIR GRATITUDE TO GOD.*
Now, shall we be allowed to ask the person who has perused our
book as it has been written, that is, without anger, if he believes that:
the reformer was for Geneva an apostle of Christ, a prophet raised up
by God,, a missionary of truth : fine names which Eeza has lavished
♦ L'ombre de Rousseau ^ Calvia.
LIFE OF JOHK CALVIN. 545
«pon Calvin ? Leo Judae thus saluLedZwIngle, and Aurifaber Luther.
Zvvingle, whom the Saxon monk considered an incarnate demon ;
Luther, whom Calvin treats as a furious fool. In the progress of this
history, you must have perceived that never was human soul so vain, des.
potic and insolent as Calvin's. " Hell with Beza," they were wont to say
at Geneva, "rather than heaven with John of Noyon." What sort of
instrument, then, would Providence have used in order to manifest himself
to men ? Jf this stone speak the truth; if, previously to 1535, Geneva
was plunged in the darkness of superstition, what truths did Calvin
cause to shine upon it ? Let us study the light which he came to bring
to this fallen people. But who shall be our guide ? Our brethren of
the reformation would reject the testimony of Catholic writers ; well,
let us appeal to Protestantism.
Calvin's golden book is his Christian Institutes : let us then consult
this.
And first, what shall we say regarding that Trinitarian symbol which
the reformer wishes to impose on his communion ? Gentilis has open-
ly repudiated it; but Gentilis has been rejected by Beza and Drelin-
court. Here comes Hennius, that pure disciple of the gospel, as he
is called in Silesia. Has not Hennius denounced Calvin as a doctor
who has Judaized, corrupted the Bible, denaturalized the word of God,
falsified sctripture texts, and blasphemed the Trinity ?*
The stone, then, has lied ! — Calvin did not bring the truth to Ge-.
neva regarding the dogma of the Trinity.
We are acquainted with his Eucharistic mythos, in which Catholi-
cism has been able to find neither body nor soul, form nor reality : this
constitutes his glory in the Genevese school. He has prosecuted its tri-
umph with an obstinate perseverance. And the Lutherans have han-
dled his Eucharistic system still more severely than the Catholics. The
Protestant, who most powerfully attacked it, is no obscure intelligence :
he is a humanist, who, by the age of twenty, lectured from the Witten- .
berg chair, which had been made illustrious by Melancthon ; who, at
the age of twenty-four, was principal of the college of Eisleben, the
birth-place of Luther ; at thirty, general dean of Mansfeld ; at thirty-
five, professor of theology at Jena; in fine, Grawer, who has dealt with
Calvin's metonymy, as Martin did with the monks of Cologne, and
prostrated it amid the applauses of his co-religionists.f Never did a
Leipsic Dominican speak of Hutten as irreverently as Grawer does of
Calvin. Would any one believe that at the head of one of his books
he has placed this really untranslateable title ? Absurda adsurdorum,
absurdissima Calvinistka absurda,X and the pamphlet met with great
success.
* Calvinus jiidaizans, sive confutatio corruptelarum in explicandis Scriptures
testiraoniis in veteri testamento de Trinitate. In-8. Francfort, 1575.
Paraeus undertook to defend Calvin's honour. Hennius went to work again
and published; " Anti Paraeus, id est refutatio in defensionem corruptelarum
quibus Joannes Calvinus scripturae testimonia de trinitate et Christo corrupit.
Wittebergae, in-4, 1594."
t Solida etinvicta defensio argumentorum quibus Calvinistarum metonymia
%uam verbis Christi in sacra coena affigunt funditus destruitur. Leipzig, in-4.
$.Iena.
46*-
546 LIFE OF JOHN CALVOT.
The stone then has lied ! Grawer tells us that Calvin's metonymy is
an absm'dity. Pelisson, the Catholic, was more polite.
In the reformer's eyes, the system of predestination is a heavenly
revelation. At Geneva, to refuse to admit this barbarous God, who,
at his own pleasure, destines and impels his creatures to evil as well as
to good, is a crime punished by exile, and sometimes even by death.
Bolsec, for having laughed at the pagan fatum, is driven out of Swit-
zerland ; Gentilis, who had been bold enough to say : " This God is
not the God of the gospel," has scarcely time to save himself by flight,
from fear of falling into the hands of the executioner. What beautiful
pages has Beza written to prove that the Calvinistic predestination is a
dogma which must be believed under penalty of eternal damnation !
He calls those infamous who are bold enough to reject it. John
Weber cared not for the anathemas of Calvin's disciple. He has at-
tacked the predestination of the reformer, in terms full of bitterness,
perhaps like a bad christian, but certainly like an excellent logician.
Whilst Calvin was yet living, the Bernese prohibited his doctrines
on grace from being preached, under severe penalties.* The U/iiver-
salism of BuUinger was sapping the foundations of the Partialism of
the reformer.!
The stone, therefore, has lied for the third time ! Show us, then, the
light which Calvin brought to Geneva ?
Does it shine forth in that justification without works, which at first
Melancthon defended, and which afterwards, to the great scandal of the
reformed school, he abandoned ? or in that confession of faith imposed
on the Genevese, and in which Calvinists pretend to discover the en-
tire dogma contained in the Augsburg confession ? A falsehood which
the fictitious Andrew Anti Krell has exposed thoroughly in his learned:
dissertation, which agitated the Saxon world in the sixteenth century.:}:
If Calvin's quariernary Trinity, if his Eucharist in figure, if his
pagan fatalism, are not the truths spoken of by the marble of the hotel
de ville, where are they to be found in tlie Genevese confession ? These
are the grand novelties that John of Noyon came to announce, as his
panegyrists, inform us, and even might we contest his claim to the in-
vention of these; and, like the preachers of Lausanne, give the credit
* In dem Canton Bern entstanden Qber Calvin's Lehre von der Pradestina-
tion solche Unruhen, dasz die Landesobrigkeit verbot, Niemand solle von den
unerforsohlichen Gelieimnisssn und Gerichten Gottes weiter reden. —
Schrftckh. t Ibid.
:j: Vindiciaa Disscrtationis de Momento discrepantise inter Lutheranos et
Culvinianos et calumniis et cavillationibus chris. Krellii. in-4. Dresden.
In our times, they have endeavoured, in several works, to establish the con-
formity of the Lutlieran and Calvinistic doctrines. It will not be useless to
cite here, as we have done elsewhere, some controversial works in which
this alliance of the two communions is formally disavowed.
