Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564)
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: CAL-CAR
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:
In dedicating to him his Commentary on the First See also:Epistle to the See also:Thessalonians, as " eximiae pietatis et doctrinae viro," he declares that so had he been aided by his instruction that whatever subsequent.progress he had made he only regarded as received from him, and " this," he adds, " I wish to testify to posterity that if any utility accrue to any from my writings they may acknowledge it as having i[i See also:part flowed from thee." From the College de la Marche he removed to the College de Montaigu,' where the See also:atmosphere was more ecclesiastical and where he had for instructor a Spaniard who is described as a man of learning and to whom Calvin was indebted for some See also:sound training in dialectics and the scholastic See also:philosophy
.
He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen as a student of philosophy, and in the college disputations gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner in the See also:department of 'speculative truth which he afterwards displayed
.
Among his See also:friends were the Hangests (especially See also:Claude), See also:Nicolas and See also:Michel Cop, sons of the See also:
He appears to have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not ordained, he preached several sermons to the See also:people
.
But though the career.of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin was destined not to become a See also:priest
.
A See also:change came over the mind both of his father and himself respecting his future career
.
Gerard Cauvin began to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his son, and that the See also:law offered to a youth of his talents and See also:industry a more promising See also:sphere.' He was also now out of favour with the cathedral See also:chapter at Noyon
.
It is said also that John himself, on the See also:advice of his relative, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the See also:Bible into French, had begun to study the Scriptures and to dissent from the See also:Roman See also:worship
.
At any See also:rate he readily complied with his father's See also:suggestion, and removed from Paris to See also:
By Wolmar Calvin was taught See also:Greek, and introduced to the study of the New Testament in the See also:original, a service which he gratefully acknowledges in one of his printed See also:works.' The conversation of Wolmar may also have been of use to him in his See also:consideration of the doctrines of the See also:Reformation, which were now beginning to be widely diffused through France
.
Twelve years had elapsed since See also:Luther had published his theses against indulgences—twelve years of intense excitement and anxious discussion, not in See also:Germany only, but in almost all the adjacent countries
.
In France there had not been as yet any overt revolt against the See also: 4 Jo . Calvini Vita, sub init . 5 Epist . Ded., Comment in Ep . II. ad Corinthios praefix . 72 brought up . It was formerly thought that Calvin published this See also:work with a view to See also:influence the king to put a stop to the attacks on the Protestants, but there is nothing in the See also:treatise itself or in the commentary to favour this See also:opinion . Soon after the publication of his first book Calvin returned to Orleans, where he stayed for a year, perhaps again reading law, and still undecided as to his life's work . He visited Noyon in August 1533, and by See also:October of the same year was settled again in Paris . Here and now his destiny became certain . The conservative See also:theology was becoming discredited, and humanists like Jacques Lefevre of Etaples (See also:Faber Stapulensis) and Gerard Roussel were favoured by the See also:court under the influence of See also:Margaret of See also:Angouleme, See also:queen of See also:Navarre and See also:sister of Francis I . Calvin's old friend, Nicolas Cop, had just been elected See also:rector of the university and had to deliver an oration according to See also:custom in the church of the Mathurins, on the feast of All See also:Saints .
The oration (certainly influenced but hardly composed by Calvin) was in effect a See also:defence of the reformed opinions, especially of the See also:doctrine of See also:justification by faith alone
.
It is to the See also:period between April 1532 and See also:November 1533, and in particular to the time of his second sojourn at Orleans, that we may most fittingly assign the See also:great change in Calvin which he describes (Praef. ad Psalmos; See also:opera xxxi
.
21-24) as his "sudden con-version" and attributes to See also:direct divine agency
.
It must have been at least after his Commentary on Seneca's De Clementia that his See also:heart was " so subdued and reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely forsaking them
.
Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawal from people." This indeed was forced upon him, for Cop's address was more than the conservative party could See also:bear, and Cop, being summoned to appear before the See also:parlement of Paris, found it necessary, as he failed to secure the support either of the king, or of the university, to make his See also:escape to See also:Basel
.
