I. THE SWISS CONFEDERATION#
Reformation Switzerland was not a single political unity, but rather a confederation of thirteen political entities called “cantons.” Closely intertwined with these Swiss cantons were the allied regions of Saint Gall, Valais, Neuchâtel, Vaud, and the Grisons.
The wealthier, more urban cantons included Zürich, Berne, Basel, Schaffhausen, Lucerne, Fribourg, and Solothurn.
The largest cites were Basel and Zürich, the former with a population of about 10,000 and the latter about 8,000.
The poorer, more rural cantons comprised Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Appenzell, and Glarus.
These thirteen cantons made up the Swiss Confederation, which began to band together in 1291, primarily for mutual economic support.
Switzerland was a relatively poor region, with 25 percent of its land unable to be farmed. There was a weak political assembly called the Tagsatzung, but no real federal government, no head of state, no unifying language, and no overarching legal code. Although nominally a part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Swiss Confederation fiercely maintained its independence.
In 1525 Zürich was the first of the Swiss cantons to reject Roman Catholic authority and thus became the leading advocate of Protestantism within the Swiss Confederation.
By 1529 Berne, Basel, and Schaffhausen had followed Zürich in adopting the Reformation, and major progress had been made in the cantons of Appenzell and Glarus and also in the associated Swiss region of Saint Gall.
Geneva#
The history of Geneva is somewhat different.
For several centuries a series of prince-bishops ruled Geneva in close alliance with the neighboring duchy of Savoy. However, over the centuries the city acquired a significant measure of local autonomy, including the right to elect the four magistrates, called Syndics, who governed the city. Although not a member of the Swiss Confederation until 1815, Geneva developed a growing affinity with the Swiss while maintaining its sense of autonomy.
By 1527 Geneva formed a political alliance with the Swiss cantons of Bern and Fribourg, thereby declaring its independence from Savoy.
By 1533 Geneva expelled the prince-bishop.
Despite repeated attempts by the prince-bishop and Savoy to reassert authority, the new republic of Geneva was able to maintain its independence, largely because of the strong military support of the canton of Bern.
When Charles III, Duke of Savoy, laid siege to Geneva in 1536, the Bernese army came to the rescue.
The increasingly close relationship between Bern and Geneva had profound religious implications. When Bern embraced the Reformation in 1528, its people felt a duty to share the good news with Geneva.
ULRICH ZWINGLI AND ZÜRICH#
The reformation of Zürich finds its primary inspiration in the charismatic Swiss patriot Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531).
Zwingli was born on New Year’s Day 1484 in the small alpine village of Wildhaus in Saint Gall. He was the third child among nine siblings in a family of farmers. His father, also named Ulrich, served as the Amtmann, or chief local magistrate.
Saint Gall was associated with the Swiss Confederation, and it fostered in Zwingli a strong sense of political independence and a deep-seated patriotism.
A. Zwingli and Humanism#
Initially, he was heavily indebted to Erasmian humanism, which he first encountered during a two-year stint in Bern (1496–98) studying under the humanist Henry Wölfflin and then nurtured further at the universities of Vienna and Basel. Upon completing his M.A. from Basel in 1506, he took a parish church in the Swiss town of Glarus, where he remained for ten years. What is perhaps most significant about the Glarus years was his growing conviction of the primacy of Scripture.
By 1516 Zwingli had gone beyond Erasmus in one respect. Erasmian humanists tended to be more subtle in their call for reform, disinclined to make a frontal assault on the church or the state. Zwingli’s humanism was a more active civic humanism that was openly critical of certain policies.
Having served as chaplain to the Swiss mercenaries and witnessing firsthand their brutal defeat at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, Zwingli began publicly to criticize the Swiss mercenary trade.
His political opposition to the mercenary trade led to his departure from Glarus to the parish of Einsiedeln in 1516.
In Einsiedeln, Zwingli’s growing facility with the Greek and Hebrew of the biblical text led him to begin preaching in a different way.
Instead of preaching from appointed texts as directed by the lectionary, he expounded the biblical text, verse by verse, chapter by chapter (lectio continua), and quickly gained a reputation for his expositional preaching.
His activist brand of Erasmian humanism compelled him to denounce publicly the exploitive Franciscan indulgence-seller Bernard Sampson and run him out of town.
Zwingli’s biblical fervor and reputation for excellent preaching prompted his selection as leutpriester (people’s priest) in December 1518 at the Grossmünster (Great Minster) in Zürich on the banks of the Limmat River.
His appointment was nearly undone by his confession of a sexual dalliance with a local girl while serving in Einsiedeln. But for the fact that his main competitor for the post was a priest with six illegitimate children, Zwingli may have never preached a single sermon in Zürich.
He did preach his first sermon on January 1, 1519, and it created quite a sensation among the Zürichers. Although his expository preaching in the vernacular was highly unusual, it was still an echo of Erasmus, who had long espoused the same idea.
B. Zwingli and Swiss Mercenaries#
While in Glarus, Zwingli served as a chaplain alongside Swiss soldiers when they defeated the French on behalf of the papacy at the Battle of Novara in 1513.
After a series of notable victories in the Burgundian wars in the latter part of the fifteenth century, the Swiss mercenaries had developed a fearsome reputation throughout Europe as skilled warriors. In recognition of their military prowess, Pope Julius II in 1506 made the Swiss guards his personal body guards at the Vatican (a policy that continues today).
His support for the pope garnered for him an annual pension from Pope Julius II (which he renounced in 1520). However, the brutal defeat of the Swiss in the Battle of Marignano (1515) turned Zwingli into a vocal opponent of Swiss nationals serving as mercenaries.
Shortly thereafter, he decided to accept an invitation to serve as priest in Einsiedeln (in the canton of Schwyz), whose famous Benedictine Abbey, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Switzerland.
Zwingli had become convinced that mercenary service was immoral and that the Swiss were mere fodder for the political ambitions of foreigners. Two of his earliest writings, The Ox (1510) and The Labyrinth (1516), used satire to denounce the mercenary system.
He portrayed his Swiss countrymen as virtuous people exploited by the political maneuverings of France, the empire, and the papacy.
C. Zwingli and the Plague#
Between August 1519 and February 1520 more than a quarter of the population of Zürich became victims of the plague. Zwingli did not retreat from his pastoral responsibilities as he sought to console the sick and dying. By autumn, he too contracted the disease. Bedridden and with his own death before him, Zwingli rather poignantly surrendered himself to the will of God.
In his famous prayer-poem, titled the Pestlied (Plague Song), Zwingli solemnly declared to God, “Do as you will for I lack nothing. I am your vessel to be restored or destroyed.” This sense of absolute resignation to the divine will, which some see as a Stoic influence, finds fuller expression in his important work On Providence.