Anti-Calvinisti syllogismi. Rostock. 1625, in-8,
Anti-Calvinismus Grundlichc.par G.Nigrinus de Battemburg.. Francf. S.
L. M. 1595.
More than once did the Calvinists propose to make peace with the Luthe-
rans in irenical, conciliatory ^ and syncretistical treatises, (Nicole, Prejuges.
chap. XII), but the Lutherans have always refused to be reconciled.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 547
of the fatalist system to Zwingle and (Ecolampadius;* but let them be
his, we give them up to him ; except that we hold ourselves ready to estab-
lish, grounding ourselves on testimony that is irrefragable, that each of
these novelties is a falsehood which the Spirit of God never could have in-
spired. If this decree has been uttered by Protestant lips, what be-
comes of that crown, which after three centuries the venerable compa-
ny of Pastors, one of whom is an anti-Trinitarian, wished to place on
the brow of Calvin ?
If there be any historical fact incontrovertible, it is, that Calvin's
apostolate was fatal to the morals of the republic, "Ah, undoubted-
ly," says M. Galiflfe, 'nhe ancient Genevese were not angels of celes-
tial purity, but at least they were not hypocrites. They did not go to
profane the temple by demonstrations of an exalted piety, when just re-
turning from having exposed the fruit of their libertinism. They were
violent in their enmities, but they were not false witnesses, spies, and
informers. They stood in need of indulgence, but they were not desti-
tute of it themselves, and did not seek to conceal their natural frailty
by sentences of death, inhumanly severe. They were, what they
again became in the eighteenth century when Calvinism amongst us
was nothing but a ballad of the past, — proud, bold, independent men,
good friends, irrascible enemies, but easy to be reconciled, charitable
and devoted, above all things, good patriots, because they had a
country which they could love."t
With the ancient Genevese blood which so long had remained pure,
Calvin mingled the blood of the refugees, his pretorian body-guard ;
sharpers, rogues, bankrupts by profession, who sit in the consistory, who
enter the councils, are received as burghers, and in exchange for so
many honours perpetrate villainies of which the city had scarcely any
conception. During the whole period of the theocrat's rule, espionage
was a lucrative dignity. Let the moralist undertake to ransack the
archives of the government; M. Galiffe will accompany him in order
to show the registers, covered with records of illegitimate children, who
were exposed on the bridge of Arve ; wills, in which the dying voice
of a father accuses his children of abominable crimes; acts before no-
taries, in which a mother allots a dowery to the bastards of her daugh-
ter; marriages, where the husband passes from the altar to the prison;,
women of all ranks, who place their new-born babes in the hospital,,
that they may live in abundance w^ith a second husband.:}: Let us wait
awhile : the reformed puritan who has passed his life amid the dust of
archives will soon open his hand, at least he promises to do so, and
then will tumble forth leaves written in a dead language, for he fears to
make modesty blush, and, in the language of Petronius, he will narrate
the little suppers of the Genevese ministers.. Balduinus has already
told us of one of these nocturnal repasts where Beza was host ; but no
one would credit his account. M. Galiffe, wbo intends to die in the
*Die Prediger in Lausanne erklarten, dasz sie diese Lehre nicht von C ilvin
angenommen haiten, indeni sie bereits von Zwingli un Oekolampadius voro-o-
tragen worden sey — Schiockh. ^
t Galiffe, Notices gen., t. Ill, Preface, p. 16-17,.
:J:Galiffe, Notices, t. Ill, p. 15-16.
54& I/IFE OF JOKS CALVIK.
bosom of Protestantismy will be believed, at least ! Behold how he al-
ready, with the whole energy of his soul, rejects all communion with
that mean, bastard, intolerant reformation which Calvin sought to im-
pose on. his fellow citizens ! Thanks to his researches, some Catholic^
names, .among others that of Bolsec, have been honourably vindicated.
The old champion of historical truth who has merited the eulogy of'
Lord Brougham, will not permit himself to be frightened by the clam-
ours of certain fanatical Calvinists, who would to day have us believe in-
tlie civilizing influence of the reformer. In case of need, he could
open the book of the author of the Treatise on Scandals, and read-
there this avowal, escaped from the lips of Calvin :
" There is a wound still more deplorable : our pastors, who ascend'
the sacred pulpit of Christ, and who ought to edify souls by a supera--
bundant purity of good morals, scandalize the church of the Lord by
their disorders : miserable comedians, who are astonished that their
preaching has no more authority than a fable acted in public, and that
the people point the finger at them and hiss. What surprises me is
the patience of women and children who do not cover them with mud
and filth."*
Calvin himself before his death, had, like Luther, foreseen the des-
tiny of the word which he announced to men.
" The future terrifies me, he said, 1 dare not think of it ; for unless-
the Lord descend from heaven we shall be swallowed up by barbarism.
Ah ! would to God that our sons may have no reason to look upon me
as a prophet !" f
He was a prophet. The Lord, who was unwilling to descend from
heaven, had delivered over the word of Calvin to the disputes of his
successors in the ministry. And then that word, which to be true
should have been immutable, was mercilessly tortured. If at the
Haye you have beheld the corpse painted by Rembrandt, you can form
to yourself some idea of the operation to which the Calvinistic doc-
trine has been subjected at Geneva. The operators assumed different'
names according as they attacked a system in its essence or in its parts r
there were therefore partialists and universalists. The scalpel did not'
merely cut away dead flesh; but formed in the shape of a pen, in the
name of divine grace the nature of which it was desirous to indicate,
it poured out ink and insults, in such sort that one fine day the Two
Hundred gave orders to terminate all those disputes, which disturbed
the repose of the citizens and were a subject of laughter to the Catho-
lics : now, this laughter was contagious.
Calvin's w^ord, having been brought to the low countries and sub-
jected to examination, had been found insufficient, foolish, dangerous.
