JOHN CALVINJohn Calvin was born July 10, 1509, at Noyon, France, an ancient cathedral city about
seventy miles northeast of Paris. His father, a man of rather hard and severe character,
held the position as apostolic secretary to the bishop of Noyon, and was intimate with
the best families of the neighborhood. His mother was noted for her beauty and piety,
but died in his early youth.He received the best education which France at that time could give, studying
successively at the three leading universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris, from 1528
to 1533. His father intended to prepare him for the legal profession since that commonly
raised those who followed it to positions of wealth and influence. But not feeling any
particular calling to that field, young Calvin turned to the study of Theology and there
found the sphere of labor for which he was particularly fitted by natural endowment and
personal choice. He is described as having been of a shy and retiring nature, very
studious and punctual in his work, animated by a strict sense of duty, and exceedingly
religious. He early showed himself possessed of an intellect capable of clear, convincing
argument and logical analysis. Through excessive industry he stored his mind with
valuable information, but undermined his health. He advanced so rapidly that he was
occasionally asked to take the place of the professors, and was considered by the other
students as a doctor rather than an auditor. He was, at this time, a devout Cathode of
unblemished character. A brilliant career as a humanist, or lawyer, or churchman, was
opening before him when he was suddenly converted to Protestantism, and cast in his lot
with the poor persecuted sect.Without any intention on his part, and even against his own desire, Calvin became the
head of the evangelical party in Paris in less than a year after his conversion. His depth of
knowledge and earnestness of speech were such that no one could hear him without
being forcibly impressed. For the present he remained in the Catholic Church, hoping to
reform it from within rather than from without. Schaff reminds us that "all the Reformers
were born, baptized, confirmed, and educated in the historic Catholic Church, which
cast them out; as the Apostles were circumcised and trained in the Synagogue, which
cast them out."1The zeal and earnestness of the new Reformer did not long go unchallenged and it soon
became necessary for Calvin to escape for his life. The following account of his flight
from Pads is given by the Church historian, Philip Schaff: "Nicholas Cop, the son of a
distinguished royal physician (William Cop of Basel), and a friend of Calvin was elected
Rector of the University, Oct. 10, 1533, and delivered the usual inaugural oration on All
Saints' Day, Nov. 1, before a large assembly in the Church of the Mathurins. This
oration, at the request of the new Rector, had been prepared by Calvin. It was a plea for
a reformation on the basis of the New Testament, and a bold attack on the scholastic
theologians of the day, who were represented as a set of sophists, ignorant of the Gospel
.... The Sorbonne and the Parliament regarded this academic oration as a manifesto of
war upon the Catholic Church, and condemned it to the flames. Cop was warned and
fled to his relatives in Basel. (Three hundred crowns were offered for his capture, dead
or alive.) Calvin, the real author of the mischief, is said to have descended from a
window by means of sheets, and escaped from Paris in the garb of a vine-dresser with a
hoe upon his shoulder. His rooms were searched and his books and papers were seized
by the police .... Twenty-four innocent Protestants were burned alive in public places of
the city from Nov. 10, 1534, till May 5, 1535....Many more were fined, imprisoned, and
tortured, and a considerable number, among them Calvin and Du Tillet, fled to
Strassburg . . . For nearly three years Calvin wandered as a fugitive evangelist under
assumed names from place to place in southern France, Switzerland, and Italy, till he
reached Geneva as his final destination."2Shortly after, if not before, the first edition of his Institutes appeared, in March, 1536,
Calvin and Louis Du Tillet crossed the Alps into Italy where the literary and artistic
Renaissance had its or/gin. There he labored as an evangelist until the Inquisition began
its work of crushing out both the Renaissance and the Reformation as two kindred
serpents. He then bent his way, probably through Asota and over the Great St. Bernard,
to Switzerland. From Basel he made a last visit to his native town of Noyon in order to
make a final settlement of certain family affairs. Then, with his younger brother Antoine
and his sister Marie, he left France forever, hoping to settle in Basel or Strassburg and to
lead there the quiet life of a scholar and author. Owing to the fact that a state of war
existed between Charles V. and Francis I., the direct route through Lorraine was closed,
so he made a circuitous journey through Geneva.Calvin intended to stop only a night in Geneva, but Providence had decreed otherwise.