Against the odds, Zwingli did recover from the plague and pursued reform with even more vigor.
D. The Politics of Reform#
The reformation in Zürich was political as well as theological.
Zwingli displayed extraordinary political skill, persuading the city councilors that the political goals of the city were intertwined with the doctrinal teaching of Protestantism.
Zwingli was convinced that the success of Zürich depended on a mutually beneficial relationship between the church and the city council.
His reformation was in a very real sense a reformation in collaboration with the city magistrates — a magisterial reformation.
Up to 1522, Zwingli’s criticism of the church was confined to matters of moral corruption. But after 1522 his criticisms became more trenchant and reached beyond the moral to the doctrinal realm. In this regard he bypassed Erasmus and entered the domain of Protestantism.
The decisive point of departure occurred during Lent of 1522, when Zwingli defended the right of several of his parishioners to reject the church’s prohibition against eating meat during Lent. In the famous “Sausage Affair”, Zwingli mounted the pulpit in the Grossmünster and argued that Scripture nowhere requires such a rule. The magistrates were persuaded and released the parishioners from jail.
A few months later, he and ten other Swiss priests petitioned the presiding bishop of Constance to allow them to marry. The bishop, of course, denied their request, but in defiance of the bishop, Zwingli secretly continued his living arrangement with the widow Anna Reinhart. He subsequently married Anna in a public ceremony in 1524, shortly before the birth of their first child.
After 1522 the pace of reform in Zürich picked up significantly. Through a series of three disputations in 1523 and 1524, under the auspices of the city council, Zwingli
Took a distinctively Protestant stance on clerical celibacy, salvation by grace alone, and the ultimate authority of Scripture over the traditions of the church
Rejected papal authority, the mass, good works for salvation, intercession of the saints, penance, and purgatory.
The fundamental principle guiding Zwingli was that every doctrine and practice must be judged according to Scripture. The final rejection of Catholic authority came in April 1525, when the city council abolished the mass in Zürich. From that point on, Zürich was a Protestant city.
Zwingli famously claimed that he had embraced the Protestant gospel independently of Luther as early as 1516. Certainly, Erasmus had a constitutive impact, but Luther was also significant, perhaps even determinative. Zwingli admits to having read Luther, although he claimed it was a cursory reading. What is clear is that Zwingli was familiar enough with Luther’s defiant remarks at Leipzig in 1519 to describe Luther as a “new Elijah.”
Historians are left with a perplexing dilemma: If Zwingli had discovered salvation by grace alone (sola fide) independently of Luther in 1516, why is there no clear record of this, and how was it that he continued to minister with the approbation of the hierarchical church until the early 1520s?
If Zwingli discovered the Protestant theological distinctives independently of Luther, it would have been, as one scholar noted, “the most breathtaking coincidence of the sixteenth century.”
E. Zwingli and the Radicals#
Once Luther’s reformation got under way, one of the pressing questions facing every Reformer was the extent of reform: how much reformation is enough?
Zwingli’s friend Conrad Grebel (1448–1526) took Zwingli’s words to heart, searched the Scriptures, but could not find any examples of infant baptism. He reached the conclusion that therefore only those professing faith should be baptized. A circle of supporters grew up around Grebel, calling themselves the Swiss Brethren.
Zwingli actually debated the issue with Grebel before the city council on January 17, 1525, and was officially declared the victor. Grebel and the Swiss Brethren were admonished and told to cease pressing the matter. Grebel responded in defiance on January 21, 1525, when he baptized Georg Blaurock in the home of Felix Manz. This event is generally considered the beginning of Anabaptism.
The Zürich city council became frustrated when it could not silence the three Anabaptists, and it finally jailed them on March 7, 1526. Shortly after their imprisonment, the three escaped and fled the city with the certain knowledge that if they set foot back in Zürich, they would face death.
There is some suggestion that Zwingli himself had at one time contemplated abandoning infant baptism. Whatever hesitations Zwingli may have once entertained, he had firmly resolved those doubts by 1524.
It must be remembered that in this period, politics and religion were two sides of the same coin. Zwingli understood that his reform movement depended on the political support of the Zürich city council. It may very well have been the case that the political realities played a significant role in his debates with Grebel and the Swiss Brethren.
As important as one’s understanding of the Bible was to Zwingli, the perception that Grebel and company were social revolutionaries also informed his judgment. It could not be denied that there were some connections between Anabaptist leaders and the Peasants Revolt of 1524–25.
In December 1526, Felix Manz was rearrested and the Zürich officials were true to their word. On January 5, 1527, Manz was pushed, hands and feet bound, from a boat into the Limmat River, thereby becoming Zürich’s first Anabaptist martyr. Upon hearing the sentence, Manz is reported to have declared, “That is real baptism.”
How does one explain such a harsh response to these Anabaptists?
Part of the explanation lies in the fact that infant baptism not only was a religious rite of entrance into the church, but also was viewed as a civic rite of entrance into citizenship of the canton.
There was no separation of church and state, as evinced by Zwingli’s famous assertion: “A Christian city is nothing other than a Christian church.”
Rejection of infant baptism was not just religious heresy, but a political act of treason, for which death was seen as the only appropriate punishment.
This helps to explain why the Catholics and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, made Anabaptism a capital offense. In this milieu of intense patriotism, the Swiss response to Manz is not really surprising.
Both the Catholics and the emperor said that Zürichers saw the suppression of the Anabaptist movement as a matter of societal survival, not just a doctrinal dispute. Scholars estimate that in the century from 1525 to 1625 between one thousand and five thousand Anabaptist radicals were executed.
F. The Marburg Colloquy#
The interaction of theology and politics was much in evidence at the famous Colloquy of Marburg, when Zwingli and Luther met face-to-face.
Zwinglian theology had considerable success and had spread among other Swiss cantons of Basel, Berne, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, and Glarus.
Beyond Switzerland, Zwingli found support in southern Germany in Augsburg, Ulm, Strasbourg, Memmingenn, Frankfurt, and Constance.
Philip of Hesse wanted to capitalize politically on the expansion of Protestantism to form a defensive alliance between the Lutherans and the Zwinglians.
Philip understood that there could be no political alliance without theological agreement, so he proposed that Zwingli and Luther meet face-to-face at his castle in Marburg (October 1529) to resolve theological differences and thus establish the basis for a political alliance.
Philipp Melanchthon, on the other hand, feared that a political alliance with Zürich and the southern Germans might provoke the emperor, so his political sensibilities predisposed him against any formal theological agreement.
With these political concerns suffusing the theological discussion, it is little wonder that the talks failed.
