Posted on 06/26/2010 10:46:26 AM PDT by Natural Law
What are we to think of Calvin?
Rev . Fr. Philippe Marcille
The influence of John Calvin (1509-1564) has been immense, perhaps even more so than that of Luther. Certainly, without the bellowing revolutionary Luther, Calvin would not have been able to do anything; yet without Calvin, the revolt would not have had the political impact that it did in France and especially the United States.
Origins
He was born in Picardy, France, in 1509. His parents were well-to-do people. A very gifted student, he received a benefice from the Church and continued his studies at Paris. He was not well liked by his classmates: they nicknamed him "the accusative." He readily scolded others and tattled on them, while remaining aloof and bitter. But when in public, he would lose all his reserve and stand out in debates. An anti-Lutheran, defender of authority, he approved the legal actions brought against the most strident Lutherans.
The Personal Crisis
In 1532, at the College of France, he was still Catholic. By the end of 1533, he had suddenly turned Protestant, sold his benefices, and begun the life of an itinerant preacher. What happened?
Protestant hagiography has sought to explain it by edifying conversations in his room that would have taken place between Calvin and a Protestant cousin. Recent studies, however, have shown that the two were hundreds of miles apart at the time. A key, though, was left in part by Calvin himself:
Each and every time I entered within myself, a horror so great came over me that neither purifications nor satisfactions could have effaced it. The more I considered myself the more my conscience was pricked with sharp darts, so much so that only one consolation remained, and that was to deceive myself by forgetting about myself ....bewildered by the misery into which I had fallen, and even more so by the knowledge of how close I was to eternal death (Letter to Sadolet).
It is only fair to wonder what could be the nature of such a burning self-reproach. There is one answer, based upon serious evidence, one that has always been passionately denied by the Protestants. In 1551, a Catholic controversialist revealed that the archives of the city of Noyon, Calvin's birth place, contain the record of a condemnation against Calvin, at age 18, for sodomy. He had by then already received the tonsure. His parents obtained clemency from the bishop, so that instead of being condemned to death as the law demanded, he was branded as a sign of infamy. The Catholic controversialist presented the evidence signed by all the eminent personages of the city. The English scholar Stapleton went there to examine the archives during Calvin's lifetime, and vouched for the fact. The contemporary German Lutherans spoke of it as an established fact (Schlusselburg, Théologie calvinienne).
At twenty-four, Calvin was at a crossroads. He had to choose between confession or Lutheranism. He chose: "Only believe, and you are as sure of your own eternal salvation as of the Redemption of Christ. Only believe, and despite all the crimes, not only will you remain in the grace of God, in justice, but you will always remain in grace and you will never be able to lose it" (Bossuet's summary of his doctrine in "Variations").
The Heresiarch
His career began. He wandered to Strasbourg, Basel, Ferrara, and finally settled at Geneva in 1536 as preacher. There he was to show his full worth, not only as a preacher, but also as a political virtuoso. In five years, he was able to solidify his authority over the Consistory the Council of the Ancients, a disciplinary tribunal that passed sentence on all public sinners]; first as leader of the Protestants in exterminating the Catholics (half the city fled, ruined, all their property and possessions confiscated), then as president of the Council that voted on the right interpretation of the Bible, and finally as chief of the tribunal and the army of informers and police in charge of morality and doctrine.
The Tyrant
He began obsessively multiplying laws of public morality. Death was the penalty for high treason against religion as well as for high treason against the city, and for the son who would strike or curse his father, and for the adulterer and the heretic. Children were whipped or hanged for calling their mother a devil. A mason wearily exclaimed "to the devil with the work and the master," and was denounced and condemned to three days in prison. Magicians and sorcerers were hunted down. They always confessed, of course. According to the city register, in 60 years, some 150 were burnt at the stake.
The years went by; Calvin's obsession gripped the Genevans. The number of dishes that could be served at table was regulated, as well as the shape of shoes, and the ladies' hair styles. In the registers are to be found condemnations such as these: "Three journey-men tanners were sentenced to three days on bread and water in prison for having eaten at lunch three dozen pates, which is a great immorality."
That was in 1558. Drunkenness, taverns and card games were punished by fines. The city's coffers filled up and served to pay new informers. For there were ears everywhere in the republic of evangelical liberty, and the failure to inform was itself a misdemeanor. "They are to be stationed in every quarter of the city, so that nothing can escape their eyes," wrote Calvin. Sermons were given on Thursdays and Sundays. Attendance was obligatory under pain of fine or flogging. Not even children were excused. The spies would verify that the streets and houses were empty. Every year, the controllers of orthodoxy went house-to-house to have everyone sign the profession of faith voted that year. The last Catholics disappeared by death or exile. None spoke of changing religion, for Calvin had had a law voted punishing by death anyone who would dare question the reforms of the "servant of Geneva."