His presence was made known to Farel, the Genevan reformer, who instinctively felt that
Calvin was the man to complete and save the Reformation in Geneva. A fine description
of this meeting of Calvin and Farel is given by Schaff. Says he: "Farel at once called on
Calvin and held him fast, as by divine command. Calvin protested, pleading his youth, his
inexperience, his need of further study, his natural timidity and bashfulness, which unfitted
him for public action. But all in vain. Farel, 'who burned of a marvelous zeal to advance
the Gospel,' threatened him with the curse of Almighty God if he preferred his studies to
the work of the Lord, and his own interest to the cause of Christ. Calvin was terrified
and shaken by these words of the fearless evangelist, and felt 'as if God from on high had
stretched out His hand.' He submitted, and accepted the call to the ministry, as teacher
and pastor of the evangelical Church of Geneva."3Calvin was twenty-five years younger than Luther and Zwingli, and had the great
advantage of building on the foundation which they had laid. The first ten years of
Calvin's public career were contemporary with the last ten of Luther's although the two
never met personally. Calvin was intimate with Melanchthon, however, and kept up a
correspondence with him until his death.At the time Calvin came upon the scene it had not yet been determined whether Luther
was to be the hero of a great success or the victim of a great failure. Luther had
produced new ideas; Calvin's work was to construct them into a system, to preserve and
develop what had been so nobly begun. The Protestant movement lacked unity and was
in danger of being sunk in the quicksand of doctrinal dispute, but was saved from that
fate chiefly by the new :impulse which was given to it by the Reformer in Geneva. The
Catholic Church worked as one mighty unit and was seeking to stamp out, by fair means
or foul, the different Protestant groups which had arisen in the North. Zwingli had seen
this danger and had tried to unite the Protestants against their common foe. At Marburg,
after pleadings and with tears in his eyes, he extended to Luther the hand of fellowship
regardless of their difference of opinion as to the mode of Christ's presence in the Lord's
Supper; but Luther refused it under the restraint of a narrow dogmatic conscience.
Calvin also, working in Switzerland with abundant opportunity to realize the closeness of
the Italian Church, saw the need for union and labored to keep Protestantism together.
To Cranmer, in England, he wrote, "I long for one holy communion of the members of
Christ. As for me, if I can be of service, I would gladly cross ten seas in order to bring
about this unity." His influence as exerted through his books, letters, and students, was
powerfully felt throughout the various countries, and the statement that he saved the
Protestant movement from destruction seems to be no exaggeration.For thirty years Calvin's one absorbing interest was the advancement of the Reformation.
Reed says, "He toiled for it to the utmost limit of his strength, fought for it with a courage
that never quailed, suffered for it with a fortitude that never wavered, and was ready at
any moment to die for it. He literally poured every drop of his life into it, unhesitatingly,
unsparingly. History will be searched in vain to find a man who gave himself to one
definite purpose with more unalterable persistence, and with more lavish serf-abandon
than Calvin gave himself to the Reformation of the 16th century."4Probably no servant of Christ since the days of the Apostles has been at the same time
so much loved and hated, admired and abhorred, praised and blamed, blessed and
cursed, as the faithful, fearless, and immortal Calvin. Living in a fiercely polemic age, and
standing on the watchtower of the reform movement in Western Europe, he was the
observed of all observers, and was exposed to attacks from every quarter. Religious and
sectarian passions are the deepest and strongest, and in view of the good and the bad
which is known to exist in human nature in this world we need not be surprised at the
reception given Calvin's teachings and writings.When only twenty-six years of age Calvin published in Latin his "Institutes of the
Christian Religion." The first edition contained in brief outline all the essential elements of
his system, and, considering the youthfulness of the author, was a marvel of intellectual
precocity. It was later enlarged to five times the size of the original and published in
French, but never did he make any radical departure from any of the doctrines set forth
in the first edition. Almost immediately the Institutes took first place as the best exhibition
and defense of the Protestant cause. Other writings bad dealt with certain phases of the
movement but here was one that treated it as a unit. "The value of such a gift to the
Reformation," says Reed, "cannot easily be exaggerated. Protestants and Romanists
bore equal testimony to its worth. The one hailed it as the greatest boon; the other
execrated it with the bitterest curses. It was burnt by order of the Sorbonne at Paris and
other places, and everywhere it called forth the fiercest assaults of tongue and pen.