Luther had only reluctantly agreed to participate in the Colloquy of Marburg, but Zwingli was especially eager to secure a political alliance if at all possible.
At the very outset, Luther was determined to stand his ground, which was symbolized by his writing the words of institution on the table in chalk: Hoc est corpus meum (“This is my body”). This was Luther’s shot across the Zwinglian bow — that any agreement would acknowledge that Christ is really present in the sacramental elements.
Luther proposed fifteen articles to be discussed and was rather astonished that he and Zwingli quickly came to agreement on fourteen of the articles (dealing with topics such as the Trinity, infant baptism, and governmental authority) and even found common ground on much of the fifteenth.
This final article concerned the Eucharist, and both men agreed in rejecting transubstantiation and Christ’s sacrifice in the mass. But neither Reformer would budge on the matter of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.
Luther insisted that Christ is really substantially present “in, with and under” the elements
Zwingli stressed that Christ’s body is in heaven at the right hand of the Father and therefore could not be really present in the Eucharist.
Efforts to end this historic meeting with a joint celebration of the Lord’s Supper also failed. The two parties did agree to refrain from further denunciations — an agreement that also failed.
G. Death in Battle#
By 1529 religious hostilities between Swiss cantons heated up. The Protestant preacher Jacob Kaiser was executed as a heretic in the Catholic canton of Schwyz. War was narrowly averted in June 1529 with the First Peace of Kappel.
Zwingli persuaded the Zürich city council to mount an economic blockade against the Catholic cantons that prohibited Protestant preachers in their territories. The Catholic cantons refused to accept passively the blockade and launched a surprise attack on an unsuspecting and unprepared Zürich in October 1531.
This so-called Second Battle of Kappel ended with a decisive defeat of the Zürichers. Discovered among the wounded in the battle, Zwingli was dealt a deathblow. Befitting a heretic, his body was quartered and burned, his ashes mingled with dung.
The Second Peace of Kappel was signed shortly thereafter, firmly establishing the principle that religious affiliation was determined by the authority of the cantons.
H. Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger#
Upon Zwingli’s death, the city council invited Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) to succeed the fallen Zwingli.
Bullinger had been well known in the Zürich Church since 1523, when he became the head of the cloister school at Kappel just outside Zürich.
In 1527 he spent several months in Zürich studying ancient languages and regularly attending the Prophezei (small group Bible studies).
In 1528, at the urging of the Zürich synod, Bullinger left the Kappel cloister to reform the town of Bremgarten, where he replaced his father as parish minister until called to succeed Zwingli in December 1531.
Bullinger proved to be a remarkable leader.
In Zürich he supported and maintained the existing dynamic where the Zürich Council had ultimate authority over the church.
As the Antistes (chief pastor) of Zürich, he earned the respect of the city council and thus had significant influence.
He preached regularly in the Grossmünster and wrote commentaries on all of the New Testament books except the Revelation of John.
A hundred of his sermons were collected into his famous Decades, which provided a general summary of his theology.
Perhaps his crowning achievement is the Second Helvetic Confession, which he composed in 1561. Believing he was on his deathbed, he wrote a theological last will and testament, which was vetted by his trusted colleague Peter Martyr Vermigli. Bullinger recovered, and his last will and testament became the most influential of all Reformed confessions in the sixteenth century. It was accepted by the Protestant cantons of Switzerland as well as the Reformed churches in the Palatinate, France, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland.
Like the Consensus Tigurinus (1549), with which Bullinger worked out an agreement with Calvin on the Eucharist, the Second Helvetic Confession represented a further consolidation of the Zwinglian and Calvinist branches of the Reformed church.
In the end, Bullinger proved to be a great theological unifier, succeeding where Zwingli failed.
III. JOHN CALVIN AND GENEVA#
A. An Accidental Reformer#
By 1536 Geneva had managed to gain independence from its prince-bishop and the Duke of Savoy. Two Swiss cantons — Catholic Fribourg and Protestant Bern — were in competition for both political and religious influence on the newly independent city-state.
In the early 1530s, Bern sent Guillaume Farel (1489–1565) to win Geneva to the Reformation. Through public disputations and fiery sermons, in August 1535 Farel persuaded the magistrates to abolish the mass, and in December all Catholic clergy were given the option of conversion to Protestantism or exile.
On May 21, 1536, the General Council of Geneva formally ratified the new Protestantism and pledged to “live according to the Gospel and the Word of God.”
In a remarkable providence, a young twenty-seven-year-old John Calvin was passing through Geneva on his way to Strasbourg in July 1536 when he had fled from Paris in the aftermath of the Affaire des Placards (Affair of the Placards) amid accusations that he was partly responsible for the overtly Protestant address by the newly appointed rector of the University of Paris, Nicolas Cop. The free imperial city of Strasbourg, now fully in the Protestant camp, was just such a safe haven for an aspiring theologian, so he set off in the summer of 1536, with his brother Antoine and sister Marie
Calvin made his way to the safe-house of Louis du Tillet in Angoulême, where he began to write what would become known as the Institutes of the Christian Religion. This small book of six chapters gained notoriety and quickly earned him a reputation as a Protestant theologian of marked ability.
The route to Strasbourg was cut off by the third of the Hapsburg-Valois Wars. The small entourage detoured through Geneva, intending to stay a single night. Someone — whom Calvin describes only as one who later “apostatized and returned to the Papacy” (almost certainly a reference to Louis du Tillet)—reported to Farel that the author of the Institutes was passing through Geneva. The fiery redheaded preacher immediately confronted the young Calvin and passionately appealed to him to remain in Geneva to help consolidate the reformation of the city.
Initially, Calvin explained to Farel that his “heart was set upon devoting himself to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits.” But Farel would not be denied, and Calvin, fearing the worst, gave up the journey. So began Calvin’s lifelong association with Geneva.
B. Calvin’s Early Life#
Calvin’s journey to Geneva began years earlier in the French cathedral city of Noyon, where he was born in 1509. The city was about sixty miles northeast of Paris, and John grew up in the shadow of the Noyon cathedral.
His father, Gerard Calvin, was an attorney for the cathedral and secretary to the bishop.
Little is known of John’s mother, Jeanne, who died when he was five or six years old.
Due to the patronage of the bishop, Gerard was able to secure a modest church benefice (scholarship) to provide for John’s education.
At fourteen, John began studies at the University of Paris, first with general studies at the College de la Marche and then theological studies at the College de Montaigu. He graduated with an M.A. in 1528, intending a career in the church. But his plans went awry.
