Calvin's Polemics.
For four months Calvin wandered in Switzerland, visiting the
different centres of the Reformation, Berne, Zurich, Lausanne,
and Basle; sometimes doing his best to prove the lawfulness of
his actions at Geneva and of their motives, at others
acquiescing, although without hope of success, in the attempts of
some of his friends to bring about a reconciliation with the
Genevese. It was at Strasburg that he finally resolved to
establish himself: about fifteen hundred Frenchmen, who had
adopted the reformed faith and were fugitives like himself, had
found an asylum there; two celebrated reformers, who were already
his friends, Bucer and Capito, lived there and possessed great
influence; they pressed him to join them: 'It was,' says Calvin,
'a similar appeal to that of Farel, which had formerly touched me
so deeply: I yielded, like Jonah, [Footnote 78] to the warning
which called me to another work.'
[Footnote 78: Jonah, chap. i.]
He arrived at Strasburg in the early part of September 1538, and
preached with his accustomed success before the assembled French
refugees. The magistrates immediately authorized him to organize
a religious congregation of his countrymen, he received the right
of citizenship, was appointed professor of theology, and
commenced a life of study and religious instruction, the only
life that was in harmony, so he said, 'with my timid, weak, and
even pusillanimous nature.' Wearied and disgusted with his first
combat, he was far from foreseeing the destiny for which he was
reserved, as the heroic champion of the reformed faith.
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No sooner was he settled at Strasburg than he was unexpectedly
called upon to take up arms in defence of Geneva, the city which
had just banished him. In April 1539, Cardinal Sadolet, Bishop of
Carpentras, one of the most learned, most highly esteemed, and
moderate of the prelates at the court of Rome, wrote a long
letter to the Genevese, with the object of inducing them to
return to the bosom of the Church of Rome. The banishment of
Calvin had probably inspired him with some hope of the
possibility of such an event. The letter was singularly prudent
and temperate, free from all personal attack and special
controversy: its sole aim was to urge the following argument,
that eternal salvation being the first and chief interest of the
human soul, there was more certainty of obtaining it by faith and
humble submission to the Catholic church, than by accepting the
audacious and vagrant doctrines of the innovators. The cardinal
made numerous appeals to the authority of St. Paul, the favourite
apostle of the reformers; and he ended his letter with an
eloquent description of the different positions in which two
Christians would find themselves at the Day of Judgment, in
presence of the Supreme Judge, one of whom had humbly obeyed the
teaching and authority of the Church, whilst the other had set up
his own intellect and his own will as the law of his faith and
life. Without a single reproach or threat, and in a tone of
confident though sorrowful affection, the cardinal recalled the
children who had gone astray, warned them of their great danger,
and entreated them to return to the home of their fathers.
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He had not named Calvin, or any other of the now celebrated
reformers; but Calvin was not a man to take advantage of this
discreet forbearance, or to screen himself behind the cardinal's
silence concerning him. As soon as the letter to the Genevese was
promulgated, the man who had been banished from Geneva,
considering that he was attacked without being named, published a
grand answer to it, in which he addressed the cardinal as his own
opponent. He began by acknowledging, in very courteous terms, the
high character, intellect, learning, and moderate language of the
prelate, and disavowing any personal animosity or annoyance on
his own part. Acknowledging the dignity and importance of their
mutual position, he then, in his own name, in the names of his
friends the reformers, and his disciples the Genevese, undertook
the defence of their common cause, the Reformation--its
principles and its aims. His defence was in reality an open and
powerful attack upon the Church of Rome, its deviations from the
Gospel teaching, its usurpations, immorality, and vice. 'I cannot
consent to allow you,' said he, 'to stir up against us the hatred
of ill-informed persons, by giving the name of Church to such a
profligate institution, as if we intended to make war against the
Church.
