by Will Durant
Calvinism gave to hard work, sobriety, diligence, frugality, and thrift a religious sanction and laurel that may have shared in developing the industrious temper of the modern Protestant businessman; but this relationship has been overstressed.40 Capitalism was more highly developed in Catholic Florence and Flanders before the Reformation than in Calvin’s Geneva. Calvin rejected individualism in economics as well as in religion and morals. The unit of society, in his view, was not the free individual (with whom Luther had begun his revolt) but the city-state community, whose members were bound to it in rigorous law and discipline. ‘No member of the Christian community,” he wrote, “holds his gifts to himself, or for his private use, but shares them among his fellow members; nor does he derive benefit save from those things which proceed from the common profit of the body as a whole.”41 He had no sympathy with acquisitive speculation or ruthless accumulation.42 Like some late-medieval Catholic theorists, he permitted interest on loans, but in theory he limited it to 5 per cent, and urged loans without interest to necessitous individuals or the state.43 With his approval the Consistory punished engrossers, monopolists, and lenders who charged excessive interest; it fixed prices for food and clothes and surgical operations; it censured or fined merchants who defrauded their clients, dealers who skimped their measures, clothiers who cut their cloth too short.44 Sometimes the regime moved toward state socialism: the Venerable Company established a bank, and conducted some industries.45
If we bear these limiting factors in mind, we may admit a quiet and growing entente between Calvinism and business. Calvin could not long have kept his leadership had he obstructed the commercial development of a city whose commerce was its life. He adjusted himself to the situation, allowed interest charges of 10 per cent, and recommended state loans to finance the introduction or expansion of private industry, as in the manufacture of clothing or the production of silk. Commercial centers like Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London took readily to the first modern religion that accepted the modern economy. Calvinism took the middle classes into its fold, and grew with their growth.
What were the results of Calvin’s rule? The difficulties of enforcement must have been extreme, for never in history had such strict virtue been required of a city. A considerable party opposed the regimen, even to the point of open revolt, but a substantial number of influential citizens must have supported it, if only on the general theory of morals—that others need them. The influx of French Huguenots and other Protestants must have strengthened Calvin’s hand; and the limitation of the experiment to Geneva and its hinterland raised the chances of success. The recurrent fear of invasion and absorption by hostile states (Savoy, Italy, France, the Empire) compelled political stability and civic obedience; external danger promoted internal discipline. In any case we have an enthusiastic description of the results from the pen of an eyewitness, Bernardino Ochino, an Italian Protestant who had found refuge in Geneva:
Cursing and swearing, unchastity, sacrilege, adultery, and impure living, such as prevail in many places where I have lived, are here unknown. There are no pimps and harlots. The people do not know what rouge is, and they are all clad in seemly fashion. Games of chance are not customary. Benevolence is so great that the poor need not beg. The people admonish one another in brotherly fashion, as Christ prescribes. Lawsuits are banished from the city, nor is there any simony, murder, or party spirit, but only peace and charity. On the other hand, there are no organs here, no voice of bells, no showy songs, no burning candles or lamps [in the churches], no relics, pictures, statues, canopies, or splendid robes, no farces or cold ceremonies. The churches are quite free from idolatry.46
The extant records of the Council for this period do not quite agree with this report: they reveal a high percentage of illegitimate children, abandoned infants, forced marriages, and sentences of death;47 Calvin’s son-in-law and his stepdaughter were among those condemned for adultery.48 But then again, as late as 1610, we find Valentin Andreae, a Lutheran minister from Württemberg, praising Geneva enviously:
When I was in Geneva I observed something great which I shall remember and desire as long as I live. There is in that city not only the perfect institute of a perfect republic, but, as a special ornament, a moral discipline which makes weekly investigations into the conduct, and even the smallest transgressions, of the citizens.... . All cursing and swearing, gambling, luxury, strife, hatred, fraud, etc., are forbidden, while greater sins are hardly heard of. What a glorious ornament of the Christian religion is such a purity of morals! We must lament with tears that it is wanting with us [Germans], and almost totally neglected. If it were not for the difference of religion, I would have been chained to Geneva forever.49
V. THE CONFLICTS OF CALVIN
Calvin’s character harmonized with his theology. The oil painting in the University Library at Geneva pictures him as a severe and somber mystic; dark but bloodless complexion, scanty black beard, high forehead, penetrating, ruthless eyes. He was short and thin and physically frail, hardly fit to carry a city in his hands. But behind the weak frame burned a mind sharp, narrow, devoted, and intense, and a firm, indomitable will, perhaps a will to power. His intellect was a citadel of order, making him almost the Aquinas of Protestant theology. His memory was crowded and yet precise. He was ahead of his time in doubting astrology, abreast of it in rejecting Copernicus, a bit behind it (like Luther) in ascribing many terrestrial occurrences to the Devil. His timidity concealed his courage, his shyness disguised an inner pride, his humility before God became at times a commanding arrogance before men. He was painfully sensitive to criticism, and could not bear opposition with the patience of one who can conceive the possibility that he may be wrong. Racked with illness, bent with work, he often lost his temper and broke out into fits of angry eloquence; he confessed to Bucer that he found it difficult to tame “the wild beast of his wrath.”50 His virtues did not include humor, which might have softened his certainties, nor a sense of beauty, which might have spared ecclesiastical art. Yet he was no unmitigated kill-joy; he bade his followers be cheerful, play harmless games like bowling or quoits, and enjoy wine in moderation. He could be a kind and tender friend, and an unforgiving enemy, capable of hard judgments and stern revenge. Those who served him feared him,51 but those loved him most who knew him best. Sexually his life showed no fault. He lived simply, ate sparingly, fasted unostentatiously, slept only six hours a day, never took a holiday, used himself up without stint in what he thought was the service of God. He refused increases in salary, but labored to raise funds for the relief of the poor. “The strength of that heretic,” said Pope Pius IV, “consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea.”52
A man of such mettle must raise many enemies. He fought them with vigor, and in the controversial language of the time. He described his opponents as riffraff, idiots, dogs, asses, pigs, and stinking beasts53—epithets less becoming to his elegant Latinity than to Luther’s gladiatorial style. But he had provocations. One day Jerome Bolsec, an ex-monk from France, interrupted Calvin’s sermon at St. Peter’s to denounce the predestinarian doctrine as an insult to God; Calvin answered him by citing Scripture; the police arrested Bolsec; the Consistory charged him with heresy; the Council was inclined to put him to death. But when the opinions of theologians in Zurich, Basel, and Bern were solicited, they proved disconcerting: Bern recommended caution in dealing with problems beyond human ken—a new note in the literature of the age; and Bullinger warned Calvin that “many are displeased with what you say in your Institutes about predestination, and draw the same conclusions as Bolsec.”54 The Council compromised on banishment (1551). Bolsec returned to France and Catholicism.
More important in result was Calvin’s controversy with Joachim Westphal. This Lutheran minister of Hamburg denounced as “Satanic blasphemies” the view of Zwingli and Calvin that Christ was only spiritually present in the Eucharist, and thought the Swiss Refor
mers should be refuted not by the pens of theologians but by the rods of magistrates (1552). Calvin answered him in terms so severe that his fellow Reformers at Zurich, Basel, and Bern refused to sign his remonstrance. He issued it nevertheless; Westphal and other Lutherans returned to the attack; Calvin branded them as “apes of Luther,” and argued so effectively that several regions hitherto Lutheran-Brandenburg, the Palatinate, and parts of Hesse, Bremen, Anhalt, and Baden—were won to the Swiss view and the Reformed Church; only the silence of Melanchthon (who secretly agreed with Calvin), and the post-mortem echo of Luther’s thunderbolts saved the rest of northern Germany for the Lutheran creed.