Florimond de Raemond, a Roman Catholic theologian, calls it 'the Koran, the Talmud of
heresy, the foremost cause of our downfall.' Kampachulte, another Roman Catholic,
testifies that 'it was the common arsenal from which the opponents of the Old Church
borrowed their keenest weapons,' and that 'no writing of the Reformation era was more
feared by Roman Catholics, more zealously fought against, and more bitterly pursued
than Calvin's Institutes.' Its popularity was evidenced by the fact that edition followed
edition in quick succession; it was translated into most of the languages of western
Europe; it became the common text-book in the schools of the Reformed Churches, and
furnished the material out of which their creeds were made."5"Of all the services which Calvin rendered to humanity," says Dr. Warfield, " — and they
were neither few nor small — the greatest was undoubtedly his gift to it afresh of this
system of religious thought, quickened into new life by the forces of his genius."6The Institutes were at once greeted by the Protestants with enthusiastic praise as the
clearest, strongest, most logical. and most convincing defense of Christian doctrines since
the days of the Apostles. Schaff characterizes them well when he says that in them
"Calvin gave a systematic exposition of the Christian religion in general, and a vindication
of the evangelical faith in particular, with the apologetic and practical aim of defending the
Protestant believers against calumny and persecution to which they were then exposed,
especially in France."7 The work is pervaded by an intense earnestness and by fearless
and severe argumentation which properly subordinates reason and tradition to the
supreme authority of the Scriptures. It is admittedly the greatest book of the century, and
through it the Calvinistic principles were propagated on an immense scale. Albrecht
Ritschl calls it "the masterpiece of Protestant theology." Dr. Warfield tells us that "after
three centuries and a half it retains its unquestioned preeminence as the greatest and most
influential of all dogmatic treatises." And again he says, "Even from the point of mere
literature, it holds a position so supreme in its class that every one who would fain know
the world's best books, must make himself familiar with it. What Thucydides is among
Greek, or Gibbon among eighteenth-century English historians, what Plato is among
philosophers, or the Iliad among epics, or Shakespeare among dramatists, that Calvin's
'Institutes' is among theological treatises."8 It threw consternation into the Roman Church
and was a powerful unifying force among Protestants. It showed Calvin to be the ablest
controversialist in Protestantism and as the most formidable antagonist with which the
Romanists had to contend. In England the Institutes enjoyed an almost unrivaled
popularity, and was used as a text book in the universities. It was soon translated into
nine different European languages; and it is simply due to a serious lack in the majority of
historical accounts that its importance has not been appreciated in recent years.A few weeks after the publication of the Institutes, Bucer, who ranks third among the
Reformers in Germany, wrote to Calvin: "It is evident that the Lord had elected you as
His organ for the bestowment of the richest fulness of blessing to His Church." Luther
wrote no systematic theology. Although his writings were voluminous, they were on
scattered subjects and many of them deal with the practical problems of his day. It was
thus left to Calvin to give a systematic exhibition of the evangelical faith.Calvin was, first of all, a theologian. He and Augustine easily rank as the two outstanding
systematic expounders of the Christian system since St. Paul. Melanchthon, who was
himself the prince of Lutheran theologians, and who, after the death of Luther, was
recognized as the "Preceptor of Germany," called Calvin preeminently "the theologian."If the language of the Institutes seems harsh in places we should remember that this was
the mark and weakness of theological controversy in that age. The times in which Calvin
lived were polemic. The Protestants were engaged in a life and death struggle with Rome
and the provocations to impatience were numerous and grievous. Calvin, however, was
surpassed by Luther in the use of harsh language as will readily be seen by an
examination of the latter's work, The Bondage of the Will which was a polemic written
against the free-will ideas of Erasmus. And furthermore, none of the Protestant writings
of the period were so harsh and abusive as were the Roman Catholic decrees of
excommunication, anathemas, etc., which were directed against the Protestants.In addition to the Institutes, Calvin wrote commentaries on nearly all of the books of
both the Old and New Testaments. These commentaries in the English translation
comprise fifty-five large volumes, and, taken in connection with his other works, are
nothing less than marvelous. The quality of these writings was such that they soon took
first place among exegetical works on the Scriptures; and among all the older
commentators no one is more frequently quoted by the best modern scholars than is
Calvin. He was beyond all question the greatest exegete of the Reformation period. As
Luther was the prince of translators, so Calvin was the prince of commentators.*Furthermore, in order to estimate the true value of Calvin's commentaries, it must be
borne in mind that they were based on principles of exegesis which were rare in his day.
