FIRST LABOURS OF CALVIN AT PARIS.
(1529.)
[Sidenote: CALVIN REVISITS NOYON.]
Calvin, having bid farewell to the towns and châteaux of Berry, had
arrived in the midst of those hills and plains, those green pastures and
noble forests, which stretch along both sides of the Oise. He approached
that little city of Noyon, which had been one time the capital of the
empire of Charlemagne, and where Hugues Capet, the head of the third
race, had been elected king. But his thoughts were not on these things:
he was thinking of his father. As soon as he caught a glimpse of that
beautiful Gothic cathedral, beneath whose shadow he had been brought up,
he said to himself that its pavement would never more be trodden by his
father's feet. He had never before returned to Noyon in such deep
emotion. The death of Berquin, the death of his father, the future of
the Church and of himself—all oppressed him. He found consolation in the
affection of his family, and especially in the devoted attachment of his
brother Anthony and of his sister Mary, who were one day to share his
exile. Bowed down by so many afflictions, he would have sunk under the
burden, 'like a man half dead, if God had not revived his courage while
comforting him by his Word.'[124]
His father—that old man with mind so positive, with hand so firm, and
whose authority he had venerated—was not there to guide him: he was
free. Gerard had decided that his son should devote himself to the law,
by which he might rise to a high position in the world. Calvin aspired,
indeed, to another future, but from obedience he had renounced his most
ardent desires; and now, finding himself at liberty, he turned towards
that christian career in which he was to be, along with Luther, the
greatest champion of modern times. 'Earthly fathers,' he said on one
occasion, 'must not prevent the supreme and only Father of all from
enjoying his rights.'[125]
As yet, however, Calvin did not meditate becoming a reformer in the same
sense as Luther. At that time he would have liked to see all the Church
transformed, rather than set himself apart and build up a new one. The
faith which he desired to preach was that old christian truth which Paul
had preached at Rome. The scribes had substituted for it the false
traditions of man, but this was only one reason the more for proclaiming
in the Church the doctrine which had founded the Church. After the first
phase of christian life, in which man thinks only of Christ, there
usually comes a second, where the christian does not voluntarily worship
with assemblies opposed to his convictions. Calvin was now in the first
of these phases. He thought only of preaching the Gospel. Did he not
possess a pulpit in this very neighbourhood, and was it not his duty to
glorify God from it? Had it been in his power, he would have done so in
St. Peter's at Rome; why, then, should he refrain in his own church?
[Sidenote: CALVIN'S PROMOTION AND PREACHING.]
Calvin had friends in Picardy, even among the dignitaries of the clergy.
Early attached to their young fellow-townsman, these men had received
him with joy; they had found him more advanced in piety and learning,
and had observed nothing in him opposed to their opinions. They thought
that he might become one of the pillars of the Church. The circumstance
that he had studied the law did not check them; it rendered him, in
their eyes, fitter still to maintain the interests of the faith ... and
of the clergy. Far from repelling him, his former patrons endeavoured to
bind him still closer to them. That noble friend of his boyhood, Claude
de Hangest of Momor, now abbot of St. Eloy, offered to give him the
living of Pont L'Evêque in exchange for that of St. Martin of
Marteville. Calvin, seeing in this offer the opportunity of preaching in
the very place where his ancestors had lived, accepted; and then
resigned, in favour of his brother Anthony, the chapel of La Gésine, of
which he had been titulary for eight years. The act is dated the 30th of
April, 1529.[126]
The same persons who presided over these several changes encouraged
Calvin to preach. When a young man who has gone through his studies for
the ministry of the Word returns to his native place, every one is
anxious to hear him. Curiosity was still more keenly aroused in Calvin's
case, for his reputation had preceded him, and some little charge of
heresy, put forward from time to time, served but to increase the
general eagerness. Everybody wanted to hear the son of the episcopal
secretary, the cooper's grandson. The men and women who knew him
hastened to the church; people even came from Noyon. The holy place was