Calvin's City
Outwardly Geneva become an exemplary city where an iron morality reigned. Inwardly it was rotten. The population had been augmented by refugees of all sorts: Protestants chased from France, but also delinquents seeking impunity. Calvin's law allowed divorce: people hastened to Geneva from Savoy and the province of Lyons to get remarried. The Protestant Genevan Galiffe, a genealogist, concluded from his studies that the Geneva of Calvin's time was the gutter of Europe. And Calvin knew it:
Out of ten evangelists, you will scarcely find a one who became evangelical for any other reason than to be able to abandon himself more freely to drinking and dissolute living.
Calvin humbly took the title of "servant of Geneva," but God, he held, spoke by his mouth. "Since God has deigned to make known to me what is good and what is evil, I must rule myself by this measure..." And everyone else, too! One morning the city awoke to find gallows had been erected in all the public squares, to which a placard was attached: "For whomever shall speak ill of Mr. Calvin." A letter from the dictator sums up his attitude: "It is necessary to rid the land of these damned cads who exhort the people to resist us, blacken our conduct ...such monsters must be stamped out."
Absolute Power
Calvin's life was not snow white: there are stories of seized inheritances, "spontaneous gifts" made to the great man by merchants, considerable sums sent from the queen of Navarre or the duchess of Ferrara or from other well-off foreigners destined for the poor of the city, but which disappeared into the poor pockets of the great man; marriages arranged for members of his family by threatening rich refugees with expulsion.
Lampoons were circulated: woe to whomever the evangelical police seized in possession of one of them. Some escaped from torture or death by fleeing in time. Calvin then had their wives banished and their goods confiscated. For security's sake, he had the death penalty voted for whomever would even speak of recalling the exiles from their banishment.
Daniel Berthelier, master of the Mint of Geneva, had learned at Noyon the truth about Calvin's past, and had kept written evidence at his house. He was discovered, horribly tortured, and finally beheaded.
It was the execution of Servetus that consolidated the dictator's power. Calvin had cleverly had his adversary's book sent to the hive of Protestant popes, all of whom, including Melancthon, congratulated him on instigating the condemnation of this horrible heretic. Calvin immediately exploited this fleeting prestige to have appointed as electors a multitude of the men who had taken refuge in Geneva, for reasons which were not always based on religion, whom he called "the confessors of the faith." He soon controlled an absolute majority on the Consistory. He then had his last adversaries hunted down, exiled, or educated. It was 1554: before him were ten years in which to exercise absolute power.
There was no more resistance. Even the most powerful citizens could be forced to walk bare-footed around the city, clothed in a shirt, a candle in- hand, crying out "Mercy to God," the ordeal ending by a public confession made kneeling before the Consistory.
When not consulting the spies' reports, Calvin wrote his own book of revelation entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion. He worked on it incessantly, rearranging it, augmenting and re-editing, until it reached a thousand quarto pages. Woe to the critics, whose criticism would elicit from the author a rain of invectives. His ire was as likely to inveigh against Protestants as Catholics. Of Lutherans he was provoked to say: "They are quick tempered, furious, fickle, inconstant, liars, full of canine impudence and diabolical pride."
The quality of Calvin's cold hatred was terrible indeed. It is manifested especially in the affair of Michael Servetus. This learned doctor, a closet Protestant, amused himself by picking out all the blunders and errors that he could find in Calvin's pride and joy, The Institutes. He then sent the book with his own annotations to Calvin. That was in 1546. Calvin clenched his teeth: "If he comes hither and I have any authority, I will never let him quit this place alive" (Letter to Viret, a preacher of Lausanne). He awaited the moment of vengeance for seven years. In 1553, Servetus published anonymously an anti-trinitarian treatise. Calvin, who knew all the publishing channels of Protestant books, was able to discover the author's identity. He denounced him, furnishing proof to the Inquisition, which condemned Servetus, and then helped to obtain the mitigation of his punishment in light of all the good he had done as a physician. The unfortunate Servetus fled to Geneva, where he was arrested on sight. He was made to rot in prison two months. He pleaded to be allowed to have clean clothes and linen, but Calvin opposed the request. He was condemned to be burned alive. Calvin himself arranged the pyre: the pile of faggots was disposed in a circle around the stake so as to make the condemned man be burnt slowly. Calvin remained for two hours at his window listening to the man's screams. He received the approbation of the Protestant hive.
After 1559, the spleen that he had vented on his enemies seemed to be concentrated in his own entrails: stomach aches, intestinal pains, nephritic colic, bloody coughing racked him. His successor Theodore Beza confined him to his room and maintained the legend of the great man. But he confided that his master was becoming daily more imperious and tyrannic. He had unforeseeable fits of anger. Nothing satisfied him. He scolded; he threatened; he inveighed against all the pastors. He made the members of the Consistory confess publicly before him.
He died on the 27th of May 1564 after, it seems, thanking God for his evangelical mission. Was he a prophet, as the Protestants think? Maybe, in the final analysis, the prophet of religious democracy, the Antichrist's democracy. As he lay dying, though, he never had upon his lips the final cry that graced the lips of his dying victim, Michael Servetus: "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me."