Gerard had fallen foul of the Noyon church authorities and had been excommunicated in 1528. Gerard must have concluded that all prospects of a high-church appointment were lost for any son of an excommunicated father, hence the redirection of young Calvin’s career. Ever the obedient son, John then pursued legal studies at the universities of Orleans (c. 1528–29) and Bourges (c. 1529–31), gaining his law degree in 1532.
After the death of his father (May 1531), Calvin went to Paris, where he fell in with a group of French humanists influenced by Erasmus and Faber Stapulensis. During his Paris period (1531–33), Calvin published his first book — a commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia (On Clemency)—combining his expertise in law with his affinity for French humanism. While in Paris, Calvin became friends with a physician from Basel, Nicolas Cop, who subsequently was appointed rector of the University of Paris.
C. Calvin’s Conversion#
Calvin’s first significant encounter with Lutheranism may have come in the person of Melchior Wolmar, a German Hellenist in Orleans who taught Greek. While it impossible to know with certainty, Wolmar may have introduced Lutheran ideas to his young Greek student.
Orleans also proved hospitable to one of Calvin’s kinsman, Pierre Robert (c. 1506–38), also known as Olivetanus (“Midnight Oil”), so-called because of his proclivity to work late nights. Olivetanus was at Orleans at the same time as Calvin (1528), and it is believed he too may have been a conduit for Protestant ideas.
Whether through the evangelistic efforts of Wolmar or Olivetanus or not, the young Calvin had undergone a life-changing experience and embraced the Protestant cause sometime during 1533 and 1534. Before this period, there is simply no evidence of his having crossed the Rubicon. However, by 1535 he was in Basel putting the finishing touches on the first edition of the Institutes.
First published in May 1536, the Institutes was Calvin’s effort to present a summary of the main points of the Christian faith. Initially only six chapters, he continued to expand it over the course of his life until it grew to eighty chapters in the final definitive 1559 edition.
Although Calvin seems to refer to a particular conversion experience, most scholars believe there was some kind of process. It is likely that he encountered Protestantism during his studies, perhaps through Wolmar or Robert, but resisted because he was “obstinately addicted” to Rome. Then over time, certainly by 1533 or 1534, he fully committed to the Protestant faith. It was “unexpected” in that he had been a devout Catholic who never contemplated leaving the mother church. There may have been no Damascus-road experience, but Calvin’s conversion was no less profound.
D. Calvin and Geneva#
When Calvin inadvertently ventured into the new republic of Geneva in the summer of 1536, he found himself in a bustling city in transition.
The Council of Two Hundred assumed judicial and legislative functions.
The Little Council took over the executive role of governance.
Within the Little Council, the real power lay with four syndics, who were elected annually by the male citizens of Geneva.
If Geneva was to be reformed, Calvin and Farel had to work through these existing political structures.
Not all Genevans were enthused about the decision to become a Protestant city or with the new foreigners who were given pastoral oversight. To make matters even more complicated, both pastors soon became objects of animosity for one Pierre Caroli, a Sorbonne-educated theologian, who publically accused them of denying the divinity of Christ.
The early years of 1536–38 were arduous for Calvin and Farel, who discovered just how difficult it was to navigate the political and religious minefield that was Geneva.
For the next two years Calvin worked side by side with Farel to make Geneva a Protestant city, not only in name, but in reality. The two Reformers made new proposals for greater discipline and drafted a new Confession of Faith (1537), both of which had the support of the city council but were strongly resisted by the people as too burdensome.
In February 1538 four new syndics were elected with a mandate to restrain the new Protestant pastors.
Tensions mounted between the city council and the Reformers, and matters finally came to a head on Easter Sunday in 1538, when Calvin and Farel defied the newly elected syndics. They refused to administer the Lord’s Supper according to Bernese prescriptions, which required unleavened bread. Irate city magistrates banished both Calvin and Farel, ordering them to leave Geneva within three days.
E. Calvin and Strasbourg#
Farel accepted a pastoral call to Neuchâtel, and Calvin finally made it to Strasbourg when he was invited by Martin Bucer to pastor the French congregation and serve as a professor of theology at the Strasbourg Gymnasium. Over the next three years Calvin was remarkably active.
He revised the Institutes, wrote his commentary on Romans
He participated in important theological conferences with Catholics at Frankfort (1539) and Worms (1540) and then at the Colloquy of Regensburg (1541), where Protestants and moderate Catholics, under Cardinal Contarini, actually reached agreement on the doctrine of justification.
The Strasbourg years were significant for many reasons, but particularly important was the influence of Bucer, whom Calvin addressed as “my much honored father in the Lord.” Certainly Calvin’s theology began to mature under Bucer’s influence. From the prominence given to the role of the Holy Spirit, to the conception of theology as piety, church polity, the Eucharist, and the doctrine of predestination, all were derived in significant measure from Bucer’s influence.
Strasbourg brought changes to Calvin’s personal life as well. While there, Calvin married Idelette de Bure, the widow of a prominent Anabaptist, Jean Stordeur of Liège. Calvin’s friends worried about his propensity to overwork and thought a wife would be good for his health. Calvin married Idelette in August 1540, and along with her came her two children.
It is quite clear that Calvin’s ministry responsibilities took precedence over his marriage. This is not to suggest that he did not appreciate and honor his wife, only that marriage was not his first calling. This ministry priority is reflected in the fact that Calvin spent thirty-two of the first forty-five weeks of his marriage away from home on church business.
Unlike Luther, Calvin was not prone to public displays of affections for his wife and only rarely mentions her in his correspondence, so it is difficult to know if it was a successful marriage. A son, Jacques, was born in July 1542, but did not survive. Idelette never completely regained her health and finally succumbed in late March 1549.
Even in his most tender reflections, Idelette’s primary virtue was that she supported his ministry.
F. Calvin Returns to Geneva#
In what is one of the most surprising developments in early Reformation history, the Genevan city council did an about-face and invited Calvin to return.
After Calvin and Farel were banished, the Erasmian Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto seized the opportunity to reel Geneva back into the Roman fold. Sadoleto wrote a powerful and eloquent appeal to the city fathers, pleading with them to return to the mother church. Finding no one in Geneva able to respond to Sadoleto’s challenge, the magistrates sought the wisdom of the leaders in Bern, who in turn asked Calvin to reply.
Although banished, Calvin reveals that he still felt a “paternal affection” and a spiritual responsibility toward Geneva: “God, when he gave it [Geneva] to me in charge, … bound me to be faithful forever.” Composed in six days, Calvin’s reply (August 1539) was a tour de force. Step by step, Calvin bested Sadoleto both in eloquence and argument. The letter is masterful in its dignity and power. Having read it, Luther rejoiced.