soon filled. At last a young man, of middle height, with thin pale face,
whose eyes indicated firm conviction and lively zeal, went up into the
pulpit and explained the Holy Scriptures to his fellow-townsmen.[127]
The effects of Calvin's preaching were various. Many persons rejoiced to
hear, at last, a living word beneath that roof which had reechoed with
so much vain and useless babbling. Of this number were, no doubt,
certain notable men who were seen pressing round the preacher: Laurent
of Normandy, who enjoyed great consideration in that district;
Christopher Lefèvre, Lancelot of Montigny, Jacques Bernardy, Corneille
de Villette, Nicholas Néret, Labbé surnamed Balafré, Claude Dupré, and
Nicholas Picot, Anthony Calvin's brother-in-law. All were afterwards
accused of having embraced the new doctrine, and were condemned by the
parliament of Paris to be drawn on hurdles and burnt in the great square
of Noyon; but they had already quitted the kingdom.[128]
The words of the young speaker did not merely communicate fresh
knowledge—they worked a transformation of the heart and life. But there
were men present quite ready to receive certain evangelical ideas, who
yet did not mean to change either their life or their heart. The same
word thus produced faith in some and opposition in others: it _divided
the light from the darkness_.[129] Certain bigots and priests, in
particular, inveighed against the preaching of that serious-looking,
earnest young man, and exclaimed: 'They are setting wolves to guard the
sheep!'[130]
[Sidenote: DECIDES ON GOING TO PARIS.]
Calvin stayed only two or three months at Noyon. Perhaps a growing
opposition forced him to depart. He desired also to continue his Greek
studies; but instead of returning to Orleans or Bourges, he resolved to
go to Paris. The moment was favourable. Classical studies were at that
time making great progress in the capital. Francis I., at the request of
Budæus and Du Bellay, had just founded (1529) several professorships for
teaching Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It was a complete revolution, and
Paris was full of animation when Calvin arrived. The fantastical
framework which the scholastics, theologians, jurists, and philosophers
had erected during the middle ages, fell to the ground in the midst of
jeering and laughter, and the modern learning arose amid the unanimous
applause of the rising generation. Pierre Danès, a pupil of Budæus and
Lascaris, and afterwards a bishop, taught Greek;[131] Francis Vatable
introduced young scholars to the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures,
although he failed himself to find the counsel of God therein;[132]
other illustrious professors completed this precious course of
instruction. Paris was a centre whence light emanated; and this was the
reason which induced Calvin to forsake Noyon, Bourges, and even Orleans,
and hasten his steps thither.
The journey was a painful one; Calvin (whether on horseback or on foot
is unknown) arrived in Paris about the end of June, quite worn out with
fatigue. 'It is impossible,' he said next morning, 'for me to go out of
doors;'[133] indeed, he did not leave his room for four days. But the
news of his arrival soon spread; his friends and admirers hastened to
his inn, and during these four days his room was never empty.[134] All
the agitation of the schools seemed to be transported thither.
[Sidenote: CALVIN'S VISITORS.]
They talked of Budæus, Vatable, and Danès, of Greek and Hebrew, and of
the sun of learning then shining over the old Lutetia.... Calvin
listened and learnt the state of men's minds. One of the first who
hurried to him was Coiffard, his fellow-collegian at Orleans, who
brought his father with him. People contended for the student of Noyon,
who had already become celebrated. 'Come and stay with us,' said the
young Parisian; and when Calvin declined, 'I entreat you,' said Coiffard
in the most affectionate manner, 'to grant me this favour.'[135] The
father also insisted, for the worthy citizen knew what a steady friend
his rather frivolous son would find in the Picardin student. 'There is
nothing in the world I desire so much,' he said, 'as to see you
associate with my son.'[136]—'Come, do come,' urged the son, 'and be my
companion.' Calvin was touched by this affection; but he feared the
interruptions of the family, its distance from college, and he had but
one object—study. 'I would accept your offer with both hands,' he said,
'but that I intend to follow Danès' Greek course, and his school is too
far from your house.'[137] The father and son went away greatly
disappointed.
