Out of the Flames

by Lawrence Goldstone

  During this period, Calvin ate little and slept less. His work consumed him; he often wrote late into the night. He was very thin and had stomach problems. By his own admission, he was short tempered. His friends proposed that he marry in order to reduce his irritability— this was a simpler time—and have someone look after his needs and his health. He rejected the first three candidates but settled finally on a widow with two children. This arrangement was apparently successful because he now had time to publish a number of other books on religion, and his reputation grew.

  Then, in 1539, came the updated Institutes. It began:

  The Epistle to the Reader

  In the First Edition of this work, having no expectation of the success that God has, in his goodness, been pleased to give it, I had, for the greater part, performed my office perfunctorily, as is usual in trivial undertakings. But when I perceived that almost all the Godly had received it with a favor which I had never dared to wish, far less to hope for, being sincerely conscious that I had received much more than I deserved, I thought I should be very ungrateful if I did not endeavor, at least according to my humble ability, to respond to the great kindness which had been expressed toward me, and which spontaneously urged me to diligence… I may add, that my object in this work was to prepare and train students of theology for the study of the sacred volume, so that they might both have an easy introduction to it, and be able to proceed in it, with unfaltering step, seeing I have endeavored to give such a summary of religion in all its parts… Strasbourg, 1 August 1539.

  The new Institutes ran to over a thousand pages. The Sorbonne had it burned in the streets of Paris. It was a hit.

  BUT “WHILE CALVIN'S STAR was on the rise, Geneva's was starting a long, hard slide.

  Soon after the Little Council ousted Calvin and Farel, church discipline disappeared, and Geneva went back to the old ways. There were brawls in the street; drunkenness (and worse) was up and church attendance was down. Nobody paid any attention to the replacement ministers. Politically, there were problems as well. In a dispute with neighboring Bern over the rights to some border land, Geneva sent two syndics as head of a delegation to negotiate a treaty. The syndics were given strict instructions that they ignored, and Bern got everything it wanted. When the syndics returned to Geneva, they found themselves disgraced and had to flee for their lives. The two remaining syndics also got themselves into trouble. One killed a man in a street fight and was executed, the other died falling out of a window while trying to escape the fate of the first. So within two years, the most powerful opposition to Calvin had self-destructed.

  All of a sudden, the disgraced, banished reformer, now perhaps the most well-known Protestant authority in Europe, didn't look quite so bad.

  Following the events in Geneva carefully, the Church in Rome decided that the city might be ripe to be brought back into the Catholic fold. The pope had the archbishop of Carpentras, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, a learned and important man, well respected by all, write a letter to the city gently pointing out the errors of their previous religious leaders and urging them to reconsider allegiance to the pope. The letter caused an uproar, not because the Genevans were actually considering Sadoleto's offer—they weren't—but because the pope's interest in their city could mean nothing but trouble. Worse, there was no one in that whole town of burghers and merchants with the education and erudition necessary to respond to the archbishop in kind. In its extremity, Geneva turned to the one man it knew could face down the pope. They asked John Calvin to draft their reply.

  No matter what Geneva had done to him in the past, Calvin had no intention of sitting by and watching it slip back to Rome for lack of adequate legal representation. He wrote a letter to Sadoleto—a masterful letter, a work that earned him as much praise as did The Institutes— turning the archbishop's arguments back on him. “It [was] a week's work,” he wrote to Farel.

  Calvin's letter was successful. Soon after, Geneva experienced an abrupt change of heart. According to the still-unidentified author of a famous 1724 pamphlet, An Anonymous History of Michael Servetus, Burnt Alive at Geneva for Heresie:

  One of the town ministers, that saw in what manner the people were bent for the revocation of CALVIN, gave him notice of their affection…: The senate of two hundred being assembled, they all crave CALVIN. The next day a general convocation. They cry in like sort again all; we will have CALVIN, that good and learned man, CHRIST'S minister… they saw that the name of CALVIN waxed everyday greater abroad; and that, together with his fame, their infamie was spread, which had so rashly and childishly ejected him.

  But Calvin refused to return. He dreaded the place, he wrote to friends. The Genevans promised to conform to his ideas, to “keep Calvin always.” They bought him a nice big house on a pleasant street, voted him a hefty executive salary of 500 florins a year, and threw in twelve measures of wheat and two bossets (250 gallons) of wine (this last undoubtedly for his guests, since Calvin didn't drink). They offered to move his wife and the two children and all the household goods free of charge.

  So, finally, Calvin agreed to come back. But this time, he got a contract. It was a very good contract—he wrote it himself.

  It was called the Ordonnances ecclésiastiques (Ecclesiastical Ordinances) of the Church of Geneva, and it was among the most ambitious, comprehensive, and oppressive sets of laws ever to be enacted voluntarily by any community. It was Calvin's old Articles, now made both broader and more specific, written by a man who understood the law thoroughly and had the upper hand. The Ordinances of 154.1 and their subsequent companion laws (“Ordinances concerning the polity of the churches under the Seigneury of Geneva that are thought to be useful, submitting everything to the discretion of Messieurs” of 1546 and 1547) were Calvin's prescription for the perfect society. He intended Geneva to act as standard bearer in the quest for the restoration of the godly life on earth.