Calvin’s reply bolstered the Protestant party in Geneva and led to the surprising invitation to return. He was still recovering from his earlier wounds and had no desire to return to Geneva. Writing a letter on behalf of Geneva and the Protestant cause was one thing. Returning was another. Farel again threatened divine curses if he should fail to heed the call. Remarkably, Calvin submitted once again and returned to Geneva on September 13, 1541.
In a gesture meant to stress his devotion to the Bible, Calvin’s first sermon in Geneva picked up the text exactly where he left off on Easter Sunday in 1538. It also expressed his determination to establish the Genevan church on the firm foundation of Scripture. The main condition for his return was that he be permitted to structure the Geneva church “such as is prescribed in the Word of God and as was in use in the early Church.”
The Ecclesiastical Ordinances were made law in Geneva in November 1541. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances organized the Genevan church under four offices: pastor, teacher, elder, and deacon.
Pastors were principally charged with preaching the Scriptures, administering the sacraments, and exercising discipline jointly with the elders.
Teachers were to serve the church through education of clergy as well as maintaining doctrinal purity.
Elders were duly appointed laymen focused on discipline within the community, especially ensuring church attendance and moral behavior.
Deacons were responsible for poor relief and overseeing the hospitals. The deacons especially concentrated on ministry to the poor, the orphans, and the sick.
As refugees began to flood into Geneva, these offices took on greater significance.
Beyond the four offices, two ecclesiastical organizations were established to facilitate their responsibilities.
The Venerable Company of Pastors was composed of pastors and teachers and met weekly (Fridays) for the study of Scripture and quarterly to oversee ecclesiastical affairs, especially education, ordination, and mutual discipline.
More significant was the Consistory, a mixed body of clergy and laymen (five pastors, twelve elders, and ten magistrates) whose main concern was enforcement of morality.
According to the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, every home was to be visited annually by a pastor and elder to ensure moral conformity. To facilitate the visitations, the city was divided into three parishes: St. Pierre, St. Gervais, and la Madeleine. Any citizen found to be in violation of the moral code appeared before the consistory on Thursdays.
Recent research has shown that the consistory spent the vast majority of its time issuing admonishments for such things as failure to attend church, dancing, laughing during the sermon, gambling, retaining Catholic customs, and public disrespect for Calvin.
It was emphasized that all admonitions should be moderate, and the goal was restoration to the church. There were harsher punishments for more serious offenses.
The death penalty was prescribed for heresy, blasphemy, adultery after a second offense.
Following sixteenth-century norms, torture was used in the most serious offenses.
As intrusive as the consistory could be, according to historian Robert Kingdon it was designed “to see to it that every resident of Geneva was integrated into a caring community.”
IV. CALVIN AND DOCTRINAL DISPUTATION#
A. Calvin the Pastor#
One of the ironies is that Calvin, as far as we know, was never officially ordained as a pastor.
When he was first employed in Geneva, he was a “reader”—that is, a teacher
After some months, he was also referred to as “pastor” or “preacher.”
It may be that he was made a “pastor” by the city council of Geneva rather than the church. In any case, there is little doubt that he was de facto the senior pastor of Geneva.
The moral tone of the city was reinforced by the frequency of church services established in Geneva.
On Sunday mornings there were multiple sermons in each of the three parish churches at dawn, midmorning, and midafternoon as well a children’s catechism class at noon.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, sermons were preached in each of the three churches.
A typical Genevan Sunday service followed this general pattern and lasted about an hour and a half: corporate confession of sin, absolution, singing the first four commandments, pastoral prayer, singing the remaining commandments, pastoral prayer leading to the Lord’s Prayer, singing of a psalm, pastoral prayer, the sermon, pastoral prayer, short explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, singing another psalm, and then the Aaronic blessing.
Calvin followed the lectio continua approach and usually expounded two to five Scripture verses in an hour. It was his practice ordinarily to preach five times a week:
The Old Testament on weekdays
The New Testament on Sunday morning
The Psalms on Sunday evening
For Calvin, preaching had a kind of sacramental quality in which the Holy Spirit — the hidden energy — is actively present and communicating grace to the people.
Pastoral ministry brought out the best in Calvin. In a letter from April 1549 he mentioned his daily visits to a dying woman in his congregation. When she began to express her fear of death, he told her, “God is able to help you. He has indeed shown you how He is a present aid to His own.” He then proceeded to reflect on the pastor’s responsibility: “We ought to weep with those who weep. That is to say, if we are Christians, we ought to have such compassion and sorrow for our neighbors that we should willingly take part in their tears, and thus comfort them.” This is a side of John Calvin seldom noted in modern scholarship.
B. Calvin against the Libertines#
Not everyone in Geneva appreciated Calvin’s pastoral gifts or the moral rigor of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances.
Between the years 1550 and 1562, more than seven thousand immigrants flowed into Geneva, nearly doubling its population. Some of the older, more established families resented the church’s intrusion into their lives as well as the influx of refugees into the city. Leaders feared that these refugees, who were overwhelmingly supportive of Calvin, gave his regime too much power. This fear increasingly turned to resistance to Calvin and the consistory.
Calvin did not endear himself to opponents when he censured the wife of a prominent citizen from an old Genevan family for lewd dancing at a wedding. The husband, François Favre, and his son-in-law, Ami Perrin, challenged the consistory. Both were briefly imprisoned, which served only to enflame their opposition to Calvin.
Calvin labeled Perrin and his supporters “libertines”—that is, freethinkers — alleging that they preferred loose living. The libertines were a constant challenge to Calvin’s leadership, especially from 1548 to 1555.
In 1553, at the height of the tensions with the libertines, Calvin was so weary of the battle that he actually submitted his resignation to the city council, but it was refused.
For the greater part of his career, he battled the Genevan authorities to achieve his goals. Although he had the pulpits of Geneva under his influence, his authority was, in fact, very fragile. Indeed, he was not granted full citizenship until 1559, five years before he died.
C. Calvin and Servetus#
If Calvin is known for nothing else, he is often identified with the execution of the Spaniard heretic Michael Servetus (1511–53).
Servetus was infamous in his time for challenging the traditional doctrines of the deity of Christ, the Trinity, original sin, and infant baptism. Theology, however, was an avocation for Servetus. His primary occupation was as a physician, who gained some notoriety as the first person to discover the pulmonary circulation of the blood.
In 1531 Servetus published his infamous De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity), requiring him to conceal his identity. He eventually settled in Vienne, France, where he became personal physician to the archbishop.
As early as 1545, he began corresponding with Calvin, whose Institutes Servetus later contemptuously mocked with his 1553 publication titled Christianismi Restituto (Restitution of Christianity).
