Calvin The Law Student, At Orleans And Bourges.
Calvin The Reformer, In Paris.
I am inclined to think that his father's will was not the only,
and possibly not even the principal, guiding motive in Calvin's
resolution. From the age of fourteen, when he began his studies
in the college of La Marche, at Paris, he had been a pupil of the
learned professor Mathurin Cordier, or Corderius, who was
afterwards placed by him at the head of the College of Geneva.
Robert Olivétan, afterwards one of the translators of the Bible,
was a fellow-countryman and relative of whom he saw much when he
was at Noyon. These two men were well acquainted with the labours
of Luther, and were themselves following the current of the new
ideas; and, doubtless, if they had not attracted Calvin towards
these ideas, they had at least prepared him to receive them. Be
that, however, as it may, in accordance with his father's wish
and his own inclination, he abandoned the Church in 1529, and
went first to Orleans and then to Bourges to study law. At these
two universities there were celebrated professors who taught, not
only jurisprudence, but the various branches of history,
philosophy and philology, which are cognate to that science.
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Calvin met there Pierre de l'Estoile, Petrus Stella, a learned
and subtle jurist, who was afterwards President of the Court of
Inquiries in the 'Parlement' of Paris; Alciati of Milan, who had
been appointed by Francis I. as the most learned doctor of the
time in Roman law, and also as one of the most elegant scholars
in ancient literature; and Melchior Wolmar, the German, a learned
Greek scholar, who read Homer and Demosthenes with his pupils,
and who also read with them--but not quite so openly--the Bible.
From the earliest times the French jurists had been adversaries,
rather than partisans, of the Romish Church, and after the
revival of pagan literature the more learned among them
frequently prided themselves upon displaying great independence
and freedom of thought. The three professors of Orleans and
Bourges became the revered masters of Calvin, and Calvin was the
favourite pupil of his masters. But he was not long a pupil. 'He
profited so greatly in so short a time,' says Beza, 'that he was
not considered as a student, but as one of the learned doctors,'
and he was often called upon to take the place of his masters in
the professorial chair. But neither law nor learning, nor any of
the sciences taught by these professors, could satisfy Calvin's
soul or his intellect. In speaking of himself at this time, he
says:--'My conscience was very far from being in a condition of
certain peace. Every time that I looked down into myself or
lifted my heart up to God, such a supreme horror took possession
of me that there was no purification or expiation which could
have cured me; and the more closely I considered my own nature,
so much the more was my conscience goaded with fierce stings, so
that there remained no other comfort except to deceive myself by
forgetting myself.
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But God, who took pity upon me, conquered my heart and subdued it
to docility by a sudden conversion. ... Having then received some
taste and knowledge of true piety, so great a desire was
incontinently kindled in me to profit by it, that although I did
not entirely renounce all other studies, yet I paid but little
attention to them. ... Before the year was at an end, all those
who were yearning for the true doctrine began to look towards me
as a teacher, although I myself had only just begun to learn. ...
Being of a shy and solitary nature, I have always loved
retirement and tranquillity; I began therefore to seek out some
hiding-place, and some means of withdrawing myself from my
fellows; but, so far from attaining my desire, it seemed, on the
contrary, as if every retreat I chose in a remote spot was at
once converted into a public school. In short, although it has
always been my chief desire to live in private without being
known, yet God has led me hither and thither, and turned me in so
many directions by different changes, that he never left me at
peace in any place, until, in spite of my own desires, he made me
come forward, and brought me into public life.'
All uncertainty had disappeared and anxiety for himself had been
removed; Calvin recognised his mission and entered on his
vocation with great ardour.
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In 1531 or 1532, after three years of study he gave up the law,
as he had given up the Established Church; he left Bourges,
returned to Noyon, resigned his curé at Pont-l'Evêque and his
chapel of LaGésine in 1534, sold the small property he inherited
on the death of his father, and thenceforward devoted himself
entirely to the work of religious reform; a reform which was then
in its infancy, and was fiercely opposed. No resolve was ever
taken more spontaneously, more conscientiously, or involved a
more full and free self-sacrifice and such singleness of aim in
the desire to serve, at all costs, the cause which he looked upon
as the cause of the highest truth and the law of God.
He took up his abode at Paris with Etienne de la Forge, a wealthy
merchant, and an ardent partisan of the Reformation, 'whose
memory,' says Calvin, 'ought to be venerated by the faithful as
that of a martyred saint of Christ.' He was, in fact, burnt at
the stake a few years later. At his house the faithful reformers,
who were already fiercely persecuted, were in the habit of
meeting in secret. Calvin frequently addressed these meetings; he
spoke with a confidence which carried conviction to his hearers,
and almost always ended his discourses with the words: 'If God be
for us, who can be against us?' His indefatigable activity and
already wide-spread influence soon attracted the attention of
enemies as well as friends. 'In the midst of his books and
studies, he was,' says Etienne Pasquier, 'of such a restless
nature, that he must still be doing the very utmost to promote
the advancement of his sect. Our prisons were sometimes crowded
with poor misguided men, whom he exhorted, consoled, and
strengthened unceasingly by his letters; he never failed to find
messengers to whom the prison doors were open in spite of all the
efforts of the jailers to keep them out. This was his method of
proceeding at first, and it was by such means that little by
little he won over part of our France.'
