Chapter X.

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. {235} 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. {236} 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. {237} 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. {238} 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. {240} 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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