Each city of Holland had an apostle sent by God, a Paul or John the •
Baptist. Of all Calvin's books, the only one which they considered th«-
work of the Lord was the Treatise concerning the punishment of here-'
tics ( de puniendis Hereticis), which each sect translated in order to*
••Liber de Scandalis.
tiPrsefatio catechismiecclesise.ij}enevenBis. p. 11
LIFE or JOHN CALVIN. 549
put it in practice against those who dissented.* Bogermann, professor
at Francker, wrote comments on the pamphlet, and added some new
texts to prove that the civil power has the right to put to death the
blasphemer of God's name. He called every one a blasphemer who
did not think with him on the subject of grace. Jacob Arminius and
Franz Gomar revived the subjects of dispute which had occupied
Luther and Erasmus. Franz Gomar damned Arminius, who main-
tained the liberty of the will ; Arminius doomed to the flames Franz
Gom.ar, who preached the doctine of serf.will. There were intoler-
ants and toleranls, rigid Calvinists and moderate Calvinists, lapsa-
rians and swpralaysarians. Fifteen years had not elapsed, and they
might have written upon a finger nail every thing that was left of that
neology which they had crowned. '* Every divine work, said Claud-
iuSj is immutable by nature ; only human works change form and
colour." t Calvin's word was not then a word of truth ? And, there
is something very remarkable in this perpetual generating of doctrines,
that never does the christian abandon an opinion which has been given
to him as a truth ; so that if there be a new apostacy, you may be sure
it issues from the reformed sanctuary. And how can this intellectual
disorder be arrested ? When the breath of the human mouth becomes
noisy, choleric, or disorderly, power intervenes and discharges the
priest's office. And there is a council ready, like that of the Two
Hundred, which says to its sheep: There is enough disputing! the
Calvinistic predestination is a gospel truth ; — a prince, who says to the
Lutheran : Thou believest in the Real Presence ! to the Calvinist :
Thou admittest only a life-giving symbol ; here is the table : come
and commune together !{ — and in the Berlin ministry, an ecclesiastic
salaried by the monarch, who writes and if need be swears — that to
day there are no longer Lutherans or Calvinists; but only evangelical
christians.
"During the latter half of the Sixteenth century, says one of Calvin's
panegyrists, the heirs of the legislator of the reformation, without hav-
ing his power and his genius, adopted his dogmatism and his inflexible
obstinacy; they declared that no one was a christian who did not
think like Calvin ; they considered the search after religious truth be-
yond the limits of the master's principles, as an impiety, and by the
contractedness of these views, they came near destroying the whole
work of the reformation at Geneva." §
A century and a half later, this dogmatism was still ruling. The
academy, founded by the reformer, had transformed itself into an cecu-
* We refer those of our readers, desirous to become acquainted with the
variations of the reformation, to the German book of Hoeninghaus : My ex-
cursion through Protestantism, or the Necessity of a Return to the Catliolic
church, demonstrated exclusively by the avowals of Protestant theologians
and philosophers. — It is one of the finest books of the epoch, unfortunately
almost unknown in France.
t Menschiiche Werke, wie alle Werke dieser Welt, wanken und verandern
Gestalt und Farbe. Die Wahrlieit ist nur Eine, die bleibt und wanket nicht.
J Discussions on the subject of Protestantism, preceded by an analysis of a
lecture of M. Lacordaire, by the abbe Chuine, in-8 p. 16. Metz, 1838. '
§ Calvin a Geneve, p. 142, 143.
550 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
menical council, which, with its eye upon the written confession of
John of Noyon, imprisoned, exiled, condemned to bread and water,
any innovator sufficiently bold to contest its teachings. Did some
lofty intellect come from France to Geneva to study the new symbol,
they presented him the master's golden book, and he was bound to
reverence it as a gospel brought from heaven. This was the price of
hospitality. Simonius, after having reverently touched this confession
of faith with his lips, erects himself, reflects, and manifests some dis-
quietude ; they cast him into prison, and afterwards they banish him. ^
At times, on coming forth from the temple, some christian assailed by
doubts goes to expose the state of his conscience to one of the minis-
ters ; the minister is without pity ; the christian is chastised and thrown
into prison. To be saved, it is necessary to believe in Calvin.
We acknowledge that M. Gaberel has found noble words to stigma-
tize this harrassing dogmatism, the legacy of Calvin, and which, ac-
cording to the beautiful expression of M. Guizot, seeks to imprison
conscience in the consequences of an argument, f
But M. Gaberel should have known that the Calvinistic symbol can
only live when upheld by the strong arm of power. Let the arm of
flesh be withdrawn, and the reformer's work will perish amid the con-
vulsions of anarchy. When at a later period, thanks to the efforts of
the synod of Dort, thought was allowed to scrutinize the Genevese
confession, see how, each day, some one or other of the articles of the
formulary has been given up, till of all Protestant cities Geneva has
become the least Calvinistic. And now that free examination is tri-
umphant, it happens that a minister who has denied the Trinity, can
with impunity seat himself on the bench which, for twenty years, was
occupied by him who put the anti-Trinitarian Servetus to death.
However the reformation may seek to hide itself beneath the mantle
of Zwingle, of Luther, of Calvin, of CEcolampadius or of Knox, it
cannot enjoy a dogmatic existence except by the favour of princes : its
kingdom is of this world. Follow it through Germany when it sets out
.from Wittenberg : wherever it essays to establish itself it has need of a
human hand. Upon what could it rest, after it had destroyed memen-
tos, creeds, faith, traditions? All ideal life having become extinct
within it, it becomes wholly material, and gives itself over body and
soul ; in England, to a woman who acts the part of Pope ; in Prussia,
to a monarch who even regulates ecclesiastical discipline, and prepares
liturgies for two communions formed into one by contract ;* at Geneva,
to laymen transformed into doctors of Israel. There is not in the
world a country where faith in power is more blind than in Prussia,
that land where Lutheranism flourishes. J
When the theocrat, who at Geneva calls himself minister of God,
demanded the banishment of Gentilis, the imprisonment of Ami Perrin,
the blood of Gruet, of Berthelier, and of Servetus, you must have ob-
♦ Senebier, Hist. litt.
t Preface to the constitutional History of England, by Hallam.
* A few words regarding the last conference of the abbe Lacordaire. Cotti;=
rier de la Moselle, 18th January, 1838.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVlIf. 551
served if the civil power showed any hesitation, and did not accord
every thing without a murmur and without remorse.