Not long after this, a more important personage entered the room. It was
Nicholas Cop, professor at St. Barbe, whose father, a native of Basle,
had just been appointed physician to the king. Both father and son were
strongly suspected of belonging to the 'new opinions;' but at that time
Francis cared little about them. The elder Cop had translated Galen and
Hippocrates, and the king had confided to him the care of his health. A
strict friendship erelong united Calvin and the son. The latter,
although a professor in the university, listened to the student of Noyon
as a disciple listens to his master; it is one of those marks of
Calvin's superiority, which every one recognised instantly. He showed
his friend 'how Christ discharges the office of physician, since he is
sent by the Father to quicken the dead.'
The conversations which these two young men then held together resulted
in after years in an event which exercised a certain influence over the
destiny of the reformer and of the Reform itself.
[Sidenote: VISIT TO A CONVENT.]
An object of less importance occupied them now: it was Calvin's first
business in Paris, and the account he gives of it throws a new light on
the future legislator. The custom of shutting up in convents the young
persons who had any tendency towards the Gospel had already begun. 'Our
friend Daniel, the advocate,' said Calvin to Cop, 'has a sister in a
nunnery at Paris; she is about to take the veil, and Daniel wishes to
know if it is with her full consent.'—'I will accompany you,' said the
professor, and on the following Sunday, Calvin having recovered from his
fatigue, the two friends set out for the convent. The future reformer,
who was already opposed to monastic vows, especially when taken under
constraint, cleverly devised a plan for learning whether any restriction
was placed upon the young lady's liberty. 'Converse with the abbess,' he
said to Cop, as they were going to the nunnery, 'and contrive that I may
be able to talk privately with our friend's sister.' The abbess,
followed by the girl, entered the parlour. 'We have granted her,' said
the former, 'the privilege of taking the solemn vows.'[138] According to
his instructions Cop began to talk with the superior on different
subjects which had no connection with the matter in hand. During this
time, Calvin, who believed he saw a victim before him, took advantage of
the opportunity, and said to Daniel's sister: 'Are you taking this yoke
upon you willingly, or is it placed on your neck by force?[139] Do not
fear to trust me with the thoughts that disturb you.' The girl looked at
Calvin with a thoughtless air, and answered him with much volubility:
'The veil is what I most desire, and the day when I shall make my vow
can never come too soon.' The future reformer was astonished: he had
before him a giddy young person, who had been led to believe that she
would find great amusement in the cloister. 'Every time she spoke of her
vows,' said Calvin, 'you might have fancied she was playing with her
doll.'[140] He desired, however, to address one serious word to her:
'Mademoiselle,' he said to her, 'I beg of you not to trust too much to
your own strength: I conjure you to promise nothing as if you could
accomplish it yourself. Lean rather on the strength of God, in whom we
live and have our being.'[141] Perhaps Calvin thought that by speaking
so seriously to the young girl, she would renounce her rash undertaking;
but he was mistaken.
He returned to his inn, and two days after (the 25th of June) he wrote
to Daniel an account of his visit to the convent. Having finished, he
was beginning another letter to a canon of Orleans,[142] when one of his
friends arrived, who had come to take him for a ride. We might suppress
this incident as being of no importance; but it is perhaps also an
unexpected feature in Calvin's habits. He is generally represented as
absorbed in his books or reprimanding the disorderly. And yet he was no
stranger to the decent relaxations of life: he could ride on horseback
and took pleasure in the exercise. He accepted his friend Viermey's
offer. 'I shall finish the letter on my return,' he said,[143] and the
two students set off on their excursion in the neighbourhood of Paris. A
few days later Calvin hired a room in the college of Fortret, where he
was near the professors, and resumed his study of languages, law, and
philosophy.[144] He desired to learn. Having received the knowledge of
divine things, he wished to acquire a true understanding of the world.
But erelong the summons from on high sounded louder than ever in his
heart. When he was in his room, surrounded by his law books, the voice
of his conscience cried to him that he ought to study the Bible. When he
went out, all his friends who felt a love for pure religion begged of
him to devote himself to the Gospel.[145] Calvin was one of those
fortresses that are not to be taken at the first assault. As he looked
upon the books scattered about his study, he could not make up his mind
to forsake them. But whenever in the course of his life God spoke
clearly to him, he repressed his fondest desires. Thus urged from within
and from without, he yielded at last. 'I renounce all other sciences,'
he said, 'and give myself up entirely to theology and to God.'[146] This
news spread among the secret assemblies of the faithful, and all were
filled with great satisfaction.