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Nevertheless, Calvin still remembered that not long previously he
had himself been a Catholic, and at this time he showed a
consideration for the institutions and members of his ancient
Church, and a moderation both of judgment and language, which
gave way, only too soon, to violence and invective. On the 29th
of June, 1531, he wrote from Paris to Francis Daniel, one of his
fellow-students at Orleans, as follows:--
'I went to the monastery on Sunday to see the nuns, and,
according to your wish, to fix the day on which your sister
should take the vows. They informed me that, at a meeting held
by the sisters, in accordance with a solemn custom, she and
some of her companions had been already authorized to take the
vows. I sounded your sister's heart, that I might learn if she
accepted this yoke meekly, and if her neck had not been broken
rather than bent to it. I exhorted her to confide freely in me
all that was passing in her soul. I have never seen any one
more ready and resolute, and it would be impossible to
accomplish her desire too soon. Every time that she heard her
vow spoken of one would have said that she was playing with
dolls. It was no part of my mission to try and turn her aside
from this feeling, but I urged her in a few words not to go
beyond her strength, not to expect anything rashly from
herself, but to place her whole trust in God, in whom we live
and move and have our being.'
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A few years later Calvin would not have undertaken such a
mission; or, if he had, he would not have acquitted himself with
so much delicacy and reserve. His first published work was an
appeal for mercy--or, to use the language of the eighteenth
century, for toleration--on behalf of the reformers, who were
persecuted, banished, imprisoned, and led to the stake. He put
forth his protest humbly, in the shape of a commentary on
Seneca's treatise, 'De Clementia' (On Mercy); so humbly that many
of his biographers, and among others the new editors of his
complete works, have considered that he did not intend to defend
the persecuted reformers, and that his commentary on Seneca's
treatise was simply the work of a moral philosopher and a
philologist. It is true that Calvin does not once speak of the
reformers and the hardships which they endured, throughout the
work; he does not make a single allusion to them which can be
laid hold of. Still, I am not the less convinced that, by this
publication, he hoped to serve the cause of his brethren, and
that, if reform had been triumphant and powerful, his commentary
on Seneca's treatise would never have appeared. The very title of
the book, and the circumstances under which it was published, are
much stronger proofs in favour of this assertion than the doubts
concerning it, which would arise from Calvin's reserve of
language. The dedication of the work to Charles de Hangest, the
Bishop of Noyon, his former patron, confirms me in this opinion.
So long as prudence was possible, Calvin was prudent, and anxious
to conciliate the established authorities. Very respectfully he
placed a eulogy of clemency under the eyes of a Catholic prelate
whom he knew to be well-disposed towards himself, and who would,
as he hoped, use his valuable influence on behalf of the
proscribed reformers.
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The Bishop of Noyon was not the only person of whom Calvin
thought and to whom he spoke at this time with an almost
affectionate deference. On the 4th of April, 1532, he wrote to
Erasmus, to whom he sent his book, and reminded him in the most
flattering terms of his own recent labours on the works of
Seneca, addressing him as 'the honour and the chief delight of
the world of letters.' He did not then foresee that three years
later, when his friend Bucer introduced him to Erasmus at Basle,
after talking to him for some little time, Erasmus would say to
Bucer, in a low tone, 'I see rising up within the Church a great
scourge against the Church.'
At the same time that Calvin was anxious to conciliate persons of
importance he took great pains to secure publicity and success
for his book. On the 22d April, 1532, he wrote to his friend
Francis Daniel, at Orleans, 'The die is cast: my commentaries on
Seneca's treatise "De CLementia" have appeared; but they are
printed at my own expense and have cost me more money than you
will believe. I am now trying to gather a little of it in again.
If you wish to help me in that way I will send you a hundred
copies, or as many as you think it well to take. Meanwhile accept
the copy which I send you, and do not think that I impose any law
upon you in this matter, for I wish you to feel perfectly free in
all your dealings with me.'
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Calvin was not slow in recognising that in the presence of
questions and passions which agitated men's minds more violently
from day to day, prudence and conciliation were of very little
use, and that, whether for defence or attack, it was necessary to
have recourse to more powerful weapons. He was one of those who
do not rush to the fore-front of every struggle, but who, at the
same time, will not make any sacrifice of their own belief or
opinion to avoid a contest, and who enter into it heart and soul
when once it becomes inevitable. Before long an incident occurred
which gave rise to this necessity. Calvin was very intimate with
Nicholas Cop, rector of the University of Paris, who in virtue of
his position was to deliver a discourse on All Saints' day, in
1533, at the church of the Mathurins. Calvin offered to compose
the sermon, and 'constructed a very different kind of oration,'
says Beza, 'from the ordinary one, for he spoke of religious
matters with great freedom, and in a liberal tone of which the
Sorbonne and the "Parlement" did not at all approve; so much so
that the "Parlement" sent to seek Nicholas Cop, and he set out to
go to them with his attendants; being warned, however, that they
intended to imprison him, he did not go to the palace, but turned
back and fled from the kingdom, going to Basle, the native place
of his father, William Cop, physician to the king, and a man of
great renown.' [Footnote 55] Calvin also was accused, and Jean
Morin, the judge in criminal causes, went to his rooms and
examined all his papers, with the intention of arresting him.
Calvin had been warned, however; he 'escaped by the window, took
refuge in the Faubourg St. Victor, at the dwelling of a
vine-dresser, changed his clothes,' and left Paris, scarcely
knowing whither he was going.
[Footnote 55: Beza, _Histoire des Églises réformées de
France_, vol. i. p. 14, and _Histoire de la Vie et de la
Mort de Calvin_, 1657, p. 14.]
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