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We are armed not only with the Word of God, but also with the
writings of the Fathers of the Church, by which means we can
fight against, overthrow, and destroy your empire; you hold up in
opposition to us the authority of the Church as if it were the
shield of Ajax, but I will take it from you, and show you by
means of a few striking examples how very far you are removed
from that sacred antiquity. . . . Recall to your minds the
ancient form of the Church, such as it was among the Greeks in
the time of Basil and Chrysostom, among the Latins in the time of
Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine, of which the records remain in
their own writings, and then look at the ruins of it that exist
in your midst. ... We ask for Christian liberty, which has been
oppressed and stifled under human traditions. ... Have we not
restored the rights of criminal and civil jurisdiction to the
magistrates, from whom they had been fraudulently abstracted by
the pretexts of episcopacy and priestcraft? ... Do not take to
yourselves the credit of a peaceful reign; there has been peace
only because Christ has been silent. I grant that this new
expansion of the Gospel has given rise to great strife which no
one foresaw; but do not impute this to our followers; they are
ready to give a reason for the faith that is in them at all times
and to all men. ... God grant, O Cardinal! that thou and all thy
followers may one day recognise that it is Christ our Saviour, he
who reconciles us to God the Father, who can alone unite his
scattered Church, and re-establish it in the bond of true unity.'
It is an easy and vulgar manner of writing history to depict
exclusively the most salient features of men and parties, and to
describe only those views and violent passions which separate
them most strongly. I have no taste for this superficial and
crude method: truth demands that we should penetrate beyond the
mere surface of minds and characters, that we should also show
their inmost nature, and point out the larger views and juster
feelings which have sometimes led opponents to seek to understand
and approach each other.
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This is what I have just done with regard to Sadolet and Calvin;
for a time I have left out of sight their striking points of
difference and the subjects on which they profoundly offended
each other, and have shown them as they appeared in 1539, in
their polite and reserved polemics. The differences of principle
and action which separated them were not rendered less deep and
obvious by their mutual forbearance, and the contest between the
two causes to which they were devoted, the Church of Rome and the
Reformation, was carried on by them all the same. Both show
themselves, in fact, just what they are, they and their
followers: the cardinal is old, and Calvin is young;--one is
timid, the other bold;--one tries to arrest a great movement in
the human soul and human society which alarms and exhausts
him;--the other throws himself into the movement with all
confidence, and strives to help on the human soul and human
society in the path which they have just entered.
The two letters made a great noise throughout Europe: 'Here is a
work which has hands and feet,' said Luther when he read that of
Calvin; 'I thank God for raising up such men.' The letters were
forgotten, the cardinal's attempt was futile, but the impulse
given by Calvin spread and increased.
I have tried to find in the history of the time some other traces
of the intercourse thus commenced between two men, both of whom,
although so unequal, were very remarkable, and both of whom were
earnest.
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I was struck by a few lines in a remarkable work published by M.
Felix Bungener, pastor at Geneva, and entitled 'Calvin, his Life,
his Work, and his Books;' [Footnote 79] in which he refers to a
visit said to have been paid to Calvin at Geneva by Sadolet, at
some unknown period after their epistolary controversy.
[Footnote 79: Bungener, p. 503. 1862.]
The fact seems to me not impossible, but very difficult to
reconcile with the facts and dates in the lives of the two men
from 1539 to 1547, the date of the cardinal's death. I asked M.
Bungener himself from what contemporaneous documents he had
extracted this anecdote, or by what testimony it was supported.
He acknowledged, with great candour, the difficulty of procuring
any such corroboration in its favour, and added (I make it a
point of duty to reproduce his exact words): 'I never placed
entire confidence in the story which struck you in my "Calvin." I
inserted it at first on the authority of local tradition; every
one at Geneva believes it, and I believed it, like every one
else. But I had also further authority than tradition; I found it
in Drelincourt's "Défense de Calvin," published at Geneva in
1667, in the following passage:
'"It is said, and illustrious members of the Church of Rome
have also heard it said, that Cardinal Sadolet, passing through
Geneva _incognito_, as they call it, wished to see Calvin,
who had written against him, and so he went to call upon him.
He expected to find a palace, or at least a magnificently
furnished mansion, well filled with servants. Instead of that
he was greatly surprised when he was directed to a small house,
and when, having knocked at the door, Calvin himself, very
simply dressed, came to open it.