An attempt was at the same time made to seize Calvin, but, being forewarned of the See also:design by his friends, he also made his escape
.
His See also:room in the College Fortet, however, was searched, and his books and papers seized, to the imminent peril of some of his friends, whose letters were found in his repositories
.
He went to Noyon, but, proceedings against him being dropped, soon returned to Paris
.
But desiring both See also:security and solitude for study he See also:left the city again about New Year of 1534 and became the See also:guest of See also: Now, however, he had to decide whether, like Roussel and other of his friends, he should strive to combine the new doctrines with a position in the old church, or whether he should definitely break away from Rome . His mind was made up, and on the 4th of May he resigned his chaplaincy at Noyon and his rectorship at Pont 1'Eveque . Towards the end of the same See also:month he was arrested and suffered two short terms of imprisonment, the charges against him being not strong enough to be pressed . He seems to have gone next to Paris, staying perhaps with See also:Etienne de la Forge, a Protestant See also:merchant who suffered for his faith in See also:February 1535 . To this time belongs the See also:story of the proposed See also:meeting between Calvin and the See also:Spanish reformer See also:Servetus . Calvin's movements at this time are difficult to trace, but he visited both Orleans and See also:Poitiers, and each visit marked a See also:stage in his development . The See also:Anabaptists of Germany had spread into France, and were disseminating many See also:wild and fanatical opinions among those who had seceded from the Church of Rome . Among other notions which they had imbibed was that of a See also:sleep of the soul after death . To Calvin this notion appeared so pernicious that he. composed a treatise in refutation of it, under the title of Psychopannychia . The See also:preface to this treatise is dated Orleans 1534, but it was not printed till 1542 . In it he chiefly dwells upon the See also:evidence from Scripture in favour of the belief that the soul retains its intelligent consciousness after its separation from the See also:body—passing by questions of philosophical See also:speculation, as tending on such a subject only to See also:minister to an idle curiosity . At Poitiers Calvin gathered See also:round him a See also:company of cultured and See also:gentle men whom in private intercourse he influenced considerably .
Here too in a grotto near the See also:town he for the first time celebrated the communion in the Evangelical Church of France, using a piece of the See also:rock as a table
.
The year 1534 was thus decisive for Calvin
.
From this time forward his influence became supreme, and all who had accepted the reformed doctrines in France turned to him for counsel and instruction, attracted not only by his See also:power as a teacher, but still more, perhaps because they saw in him so full a development of the See also:Christian life according to the evangelical See also:model
.
See also:Renan, no prejudiced See also:judge, pronounces him " the most Christian man of his time," and attributes to this his success as a reformer
.
Certain it is that already he had become conspicuous as a See also:prophet of the new religion; his life was in danger, and he was obliged to seek safety in See also:flight
.
In company with his friend Louis du Tillet, whom he had again gone to Angouleme to visit, he set out for Basel
.
On their way they were robbed by one of their servants, and it was only by borrowing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to get to See also:Strassburg, and thence to Basel
.
Here Calvin was welcomed by the See also:band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the See also:Athens of Switzerland, and especially by See also:Oswald See also:Myconius, the See also:chief pastor, Pierre Viret and Heinrich See also:Bullinger
.
Under the aupices and guidance of See also:Sebastian See also:Munster, Calvin now gave himself to the study of Hebrew
.
Francis I., desirous to continue the suppression of the Protest-ants but anxious, because of his strife with See also:
The earliest French edition known is that of 1540, and this was after the work had been much enlarged, and several Latin editions had appeared
.
In its first form the work consisted of only six chapters, and was intended merely as a brief See also:manual of Christian doctrine
.
The chapters follow a traditional See also:scheme of religious teaching: (I) The Law, (as in the Ten Words), (2) Faith (as in the Apostles' Creed) (3) See also:Prayer, (4) the Sacraments; to these were added (5) False Sacraments, (6) Christian See also:liberty, ecclesiastical power and civil See also:administration
.
The closing chapters of the work are more polemical than the earlier ones
.
