Calvin’s Legacy

Calvin Driven From Paris to Geneva,
the name of our combined selection from A. M. Fairbairn and Jean M. V. Audin. The concluding installment, by Jean M. V. Audin from History of John Calvin, was published in 1851.

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Previously in Calvin Driven From Paris to Geneva.

Time: 1533
Place: Paris

On the next day Du Tillet, clerk of the Parliament of Paris, arrived at Basel and, by dint of tears and entreaties, brought with him his brother Louis, who repented, made his abjuration, and was shortly after elected archdeacon, a dignity disputed with him by Renaudie, who was to be used by the Reformation for the execution of the plot of Amboise.

The Psychopannychia, the first controversial work of Calvin, is a pamphlet directed against the sect of Anabaptists, whom the bloody day of Frankenhausen had conquered, but not subdued. The spirit of Munzer lived again in his disciples, who were parading their mystic reveries through Holland, Flanders, and France. Luther had essayed his powers against Munzer, imagining that by his fiery language, his Pindaric wrath, his flames and thunders, he would soon overwhelm the chief of the miners, as he had defeated, it is said, those theological dwarfs who were unable to stand before him. From the summit of the mountain he had appeared to Munzer in the midst of lightnings, but those lightnings did not alarm his adversary, who was bold enough to face him with unquailing eye.

Munzer also possessed a fiery tongue, which he used with admirable skill, to inflame and arouse the peasants; this time victory remained with the man of the sledge-hammer. And Luther, who wished to terminate the affair at any cost, was reduced, as is well known, to avail himself of the sword of one of his electors. The wrecks which escaped from the funeral obsequies of Thuringia took refuge in a new land. France received and listened to the prophets of Anabaptism.

These Anabaptists maintained seducing doctrines. They dreamed of a sort of Jerusalem, very different from the Jewish Jerusalem; a Jerusalem quite spiritual, without swords, soldiers, or civil magistracy: the true city of the elect. Their speech was infected with Pelagianism and Arianism; on several points of dogma they agreed with Catholics — on predestination, for example, and on the merit of works. Some of them taught the sleep of the soul till the day of judgment. It was against these “sleepers” that Calvin determined to measure himself.

The Commentary on Seneca is a philological work, a book of the revival, a rhetorical declamation, in which Calvin is evidently aspiring to a place among the humanists, and making his court, in sufficiently fine Latin, to all the Ciceronians of the age: this was bringing himself forward with skill and tact. The Latin language was the idiom of the Church, of the convents, colleges, universities, and parliaments. The Psychopannychia is a religious pamphlet, and now Calvin must expect a rival in the first pamphleteer of Germany, Luther himself. It is certain that Calvin was acquainted with the writings of the Saxon monk against Eck, Tetzel, Prierias, Latomus, and the Sorbonnists. He must be praised for not having dreamed of entering the lists against a spirit of such a temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther’s manner, to deal in caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words, and conceits did not suit a mind like his, whose forte was finesse. By nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet in use beyond the Rhine.

Nor had he at his service those German smoking-houses, where, of an evening, among the companions of gay science, his weary mind might have revived its energies. In France the monks did not resort to taverns. Calvin was, therefore, everything he was destined to become: an adroit, biting disputant, ready at retort, but without warmth or enthusiasm. He loves to bear testimony in his own behalf, that “he did not indulge his wrath, except modestly; that he always made it a rule to set aside outrageous or biting expressions; that he almost always moderated his style, which was better adapted to instruct than to drive forcibly, in such sort, however, that it may ever attract those who would not be led.” One must see that, with such humor and style, Calvin might have died forgotten, in some little benefice of Swabia, and that he was never formed for raising storms, but only for using them.

At this epoch the grand agitator of society was first, society itself, and then Luther, that great pamphleteer, “whose books are quite full of demons,” who drove humanity into the paths of a revolution, for which all the elements had been prepared years before. Luther had sown the wind, Calvin came to reap the whirlwind. Not that the latter does not sometimes rise even to wrath, but it is a wrath which savors of labor and which he pursues as a rhymester would a rebellious epithet. Besides, he is good enough to repent for it, as if this wrath burned the face over which it glowed. “I have presented some things,” he murmurs, “a little sharply, even roughly said, which, peradventure, may offend the delicate ears of some. But, as I am aware there are some good persons who have conceived such affection for this dream of the sleep of souls, I would not have them offended with me.” Where Calvin is concerned we must not allow our admiration to be too easily awaked; we must note that he is speaking of an Anabaptist, that is, of a soul which has thrown off the “papism.” But let a Catholic appear — a priest unknown to fame, who, as editor, shall have reprinted a new edition of the work of Henry VIII, “Assertio Septem Sacramentorum” — for instance, Gabriel de Sacconay, precentor of Lyons, and you shall then behold Calvin, under the form of a dithyrambic or congratulatory epistle, without the least regard for delicate ears, throw into the face of the Catholic the most filthy expressions of offence.

Calvin has himself given a correct estimate of the value of his Psychopannychia, and of his treatise against the Anabaptists, which one of his historians desires to have reprinted in our time, purged of all its bitterness of style. He was right in saying, “I have reproved the foolish curiosity of those who were debating these questions, which, in fact, are but vexations of mind.”

One day this question, about the sleep of souls — one that in the ancient Church had long since been examined, by Metito — was presented to Luther, who disposed of it in few words. “These,” said he, “are picked nutshells.”

This ends our selections on Calvin Driven From Paris to Geneva by two of the most important authorities of this topic:

• Calvin and the Reformed Church in The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 2 by A. M. Fairbairn published in 1903.
• History of John Calvin by Jean M. V. Audin published in 1851.

A. M. Fairbairn began here. Jean M. V. Audin began here.

This site features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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