"He led the way," says R. C. Reed, "in discarding the custom of allegorizing the
Scriptures, a custom which had come down from the earliest centuries of Christianity and
which had been sanctioned by the greatest names of the Church, from Origen to Luther,
a custom which converts the Bible into a nose of wax, and makes a lively fancy the prime
qualification of an exegete."9 Calvin adhered strictly to the spirit and letter of the author
and assumed that the writer had one definite thought which was expressed in natural
everyday language. He mercilessly exposed the corrupt doctrines and practices of the
Roman Catholic Church. His writings inspired the friends of reform and furnished them
with most of their deadly ammunition. We can hardly overestimate the influence of Calvin
in furthering and safeguarding the Reformation.Calvin was a master of patristic and scholastic learning. Having been educated in the
leading universities of his time, he possessed a thorough knowledge of Latin and French,
and a good knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. His principal commentaries appeared in
both French and Latin versions and are works of great thoroughness. They are eminently
fair and frank, and show the author to have been possessed of a singular balance and
moderation in judgment. Calvin's works had a further effect in giving form and
permanence to the then unstablized French language in much the same way that Luther's
translation of the Bible moulded the German language.One other testimony which we should not omit is that of Arminius, the originator of the
rival system. Certainly here we have testimony from an unbiased source. "Next to the
study of the Scriptures," he says, "I exhort my pupils to pursue Calvin's commentaries,
which I extol in loftier terms than Helmick himself (Helmick was a Dutch theologian); for
I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his
commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the
library of the fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others,
as rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent gift of prophecy."10The influence of Calvin was further spread through a voluminous correspondence which
he carried on with church leaders, princes, and nobles throughout Protestant
Christendom. More than 300 of these letters are still preserved today, and as a rule they
are not brief friendship exchanges but lengthy and carefully prepared treatises setting
forth in a masterly way his views of perplexing ecclesiastical and theological questions. In
this manner also his influence in guiding the Reformation throughout Europe was
profound.Due to an attempt of Calvin and Farel to enforce a too severe system of discipline in
Geneva, it became necessary for them to leave the city temporarily. This was two years
after Calvin's coming. Calvin went to Strassburg, in southwestern Germany, where he
was warmly received by Bucer and the leading men of the German Reformation. There
he spent the next three years in quiet and useful labors as professor, pastor, and author,
and came into contact with Lutheranism at first hand. He had a great appreciation for the
Luthern leaders and felt closely allied to the Lutheran Church, although he was
unfavorably impressed with the lack of discipline and with the dependence of the clergy
upon the secular rulers. He later followed the progress of the Reformation in Germany
step by step with the warmest interest, as is shown in his correspondence and various
writings. During his absence from Geneva affairs reached such a crisis that it seemed that
the fruits of the Reformation would be lost and he was urgently requested to return. After
repeated urgings from various sources he did so and took up the work where he had left
off before.The city of Geneva, located on the shores of a lake which bears the same name, was
Calvin's home. There, among the snow-capped Alps, he spent most of his adult life, and
from there the Reformed Church has spread out through Europe and America. In the
affairs of the Church, as well as in the affairs of the State, the little country of Switzerland
has exerted an influence far out of proportion to its size.Calvin's influence in Geneva gives us a fair sample of the transforming power of his
system. "The Genevese," says the eminent church historian, Philip Schaff, "were a
light-hearted, joyous people, fond of public amusements, dancing, singing, masquerades,
and revelries. Recklessness, gambling, drunkenness, adultery, blasphemy, and all sorts of
vice abounded. Prostitution was sanctioned by the authority of the State, and
superintended by a woman called the Reine de bordel. The people were ignorant. The
priest had taken no pains to instruct them, and had set them a bad example." From a
study of contemporary history we find that shortly before Calvin went to Geneva the
monks and even the bishop were guilty of crimes which today are punishable with the
death penalty. The result of Calvin's work in Geneva was that the city became more
famed for the quiet, orderly lives of its citizens than it had previously been for their
wickedness. John Knox, like thousands of others who came to sit as admiring students at
Calvin's feet, found there what he termed "the most perfect school of Christ that ever
was on the earth since the days of the Apostles."Through Calvin's work Geneva became an asylum for the persecuted, and a training
school for the Reformed Faith. Refugees from all the countries of Europe fled to this
retreat, and from it they carried back with them the clearly taught principles of the
Reformation. It thus acted as a center emanating spiritual power and educational forces
which guided and moulded the Reformation in the surrounding countries. Says Bancroft,
"More truly benevolent to the human race than Solon, more self-denying than Lycurgus,
the genius of Calvin infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva and made it
for the modern world the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed-plot of
democracy."11Witness as to the effectiveness of the influences which emanated from Geneva is found in
one of the letters of the Roman Catholic Francis de Sales to the duke of Savoy, urging
the suppression of Geneva as the capital of what the Romish Church calls heresy. "All
the heretics," said he, "respect Geneva as the asylum of their religion.... There is not a
city in Europe which offers more facilities for the encouragement of heresy, for it is the
gate of France, of Italy, and of Germany, so that one finds there people of all nations —
Italians, French, Germans, Poles, Spaniards, English, and of countries still more remote.