At Geneva, civil and religious liberty, nationality, poesy, painting,
literature, — -every thing has been blighted, disfigured, destroyed by CaU
vin. But for him, Geneva like other cities would have progressed in
the light which irradiated from Rome, Florence and Venice ; it might
have been painter, poet, orator, artist. Believe not what the reforma-
tion says, that the Genevese is not born for the cultivation of the arts ;
this is a calumny. It was necessary to absolve the man who trans-
formed choice spirits into mere theologasters. And even did the theo>
logians born of Calvin resemble those scholastics of the revival who
are too much cried down, and who often amuse us by their ingenuous-
ness, it would be less deplorable ! But the monks of Geneva are pe-
dantic and tiresome. Instead of theses, after the fashion of the Cologne
school, such as Hogstraet affixed to some church, they send forth enor-
mous volumes destitute alike of style and life. Calvin has not even left
them a choice of subjects : they can only move in one circle. The
miserable men incessantly revolve around grace, freewill and predesti-
nation. Whilst the city thus wearies itself in vacuum, Rome, under
the vivifying breath of the papacy, gives existence to master-pieces in
history, exegesis, philology, and philosophy. We are mistaken. Gen-
eva pretends to be allied with the universal progress of intellect ; and
here are the names of some of the diamonds of her literary crown :
The tiieologians Tagaut, Perrot, and La Faye; the philologist Portus ;
the Latin poet Beaulieu; the polygraphist Goulard; the humanist
Sarazin.*
At Wittenberg, as well as at Geneva, the reformation, which never
comprehended popular instincts, had broken to pieces all the material
images of religion ; but at Wittenberg when once mistress of the Cath-
olic temple, it set to work to raise up the statues, restore the pictures,
and repair the stained-glass windows, for fear of being accused of van-
dalism. At Geneva, to satisfy Calvin, it stained the walls of the cathe-
dral with some coloured wash, sold the statues, and had the pictures
burned.
Calvin never comprehended art. In all his writings you would in
vain search for one ray of light. He indeed one day tried to write
some Latin verses ; but what verses ! He bequeathed his prosaic dis-
position to his new country. Had Geneva remained faithful to Catho-
licism, what a noble place would she now occupy in literary history I
Each day, during the Sixteenth century, she received the visit of nu-
merous Italians. Does it not seem to you that these southern imagina-
tions so passionately fond of form, should have revived the worship of
the muses on the banks of lake Leman ? But scarcely have they set
foot on the shores of the lake, than they of their own accord cease sing-
ing. The theological atmosphere which is every where diffused, even
in the inner sanctuary of families, stifles in them all the happy germs
which they had brought with them from Rome or Florence. They feel
themselves impelled to take part in theological disputes. The two
* Spazier, Revue du Nord.
tSenebier, Hist, litt, de Geneve.
552
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
bloods mingle and constitute a dull thick blood, which can neither be
stirred or quickened by the harmonies of the musical world, the fancies
of the ideal world, nor by the wonders of the material world. Before
dying, Calvin bequeathed to the land of his adoption a mania for con-
troversy, which the refugees were compelled to experience. Natives
and foreigners exhaust their understanding in an investigation of ontolo-
gical problems, far more obscure than those scholastic speculations,
about which so many reproaches are heaped on the monks of the middle
ages. These problems are discussed at college, in the consistory, at
home. Geneva, surrounded by treasures of antiquity, dares not touch
them. All the fountains of intellectual emotion have been dried up
by Calvin. He forbids the soul to concern itself with visible forms,
which might occasion it to fall into idolatry; with painting, which
would awaken in it false notions concerning the Divine nature ; with
music, which would seduce it into idle reveries. Thus was accom-
plished the decree entered up by Menzel against Saxon Protestantism :
" The reformation at first was a devouring fire, afterwards an aurora
borealis, the sign of coldness." *
Even the exegetic school which Calvin created at Geneva, reacted
upon intellectual progress in a fatal manner. From a prevision of
hostilities on the part of Catholicism, the reformation had continued its
pitiful collations of biblical texts. This verbal labour was not calcu-
lated to warm the imagination. They studied neither the images, the
figures, nor the inspired meaning of the holy book : ihey abandoned gold
for lead. It is curious to see how joyous these scholiasts are, when in a
Greek letter they have removed or added a stroke ; they announce this
good fortune with as much parade, as we Catholics do, when at Rome,
Raphael paints the picture of the Transfiguration, or at Bale, Erasmus
has just completed the preface to his St. Jerome. From all these in-
telligences of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, the offspring of
Calvin, do not ask for some historical, scientific or moral discovery ; f
they consider their task accomplished, when they have sullied some
pages of paper with glosses, of which the idea is as barbarous as the lan-
guage. This city, which boasts to have received the gift of faith in
1535, has not even one mystic book of some value. After long re-
searches, Senebier could find nothing of this kind worthy to be cited,
except the " Mellifickim STjmholi apostolici circa iiicarnationem •"
'* The Opening of the seals of St. John's Apocalypse," and " The
sword of Goliah." J Even at present such is the poverty, as regards
works of exhortation, to which Calvin has reduced it, that it is forced
to borrow from us " The voice of the Pastor" (La voix du Pasteur),
the work of our mountaineer cur6. Regis, having retrenched therefrom
every thing which regards faith, every thing that appeals to the imagina-
tion— the chapters which are dogmatic. And if the Divinity of Christ
is denied in a work of one of the ministers of the venerable company,
* Spazier. Revuo du Nord.
t Calvin and his colleagues seem only incidentally to have attended to that
science, the objects of which are virtue, life, and morals,— Histoire de la Refor-
jination par W. Meiners, p. 271, 272,
t Senebier, Hist. litt. de Geneve.
LIFE OF JOHN CALV1N« 553
the person bold enoiagh to step forward in its defence is a Methodist,
—M. Molan.
We are aware that Geneva, by proclaiming that " Calvinism is not
Christianity", has emancipated herself from the doctrinal yoke of the
reformer. The right of free examination having been re-established,
another abyss opened before her — religious anarchy ; and a voice has
been heard exclaiming to her pastors : *' You have denied Christ,
Christ denies you."
This Protestant voice came from Scotland.
47
ERRATA,
Page 14, line 19; for 1545, read 1546.
Page 17, line 35 ; for god read God.
Page 36, line 15; for '^pupils tvhich'' xend^' piipils whom.''
Page 107, line 16; for "from 1610 to 1635 " read ''from 1510 to
1535."
Page 249, line 15; for vended read rent.
Page 426 line 8; for 1545, read 1546.
Page 446 line 11 ; for epigram read epigraph.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface to the last French Edition, ... 3
Introduction, 5
Chapter I.— First Years of Calvin.— 1509— 1529, - - 15
Birth of Calvin. — His parents. — His Father, Gerard, destines him for the study
of Theology. — The family of the Mommors. — Calvin at Paris, in the house
of his uncle Richard. — Mathurin Cordier. — Farel. — Return to Noyon.
Chapter II. — The Universities, . . . . . 26
The Student at the University. — Renting of chambers. — When he must pay
the rent. — His right to eject all renters who make a noise, — Is not bound to
render service to the State. — Costume. — His books not seizable. — Civil rights
of students. — They cannot be excommunicated. — Student's prayer. — Re.^
buffy's advice.