(Translated from Le Bachais, No. 35, November-December 1999, the publication of the Priory St. Pierre Julien Eymard, France).
Just think of all the money he could have made selling indulgences to those people..
It seems that you are blaming the Catholic Church for sodomy allegedly committed by Calvin, without any evidence of such.
Good grief.
That just goes to show you the lengths some will go to to tar the Church with any scandal.
Actually, I was not. My question had to do with the un-evidenced accusation of an act committed by an 18 year old young man and, since he was still a Roman Catholic at the time and he had an accomplice, I asked if his clergy was involved somehow. You don't hear the whole story and I wondered why.
Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church is as authoritative a source as any. I assume you probably consulted it before dismissing the facts of history as unlikely myths . . .
Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church is as authoritative a source as any. I assume you probably consulted it before dismissing the facts of history as unlikely myths . . .
As I recall, Bolsec not only claimed that Calvin had been convicted of sodomy, but that part of his punishment consisted of having a fleur-de-lys branded on his forehead.
I can understand perhaps why portraits of the man omit this decoration. I do not understand how it escaped the notice of Guillaume Farel and others in authority in Geneva. "Say, John, what's with that fleur-de-lys on your forehead?" "Well, Bill, that's kind of complicated . . ."
That is an outright lie. You have me mixed up with someone else. The rest of your explanation has nothing to do with me. Your memory is obviously failing you.
Years ago Arminians and Calvinists argued over Billy Graham and at that time you also demanded answers from me that I had already given you. Just like now.
But I NEVER mentioned Billy Graham on my homepage.
Apologize for your arrogant lie.
Oh, that fleur-de-lys.
"It is a thing against nature," he remarks, "that any one should not love his wife, for God has ordained marriage in order that two may be made one person—a result which, certainly, no other alliance can bring about. When Moses says that a man shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, he shows that a man ought to prefer marriage to every other union, as being the holiest of all. It reflects our union with Christ, who infuses his very life unto us; for we are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone. This is a great mystery, the dignity of which cannot be expressed in words." - John Calvin
So, were Catholics to blame for the Salem witch trials and subsequent executions?
Keep in mind that we are talking about an event that took place nearly two centuries after the Reformation. It took place in a place that was nearly entirely Calvinist and it is doubtful that the average person in Salem had ever even met a Catholic.
The Orthodox, Anglicans and many European brances of Lutheranism all have valid Apostolic Succession.
You wrote:
“What does that do to claims of Apostolic succession? Chucks it in the Tiber, just like Formosus, that’s what it does.”
You really seem to have no idea of what you’re talking about. Apostolic succession is carried through the bishops - not just one bishop, but by all of them. You apparently believe - MISTAKENLY - that Apostolic Succession rests upon only one diocese when it actually rests upon thousands. The fact that an anti-Catholic doesn’t seem to know this will, of course, not stop an anti-Catholic from posting. That would require a circumspection that may be lacking.
This only goes to show that its the doctrine, not the person. Anyone can say anything about anyone.
But, does their doctrine match the Bible?
Nor I, but I was just curious as to this. It’s not the man, but the doctrine. Does it point to Christ? Is it Biblical? Those are the only questions necessary.
For a self appointed hall pass monitor you sure do ignore the rules when it comes to you. As a reminder it is against Religion Forum rules to accuse others of lying.
You must have pulled that comment from your homepage since it doesn't appear anymore.
As usual your mind reading skills are flawed. It wasn't Siamese cats it was Bernese Mountain Dogs, it wasn't inherit it was urinate on, and it was the earth I removed when digging my pool.......
Based on such biblical misinterpretations, Calvinists often viewed laughter, happiness, and pleasure as suspect and undesirable. Beginning with Calvin himself, whenever empowered Calvinists frequently tried to impose their doleful philosophy on others.
The theocracy Calvin established in sixteenth-century Geneva, Switzerland (not democracy or republic as some have foolishly or disingenuously suggested), prohibited dancing, drinking, gambling, card playing, ribaldry, fashionable clothes, and other amusements. Theaters were closed and attempts were made to drive taverns from the city.
Proclaiming "the chief duty of man is to glorify God," Calvin required religious instruction for all, public fasting, austere living, and evening curfew. According to the Geneva town records, a man was imprisoned for three days for smiling during a baptism.
Examples abound. When the Puritans and Calvinists temporarily gained control in England, they banned entertainments, closed theaters, opposed festivals, and prescribed the death penalty for sex outside of marriage. Lord Macaulay said the Puritans "hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
Because abused and unhappy people are often mean people, it's probably no coincidence that, just as in Calvin’s Geneva, today's ascetic religious groups usually support intolerant and violent doctrines. Nor should it be surprising that they also follow the Calvinist’s example of trying to enact laws denying others the same freedom, pleasure, and happiness they reject.
It was not that no one had understood the true Gospel of grace during the prior 1200 or so years (since was beginning to be suppressed in Augustine's time)
Who had this knowledge specifically? I am glad for Calvin's work and scholarship, too, but who had this knowledge after the Apostles died or were martyred.
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