Calvin passed on the correspondence to the Catholic authorities in France, who arrested Servetus. He was convicted of heresy and sentenced to death by fire, only to escape just before the sentence was to be carried out.
On his escape in 1553, planning to go to Italy, the Spaniard made the disastrous decision to stop in Geneva and attend services in Calvin’s church. It was a fatal attraction. Servetus cannot have been unaware of the hostile reception he would receive if discovered.
Perhaps Servetus wanted to be able to taunt Calvin by later gloating over his clandestine venture into the church of St. Pierre. Whatever his intent, it failed when Servetus was recognized by French refugees. He was immediately arrested and soon put on trial — this time by Genevan Protestants.
In reality, Calvin served as the prosecution’s expert witness in the trial. Calvin was, after all, the leading theologian and one who had direct knowledge of Servetus’s views. After consultations with other Protestant cities (Basel, Bern, Schaffhausen, Zürich, and Wittenberg), there was a unanimous agreement that Servetus’s views were heretical and he should be burned to death according to the standards of sixteenth-century justice.
Calvin, some years earlier (in the 1530s), risked his life in an effort to win Servetus to orthodoxy. In the dangerous days after the Affair of the Placards when Calvin was on the run, the two men had agreed to a face-to-face meeting in Paris, and a date and time were established. Despite the peril, Calvin appeared at the appointed time, but Servetus was a no-show.
Both Farel and Calvin made last-ditch efforts to persuade Servetus to recant, but again it was in vain. Calvin even appealed for a more humane form of death, but his request was denied. Servetus was burned to death on October 27, 1553.
The Servetus affair marked a turning point for Calvin. Adversaries had dogged his every step almost from the beginning of his arrival in Geneva. But his opponents’ failure to exploit Servetus’s execution to their advantage led to greater influence for Calvin. With the increasing influx of persecuted refugees, especially French, he was able to build a strong, supportive constituency in Geneva. As a sign of his newfound stature, he was finally granted citizenship in Geneva in 1559.
D. Calvin and Luther#
It must be remembered that Calvin was a second-generation Reformer. By the time he emerged onto the historical stage in 1536, Luther had only another ten years to live. Zwingli had already been dead for five years.
Luther and Calvin never actually met, but there were a few exchanges toward the end of Luther’s life. After reading Calvin’s treatise on the Eucharist (1540), Luther was reported to have said that Calvin was “a learned and godly man, and I might well have entrusted this controversy to him from the beginning. If my opponents had done the same we should soon have been reconciled.” Luther also had a favorable impression of the 1539 edition of the Institutes and, through Bucer, passed on his congratulations to Calvin.
Amid all the fireworks over the Eucharist in the 1540s, Calvin wrote a personal letter to Luther in hopes of healing the Protestant breach. He deferentially addressed the letter to “my much revered father.” However, Melanchthon, who was to deliver the letter, decided at the last moment not to give it to Luther, fearing that it would provoke further wrath. It seems Luther’s stormy temperament prevented what could have been a profitable alliance.
E. Calvin the Ecclesiastical Politician#
Calvin was no Protestant hermit, disconnected from the world and surfacing only to deliver the Sunday sermon. He was actively engaged in the church as well as the politics of the Reformation.
By 1550 Geneva had become one of the main centers of Protestant Europe, rivaling both Zürich and Wittenberg. As the leading churchman of Geneva, he found himself involved in the great issues of the day, both political and ecclesiastical.
Perhaps the grandest dream of the early Reformation period was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s proposal for a Protestant General Council that would speak with one voice in response to the Council of Trent. A panoply of the leading Protestants, Lutherans, Reformed, and Anglicans would assemble in England to address the critical theological issues arising from the first sessions of Trent. Included among those actually invited to this Protestant summit was John Calvin, who responded enthusiastically.
With dynastic upheaval in England and the transfer of power from Protestant Edward VI to Catholic Mary I, the dream was never realized. It does, however, suggest Calvin’s international stature as well as his willingness to act on the larger stage.
One of the most historically significant ecclesio-political achievements of Calvin’s life was the crafting and signing of the Consensus Tigurinus with Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor in Zürich. If Cranmer’s dream of a Protestant General Council was illusory, Calvin managed to achieve theological unity on one of the most contentious issues of the entire Reformation — the Eucharist.
Between 1546 and 1549, Bullinger and Calvin exchanged letters on the matter. While acknowledging there were differences, Calvin insisted that “we shall not on that account cease to hold the same Christ and to be one in him.” By May 1549 the two Reformers were ready to bring the negotiations to a close. Calvin went to Zürich, and within two hours, agreement was reached.
Both Calvin and Bullinger understood that this document, the Consensus Tigurinus (Zürich Agreement), was in fact a compromise document.
Its genius is that it focuses on points of agreement and ignores differences.
It was flexible enough to allow each side to interpret it in accord with their own views.
The implications of the agreement were profound.
It not only contributed to the unity between Zürich and Geneva, but also removed the last major obstacle in the establishment of the Reformed branch of Protestantism.
Calvin learned a great deal of theology from Martin Bucer, but he also learned from him the virtue of theological flexibility in the name of unity.
F. Calvin the Theologian#
Philipp Melanchthon once described Calvin as “ille theologus”, (the theologian). His Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536–59) represents his monumental theological achievement. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest theological writings in the history of the Western church.
Over the course of his adult life, Calvin devoted enormous energy to revising and expanding the Institutes, which he did five times.
The final definitive edition of 1559 represents his most mature theological conclusions.
He intended that the Institutes have a symbiotic relationship with his commentaries, which provided the exegetical basis for the theological conclusions in the Institutes.
He intended that one’s theology should never be divorced from one’s heart.
The first edition of the Institutes originally had much more specific and modest goals, namely, as a brief catechism for the instruction of the laity and as an apology defending the orthodoxy of the French Protestants. It was modeled on Luther’s Little Catechism of 1529. The primary audience was his fellow Frenchmen who were being persecuted in the wake of the Affaire des Placards in 1534.
The first three chapters expound the three traditional religious authorities: the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.
The remaining three chapters are devoted to the sacraments, Christian liberty, and church-state relations.
The 1539 edition of the Institutes represents a significant enhancement (it is three times the size of the 1536 edition) with a vastly broader scope. In contrast to the first edition, which was aimed at laymen, the purpose of the new edition was “to prepare and train students in theology.”
All editions follow the basic structure of the Apostle’s Creed by dividing the Institutes into four books:
Book I, The Knowledge of God corresponds to “I believe in God the Father almighty.…”
Book II, The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ corresponds to “And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.…”
Book III, The Way we receive the Grace of Christ corresponds to “And I believe in the Holy Ghost.…”
Book IV, The External Means or Aids by which God Invites us into the Society of Christ and Holds us therein corresponds to “The Holy Catholic Church.…”
By the time of the 1559 edition, the Institutes had grown from six to eighty chapters.