A mighty movement had taken place in Calvin's soul; but it must be
understood that there was no plan laid down in his mind. He had no
ambition, no art, no _rôle_; but he did with a strong will whatever
God set before him. The time he now spent in Paris was his
apprenticeship. Having given himself to God, he set to work with the
decision of an energetic character and the firmness of a persevering
mind. He studied theology with enthusiasm. 'The science of God is the
mistress-science,' he said; 'the others are only her servants.' He gave
consistency to that little chosen band who, in the midst of the crowd of
scholars, turned lovingly towards the Holy Scriptures. He excited young
and noble minds; he studied with them and endeavoured to explain their
difficulties.
[Sidenote: SPEAKS AT SECRET MEETINGS.]
He did more. Berquin's death had struck all his friends with terror. 'If
they have burnt this green wood,' said some, 'they will not spare the
dry.' Calvin, not permitting himself to be checked by these alarms,
began to explore that city which had become so dangerous. He joined the
secret assemblies which met under the shadow of night in remote
quarters,[147] where he explained the Scriptures with a clearness and
energy of which none had ever heard the like. These meetings were held
more particularly on the left bank of the Seine, in that part of the
city which the catholics afterwards termed _Little Geneva_, and
which, on the other hand, is now the seat of Parisian catholicism. One
day the evangelicals would repair mysteriously to a house on the
property of the abbey of St. Germain des Prés; another day they would
meet in the precincts of the university, the _quartier latin_ of
our times. In the room would be a few wooden benches, on which the poor
people, a few students, and sometimes one or two men of learning, took
their seats. They loved that simple-hearted young man, who so
effectually introduced into their minds and hearts the truths he found
in the Scriptures. 'The Word of Christ is always a fire,' they said;
'but when he explains it, this fire shines out with unusual brilliancy.'
Young men formed themselves on his model; but there were many who rushed
into controversy, instead of seeking edification as Calvin did. In the
university quarter the pupils of Daniel and Vatable might be seen, with
the Hebrew or Greek Testaments in their hands, disputing with everybody.
'It is thus in the Hebrew text,' they said; 'and the Greek text reads so
and so.' Calvin did not, however, disdain polemics; following the
natural bent of his mind, he attacked error and reprimanded the guilty.
Some who were astonished at his language asked: 'Is not this the curé of
Pont l'Evêque, the friend of Monseigneur de St. Eloy?' But, not allowing
himself to be checked by these words, he confounded alike the
superstitious papists and the incredulous innovators. 'He was wholly
given up to divinity and to God, to the great delight of all
believers.'[148]
[Sidenote: HE CIRCULATES INFORMATION.]
It was already possible to distinguish in him, in some features at
least, the character of chief of the Reform. As he possessed great
facility of correspondence, he kept himself informed, and others also,
of all that was passing in the christian world. He made about this time
a collection of papers and documents relating to the most recent facts
of the Reformation, and sent them to Duchemin, but not for him to
keep.[149] 'I send them to you on this condition,' wrote Calvin, 'that,
in accordance with your good faith and duty, they may pass through your
hands to our friends.'[150] To this packet he added an epitome,[151]
some commentaries, and a collection of notes made probably by Roussel
during his residence at Strasburg. He purposed adding an appendix:[152]
'But I had no time,' he said.[153] Calvin desired that all the friends
of the Gospel should profit by the light which he himself possessed. He
brought the new ideas and new writings into circulation. A close
student, an indefatigable evangelist, this young man of twenty was, by
his far-seeing glance, almost a reformer.