Chapter III. — Calvin at the University of Bourges. — 1529 — '32, 33
Death of Gerard Calvin. — Letter of John Calvin to Daniel. — Bourges, Andrew
Alciati. — Melchoir Wolmar. — Calvin resumes the study of theology. — Theo-
dore Beza. — System of Predestination. — Calvin's return to Paris. — The
Civil Power deals severely with the Reformers.
Chapter IV. — -The Treatise on Clemency. — 1532, - - 45
Examination of the work. — Trouble and torments of the author. — Various
letters. — Calvin sells his benefice, and his part of the family inheritance.
Chapter V. — Calvin at the Court of Margaret. The Psychopan-
nychia.— 1534— 1535, 49
Cop and Calvin fly from Paris. — The Court of Nerac. — Calvin at Claix. — Da
Tillet. — Calvin at Orleans. — The Reformation in France. — Servetus — Exile
of Calvin. — Strasbourg. — Bale. — The Psychopannychia. — Examination of
the work. — Judgment of Calvin.
Chapter VI. — Francis the First, - - - - - 58
When Calvin appeared the Reformation had already been commenced in
France. — Influence of Francis I. on Letters. — The Bishops, — Poncher, —
Pelissier,— Du Bellay.— The Literati,— Bude,—Vatable,— Danes,— Postal.—
The College of the three Languages. — Marot. — The Sorbonne. — The Poet
protected by the Prince. — Literary movement.
Chapter VII.— The Ladies, 69
intrigues of the Ladies of the Court to introduce the Reformation into France.
— =The Duchess d'Etampes. — The Ladies de Pisseleu and de Cani. — The
Mass of the Seven Points. — Reformation Colporteurs. — Le Coq, cure of St.
Eustache, preaches before Francis I. — An eifort is made to bring Melancthon
$0 France.— Letter of his to the King.— Cardinal de Tournon frustrates the
sonspiracy of the Ladies. — The Placards.
556 G 0 N T EN T S ,.
Chapter VIII. — The Christian Institutes, . , , 80
The reception given to this work by the Reformation. — It is a manifesto against
Protestantism. — Antagonism of Calvin and the German reformers. — Some
doctrines of the Institutes. — Variations of Calvin's Symbol. — Servetus. —
Idea of the polemics of the Institutes. — Appeal to Catholic authority. — Pre
face of the Institutes. — Style of the work.
Chapter IX. — Calvin at Ferrara. — 1536, . . . 91
Italy is faithful to the forms of religion. — Calvin at Ferrara. — Ariosto — Cal-
gagnini. — Marot. — The Duchess of Ferrara. — Calvin is compelled to leave
Ferrara. — Epistolary correspondence with the Duchess.
Chapter X. — The Reformation in Switzerland, - - 97
Commencement of the reformation in Switzerland. — Ulrich Zwingle. — Causes
of the success of the reformation. — The nobles. — The people. — The Coun-
cils.— The Senate. — Violent proceedings against Catholicism. — Portrait of
Farel. — His theses. — Geneva before the reformation. — Political condition. —
The house of Savoy. — The Eidgenoss. — Religious monuments of Geneva.
Chapter XL — The Bishops and the Patriots, - - - 110
A picture of the services rendered to the material and religious interests of
Geneva by the Episcopacy.:— Ardutius. — Adhemar Fabri. — John de Com-
pois. — Struggle of the Patriots and the Episcopacy. — Berthelier, Besan^on
Hugues. — Pecolat. — Bonnivard. — Punishment of Berthelier, of Levrier. —
Bishop de la Baume is obliged to leave Geneva. — His character. — Berne
profits b}' the intestine divisions of Geneva to spread the reformation.
Chapter XII. — Sister Joanna de Jussie. — 1532 — 1536, - 120
The Sister's book. — Recital. — Marges pillaged by the Reformers. — The Ber-
nese at Geneva. — Devastation of the church of St. Peter; — Of the Oratory; —
Of St. Victor; — Of St. Lawrence. — Combat in the streets of Geneva. — As-
sassination of Peter Werli. — Punishment of Malbosson. — Farel. — The syn-
dics wish to compel the Sisters of St. Clair to assist at a theological dispu-
tation.— The Sisters refuse, and are driven away.
Chapter XIII.— Calvin at Geneva.— Farel.— Viret.— 1536, 131
Calvin's arrival at Geneva. — He is discovered by Viret. — Farel's adjuration. —
Calvin consents to remain. — Character of the three reformers: Farel, Viret
and Calvin. — Preparations for the conference of Lausanne. — Shifts and
tricks of the reformation. — Its outrages against the Papacy.
Chapter XIV. — The Disputation of Lausaane. — 1536, - 133
Means employed by the reformation fo^• the conversion of Catholic Switzer-
land.— Pillage of the churches. — Exile of the priests. — Sale of the property
of the proscribed. — Conduct of Berne. — Disputation of Lausanne. — Theses
of Farel. — The Catholic Doctors. — Invectives of Viret and Farel against the
Papacy. — Misery of our priests. — Calvin speaks. — Idea of his reasoning.
Chapter XV.— The Anabaptists.— 1537— 1538, - - 150
Hermann and Benoit, Anabaptists, come to Geneva, in order to dispute with
the ministers. — Conferences with the Syndics. — Dispute with Calvin — The
Anabaptists cannot defend their doctrines. — They are driven away. — Perse-
cutions against the Catholics. — Calvin's catechism. — The people swear to
the new formulary. — Caroli attacks the Genevan ministers. — He is cited be-
fore the synod of Berne, — and condemned. — Violence of Calvin against
Coroli. — Luther outraged.
Chapter XVI.— Despotism. Exile.— 1537— 1538, - 161
Troubles excited at Geneva by the formulary.— The Church and the State.-—-
CONTENTS. 667
Balard denounced by Calvin. — Various features of religious despotism.—
Physiognomy of the city. — Increasing irritation of the Eidgenoss. — The In-
formers. — Corault. — The council commands Calvin and Farel to give the
Sacrament to the faithful. — Obstinate refusal of the ministers. — The people
assemble and call for their banishment.
Chapter XVIL— Pamphlets of Calvin. Sadolet. 1537— '39, 171
Examination of two pamphlets against Catholicism, published at Geneva, by
Calvin. — The reformer judged by M. Galiffe. — The Catholic priest. — Sadolet
at Rome, — At Carpentras. — Conduct of the bishop, — His letter to the Gene-
vese, a monument of charity and eloquence. — Calvin's Reply. — Twofold ap-
preciation of this letter.