  The Ordinances established four orders—pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons—and listed the qualifications and duties of each of these positions. It provided for free mandatory public education and the establishment of a college, for a communal hospital available to all, and for physicians and surgeons for the poor.

  Calvin's reforms worked. Murder, mayhem, prostitution, and general lawlessness were so greatly reduced that the city acquired a reputation as a paragon of piety, sobriety, and hard work. Protestants all over Europe viewed Calvin's Geneva as epitomizing the superiority of reform over the corruption of Catholicism. Geneva, rather than Basel, became the destination for wealthy and educated French religious refugees, and the city's population swelled with the minority émigrés.

  But order, as it always does, came with a price. The world is wicked, Calvin insisted, and the wicked require discipline. This too was provided for in the Ordinances. The most significant element of Calvin's new regime was the enactment of his old plan to establish an official network of spies, a religious secret police. A group of laymen approved by Calvin became responsible for ferreting out the sins of the rest of the community and reporting them to the authorities. On a weekly basis, any whose behavior fell short of the required standard were brought to Calvin's attention. The police operated on commission—a portion of any fines assessed as punishment went to them.

  The practical result of all of this godly work was that Geneva, which had previously enjoyed its beer and wine, its prostitutes and its gambling, suddenly found itself the Singapore of the sixteenth century. Nathaniel Weiss, a nineteenth-century French freethinker, described Calvin's Geneva:

  One burgher smiled while attending a baptism: three days' imprisonment. Another, tired out on a hot summer day, went to sleep during the sermon: prison. Some working men ate pastry at breakfast: three days on bread and water. Two burghers played scuttles: prison… A blind fiddler played a dance: expelled from the city. A girl was caught skating, a widow threw herself on the grave of her husband, a burgher offered his neighbor a pinch of snuff during divine service: they were summoned b
efore the Consistory, exhorted and ordered to do penance… A burgher said “Monsieur” Calvin instead of “Maître” Calvin; a couple of peasants, following their ancient custom, talked about business matters coming out of church: prison, prison, prison… Two boatmen had a brawl, in which no one was hurt: executed. Most savagely of all were punished any offenders whose behavior challenged Calvin's political and spiritual infallibility.

  But the severity of the new regime in Geneva was not restricted to matters of law. It applied to matters of conscience as well. Calvin received many letters asking for his advice or help. While he provided spiritual comfort to many of these petitioners, his rigidity and utter conviction of his own godliness could lead to appalling callousness. At one point, a woman of high birth wrote to Calvin seeking asylum on the grounds that her husband, a powerful nobleman who had in the past physically forced her to attend Mass and make vows to the saints, had now threatened to drown her or have her thrown in a secret dungeon for life. If she came to Geneva, she asked, “and her return were demanded by the king [of France] or by her husband, would you [Calvin] give her up, for it is certain that he would not come to look for her, unless it were for the purpose of amusing himself by having her burnt or doing her slowly to death in a permanent dungeon.”

  Calvin replied that although “when persecution arises it is permissible for a partner to flee after she has fulfilled what is her duty,” he was sure that “the noble lady who requests our advice is very far from having reached this point.” Calvin added that since “when pressed to defile herself with idolatry she yields and complies… she has no excuse for leaving her husband.” Only, he concludes, “if, after having put to the proof the things we have said, she finds her husband is persecuting her to the death, then she may avail herself of the liberty which our Savior grants to His followers for escaping from the fury of the wolves.”

  This was the John Calvin with whom Michael Servetus began a correspondence

  PART II

  Servetus

  and Calvin

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE LETTERS BETWEEN Michael Servetus and John Calvin began in 1546 and continued for more than a year. Servetus's first note was direct and polite. Could Calvin please explain the relationship of Jesus to God, the nature of regeneration as it applies to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the role faith plays in such institutions as baptism and the Lord's Supper?

  Calvin's response, which he signed under his old alias Despeville, was cold, condescending, and officious. In it he wrote:

  We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, the man who was crucified, was the Son of God, and say that the Wisdom of God, born of the Eternal Father before all time, having become incarnate, was now manifested in the flesh… you own him as the Son of God, but do not admit the oneness, save in a confused way. We, who say that the Son of God is our Brother, as well as the true Immanuel, nevertheless acknowledge in the One Christ the Majesty of God and the Humility of man. But you, confounding these, destroy both.

  Calvin's dismissiveness provoked an immediate reply, the tone of which was now anything but deferential. Instead, Servetus wrote to the Calvin he knew from the old days in Paris. He lectured, was familiar, often abusive. He belittled Calvin's knowledge and interpretations of Scripture, and he backed up every argument with citations.