Turning from these assaults on the right, Calvin faced on the left a group of radicals recently arrived in Switzerland from Counter Reformation Italy. Caelius Secundus Curio, teaching in Lausanne and Basel, shocked Calvin by announcing that the saved—including many heathen—would far outnumber the damned. Laelius Socinus, son of a leading Italian jurist, settled in Zurich, studied Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew in order to understand the Bible better, learned too much, and lost his faith in the Trinity, predestination, original sin, and the atonement. He expressed his skepticism to Calvin, who answered as well as possible. Socinus agreed to refrain from public utterance of his doubts; but later he spoke out against the execution of Servetus, and was among the few who, in that fevered age, stood up for religious toleration.
In a state where religion and government were fused in an intoxicating mixture, it was natural that Calvin’s most persistent conflicts should be with the Patriotes and Libertins who had once expelled him and now deplored his return. The Patriots resented his French origin and supporters, abhorred his theology, nicknamed him Cain and called their dogs Calvin; they insulted him in the streets, and probably it was they who one night fired fifty shots outside his home. The Libertins preached a pantheistic creed without devils, angels, Eden, atonement, Bible, or pope. Queen Margaret of Navarre received and supported them at her court in Nérac, and reproved Calvin for his severity with them.
On June 27, 1547, Calvin found attached to his pulpit a placard reading:
Gross hypocrite! You and your companions will gain little by your pains. If you do not save yourselves by flight, nobody shall prevent your overthrow, and you will curse the hour when you left your monkery.... After people have suffered long they avenge themselves.... Take care that you are not served like M. Verle [who had been killed].... We will not have so many masters....55
Jacques Gruet, a leading Libertin, was arrested on suspicion of having written the placard; no proof was adduced. It was claimed that he had, some days previously, uttered threats against Calvin. In his room were found papers, allegedly in his handwriting, calling Calvin a haughty and ambitious hypocrite, and ridiculing the inspiration of the Scriptures and the immortality of the soul. He was tortured twice daily for thirty days until he confessed—we do not know how truthfully—that he had affixed the placard and conspired with French agents against Calvin and Geneva. On July 26, half dead, he was tied to a stake, his feet were nailed to it, and his head was cut off.56
Tension mounted until, on December 16,1547, the Patriotes and Libertins came armed to a meeting of the Great Council, and demanded an end to the power of the Consistory over the citizens. At the height of a violent tumult Calvin entered the room, faced the hostile leaders, and said, striking his breast: “If you want blood, there are still a few drops here; strike, then!” Swords were drawn, but no one ventured to be the first assassin. Calvin addressed the gathering with rare moderation, and finally persuaded all parties to a truce. Nevertheless his confidence in himself was shaken. On December 17 he wrote to Viret: “I hardly hope that the Church can be upheld much longer, at least by my ministry. Believe me, my power is broken, unless God stretch forth His hand.” But the opposition divided into factions, and subsided till the trial of Servetus offered another opportunity.
VI. MICHAEL SERVETUS: 1511-53
Miguel Serveto was born at Villanova (some sixty miles north of Saragossa), son of a notary of good family. He grew up at a time when the writings of Erasmus were enjoying a transitory tolerance in Spain. He was in some measure influenced by the literature of the Jews and the Moslems; he read the Koran, made his way through rabbinical commentaries, and was impressed by the Semitic criticism of Christianity (with its prayers to a Trinity, to Mary, and to saints) as polytheistic. Luther called him “the Moor.” At Toulouse, where he studied law, he saw for the first time a complete Bible, vowed to read it “a thousand times,” and was deeply moved by the visions of the Apocalypse. He won the patronage of Juan de Quintana, confessor to Charles V, and was taken by Juan to Bologna and Augsburg (1530). Michael discovered Protestantism, and liked it; he visited Oecolampadius at Basel, and Capito and Bucer at Strasbourg; soon he was too heretical for their taste, and was invited to graze in other fields.