Chapter XVIIL— Calvin at Berne. 1538, ... 185
Journey of Calvin to Berne. — Dispositions of the populations. — Arrival at
Berne. — Conz. — Portrait of this minister. — Dispute of Conz, Calvin and Fa-
rel.— Berne exerts herself for the recall of the exiles. — The Genevan people
in general assembly, confirm the decree of exile against Calvin. — The
church of Geneva and its ministers judged by the reformer. — Debauchery,
hypocrisy, ignorance of the reformed clergy. — Calvin at Bale. — At Stras-
bourg.
Chapter XIX. — Calvin at Strasbourg. His marriage. 1539-40, 191
Religious physiognomy of Strasbourg. — John Sturm. — Capito. — Hedio. — Bu-
cer. — At what price the marriages of priests were effected. — Calvin arrives
at Strasbourg. — He is named professor of theology. — He undertakes to get a
wife for Viret. — He espouses Idelette St6erder. — He loses his first born, and
sheds no tears.
Chapter XX. — Doctrines of Calvin. Predestination. Free
Will. 1539—1540, .-..-. 203
The Sacristan of St. Pierre-le-Jeune at Strasbourg. — Dispute at the tavern of
the Green Tree. — That with God, the only motive to save or reprobate is his
own good pleasure. — There is no innocent man, — The Lord does not permit,
he ordains. — The horrible Decree. — God wills the salvation of the elect only.
— He commands sin. — The work of the sinner is the work of God. — In man
there is no liberty. — Concupiscence. — An exposition of Calvin's system of
Predestination. — The reformed church vs. the Protestant church. — The Sa-
cristan's tomb.
Chapter XXI. — Calvin at Frankfort, at Hagenau, at Worms, at
Ratisbon. 1540—1541, 216
Double labour of the reformation. — Appeal to a council with a resolve before-
hand to reject its decision. — Calvin at Frankfort. — His opinion on the Lord's
supper; — On the ceremonies of worship. — His discord with Melancthon— -Cal-
vin at Hagenau — Desires of Rome for peace. — Eck, Bucer, and Calvin. —
Accusations brought against the Genevan reformer by his co-religionists.
Chapter XXII.— De Ccena Domini. 1539—1540, - 227
Divergence of Protestant symbols regarding the Lord's Supper. — Opinion of
Carlstadt, — Of Zwingle, — Of Luther. — System of Calvin exposed by Bossuet.
and refuted and condemned by Luther and the Saxon church. — The Catho-
lic dogma of Transubstantiation defended by various Protestants.
Chapter XXIIL— The Epistle to the Romans, - - 238
Character of the Saxon exegesis. — Luther. — Melancthon. — The Catholic
School. — Its influence and progress in hermeneutics. — Calvin's Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans. — Appreciation of this work — Examples of
various texts of St. Paul tortured by the reformer. — His exegetical system. —
The abvsses into which his interpretation leads,
47*'
558 CONTENTS.
Chapter XXIV.^-Privale Life of Calvin at Strasbourg,. = 2^5^
Calvin's lileran friendships at Strasbourg. — Castalion. — The Waldensian bro-
thers.— Indigence of the reformer.— Farel wishes to come to the aid of his
friend. — Calvin's refusal. — The booksellers, Vendelin and Michel. — Calvin'S'
books meet with but little success in Germany; and why] — The reformer's
character.— He denounces the misconduct of a magistrate from the pulpit. —
He complains of Bucer. — The Jacobin's recriminations. — Calvin's avowals.
Chapter XXV.— The Devil and the Antichrist,. , . 253^
The Devil, in Luther's life, as an instrument of wrath and poetry. — The doc-
tor's temptation. — The devil in the life of Calvin. — Opinions of the Genevan
reformer. — Account of one possessed. — The opinion of Calvin concerning
epileptics and sorcerers. — The Antichiiist of Luther and the Saxon church,.
— The reformation still at this day teaches that the Pope is the Antichrist. —
The Protestant Review of the nineteenth century. — Belief of Calvin — John
de MuUer. — Hugo Grotius.
Chapter XXYL— The Scriptures,. .... 26S
Opinion of Pighius concerning the value of scripture and tradition. — Heinrich
Bensheim of Hagenau. — His vision. — Luther and Calvin before the Supreme
Tribunal. — Cotta, the woman according to the heart of God. — Calvin opposed
to Calvin. — Avowals of modern Protestants.
Chapter XXVlI.r— Calvin's Catechism. 1541,. - - 272
The Catholic catechism. — Catechisms of Luther; the doctrines contained in
them. — Calvin's catechism, old and worn out. — The reformation has not a
church, but churches, — Father Athanasius of Stanztadt. — That Catholicism
only can have a catechism. — All the truths of the gospel affirmed and denied
by the reformation. — Various proofs extracted from Protestant works.
Chapter XXVIIL— Calvin's Recall. 1541,. - . - 282
Causes of the recall of Calvin. — Miserable condition of the reformed church at
Geneva. — Letter of J. Bernard to the exile. — ^Menaces of Berne. — Mission of
deputies to treat of different points in litigation. — Their return to Geneva. —
TheCalvinistic party excite the population against the patriots who signed
the convention of Berne. — The Articulants. — Punishment of the Captain
General of the militia. — Division of minds. — The councils think of recalling
Calvin. — Letters of the Syndics. — The reformer's refusal. — New measures of
the councils. — Adjuration.- — Calvin yields. — Departure for Geneva. — St. Ig-
natius and Calvin.
Chapter XXTX.r — Geneva before the Reformation, - 291
Manners of the Burghers of Geneva at the epoch of the reformation. — Character
of the merchant. — Commerce, the source of wealth and nobility — The people.
— The jurists. — The physicians. — Calvin,. a stranger to the institutions and
life of the city. — The Libertines. — Calvin, and those infected with the pest.
Chapter XXX.^The Clerical System,. 1541—1543,. - 301
"What the reformation would have been, had Calvin been born at Eisleben. —
Hierarchical ideas of Calvin. — The ecclesiastical order. — Pastors. — Elders. —
Doctors. — Deacons. — The consistory. — Examination of the hierarchical sys-
tem of Calvin. — Absence of unity. — The Elder, an informer, a judge, a pope.
— Tardy return of Calvin toCatholic ideas, cencerning the necessity of the
Episcopacy.