Besides, every one knows the great number of ministers bred there. Last year it
furnished twenty to France. Even England obtains ministers from Geneva. What shall I
say of its magnificent printing establishments, by means of which the city floods the world
with its wicked books, and even goes the length of distributing them at the public
expense? ....All the enterprises undertaken against the Holy See and the Catholic princes
have their beginnings at Geneva. No city in Europe receives more apostates of all
grades, secular and regular. From thence I conclude that Geneva being destroyed would
naturally lead to the dissipation of heresy."12Another testimony is that of one of the most bitter foes of Protestantism, Philip II of
Spain. He wrote to the king of France: "This city is the source of all mischief for France,
the most formidable enemy of Rome. At any time, I am ready to assist with all the power
of my realm in its overthrow." And when the Duke of Alva was expected to pass near
Geneva with his army, Pope Pius V asked him to turn aside and "destroy that nest of
devils and apostates."The famous academy of Geneva was opened in 1558. With Calvin there were
associated ten able and experienced professors who gave instruction in grammar, logic,
mathematics, physics, music, and the ancient languages. The school was remarkably
successful. During the first year more than nine hundred students, mostly refugees from
the various European countries, were enrolled, and almost as many more attended his
theological lectures preparing themselves to be evangelists and teachers in their native
countries and to establish churches after the model which they had seen in Geneva. For
more than two hundred years it remained the principal school of Reformed Theology and
literary culture.Calvin was the first of the Reformers to demand complete separation between Church
and State, and thus he advanced another principle which has been of inestimable value.
The German Reformation was decided by the will of the princes; the Swiss Reformation,
by the will of the people; although in each case there was a sympathy between the rulers
and the majority of the population. The Swiss Reformers, however, living in the republic
at Geneva, developed a free Church in a free State, while Luther and Melanchthon, with
their native reverence for monarchial institutions and the German Empire, taught passive
obedience in politics and brought the Church under bondage to the civil authority.Calvin died in the year 1564, at the early age of fifty-five. Beza, his close friend and
successor, describes his death as having come quietly as sleep, and then adds: "Thus
withdrew into heaven, at the same time with the setting sun, that most brilliant luminary,
which was the lamp of the Church. On the following night and day there was intense grief
and lamentation in the whole city; for the Republic had lost its wisest citizen, the Church
its faithful shepherd, and the Academy an incomparable teacher."In a comparatively recent book Professor Harkness has written: "Calvin lived, and died,
a poor man. His house was scantily furnished, and he dressed plainly. He gave freely to
those in need, but he spent little upon himself. The Council at one time gave him an
overcoat as an expression of their esteem, and as a needed protection against the
winter's cold. This he accepted gratefully, but on other occasions he refused proffered
financial assistance and declined to accept anything in addition to his modest salary.
During his last illness the Council wished to pay for the medicines used but Calvin
declined the gift, saying that he felt scruples about receiving even his ordinary salary
when he could not serve. When he died, he left a spiritual inheritance of unestimated
value and a material estate of from fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars."13Schaff describes Calvin as "one of those characters that command respect and
admiration rather than affection, and forbid familiar approach, but gain upon closer
acquaintance. The better he is known, the more he is admired and esteemed." And
concerning his death Schaff says: "Calvin had expressly forbidden all pomp at his funeral
and the erection of any monument over his grave. He wished to be buried, like Moses,
out of reach of idolatry. This was consistent, with his theology, which humbles man and
exalts God."14 Even the spot of his grave in the cemetery at Geneva is unknown. A plain
stone, with the initials "J. C.," is pointed out to strangers as marking his resting-place, but
it is not known on what authority. He himself requested that no monument should mark
his grave. His real monument, however, says S. L. Morris, is "every republican
government on earth, the public school system of all nations, and 'The Reformed
Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian System.'"And again Harkness, although not always a friendly writer, says this: "Those who see in
Calvin only unfeeling sternness overlook the almost feminine gentleness which he
displayed in many of his parish relationships. He grieved with his people in their sorrows
and rejoiced in their joys. Some of his letters to those who had suffered domestic losses
are masterpieces of tender sympathy. When a wedding occurred or a baby came to
grace a home, he took a warm personal interest in the event. It was not unusual for him
to stop on the street in the midst of weighty matters to give a school-boy a friendly pat
and an encouraging word. His enemies might call him pope or king or caliph; his friends
thought of him only as their brother and beloved leader."15 In one of his letters to a friend
he wrote: "I shall soon come to visit you, and then we can have a good laugh together."We must now consider an event in the life of Calvin which to a certain extent has cast a
shadow over his fair name and which has exposed him to the charge of intolerance and
persecution. We refer to the death of Servetus which occurred in Geneva during the
period of Calvin's work there. That it was a mistake is admitted by all. History knows
only one spotless being — the Savior of sinners. All others have marks of infirmity