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The cardinal was astounded to find that this was the celebrated
and renowned Calvin, for whose writings he entertained so much
admiration; and he could not help expressing his astonishment
and surprise. But Calvin told him to remember that in what he
had done he had not taken counsel with flesh and blood; and
that his aim had not been to make himself rich and powerful in
this world, but to glorify God and defend the truth. Report
adds that the illustrious cardinal conversed for some time with
Calvin, and was greatly edified."' [Footnote 80]
[Footnote 80: Drelincourt, _La Défense de Calvin_,
p. 187. Geneva, 1667.]
Even if we admit the visit, I doubt--and M. Bungener doubts
also--whether it made the impression upon the two men which is
attributed to it in the chronicle. The cardinal was probably not
so much astonished at Calvin's humble dwelling; and Calvin did
not take so much pains to explain why he did not live more
sumptuously, and by what more lofty motives than the desire of
making himself rich and powerful in this world his life was
governed. They were both certainly capable of understanding each
other very much better than this. Calvin's entire
disinterestedness, and the extreme simplicity of his habits, had
been abundantly shown and were well known at that time. Wherever
he lived, and as long as he lived, at Basle, Strasburg, and
Geneva, he had scarcely the bare necessaries for the most simple
and humble existence: he received a stipend sometimes from the
small and parsimonious municipal governments of the places in
which he resided, at others from private friends who were
intimate with him and knew his needs. He arranged all domestic
matters with the most scrupulous exactness; he wanted no more
than would suffice regularly to supply the needs of every day,
and would leave him free from anxiety on the subject. All his
thoughts were entirely engrossed by his Christian work in the
world and his intellectual life.
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He lived thus for three years at Strasburg, preaching, teaching,
and writing; passing from his labours in translating and
explaining the Scriptures to the partly ecclesiastical, partly
political missions which were entrusted to him, and which took
him to those meetings at which the general work of the
Reformation had to be discussed and decided. It was at this
period that he published his treatise 'On the Lord's Supper,' his
'Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,' and his
revision of the 'Translation of the Bible,' by his
fellow-countryman Robert Olivétan. From 1539 to 1541 he was sent
by the magistrates of Strasburg and the dukes of
Brunswick-Lunebourg, as one of their delegates, to the diets or
conferences of Frankfort, Hagenau, Worms, and Ratisbon; the
object of these meetings was sometimes to attempt to establish
agreement and unity between the different reformed churches, at
others to seek some solution for the difficulties which arose
between the civil and religious authorities,--the Empire and the
new churches. On all these occasions, and especially at the time
of the controversy between Luther and Zwingli on the nature of
the eucharist, Calvin's conduct was that of a conciliatory and
politic theologian, skilful in distinguishing essential points
from those which are of secondary importance, and inclined to
seek for some compromise on the secondary, which might assist but
not prejudge or endanger, any decision ultimately formed on the
essential points.
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He had no desire to undertake these difficult missions: 'Although
I continued,' he says, 'to be always like myself, that is,
unwilling to take part in great meetings, I do not know how it
was that I was always driven, as if by force, to the diets,
where, whether I liked it or no, I always found myself in the
company of many people.' In a recent and very intelligent history
of Calvin by a German author, I find the following passage: 'The
young Frenchman, with his reserved and rather shy manners, must
have been a singular apparition among the princes and most
eminent men of learning in the German empire amongst whom he was
suddenly thrown. As they often spoke in German he did not always
understand what was being discussed, and his position was rather
that of a learned and reliable man whom his friends had summoned
to give them valuable advice, than that of one who took an active
part in official debates.' [Footnote 81]
[Footnote 81: Stähelin, vol. i. p. 233.]
Calvin had not attended these meetings long before he acquired a
very strong feeling of their inefficiency, and of his want of
power to give predominance to his own views: 'Certainly,' he
wrote, after the first meeting of the Diet of Ratisbon, 'if this
results in anything satisfactory it will be greatly opposed to my
expectations.' In fact, he did not succeed in harmonizing the
doctrines of the reformed German, Swiss, and French churches, nor
could he reconcile the Lutherans and Zwinglians on the question
of the Eucharist. Neither side had yet learnt, either by
experience or common danger, to unite in their great common
ground of Christian belief, and to concede mutual liberty in the
points on which they differed in knowledge as a nation, or as a
sect.
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