Chapter XXXI.— The Church and the- Priest of Calvin,. - 311
What is the church? — How is it to be recognized. — The ecclesiastical minis,
try Twofold vocation. — Spiritual authority. — Discipline. — Excommunica-
tion.— Civil power. ^ — Society. — Examination ofCalvin's hierarchical system.
— InsufHcienoy of the marks af the true church which are indicated by the
COKTENTS. 559
reformer. — Tlie reformation could not appeal to the scriptures, the highest
signs of which are denied by Protestants. — Proofs in support of this. Lu-
ther in opposition to Calvin, concerning the legitimacy of pastors. — Beautiful
avowal of M. Ernest Naville, a Protestant. — The liberty of private judgment
and its abysses. — Previsions of Calvin.
Chapter XXXII. — The Liturgy, 323
Homages of Protestants to our liturgy.— The Catholic temple as ancient as
chri'stianity. — Baptism. — What Calvin has made of it.— What it was in the
primitive church. — The Calvinistic and Catholic Lord's Supper. The
Viaticum existing in antiquity. — Marriage at Geneva. — Divorce and its
causes. — Calvin refuses to marriage the title of Sacrament. — Confession.
Calvin at first favourable to auricular confession, which he afterwards abol-
ishes.— Extreme Unction, Sacerdotal Unction. — Avowals of some Protest-
ants.— Veneration of the Saints.— What Calvin thinks of Mary. — Con-
vents.— The cross prostrated by the reformer. — Lamentations of Protestant-
ism.—Chanting. — The Psalms of Marot. — Fatal influence of Calvin upon
the arts. — The reformer judged by Baudouin, the jurist.
Chapter XXXIII. — The Confession of Faith, . . 34^
Calvin in opposition to his own doctrines regarding private judgment. He
imposes a confession of faith upon Geneva. — What the reformation, in our
day, thinks of the formularies, or symbolical books. — A session in the great
council of Lausanne. — ^Reactory movement of different reformed churches
against the confession of faith. — Prophetic threats of Hammerschmidt.
Chapter XXXIV.— Calvin the Theocrat. 1541—1543, - 352
The theocracy of Calvin. — His legislative code is written with blood and with
fire. — Penal laws against the heretic. — Examples of punishment inflicted by
the legislator. — The torture. — Colladon. — The sorcerers. — Calvin's proceed-
ings against them. — How much greater was the mildness of the Catholic
church at Geneva.
Chapter XXXV.— The Political Struggle. 1543—1547, 360
The Libertines: — Calvin, master of Geneva, first makes war upon the freedom
of intellect. — The patriots chastised. — Calvin struggling with the Libertines,
What we are to understand by this denomination. — The philosophic system
attributed to them by the reformer. It is almost entirely extracted from Ser-
yetus. — No trace of it is found in the history of the Libertines.— Open war
is declared upon them by Calvin.
The Pamphlets : — Calvin preaches revolution by means of his pamphlets. — The
Nicodemites. — Political character of the Excvsatio adPseudo-Nicodemitas. —
Case of conscience variously resolved by the Protestant churches. — Literary
form of Calvin's libel against the Nicodemites. — Letter to Luther. — Melanc-
thon retains it. — Calvin's anger against Luther. — Sodolet an idolater.
The Refugees: — The emigrants bring with them to G-eneva- the vices of great
cities. — Bernard de Seswar. — How Calvin makes use of the refugees, — Peram-
bulating missionaries.: — Colporteurs. — The rights of citizenship degraded,
and conferred on the creatures^of the reformer. — Persecution of the Libertines..
The Informers : — The employment of spy ennobled by Calvin. — The Fox. — Fa-
vre. — Dubois, the bookseller. — The two spies. — The informers at the consis-
tory.— Physiognomy of Geneva.r— To what society is reduced by Calvin.
Chapter XXXVL— The Drama in the Street. 1547—1550, 38^
Peter Ameaux : — Labour of the opposition. — Struggles of Calvin. — Calvinian
duality.: — Henry VIII. and Moses. — Revelations of the Libertines. — Peter
Ameux. — Nocturnal Repast.: — Design against the reformer. — The counselor
Ameaux is denounced to the council and simply condemned to pay a fine. —
Wrath and menaces of Calvin. — Tlie sentence is reconsidered. — Ameaux, in
his shirt, makes the amende honorable. — Master La Mar and thespy Texier..
550 CONTENTS.
— The gibbet at St. Gervais.— Some samples of despotism. — ^Abel Poupin in
the pulpit.
Favre: — The family of Favre. — His daughter Frances. — His son-in-law, Ami
Perrin. — Favre summoned before the consistory, and accused of having cried,
live liberty! — He is interrogated. — Calvin's letter.
Ami Perrin: — Lawrence Megret, a creature of Calvin, denounces Ami Perrin
to the council. — Means employed by the reformer to ruin the captain gener-
al.— Popular commotion. — Calmed by Calvin. — Prosecution of Perrin. — Th®
interrogatory. — Reaction. — Condemnation of Megret.
Gruet :--Placards stuck up at St. Peter's. — Gruet accused. — Seizure of his
papers. — He is thrown into prison. — Tortured. — Decapitated. — Prosecution
instituted against some loose leaves.
Chapter XXXVIL— The Reformed Word in the Lord's Supper, 403
Luther : — Renewal of the dispute on the institution of the Lord's Supper. —
Zurich and Wittenberg. — Calvin vainly essays to reconcile the two church-
es.— Luther's decree. — Tergiversation in Calvin's language regarding the
Saxon monk. — Luther, the Pericles of the reformation and the servant of
Christ.' — Moritz Goltz, the bookseller. — The Protestant reformed churches
have never been able to produce a uniform symbol.
Westphalius : — Pamphlets of Westphalius.. — Dispute with Calvin. — Libels of
the Genevese reformer. — Various citations. — Reflections on this controversy.
Chapter XXXVIII. — Castalion and Human Liberty,. - 413
Castalion, the type of the learned man of the sixteenth century. — A Poet
Rhetorician, Philologist. — His sojourn at Strasbourg.— Preceptor at Gen-
eva.— Disputes with Calvin. — Is exiled,^ — Controversy concerning freewill.—
Polemics of the reformer. — Calvin's pamphlets. — Calvin accuses Castalion
of stealing. — The poet's defence. — Castalion dies from hunger. — His
epitaph.