written which forbid idolatry.Calvin has, however, often been criticized with undue severity as though the
responsibility rested upon him alone, when as a matter of fact Servetus was given a court
trial lasting over two months and was sentenced by the full session of the civil Council,
and that in accordance with the laws which were then recognized throughout
Christendom. And, far from urging that the sentence be made more severe, Calvin urged
that the sword be substituted for the fire, but was overruled. Calvin and the men of his
time are not to be judged strictly and solely by the advanced standards of our twentieth
century, but must to a certain extent be considered in the light of their own sixteenth
century. We have seen great developments in regard to civil and religious toleration,
prison reform, abolition of slavery and the slave trade, feudalism, witch burning,
improvement of the conditions of the poor, etc., which are the late but genuine results of
Christian teachings. The error of those who advocated and practiced what would be
considered intolerance today, was the general error of the age. It should not, in fairness,
be permitted to give an unfavorable impression of their character and motives, and much
less should it be allowed to prejudice us against their doctrines on other and more
important subjects.The Protestants had just thrown off the yoke of Rome and in their struggle to defend
themselves they were often forced to fight intolerance with intolerance. Throughout the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries public opinion in all European countries justified the
right and duty of civil governments to protect and support orthodoxy and to punish
heresy, holding that obstinate heretics and blasphemers should be made harmless by
death if necessary. Protestants differed from Romanists mainly in their definition of
heresy, and by greater moderation in its punishment. Heresy was considered a sin against
society, and in some cases as worse than murder; for while murder only destroyed the
body, heresy destroyed the soul. Today we have swung to the other extreme and public
opinion manifests a latitudinarian indifference toward truth or error. During the eighteenth
century the reign of intolerance was gradually undermined. Protestant England and
Holland took the lead in extending civil and religious liberty, and the Constitution of the
United States completed the theory by putting all Christian denominations on a parity
before the law and guaranteeing them the full enjoyment of equal rights.Calvin's course in regard to Servetus was fully approved by all the leading Reformers of
the time. Melanchthon, the theological head of the Lutheran Church, fully and repeatedly
justified the course of Calvin and the Council of Geneva, and even held them up as
models for imitation. Nearly a year after the death of Servetus he wrote to Calvin: "I
have read your book, in which you dearly refuted the horrid blasphemies of Servetus ....
To you the Church owes gratitude at the present moment, and will owe it to the latest
posterity. I perfectly assent to your opinion. I affirm also that your. magistrates did right
in punishing, after regular trial, this blasphemous man." Bucer, who ranks third among the
Reformers in Germany, Bullinger, the close friend and worthy successor of Zwingli, as
well as Farel and Beza in Switzerland, supported Calvin. Luther and Zwingli were dead
at this time and it may be questioned whether they would have approved this execution
or not, although Luther and the theologians of Wittenberg had approved of death
sentences for some Anabaptists in Germany whom they considered dangerous heretics,
— adding that it was cruel to punish them, but more cruel to allow them to damn the
ministry of the Word and destroy the kingdom of the world; and Zwingli had not
objected to a death sentence against a group of six Anabaptists in Switzerland. Public
opinion has undergone a great change in regard to this event, and the execution of
Servetus which was fully approved by the best men in the sixteenth century is entirely out
of harmony with our twentieth century ideas.As stated before, the Roman Catholic Church in this period was desperately intolerant
toward Protestants; and the Protestants, to a certain extent and in self-defense, were
forced to follow their example. In regard to Catholic persecutions Philip Schaff writes as
follows: "We need only refer to crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, which
were sanctioned by Innocent III, one of the best and greatest of popes; the tortures and
autos-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition, which were celebrated with religious festivities;
and fifty thousand or more Protestants who were executed during the reign of the Duke
of Alva in the Netherlands (1567-1573); the several hundred martyrs who were burned
in Smithfield under the reign of bloody Mary; and the repeated wholesale persecutions of
the innocent Waldenses in France and Piedmont, which cried to heaven for vengeance. It
is vain to shift the responsibility upon the civil government. Pope Gregory XIII
commemorated the massacre of St. Bartholomew not only by a Te Deum in the
churches of Rome, but more deliberately and permanently by a medal which represents
'The Slaughter of the Huguenots' by an angel of wrath."16And then Dr. Schaff continues: "The Roman Church has lost the power, and to a large
extent also the disposition, to persecute by fire and sword. Some of her highest
dignitaries frankly disown the principle of persecution, especially in America, where they
enjoy the full benefits of religious freedom. But the Roman curia has never officially
disowned the theory on which the practice of persecution is based. On the contrary,
several popes since the Reformation have indorsed it .... Pope Pius IX., in the Syllabus
of 1864, expressly condemned, among the errors of this age, the doctrine of religious
toleration and liberty. And this pope has been declared to be officially infallible by the
Vatican decree of 1870, which embraces all of his predecessors (notwithstanding the
stubborn case of Honorius I) and all his successors in the chair of St. Peter," (p. 669).