He did not confine his labours to Paris, Orleans, Bourges, or Noyon: the
city of Meaux occupied his attention. Meaux, which had welcomed Lefèvre
and Farel, which had heard Leclerc, the first martyr, still possessed
Briçonnet. This former protector of the evangelicals would indeed no
longer see them, and appeared absorbed in the honours and seductions of
the prelacy. But some men thought that at the bottom of his heart he
still loved the Gospel. What a triumph if the grace of God should once
more blossom in his soul! Daniel had friends at Meaux; Calvin begged of
him to open the door (or, to use his own expression, _the window_) of
this city for him. In the number of these friends was a certain
_Mæcenas_. The young doctor, writing from Meaux, gives a portrait of
this individual which exactly fits the bishop. He does not name
Briçonnet; but as he often suppresses names, or employs either initials
or pseudonyms, we might almost say that the name was not necessary here.
Daniel accordingly wrote to Mæcenas, who returned a very cold
answer.[154] 'I cannot walk with those people,' he said; 'I cannot
conform my manners to theirs.'[155] Daniel insisted; but it was all of
no use: the timid Mæcenas would on no account have anything to do with
Calvin. Briçonnet, we learn, was surrounded by friends who were
continually repeating to him: 'A bishop ought to have no commerce with
persons suspected of innovation.'[156] Calvin, animated by the noblest
ambition, that of bringing back to God a soul that was going astray,
finding himself denied every time he knocked at the gate of this great
personage, at last gave up his generous enterprise, and, shaking the
dust from his feet, he said with severity: 'Since he will not be with
us, let him take pleasure in himself, and with a heart full, or rather
inflated by his own importance, let him pamper his ambition.'[157]
[Sidenote: CALVIN'S MISSIONARY ZEAL.]
Calvin did not, however, fail completely at Meaux: 'You have given me
prompt and effectual aid,' he wrote to Daniel; 'you have opened me a
window, and have thus given me the privilege of being in future an
indiscreet petitioner.'[158] He took advantage of this opening to
propagate the Gospel. 'I will do it,' he said, 'without imprudence or
precipitation.' And, calling to mind that 'the doctrine of Christ is
like old wine, which has ceased working, but which nevertheless gives
nourishment to the body,'[159] he busied himself in filling vessels with
this precious drink: 'I will take care,' he wrote to Daniel, 'that the
inside shall be well filled with wine.'[160] He ended his letter by
saying: 'I want the _Odyssey_ of Homer which I lent Sucquet: pray
tell him so.'[161] Luther took Plautus and Terence into the convent with
him; Calvin asked for Homer.
He soon returned to Paris, which opened a wider field of labour to him.
On the 15th of January, 1530, he wrote Daniel a letter which he dated
from the _Acropolis_, as if Paris were to him the citadel of catholicism
or the Parthenon of France.[162] He was always trying to save some lost
sheep, and such a desire filled his mind on the 15th of January. On that
day he expected two friends to dinner. One of them, Robert Daniel,
brother to the advocate of Orleans, an enthusiastic young man, was
burning with desire to see the world. Calvin, who had already done all
in his power to win him over, flattered himself that he would succeed
that day; but the giddy young fellow, suspecting perhaps what awaited
him, did not come. Calvin sent a messenger to Robert's lodging. 'He has
decamped,' said the landlord; 'he has left for Italy.' At Meaux Calvin
had desired to win over a great personage; at Paris he had hoped to win
over a young adventurer: in both cases he failed. 'Alas!' he said, 'I am
but a dry and useless log!' And once more he sought fresh strength in
Christ.
[Sidenote: BEDA ATTACKS THE PROFESSORS.]
Meanwhile the Sorbonne, proud of the victory it had gained in bringing
Berquin to the stake, decided to pursue its triumphs. The war was about
to begin again. It was Beda who renewed the combat—that Beda of whom
Erasmus said: 'There are three thousand priests in that man alone!' He
did not attack Calvin, disdaining, or rather ignoring him. He aimed at
higher game, and having triumphed over one of the king's gentlemen, he
attacked the doctors whom Francis had invited to Paris for the
propagation of learning. Danès, Vatable, and others having been cited
before the parliament, the fiery syndic rose and said: 'The king's
doctors neglect Aristotle, and study the Holy Scriptures only.... If
people continue to occupy themselves with Greek and Hebrew, it is all
over with faith. These folks desire to explain the Bible, and they are
not even theologians!... The Greek and Hebrew books of the Holy
Scriptures come mostly from Germany, where they may have been altered.