In a general sense, Calvin takes Luther’s ideas and expands them. Like Luther, Calvin was a man of the Bible, which held ultimate authority in the church and in the lives of Christians.
With Luther, he held to the absolute sovereignty of God in all things.
With Luther, he affirmed that all humans are born sinners unable to perform meritorious works before God.
With Luther, he wholeheartedly believed that salvation is possible through grace alone.
With Luther, he embraced Augustine as the most reliable theological guide and was utterly convinced that the sixteenth-century Roman Church fundamentally had betrayed Augustine’s legacy.
With Luther, he acknowledged only two sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist.
Despite his conviction that Luther was “a distinguished Apostle of Christ,” Calvin bowed only before the ultimate authority of Scripture and so, inevitably, there were points where he differed in emphasis or in substance with Luther. In some respects he favored Luther over Zwingli on the matter of the Eucharist, but in the final analysis, he carved out a new position.
While he could not agree with Zwingli that the elements are mere symbols of Christ’s sacrifice, neither could he embrace Luther’s insistence on the physical presence of Christ “in, with and under” the elements.
For Calvin, Christ is indeed seated at the right hand of the Father and therefore cannot be physically present in the bread and wine.
The key for Calvin’s understanding of the Eucharist is the role of the Holy Spirit, who spiritually lifts the believer into the real but spiritual presence of Christ.
In this way, grace is communicated to the believer.
Calvin and Luther were in basic agreement on predestination, although Calvin gave it more emphasis, largely because he was called on to defend it. Consequently, the doctrine has particularly come to be associated with him, even though it certainly is not the epicenter of his theological system.
There is no developed doctrine of predestination in the 1536 edition of the Institutes, although it is gradually developed in subsequent editions.
Predestination does garner more of his attention toward the end of his Protestant career, primarily because of controversies inspired by such detractors as the ex-Carmelite Jerome Bolsec. In October 1551 he accused Calvin of heresy, specifically that his doctrine of predestination makes God the author of sin. Calvin was vindicated, and Bolsec was banished from the city in December, but it was a hollow victory, for it revealed a theological divide among Swiss Protestants.
In the Institutes (III.21.1) he begins his exposition by observing the plain fact that when the gospel is preached to a congregation, “it does not gain the same acceptance” by all. Why some fervently embrace the gospel while others reject it can only be explained, he argues, by the “decision of God’s eternal election.”
Calvin defends predestination as a biblical doctrine supported by ample biblical texts and, furthermore, states that it was affirmed by no less a theologian than Augustine.
Calvin himself strongly repudiated the very idea of a movement named after him. The Reformed tradition rightly is seen as arising from the cross-fertilization of a number of Protestant divines, among whom the four most important were Calvin at Geneva, Bucer at Strasbourg, Bullinger at Zürich, and Peter Martyr, the peripatetic Protestant who labored at Oxford, Strasbourg, and Zürich. These four theologians in particular are properly viewed as the principle “codifiers” of Reformed theology.
G. Calvin and Evangelism#
Many have noted that the Institutes do not have a specific section devoted to evangelism. Detractors argue that this is exactly what one would expect for someone who espouses such a rigorous doctrine of predestination, which they believe necessarily undermines all evangelistic endeavor.
Calvin addresses this age-old accusation in the Institutes (III.23.24) by citing his ancient theological mentor, Augustine: “For as we do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined or who does not belong, we ought to be so minded as to wish that all men be saved.” Calvin then adds his own admonition: “So shall it come about that we try to make every one we meet a sharer of our peace.”
For Calvin, evangelism fundamentally belongs to the church, which always has the responsibility of extending the kingdom of Christ. As a practical matter, Calvin was rather consistent at pressing his congregation to share the gospel.
For Calvin, it was axiomatic that the salvation of our souls necessarily carried with it an inevitable duty to share the gospel with others. This conviction, to the surprise of many, involved Calvin in evangelistic activities extending well beyond the perimeter of Geneva.
H. Calvin and Missions#
The pioneering Protestant missiologist Gustave Warnack categorically denied that the Reformers, including Calvin, had any interest in missions. Warnack believed that the Protestant doctrine of predestination necessarily undermined the missionary impulse.
The influx of refugees into Geneva, prompted by widespread persecution, now turned it into a pan-European city and created an unusual dynamic within the Genevan church. The great majority of those refugees who descended on Geneva came from France. Stirred by a deep desire to return to their homeland to spread the gospel, French refugees approached Calvin for direction, and he set about preparing them for their mission.
He believed that a good missionary is a good theologian, so he trained them theologically, tested their preaching ability, and examined their moral character. Having passed muster, the Genevan consistory then sent them back to France as missionaries. Nicolas Calladon records that 151 missionaries were sent from Geneva in 1561. Calvin remained intimately involved with these missionaries, offering counsel even after they had returned to France.
Then, as now, missionaries often faced terrible danger. When Calvin learned that one of the missionaries sent from Geneva had been arrested by Catholic authorities and was awaiting execution, he with tenderness wrote to this young missionary,
“My dear and beloved brother, … this letter, which is a living image of my heart, and shows all its inward emotions, will speak to you no less clearly than I could, were I present and a partaker of your troubles. And certainly, if the worst should happen, it would be my wish to be united with you in death rather than survive you.”
One historical researcher concludes that in the last decade of Calvin’s life his overriding preoccupation was his missionary project.
Although it is not well known, the Genevan missions enterprise was an extraordinary success.
The historical data indicate that in 1555 five Protestant churches were established in France.
By 1559 that number jumped to more than one hundred churches.
By 1562, scholars estimate that more than 2,150 churches were planted in France with the support of the Genevan consistory.
It is estimated that there were some 3,000,000 Protestants in France by the time of Calvin’s death in 1564. Ironically, Calvin’s success led to greater repression and eventually to the infamous Wars of Religion.
As a French-speaking city, Geneva naturally was involved in France, but the consistory also sent missionaries to Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and the free imperial city-states in the Rhineland. In what was one of the most ambitious Protestant missionary efforts of the sixteenth century, Geneva even sent missionaries to what is now Brazil.
Because persecution of Protestants had intensified in France, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a wealthy Protestant nobleman, hatched a plan to establish a French Protestant colony in South America as a place of refuge. Geneva partnered with Coligny and sent two missionaries to Brazil, Pierre Richier and William Chartier, who were tasked to be chaplains to the colonists and missionaries to the natives. They landed on March 10, 1557, in what is now Rio de Janeiro.