And in another place Dr. Schaff adds, "If Romanists condemned Calvin, they did it from
hatred of the man, and condemned him for following their own example even in this
particular case."Servetus was a Spaniard and opposed Christianity, whether in its Roman Catholic or
Protestant form. Schaff refers to him as "a restless fanatic, a pantheistic
pseudo-reformer, and the most audacious and even blasphemous heretic of the sixteenth
century."17 And in another instance Schaff declares that Servetus was "proud, defiant,
quarrelsome, revengeful, irreverent in the use of language, deceitful, and mendacious";
and adds that he abused popery and the Reformers alike with unreasonable language.18
Bullinger declares that if Satan himself should come out of hell, he could use no more
blasphemous language against the Trinity than this Spaniard. The Roman Catholic
Bolsec, in his work on Calvin, calls Servetus "a very arrogant and insolent man," "a
monstrous heretic," who deserved to be exterminated.Servetus had fled to Geneva from Vienne, France; and while the trial at Geneva was in
progress the Council received a message from the Catholic judges in Vienne together
with a copy of the sentence of death which had been passed against him there, asking
that he be sent back in order that the sentence might be executed on him as it had
already been executed on his effigy and books. This request the Council refused but
promised to do full justice. Servetus himself preferred to be tried in Geneva, since he
could see only a burning funeral pyre for himself in Vienne. The communication from
Vienne probably made the Council in Geneva more zealous for orthodoxy since they did
not wish to be behind the Roman Church in that respect.Before going to Geneva Servetus had urged himself upon the attention of Calvin through
a long series of letters. For a time Calvin replied to these in considerable detail, but
finding no satisfactory results were being accomplished he ceased. Servetus, however,
continued writing and his letters took on a more arrogant and even insulting tone. He
regarded Calvin as the pope of orthodox Protestantism, whom he was determined to
convert or overthrow. At the time Servetus came to Geneva the Libertine party, which
was in opposition to Calvin, was in control of the city Council. Servetus apparently
planned to join this party and thus drive Calvin out. Calvin apparently sensed this danger
and was in no mood to permit Servetus to propagate his errors in Geneva. Hence he
considered it his duty to make so dangerous a man harmless, and determined to bring
him either to recantation or to deserved punishment. Servetus was promptly arrested and
brought to trial. Calvin conducted the theological part of the trial and Servetus was
convicted of fundamental heresy, falsehood and blasphemy. During the long trial
Servetus became emboldened and attempted to overwhelm Calvin by pouring upon him
the coarsest kind of abuse.19 The outcome of the trial was left to the civil court, which
pronounced the sentence of death by fire. Calvin made an ineffectual plea that the sword
be substituted for the fire; hence the final responsibility for the burning rests with the
Council.Dr. Emilé Doumergue, the author of Jean Calvin, which is beyond comparison the most
exhaustive and authoritative work ever published on Calvin, has the following to say
about the death of Servetus: "Calvin had Servetus arrested when he came to Geneva,
and appeared as his accuser. He wanted him to be condemned to death, but not to
death by burning. On August 20, 1553, Calvin wrote to Farel: 'I hope that Servetus will
be condemned to death, but I desire that he should be spared the cruelty of the
punishment' — he means that of fire. Farel replied to him on September 8th: 'I do not
greatly approve that tenderness of heart,' and he goes on to warn him to be careful that
'in wishing that the cruelty of the punishment of Servetus be mitigated, thou art acting as a
friend towards a man who is thy greatest enemy. But I pray thee to conduct thyself in
such a manner that, in future, no one will have the boldness to publish such doctrines,
and to give trouble with impunity for so long a time as this man has done.'"Calvin did not, on this account, modify his own opinion, but he could not make it
prevail. On October 26th he wrote again to Farel: 'Tomorrow Servetus will be led out to
execution. We have done our best to change the kind of death, but in vain. I shall tell
thee when we meet why we had no success.' (Opera, XIV, pp. 590, 613-657)."Thus, what Calvin is most of all reproached with — the burning of Servetus — Calvin
was quite opposed to. He is not responsible for it. He did what he could to save
Servetus from mounting the pyre. But, what reprimands, more or less eloquent, has this
pyre with its flames and smoke given rise to, made room for! The fact is that without the
pyre the death of Servetus would have passed almost unnoticed."Doumérgue goes on to tell us that the death of Servetus was "the error of the time, an
error for which Calvin was not particularly responsible. The sentence of condemnation to
death was pronounced only after consultation with the Swiss Churches, several of which
were far from being on good terms with Calvin (but all of which gave their consent) ....