Many of the persons who print Hebrew books are Jews.... It is not,
therefore, a sufficient argument to say: It is so and so in the
Hebrew.[163] These doctors ought to be forbidden to interfere with Holy
Scripture in their courses; or at least they should be ordered first to
undergo an examination at the university.' The king's professors did not
hold back in the cause of knowledge. They boldly assumed the offensive.
'If the university of Paris is now in small esteem among foreign
nations,' they said to the parliament, 'it is because instead of
applying themselves to the study of the Holy Gospels and of the ancient
fathers—Cyprian, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin—its theologians
substitute for this true knowledge a science teaching nothing but craft
and sophistry. It is not thus that God wills to enlighten his people. We
must study sacred literature, and drink freely of all the treasures of
the human mind.'[164] Beda had gone too far. At court, and even in
parliament, numerous voices were raised in behalf of learning and
learned men. Parliament dismissed the charges of the syndic of the
Sorbonne.
The exasperated Beda now employed all his eloquence to get the
professors condemned by the Sorbonne. 'The new doctors,' he exclaimed,
'horrible to say! pretend that Holy Scripture cannot be understood
without Greek, Hebrew, and other such languages.' On the 30th of April,
1530, the Sorbonne did actually condemn as rash and scandalous the
proposition of the professors which Beda had denounced.[165]
[Sidenote: SMALL BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT WORK.]
Calvin anxiously observed in all its phases this struggle between his
teachers and the doctors of the Sorbonne. All the students were on the
watch, as was Calvin also in his college; and when the decision of the
parliament became known there, it was received with loud acclamations.
While the Sorbonne placed itself on the side of tradition, Calvin placed
himself still more decidedly on the side of Scripture. He thought that
as the oral teaching of the apostles had ceased, their written teaching
had become its indispensable substitute. The writings of Matthew and
John, of Peter and Paul, were, in his opinion, the living word of these
great doctors, their teaching for those ages which could neither see nor
hear them. It appeared to Calvin as impossible to reform the Church
without the writings of the apostles, as it would have been to form it
in the first century without their preaching. He saw clearly that if the
Church was to be renewed, it must be done by faith and by Scripture—a
twofold principle which at bottom is but one.
But the hour had not yet come when Calvin was to proclaim these great
truths with the authority of a reformer. A modest and devout man, he was
now performing a more humble work in the remotest streets and loneliest
houses of the capital. One would have taken him for the most
insignificant of men, and yet he was already a conqueror. The light of
Scripture, with which his mind was saturated, was one day to shine like
the lightning from east to west; and no man since St. Paul was to hold
the Gospel torch so high and with so firm a hand. When that student, so
thin, pale, and obscure, in appearance so mean, in manner so timid,
passed down the street of St. Jacques or of the Sorbonne; when he crept
silently past the houses, and slipped unobserved into one of them,
bearing with him the Word of life, there was not even an old woman that
noticed him. And yet the time was to come when Francis I., with his
policy, conquests, priests, court, and festivities, would only call up
frivolous or disgusting recollections; while the work which this poor
scholar was by God's grace then beginning, would increase day by day for
the salvation of souls and prosperity of nations, and would advance
calmly but surely to the conquest of the world.
[Footnote 124: Calvini _Opusc._]
[Footnote 125: 'Unico omnium patri suum jus integrum maneat.'—Calvin
_in Matthæum_.]
[Footnote 126: Desmay, _Vie de Calvin_, pp. 40-42. Drelincourt, _Défense
de Calvin_, pp. 167, 168.]
[Footnote 127: 'Quo loco constat Calvinum ... ad populum conciones
habuisse.'—Bezæ _Vita Calvini_.]
[Footnote 128: Archives Générales, x. 8946. _France Protestante_,
article _Normandie_.]
[Footnote 129: Genesis i. 5.]
[Footnote 130: Desmay, _Vie de Calvin_, p. 41. Drelincourt,
_Défense de Calvin_, p. 168.]
