Birth And Parentage Of Calvin.
His Brother Charles.
Education Of Calvin.
His Choice Of A Career.
John Calvin was born at Noyon in Picardy, on the 10th of July,
1509. He belonged to a family which had originally consisted of
simple mechanics, and had only just entered the rank of
burgesses. His grandfather was a cooper at Pont-l'Evêque in
Normandy; his father, Gerard Chauvin or Cauvin, settled, at some
time and from some motives now unknown, at Noyon, where he was a
notary in the ecclesiastical court and secretary to the bishop,
Charles de Hangest, who treated him with kindness. No ambition is
more disinterested than that of a father, but it is none the less
keen, and the desire of Gerard Cauvin's heart was that his
children should continue to climb the social ladder, of which he
was already standing on the first step. At that time the Church
offered an opening to all, and a means by which the very lowest
might possibly rise very high. The pious wishes of Jeanne
Lefranc, wife of Gerard Cauvin, were in harmony with the more
worldly desires of her husband: they devoted their two eldest
sons, Charles and John Calvin, to the Church.
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The great difference in the life and character of these two young
men, who followed the same path from the very first, is a sign of
the times and of the opposing currents which influenced society.
The elder of the two brothers, Charles Calvin, became a priest,
and died in 1536, one of the chaplains of St. Mary's church at
Noyon; 'but,' an almost contemporary chronicler says, 'he was
easily led astray by the errors which abounded in those-days, for
he loved the path of liberty, and despised the Church. He uttered
blasphemous opinions concerning the sacraments. In spite of many
remonstrances he remained shameless, like a man plunged into the
depths of iniquity, and persisted in his faults. In 1534 the
chapter found it necessary to lament for him as a hopeless and
lost soul. He showed himself reprobate in everything, and took
care to manifest his indifference to the remedies offered to him
for the salvation of his soul. He lifted himself up against God
himself, and blasphemed the holy sacrament of the altar. At
length, in 1536, he was very ill, and as he had forsaken God, so
also at his deathbed did God abandon him as a lost soul. He
refused to receive the holy sacraments; on which occasion his
body was placed between the four pillars of a gibbet in the place
of execution at Noyon.'
One of the modern biographers of John Calvin has concluded from
these facts that Charles died a Protestant; but this is a great
mistake. Evidently Charles Calvin lived and died a dissolute man
and an unbeliever, and at the same time remained chaplain of the
Catholic Church in his native town. The sixteenth century abounds
in similar instances.
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At this very time, from 1534 to 1536, whilst Charles was leading
a licentious life and dying miserably at Noyon, John left his
native land in order that he might openly profess and promulgate
his austere faith. At Basle he published the first edition of his
'Institutes of the Christian Religion,' the most solid body of
doctrine which the reformed Church possesses. After having
wandered for some months in Italy to make proselytes, he
established himself at Geneva, in order to organize both the
reformed Church and reformed society, and to carry on that fierce
struggle with libertines and sceptics in which his life was so
rapidly consumed.
The family of the Calvins presents a true picture of the period;
in the sixteenth century the same thing was going on everywhere,
unbelievers and fervent Christians, libertines and men of the
most austere lives, were springing up and living side by side.
Two contrary winds were blowing over Europe at that period, one
carrying with it scepticism and licentiousness, while the other
breathed only Christian faith and the severest morality. One of
these arose chiefly from the revival of the ancient literature
and philosophy of Greece and Rome; the other sprang from the
struggles made in the Church itself and in its Councils to arrive
at a reform which was at the same time greatly desired and
fiercely opposed.
These two impulses and these two paths give a special character
to the whole of the sixteenth century. It was at the same time
the fascinated worshipper of pagan antiquity and the fervent
apostle of Christian reform; it was full of impulse and of doubt,
of unbridled licence and of rigorous puritanism, fruitful alike
in learned sceptics and pious reformers, bold in making use of
the fact of liberty without admitting it in principle; it was, in
short, the age which produced Erasmus and Luther in Germany, and
Montaigne and Calvin in France.
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The education of Calvin bore the impress of this fluctuation
between opposing tendencies and temptations. He was brought up at
first by the liberality of the Church, and for its service; at
the age of twelve he was nominated to a chapel at Noyon, called
the chapel of La Gésine, and went to Paris from 1523 to 1527, to
study classics and philosophy in the colleges of La Marche and
Montaigu, where he obtained well-deserved distinction by his zeal
and assiduity. 'He spoke little,' says a chronicle, 'and only on
serious and weighty matters; he was not given to much company,
but spent his time alone.' His seriousness, and possibly his
severity, had already impressed his fellow-students, who
nicknamed him 'The Accusative Case.' The report of his success
reached Noyon, and procured for him the post of curé at
Marteville, and two years after at Pont-l'Evêque, although he had
only received the tonsure, and never took any further steps
towards becoming a priest. He himself says that he was 'at that
time more attached than any one to the Papal superstitions,' and
he scrupulously fulfilled the duties of his position. He
sometimes preached at Pont-l'Evéque, to which place he was very
glad to have been appointed; 'joyous and proud,' according to one
of his biographers, 'that a single essay should have made him a
curé.'
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The native place of his family seems to have cherished all
recollections connected with Calvin. Thirty years after his
death, Cardinal Alexander de Medicis, legate of Pope Clement
VIII., and at a later period himself pope under the title of Leo
XI., was on his way to Vervins, to assist in framing the treaty
between France and Spain; he passed near Pont-l'Evêque, and there
stopped his whole retinue, 'got down from his litter, and went on
foot to see the cottage in which he had been told that John
Calvin was born.'
Calvin did not long follow the course prescribed by the Church.
'My father,' he says, 'saw that the study of the law generally
enriched those who pursued it, and this hope made him suddenly
change his mind with regard to me. And thus it happened that
being withdrawn from the study of philosophy in order to learn
the law, I compelled myself to work faithfully, so as to obey my
father's will. But, all the while, God in his secret providence
made me finally turn my head in another direction.'
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