The story of the expedition to Brazil took a dark turn. The leader of the expedition, Nicholas Durand de Villagagnon, suddenly betrayed the Protestants, who fled into the Brazilian jungle, where they found refuge with the Tupi, a tribe of cannibals. Over time, these Protestant colonists and missionaries eventually made their way back to France, where one of them, Jean de Léry, actually wrote an account of his harrowing adventure: History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, published in 1578. In the midst of their terrifying ordeal, de Léry describes how the missionaries remained faithful to their calling by attempting to share the gospel with the Tupi cannibals. He confessed that these attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, but not for a lack of effort.
V. CALVIN’S LEGACY#
A. Calvin’s Death#
Calvin’s extraordinary work ethic eventually took its toll. After years of sleep deprivation (he slept only four or five hours a night), often one meal a day, and overwork, his body finally gave way. Moreover, his last years were complicated with a variety of physical ailments, including intestinal parasites, hemorrhoids, kidney stones, arthritis, tuberculosis, and headaches. He died at the age of fifty-five on May 27, 1564.
Yet, even on his deathbed Calvin continued to work. When friends begged him to stop, he replied, “What? Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes for me?”
Calvin would not have viewed himself as a victorious Christian, but merely as a weak servant. For all of his intensity and conviction, he retained a real humility even at the end of his life. He requested and was granted burial in an unmarked grave.
B. Calvin’s Endowment#
In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Calvinism surpassed Lutheranism as the most vibrant and far-reaching expression of the Protestant faith.
Calvin was fortunate to be succeeded by Beza (1516–1605), a man remarkable in his own right. Calvin invited him to Geneva in 1557, and in 1559 Beza was appointed as the first rector of the newly established Geneva Academy, where he served until 1599. Under Beza, the academy quickly became one of the leading Protestant schools in Europe. He was no innovator, but a faithful epigone of Calvin’s theology, ably defending the Calvinist view of double predestination, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
If anything, Beza was more logically rigorous than Calvin, frequently utilizing Aristotelian methodology in his theological articulations, which led to his being widely regarded as the father of Reformed Scholasticism.
He was a significant adviser to Henry of Navarre, and the relationship continued even after Henry’s formal conversion to Catholicism in order to succeed to the French throne as Henry IV. Out of having an international network, Beza became the chief articulator of what came to be known as Calvinism.
During the Wars of Religion in France, it was Beza who continued Calvin’s role as chief counselor to the French Huguenots.
By the mid-1550s a legion of Genevan missionaries, armed with a French translation of Calvin’s Institutes, launched a Protestant assault on the Catholic Church in France. In what came to be known as the Huguenot movement, Protestantism made substantial inroads to such an extent that reformation was seen as a real possibility.
The first national synod of Reformed churches was held secretly in Paris in May 1559. By 1562 it was reported that there were 2,150 Huguenot churches scattered throughout France, and nearly three million Protestants located largely in the “Huguenot crescent” from La Rochelle on the west coast, to the Midi-Pyrénées of the south, to the Dauphiné in southeastern France.
C. Wars of Religion#
After years of mounting tensions, passions exploded on March 1, 1562, when the Catholic Duke of Guise massacred Calvinist worshipers at a church service at Vassy-sur-Blaise.
The massacre set off a series of religious civil wars that engulfed France for the rest of the sixteenth century, with only brief interludes of peace. This conflict, known as the Wars of Religion (1562–98), pitted the Protestant house of Bourbon against the Catholic house of Guise. On the international front, the battles in France became a war by proxy between the Catholic King Philip II of Spain and the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Perhaps the most egregious event of these wars was the notorious Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in August 1572, when enraged Catholics virtually wiped out much of the Huguenot leadership, including the famous Admiral Coligny. The mayhem spread to more than a dozen cities across France. Some 2,000 Huguenots were slaughtered by Paris mobs, and in the days that followed, thousands more were killed in the provinces. Scholars estimate that perhaps as many as 10,000 Huguenots were killed over all.
France descended further into chaos when Jacques Clément, a Dominican priest, assassinated King Henry III by driving a knife into his spleen (1589). Before he died, Henry III pleaded with his heir, Henry of Navarre, to convert to Catholicism. It was, the dying king contended, the only path to peace. Henry of Navarre was reticent, but after more years of bloodshed, he was finally convinced and agreed to convert. He was formally received into the Catholic Church in 1593 and crowned Henry IV at Chartres in 1594.
Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, granting Protestants a measure of toleration and finally ending the Wars of Religion.
In the final analysis, Catholicism won out when Louis XIV issued the Edict of Fontainebleau in October 1685, formally revoking the Edict of Nantes and making Protestantism illegal in France.
Calvin’s big dream of a Protestant France was never realized.
Calvin’s dream had more success in other regions of Europe, however. Calvinism had its greatest impact in such areas as the Netherlands, the Palatinate, Scotland, and England.
In the Netherlands, under the leadership of William of Orange, the Reformed Church took root amid a revolt against Catholic Spain.
The Palatinate became the only German territory to embrace the Reformed Church when Elector Fredrick III introduced Calvinism in 1561 and the University of Heidelberg became a leading center of Calvinist thought. The Heidelberg Catechism is one of the lasting theological legacies of Elector Fredrick’s decision.
Certainly Calvin’s thought impacted Scotland through the efforts of the thundering Scot John Knox, who actually lived in Geneva for some years. After his return to Scotland, Knox led the way in establishing Presbyterianism in that nation.
England too was significantly impacted by Reformed theology through the efforts of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Martin Bucer, Regius Professors at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. In collaboration with these two theologians, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was able to shape significantly the theology of the Church of England during the short reign of the Protestant boy king, Edward VI.
With Edward’s death in 1553, Protestant bishops suddenly found themselves under the ecclesial authority of the avenging Catholic Queen Mary I and fled to Calvinist strongholds in Geneva, Zürich, and Frankfort. Having been nurtured on Reformed theology, these Marian exiles returned during the reign of Elizabeth I with a desire to inculcate a more distinctive Reformed theology and introduce a more Reformed liturgy. Elizabeth resisted these changes, but this group remained firm in its Calvinist convictions and thus formed the base for the emergence of the Puritan movement.
Surprising to many is the fact that Calvin’s theology even impacted the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, whose Confessio Fidei of 1629 manifests a Calvinistic soteriology.
Calvin is properly judged the great theological heir of Augustine and the theological refiner of Luther’s theological insights. He belongs in the pantheon of the greatest theologians in all of church history. He has had many detractors, who were convinced, in the words of Will Durant, that he was a dangerous “neurotic” who “darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.”