[Footnote 131: Crévier, _Hist. de l'Université de Paris_, v. p. 245.]
[Footnote 132: 'Quo alios introduxisti, nusquam ipse ingressus.'—Bezæ
_Icones_.]
[Footnote 133: 'Lassus de itinere pedem extrahere domo non potui.'—
Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.]
[Footnote 134: 'Proximos quatuor dies, cum me ægre adhuc sustinerem.'—
Ibid.]
[Footnote 135: 'Multis precibus, iisque non frigidis, sæpe institit.'—
Ibid.]
[Footnote 136: 'Nihil magis appetere quam me adjungi filio.'—Calvinus
Danieli, Berne MSS.]
[Footnote 137: 'Nihil unquam magis ambabus ulnis complexus sum, quam
hanc amici voluntatem.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 138: 'Eam obtinuisse ex solenni more voti nuncupandi
potestatem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.]
[Footnote 139: 'Num jugum illud molliter exciperet? num fracta potius
quam inflexa cervix?'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 140: 'Diceres eam ludere cum puppis, quoties audivit voti
nomen.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.]
[Footnote 141: 'Omnia reponeret in Dei virtute in quo sumus et
vivimus.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 142: 'Habeo litteras inchoatas ad canonicum.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 143: 'Viermæus cum quo equum ascendo.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne
MSS.]
[Footnote 144: 'In collegio Forterestano domicilium habuit.'—Flor.
Rémond, _Hist. de l'Hérésie_, ii. p. 246.]
[Footnote 145: Theodore Beza, _Vie de Calvin_, in French text, p. 12.
'Omnibus purioris religionis studiosis.'—Ibid. Latin text.]
[Footnote 146: 'Ab eo tempore sese Calvinus, abjectis reliquis studiis,
Deo totum consecravit.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 147: 'Qui tunc Lutetiæ occultos cœtus habebant.'—Bezæ _Vita
Calvini_.]
[Footnote 148: Beza, _Vie de Calvin_, French text, p. 12. 'Summa piorum
omnium voluptate.'—Ibid. Latin text.]
[Footnote 149: 'Mitto ad te rerum novarum collectanea.'—Calvinus
Chemino, Berne MSS.]
[Footnote 150: 'Hac tamen lege, ut pro tua fide officioque per manus
tuas ad amicos transeant.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 151: 'Mitto Epitomem alteram G. nostri.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 152: 'Cui velut appendicem assuere decreveram.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 153: 'Nisi me tempus defecisset.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 154: 'Supinum illum Mæcenatem.'—Calvinus Danieli Aureliano,
Idibus Septembris 1529. Geneva MSS. Calvin borrows this expression from
Juvenal, i. 65:
'Multum referens de Mæcenate supino.']
[Footnote 155: 'Non potest mores suos nobis accommodare.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 156: Maimbourg, _Histoire du Calvinisme_, liv. ii.]
[Footnote 157: 'Sit assentator suus, et pleno, seu verius turgido
pectore, foveat ambitionem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS.]
[Footnote 158: 'Apertam esse fenestram, ne post hæc simus verecundi
petitores.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS. An expression imitated from
Suetonius, lib. xxviii.]
[Footnote 159: Calvin, _in Lucam_, ch. v. 39.]
[Footnote 160: 'Interim tamen penum vino instruendum curabo.'—Calvinus
Danieli, Geneva MSS. This passage presents some difficulty. 'Penus' in
Persius means a _safe_ where meat is kept; in Festus and Lampridius, the
_sanctuary_ of the temple.]
[Footnote 161: 'Odysseam Homeri quam Sucqueto commodaveram, finges a me
desiderari.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 162: _Calvin's Letters_, i. p. 30. Philadelphia, edit. J.
Bonnet.]
[Footnote 163: 'Ita habent Hebræa.'—_Actes du Parlement._]
[Footnote 164: Crévier, _Hist. de l'Université de Paris_, v. p. 249.]
[Footnote 165: 'Hæc propositio temeraria est et scandalosa.'—D'Argentré,
_Collectio Judiciorum de novis Erroribus_, ii. p. 78.]