In 1531 and 1532 he published the first and second edition of his basic work, De Trinitatis erroribus. It was rather confused, and in a crude Latin that must have made Calvin smile if ever; but in wealth of Biblical erudition it was an astonishing performance for a lad of twenty. Jesus, in Servetus’s view, was a man into whom God the Father had breathed the Logos, the Divine Wisdom; in this sense Jesus became the Son of God; but he was not equal or co-eternal with the Father, Who might communicate the same spirit of wisdom to other men; “the Son was sent from the Father in no other way than as one of the Prophets.”57 This was pretty close to Mohammed’s conception of Christ. Servetus proceeded to take the Semitic view of Trinitarianism. “All those who believe in a Trinity in the essence of God are tritheists”; and, he added, they are “true atheists” as deniers of the One God.58 This was youthfully extreme, but Servetus tried to soften his heresy by inditing rhapsodies on Christ as the Light of the World; most of his readers, however, felt that he had extinguished the light. As if to leave no stone unhurled, he concurred with the Anabaptists that baptism should be given only to adults. Oecolampadius and Bucer repudiated him, and Servetus, reversing Calvin’s itinerary, fled from Switzerland to France (1532).
On July 17 the Inquisition at Toulouse issued a warrant for his arrest. He thought of going to America, but found Paris more agreeable. There, disguising himself as Michel de Villeneuve (the family name), he studied mathematics, geography, astronomy, and medicine, and flirted with astrology. The great Vesalius was his fellow student in dissection, and their teachers praised them equally. He quarreled with the dean of the medical faculty, and seems in general to have given offense by his impetuosity, passion, and pride. He challenged Calvin to a debate, but did not appear at the appointed place and time (1534). In the furore over Cop’s address and the heretical placards, Servetus, like Calvin, left Paris. At Lyons he edited a scholarly edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. In 1540 he moved to Vienne (sixteen miles south of Lyons), and there he lived till his last year, practicing medicine and scholarship. Out of so many scholars available to the Lyons publishers-printers, he was chosen to edit a Latin translation of the Bible by Santes Pagnini. The work took him three years, and ran to six volumes. In a note on Isaiah 7:14, which Jerome had rendered “a virgin shall conceive,” Servetus explained that the Hebrew word meant not virgin but young woman, and he suggested that it referred not prophetically to Mary but simply to Hezekiah’s wife. In the same spirit he indicated that other seemingly prophetic passages in the Old Testament referred only to contemporary figures or events. This proved disconcerting to Protestants and Catholics alike.
We do not know when Servetus discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood—the passage of the blood from the right chamber of the heart along the pulmonary artery to and through the lungs, its purification there by aeration, and its return via the pulmonary vein to the left chamber of the heart. So far as is now known, he did not publish his finding till 1553, when he included it in his final work, The Restitution of Christianity. He brought the theory into a theological treatise because he thought of the blood as the vital spirit in man, and th
erefore—more probably than the heart or the brain—the real seat of the soul. Deferring for a while the problem of Servetus’s priority in this discovery, we merely note that he had apparently completed the Christianismi restitutio by 1546, for in that year he sent the manuscript to Calvin.
The very title was a challenge to the man who had written the Christianae religionis institutio; but further, the book sharply rejected, as blasphemy, the notion that God had predestined souls to hell regardless of their merits or guilt. God, said Servetus, condemns no one who does not condemn himself. Faith is good, but love is better, and God Himself is love. Calvin thought it sufficient refutation of all this to send Servetus a copy of the Institutes. Servetus returned it with insulting annotations,59 and followed up with a series of letters so contemptuous that Calvin wrote to Farel (February 13, 1546): “Servetus has just sent me a long volume of his ravings. If I consent he will come here, but I will not give my word, for should he come, if my authority is of any avail, I will not suffer him to get out alive.” 60 Servetus, angry at Calvin’s refusal to continue the correspondence, wrote to Abel Poupin, one of the Genevese ministers (1547) :
Your gospel is without God, without true faith, without good works. Instead of a God you have a three-headed Cerberus [the predestinating Trinity? ]. For faith you have a deterministic dream.... Man is with you an inert trunk, and God is a chimera of the enslaved will.... . You close the Kingdom of Heaven before men.... . Woe! woe! woe! This is the third letter that I have written to warn you, that you may know better. I will not warn you again. In this fight of Michael I know that I shall certainly die .... but I do not falter.... Christ will come. He will not tarry.61