Chapter XXXIX.— Bolsec, the Merit of Good Works, - 421
The pastor Saint-Andre preaches Calvin's predestination at St. Peter's. — Bo-l-
sec attacks the preacher, who is defended by the reformer. — Bolsec is
thrown into prison, and interrogated. — His defence. — He is retained in irons.
— Interference of the churches of Bale and Berne. — Zurich demands the
death of Bolsec. — He is set free,, leaves Geneva, and is pursued by the
hatred of Calvin. — History of Calvin's life and morals.^— Bolsec calumnia-
ted.—He is vindicated by Protestant writers.
Chapter XL.— Michael Servetus. 1553, ... 428
John Frellon, printer at Lyons, forms Calvin's acquaintance. — Servetus, at
Hagenau, writes against the Trinity. — His erratic life. — He arrives at Lyons,
and attaches himself to Frellon. — Leaves Lyons, and establishes himself at
Charlieu. — Afterwards at Vienne. — Peter Palmier protects Servetus. — The
Ptolemy. — The Bible annotated. — Frellon brings Servetus into relation with
Calvin,— Questions of Servetus to Calvin. — Disagreement. — Correspond-
ence. The Christianismi Restitutio. — Some quotations from this work.—
Calvin denounces the book to the police of Lyons. — Fruitless pursuit of the
official of Vienne. — Calvin's denunciation. — Arrest of Servetus. — His flight.
He arrives at Geneva, is denounced, and imprisoned. — His request to the
council. — Interrogatory. — Calvin's insults. — Prosecution and death of Ser-
vetus.
Chapter XLI. — The Reformation and the Blood of Servetus, 456
Letter of Calvin to Farel, 1546. — History of this document. — George David
writes to his brethren of Holland in favour of the Spaniard.— The Helvetic
churches consulted. — Advice of Berne, Schaff"house, Bale, Zurich. — Me-^
lancthon and Bucer congratulate Calvin. — Castalion attacks the reformer's-
pamphlet, de HcsreticisjpunieJidis.
CONTENTS. 561
Chapter XLIL— Theodore Beza. 1549—1562, - - 462
His infancy. — His poems. — Fears the parliament and leaves France. — Arrives
at Geneva, and is welcomed by Calvin. — Opposition of certain ministers. —
Beza attempts to justify himself. — Appreciation of his apology. — Opinion of
the Lutherans. — Disputation with Baudouin (Balduinus). — He pleads in fa-
vour of the punishment of heretics.
Chapter XLIIL— Fall of the Libertines. 1552—1557, 470
Continuation of the struggle between the patriots and Calvin. — Various
changes of fortune. — Philibert Berthelier is accused before the consistory
and excommunicated. — Sensation of Geneva. — Communion at St. Peter's. —
Refusal of Calvin to distribute the Lord's supper to the Libertines. — The
council resumes the right of excommunication. — Scene played by Calvin.—
The council yields. — Francis Daniel Berthelier. — Calvin's motives of hatred
against this citizen. — He seeks his ruin — Plot brewed by the police. —
Death and exile of several patriots. — Daniel is accused of conspiracy against
the State. — Tortured by Colladon. — Stratagem to extract confessions from
the victim. — Punishment of Berthelier. — Historical reflections.
Chapter XLIV.— Private Life at Geneva. 1541—1560, 477
The learned man of the revival. — Luther and Calvin. — Political and literary
labours of the Genevese reformer. — Solution of different cases of con-
science.— Intellectual fecundity of Calvin. — He loves to consult his friends.
— His co-labourers. — His correspondence. — His soul. — Death of Idelette. —
Calvin at table. — In his dwelling. — His usual reading, the Bible. — Cajvin
with his theological adversaries. — Never knew any thing but hatred.- | A
tempts to justify his acrimony of style. — Maladies. — Domestic troubles.
Chapter XLV. — Literary Friendships, . - . . 493
OcHiNo: — At Sienna. — Success and estimate of his preaching. — Tempted and
seduced by the demon of pride. — Revolts against authority. — Is summoned
to Rome, and refuses to appear. — Insults the papacy. — Flies to Geneva with
a young girl. — Associates with Calvin. — Desires to be free. — Is denounced
and banished. — His dialogue on polygamy.
Gentilis : — Being attracted to Geneva, preaches his opinions concerning the
Trinity. — Is attacked and combated by Calvin. — Imprisoned. — His retreat.
— He is banished from the city. — Decapitated at Berne.
Chapter XLVL — The Clergy of Lvons. Gabriel de Saconay.
1560—1563. ...'-.--. 503
Calvin's congratulation to Gabriel de Saconay. — Some pages of this libel. —
Bretschneider vaunting the urbanity of the reformer, — Who Saconay was. —
His love for letters. — He is attacked by Calvin on the subject of a preface
placed at the head of the Assertlo of Henry VIII. — Idea of Saconay's com-
mentary.— Insults of Calvin. — Explained. — The clergy of Lyons, the sa-
viours of our liberties and our faith.
Chapter XLVIL — Anarchical Propagandism, - - . 514
Means of propagandism employed by the reformation. — Nocturnal assemblies.
— Sermon with closed doors. — Colporteurs. — Libels introduced into the con-
vents.— Calvin's pamphlet against Paul III. — Notion of this work. — Protest-
ants, after the death of Calvin, reproduce his anarchical doctrines. — Dia-
logues of Nicholas de Montard. — The goods of the clergy, — The convents,
— The Maximum,
Chapter XLVIII.— Calvin's Death. 1564, ... 525
The Reformer is afflicted by various maladies. — His letter to the physicians of
Montpellier, — Causes of his last sufferings. — His doctrines abandoned by
Zurich. — His adieux to the council. — His last testaments — The approach of
death. — His last moments — His funeral.
562
C 0 JS" T E K T S
Chapter XLIX. — Calvin, Considered as a Writer, - - 534
Calvin and Luther in the pulpit.— Causes of Calvin's oratorical inferiority. —
He disdains images.— The Genevese and the Wittenberg auditories. — Self
predominates in Calvin.— The Libertines. — In what different degrees the
reformers are masters of their style. — Is Calvin one of the creators of the
French language ? — Syntactical procedure.
Chapter L. — Injflaence of Calvin, - . . . . 544
Calvin has bestowed upon the world no truth. — The principal articles of his
symbol are rejected by the Protestant School. — He has corrupted the morals
of Geneva.— Testimony of M. Galiffe.— He has perverted the instincts
of his co-religionists. — Mania for disputation introduced into theology. — The
cultivation of the arts neglected — His despotism survives the reformer and
only yields place to anarchy of doctrine.
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