His indebtedness to Luther is of course great, but his spiritual kinship with Martin See also:Bucer of
' This edition forms a small 8vo of 514 pages, and 6 pages of See also:index
.
It appeared at Basel from the press of See also: Something also he owed to Scotus and other medieval schoolmen . The book appeared anonymously, the author having, as he himself says, nothing in view beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites.' In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty-six years of age, we find a See also:complete outline of the Calvinist theological See also:system . In none of the later editions, nor in any of his later works do we find reason to believe that he ever changed his views on any essential point from what they were at the period of its first publication . Such an instance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an age would be remarkable under any circumstances; but in Calvin's See also:case it is rendered peculiarly so by the shortness of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to theological studies . It may be doubted also if the See also:history of literature presents us with another instance of a book written at so early an age, which has exercised such a prodigious influence upon the opinions and practices both of contemporaries and of posterity . After a short visit (April 1536) to the court of Renee, duchess of See also:Ferrara (See also:cousin to Margaret of Navarre), which at that time afforded an See also:asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin returned through Basel to France to arrange his affairs before finally taking farewell of his native See also:country . His intention was to See also:settle at Strassburg or Basel, and to devote himself to study . But being unable, in consequence of the See also:war between Francis I. and Charles V., to reach Strassburg by the ordinary route, he with his younger See also:brother See also:Antoine and his See also:half-sister See also:Marie journeyed to See also:Lyons and so to Geneva, making for Basel . In Geneva his progress was arrested, and his See also:resolution to pursue the quiet path of studious See also:research was dispelled by what he calls the " formidable obtestation " of See also:Guillaume See also:Farel.' After many struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in planting the evangelical See also:standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the work in that city . Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing more time for See also:personal improvement, but ultimately, believing that he was divinely called to this task and that " See also:God had stretched forth His See also:hand upon me from on high to See also:arrest me," he consented to remain at Geneva . He hurried to Basel, transacted some business, and returned to Geneva in August 1536 . He at once began to ex-See also:pound the epistles of St See also:Paul in the church of St Pierre, and after about a year was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, an office which he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him . His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to him, " since he has as yet hardly received anything." Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief See also:interval, was spent . The See also:post to which he was thus called was not an easy one . Though the people of Geneva had cast off the obedience of Rome, it was largely a See also:political revolt against the See also:duke of See also:Savoy, and they were still (says Beza) " but very imperfectly enlightened in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy."' This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the See also:rear of the reforming body . To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in See also:union with Farel, See also:drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine consisting of twenty-one articles . This the citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the See also:confession of their faith—a See also:process which, though not in accordance with See also:modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, " with much See also:satisfaction." As the people took this See also:oath Praef. ad Psalmos . 2 Ibid . Beza, Vit . Calv. an . 1536.in the capacity of citizens, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan polity . Deeply convinced of the importance of education for the young, Calvin and his coadjutors were solicitous to establish See also:schools throughout the city, and to enforce on parents the sending of their See also:children to them; and as he had no faith in education apart from religious training, he drew up a See also:catechism of Christian doctrine which the children had to learn whilst they were receiving See also:secular instruction . Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists; a public disputation was held on the 16th and 17th of March 1537, and so excited the populace that the See also:Council of Two See also:Hundred stopped it, declared the Anabaptists vanquished and drove them from the city . About the same time also, the See also:peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed and their work interrupted by Pierre Caroli, another native of See also:northern France, who, though a man of loose principle and belief, had been appointed chief pastor at See also:Lausanne and was discrediting the See also:good work done by Pierre Viret in that city .
Calvin went to Viret's aid and brought Caroli before the commissioners of See also:Bern on a See also:charge of advocating prayers for the dead as a means of their earlier resurrection
.
Caroli brought a See also:counter-charge against the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words " Trinity " and " See also:Person " in the confession they had See also:drawn up
.
It was a struggle between the thoroughgoing humanistic reformer who drew his creed solely from the " word of God " and the merely semi-Protestant reformer who looked on the old creed as a priceless heritage
.
In a See also:synod held at Bern the See also: |