  Calvin, who had people flogged for failing to address him as “Master,” and who was used to the most slavish kind of toadying, was furious. He replied to Servetus in kind, then dashed off a letter to Frellon:

  I have been led to write to [Servetus] more sharply than is my wont, being minded to take him down a little in his presumption; and I assure you that there is no lesson he needs so much to learn as humility. This may perhaps come to him through the grace of God, not otherwise, as it seems. But we too ought to lend a helping hand. If he goes on writing to me in the style he has hitherto seen fit to use, however, you will only lose your time in soliciting me farther in his behalf; for I have other business that concerns me more nearly, and I shall make it a matter of conscience to devote myself to it, not doubting that he is a Satan who would divert me from studies more profitable. Let me beg of you therefore to be content with what I have already done, unless you see most pressing occasion for acting differently.

  Recommending myself to you and praying God to have you in his keeping, I am your servant and friend—

  CHARLES DESPEVILLE [GENEVA] THIS 13 OF FEBRUARY 1546

  Servetus was not deterred. He continued to pester Calvin with letters, passionately urging acceptance of his arguments. He also sent him a copy of his new manuscript. This manuscript was a fuller, sharper, more detailed recounting of the arguments he had first put forth in De Trinitatis Erroribus. Calvin replied that he was far too busy to write a book in response but sent Servetus a copy of The Institutes and told him that all the answers he was looking for could be found inside.

  Servetus, the editor, was not one to let this opportunity pass by. He read Calvin's book very carefully, and then he took it apart, line by line, scribbling comments in the margins, like a professor grading the term paper of a not particularly accomplished student. He sent the now-annotated Institutes back to Calvin. He even offered to fulfill a long-postponed commitment and come to Geneva for a face-to-face debate.

  When Calvin's Institutes, which had won him so much fame and glory, which was second only to the Bible in his opinion, was returned to him with insulting notes plastered all over the margins, he felt much as Francis had felt when he saw the placard on his bedroom door. “There is not a page of this book that is not befouled with vomit,” he wrote to a friend.

  Jerome Bolsec, who at the time was a prominent citizen of Geneva, and who was later to have problems of his own with the Reformer, wrote:

  Since which time Calvin, greatly incensed, conceived a mortal antipathy to [Servetus], and meditated with himself to have him put to death. This purpose he proclaimed in a letter to Pierre Viret of Lausanne, dated the Ides of February [1546]. Among other things in this letter, he says: “Servetus desires to come hither, on my invitation; but I will not plight my faith to him; for I have determined, did he come, that I would never suffer him to go away alive.”

  Calvin reiterated this sentiment in a letter to Farel in Neuchâtel:

  Servetus wrote to me lately, and beside his letter sent me a great volume of his ravings, telling me with audacious arrogance that I should there find things stupendous and unheard of until now. He offers to come hither if I approve; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for did he come, if I have any authority here, I should never suffer him to go away alive.

  In 1547, according to Bolsec, Calvin wrote one more letter, this one not to a friend but to an enemy, the noted French pursuer of Protestants, Cardinal de Tournon. In his letter, Calvin revealed to the cardinal that the doctor Michel de Villeneuve of Vienne was actually the arch-heretic Michael Servetus.

  If Bolsec was correct, Calvin timed his letter to take advantage of some significant changes on the French political landscape. After a long illness, Francis had finally died. His eldest son, Francis, and his youngest, Charles, were already dead. The new king was the middle son, Henri II, a dark, cold man, personality traits likely acquired as a result of having been sent to prison in Spain when he was seven. He was never his father's favorite, and there is some suspicion that his elder brother was poisoned. With the advent of Henri, Tournon fell out of favor and was demoted from advisor at court to archbishop of Lyon. Calvin was sure that Tournon would not pass up the opportunity to regain some favor by mercilessly prosecuting a high-visibility heretic.

  But Calvin was evidently unaware that the doctor and the cardinal were friends. Tournon, who thought that Calvin was the most evil man on earth, did nothing. He is reputed to have laughed at the idea of one heretic trying to turn in another.

  Servetus continued to write to Calvin, thirty letters in all, some promoting his own views, some criticizing Calvin's. In his eleventh letter, Servetus attacked Calvin's concept of o
riginal sin. “All that men do, you say is done in sin,” Servetus wrote, “and is mixed with the dregs that stink before God and merit nothing but eternal death. In this, you blaspheme. Stripping us of all possible goodness, you do violence to the teaching of Christ and his apostles, who ascribe to us the power of being perfect: ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.’ (Matthew 5:48).”

  The last three letters contained discussions of a subject that would have great significance later—the role of the true Christian in the administration of justice and the maintenance of social order. Servetus agreed that the Christian man had the right, even the duty, to become a magistrate or leader of the people. But, he stressed, this role must be discharged with God's mercy. What hope was there if all a citizen who had transgressed could look forward to was death? Christ bid an adulteress to “Go unto him and sin no more.” Banishment and excommunication, both of which were commended in the Scriptures, even for heresy, were preferable to a punishment that made repentance impossible.