Besides, the judgment was pronounced by a Council in which the inveterate enemies of
Calvin, the free thinkers, were in the majority."20That Calvin himself rejected the responsibility is clear from his later writings. "From the
time that Servetus was convicted of his heresy," said he, "I have not uttered a word
about his punishment, as all honest men will bear witness."21 And in one of his later
replies to an attack which had been made upon him, he says: "For what particular act of
mine you accuse me of cruelty I am anxious to know. I myself know not that act, unless
it be with reference to the death of your great master, Servetus. But that I myself
earnestly entreated that he might not be put to death his judges themselves are witnesses,
in the number of whom at that time two were his staunch favorites and defenders."22Before the arrest of Servetus and during the earlier stages of the trial Calvin advocated
the death penalty, basing his argument mainly on the Mosaic law, which was, "He that
blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death," Lev. 24:16 — a law
which Calvin considered as binding as the decalogue and applicable to heresy as well.
Yet he left the passing of sentence wholly to the civil council. tie considered Servetus the
greatest enemy of the Reformation and honestly believed it to be the right and duty of the
State to punish those who offended against the Church. He also felt himself providentially
called to purify the Church of all corruptions, and to his dying day he never changed his
views nor regretted his conduct toward Servetus.Dr. Abraham Kuyper, the statesman-theologian from Holland, in speaking to an
American audience not many years ago expressed some thoughts in this connection
which are worth repeating. Said he: "The duty of the government to extirpate every form
of false religion and idolatry was not a find of Calvinism, but dates from Constantine the
Great and was the reaction against the horrible persecutions which his pagan
predecessors on the Imperial throne had inflicted upon the sect of the Nazarene. Since
that day this system had been defended by all Romish theologians and applied by all
Christian princes. In the time of Luther and Calvin, it was a universal conviction that that
system was the true one. Every famous theologian of the period, Melanchton first of all,
approved of the death by fire of Servetus; and the scaffold, which was erected by the
Lutherans, at Leipzig for Kreel, the thorough Calvinist, was infinitely more reprehensible
when looked at from a Protestant standpoint."But whilst the Calvinists, in the age of the Reformation, yielded up themselves as
martyrs, by tens of thousands, to the scaffold and the stake (those of the Lutherans and
Roman Catholics being hardly worth counting), history has been guilty of the great and
far-reaching unfairness of ever casting in their teeth this one execution by fire of Servetus
as a crimen nefandum."Notwithstanding all this I not only deplore that one stake, but I unconditionally
disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of
Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal after-effect of a system, grey with age, which
Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet
been able entirely to liberate itself."23Hence when we view this affair in the light of the sixteenth century and consider these
different aspects of the case, — namely, the approval of the other reformers, a public
opinion which abhorred toleration as involving indifference to truth and which justified the
death penalty for obstinate heresy and blasphemy, the sentence also passed on Servetus
by the Roman Catholic authorities, the character of Servetus and his attitude toward
Calvin, his going to Geneva for the purpose of causing trouble, the passing of sentence
by a civil court not under Calvin's control, and Calvin's appeal for a lighter form of
punishment, — we come to the conclusion that there were numerous extenuating
circumstances, and that whatever else may be said Calvin himself acted from a strict
sense of duty. View him from any angle you please; paint him as Cromwell asked himself
to be painted — "warts and all" — and, as Schaff has said, "He improves upon
acquaintance." He was, beyond all question, a man sent from God, a world shaker, such
as appears only a few times in the history of the world.Footnotes:
1 The Swiss Reformation, p. 312.
2 Schaff, The Swiss Reformation, p. 322.
3 The Swiss Reformation, p. 348
4 Calvin Memorial Addresses, p. 34.
5 Calvin Memorial Addresses, p. 20.
6 Article, The Theology of Calvin, p. 1.
7 The Swiss Reformation, p. 330.
8 Calvin and Calvinism, pp. 8, 374.
9 Calvin Memorial Addresses, p. 22.
10 Quoted by James Orr, Calvin Memorial Addresses, p. 92.
11 Miscellanies, p. 406.
12 Vie de ste. Francois de Sales, par son neveu, p. 20.
13 John Calvin, The Man and His Ethics, p. 54.
14 The Swiss Reformation, p. 826.
15 John Calvin, The Man and His Ethics, p. 55.
16 History of the Swiss Reformation, II., p. 698.
17 The Creeds of Christendom, I., p. 464.
18 The Swiss Reformation, II., p. 787.
19 See Schaff, The Swiss Reformation, II., p. 778.
20 Doumergue, Article, What Ought to be Known About Calvin, in the Evangelical
Quarterly, Jan. 1929.
21 Opera, VIII., p. 461.
22 Calvin's Calvinism, p. 346.
23 Lectures on Calvinism, p. 129.*A new edition of Calvin's Commentaries in English has recently been published
(1948) by the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids.