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CALVIN’S FIRST SOJOURN AND LABORS IN GENEVA. 1536–1538.
1. Registres du Conseil de Genève, from 1536–1564. Tomes 29–58.
2. Registres des actes de baptême et de marriage, preserved in the archives of the city of Geneva.
3. Registres des actes du Consistoie de Genève, of which Calvin was a permanent member.
4. Registres de la Vénérable Compagnie, or the Ministerium of Geneva.
5. The Archives of Bern, Zürich, and Basel, of that period, especially those of Bern, which stood in close connection with Geneva and exercised a sort of protectorate over Church and State.
From these sources the Strassburg editors of Calvin’s Works have carefully compiled the Annales Calviniani, in vol. XXI. (or vol. XII. of Thesaurus Epistolicus Calvinianus), 185–818 (published 1879). The same volume contains also the biographies of Calvin by Beza (French and Latin) and Colladon (French), the epitaphia, and a Notice Littéraire, 1–178.
J. H. Albert RILLIET: Le prémier séjour de Calvin a Genève. In his and Dufour’s ed. of Calvin’s French Catechism. Geneva, 1878.—Henry, vol. I. chs. VIII. and IX.—Dyer, ch.III.—Stähelin, I. 122 sqq. Kampschulte, I. 278–320.—Merle D’Aubigné, bk. XI. chs. I.–XIV.
§ 81. Calvin’s Arrival and Settlement at Geneva.
Calvin arrived at Geneva in the later part of July, 1536,467 two months after the Reformation had been publicly introduced (May 21).
He intended to stop only a night, as he says, but Providence had decreed otherwise. It was the decisive hour of his life which turned the quiet scholar into an active reformer.
It was an act of obedience, a sacrifice of his desires to a sense of duty, of his will to the will of God.
Farel gave the Reformation to Geneva, and gave Calvin to Geneva—two gifts by which he crowned his own work and immortalized his name, as one of the greatest benefactors of that city and of Reformed Christendom.
Calvin was foreordained for Geneva, and Geneva for Calvin. Both have made, their calling and election sure."
The city had then only about twelve thousand inhabitants, but by her situation on the borders of France and Switzerland, her recent deliverance from political and ecclesiastical despotism, and her raw experiments in republican self-government, she offered rare advantages for the solution of the great social and religious problems which agitated Europe.
Calvin’s first labors in that city were an apparent failure. The Genevese were not ready yet and expelled him, but after a few years they recalled him. They might have expelled him again and forever; for he was poor, feeble, and unprotected. But they gradually yielded to the moulding force of his genius and character. Those who call him "the pope of Geneva" involuntarily pay him the highest compliment. His success was achieved by moral and spiritual means, and stands almost alone in history.
Calvin began his labors, Sept. 5, 1536, by a course of expository lectures on the Epistles of Paul and other books of the New Testament, which he delivered in the Church of St. Peter in the afternoon. They were heard with increasing attention. He had a rare gift of teaching, and the people were hungry for religious instruction.
After a short time he assumed also the office of pastor which he had at first declined.
Calvin accompanied Farel in October to the disputation at Lausanne, which decided the Reformation in the Canton de Vaud, but took little part in it, speaking only twice. Farel was the senior pastor, twenty years older, and took the lead. But with rare humility and simplicity he yielded very soon to the superior genius of his young friend. He was contented to have conquered the territory for the renewed Gospel, and left it to him to cultivate the same and to bring order out of the political and ecclesiastical chaos. He was willing to decrease, that Calvin might increase. Calvin, on his part, treated him always with affectionate regard and gratitude. There was not a shadow of envy or jealousy between them.
The third Reformed preacher was Courault, formerly an Augustinian monk, who, like Calvin, had fled from France to Basel, in 1534, and was called to Geneva to replace Viret. Though very old and nearly blind, he showed as much zeal and energy as his younger colleagues. Saunier, the rector of the school, was an active sympathizer, and soon afterwards Cordier, Calvin’s beloved teacher, assumed the government of the school and effectively aided the ministers in their arduous work. Viret came occasionally from the neighboring Lausanne. Calvin’s brother, and his relative Olivetan, who joined them at Geneva, increased his influence.
Confession de la Foy laquelle tous les bourgeois et habitans de Genève et subjectz du pays doyvent jurer de garder et tenir; extraicte de l’instruction dont on use en l’église de la dicte ville, 1537. Confessio Fidei in quam jurare cives omnes Genevenses et qui sub civitatis ejus ditione agunt, jussi sunt. The French in Opera, vol. IX. 693–700 (and by Rilliet-Dufour, see below); the Latin in vol. V. 355–362. See also vol. XXII. 5 sqq. (publ. 1880).
Le Catéchisme de l’Eglise de Genève, c’est à dire le Formulaire d’instruire les enfans la Chretienté fait en manière de dialogue ou le ministre interrogue et l’enfant respond. The first edition of 1537 is not divided into questions and answers, and bears the title Instruction et Confession de Foy dont on use en l’Eglise de Genève. A copy of it was discovered by H. Bordier in Paris and published by Th. Dufour, together with the first ed. of the Confession de la Foy, at Geneva, 1878 (see below). A copy of a Latin ed. of 1545 had been previously found in the Ducal library at Gotha.
Catechismus sive Christianae religionis institutio, communibus renatae nuper in evangelio Genevensis ecclesiae suffragiis recepta et vulgari quidem prius idiomate, nunc vero Latine etiam in lucem edita, Joanne Calvino auctore. The first draft, or Catechismus prior, was printed at Basel, 1538 (with a Latin translation of the Confession of 1537). Reprinted in Opera in both languages, vol. V. 313-364. The second or larger Catechism appeared in French, 1541, in Latin, 1545, etc.; both reprinted in parallel columns, Opera, vol. VI. 1–160.
(Niemeyer in his Coll. Conf. gives the Latin text of the larger Cat. together with the prayers and liturgical forms; comp. his Proleg. XXXVII.–XLI. Böckel in his Bekenntniss-Shriften der evang. Reform. Kirche gives a German version of the larger Cat., 127–172. An English translation was prepared by the Marian exiles, Geneva, 1556, and reprinted in Dunlop’s Confessions, II. 139–272).
Calvin had a hand in nearly all the French and Helvetic confessions of his age. See Opera, IX. 693–772.
*Albert Rilliet and Théophile Dufour: Le Catéchisme français de Calvin publié en 1537, réimprimé pour la première fois d’après un exemplaire nouvellement retrouvé, et suivi de la plus ancienne Confession de Foi de l’Église de Genève (avec un notice sur le premier séjour de Calvin à Genève, par Albert Rilliet, et une notice bibliographique sur le Catéchisme et la Confession de Foi de Calvin, par Théophile Dufour), Genève (H. Georg.), and Paris (Fischbacher), 1878, 16°. pp. cclxxxviii. and 146; reprinted in Opera, XXII.
Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, I. 467 sqq. Stähelin, I. 124 sqq. Kampschulte, I. 284 sqq. Merle D’Aubigné, VI. 328–357.
Calvin’s Catechism, which preceded the Confession, is an extract from his Institutes, but passed through several transformations. On his return from Strassburg he re-wrote it on a larger scale, and arranged it in questions and answers, or in the form of a dialogue between the teacher and the pupil. It was used for a long time in Reformed Churches and schools, and served a good purpose in promoting an intelligent piety and virtue by systematic biblical instruction. It includes an exposition of the Creed, the Decalogue, and the Lord’s Prayer. It is much fuller than Luther’s, but less adapted for children. Beza says that it was translated into German, English, Scotch, Belgic, Spanish, into Hebrew by E. Tremellius, and "most elegantly" into Greek by H. Stephanus. It furnished the basis and material for a number of similar works, especially the Anglican (Nowell’s), the Palatinate (Heidelberg), and the Westminster Catechisms, which gradually superseded it.
Calvin has been called "the father of popular education and the inventor of free schools."479 But he must share this honor with Luther and Zwingli.
Besides the Confession and Catechism, the Reformed pastors (i.e. Farel, Calvin, and Courault) presented to the Council a memorial concerning the future organization and discipline of the Church of Geneva, recommending frequent and solemn celebration of the Lord’s Supper, at least once a month, alternately in the three principal churches, singing of Psalms, regular instruction of the youth, abolition of the papal marriage laws, the maintenance of public order, and the exclusion of unworthy communicants.480 They regarded the apostolic custom of excommunication as necessary for the protection of the purity of the Church, but as it had been fearfully abused by the papal bishops, they requested the Council to elect a number of reliable, godly, and irreproachable citizens for the moral supervision of the different districts, and the exercise of discipline, in connection with the ministers, by private and public admonition, and, in case of stubborn disobedience, by excommunication from the privileges of church membership.
On Jan. 16, 1537, the Great Council of Two Hundred issued a series of orders forbidding immoral habits, foolish songs, gambling, the desecration of the Lord’s Day, baptism by midwives, and directing that the remaining idolatrous images should be burned; but nothing was said about excommunication.481 This subject became a bone of contention between the pastors and citizens and the cause of the expulsion of the Reformers. The election of syndics, Feb. 5, was favorable to them.
The Confession was thus to be made the law of Church and State. This is the first instance of a formal pledge to a symbolical book by a whole people.
It was a glaring inconsistency that those who had just shaken off the yoke of popery as an intolerable burden, should subject their conscience and intellect to a human creed; in other words, substitute for the old Roman popery a modern Protestant popery. Of course, they sincerely believed that they had the infallible Word of God on their side; but they could not claim infallibility in its interpretation. The same inconsistency and intolerance was repeated a hundred years later on a much larger scale in the "Solemn League and Covenant" of the Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans against popery and prelacy, and sanctioned in 1643 by the Westminster Assembly of Divines which vainly attempted to prescribe a creed, a Church polity, and a directory of worship for three nations. But in those days neither Protestants nor Catholics had any proper conception of religious toleration, much less of religious liberty, as an inalienable right of man. "The power of the magistrates ends where that of conscience begins." God alone is the Lord of conscience.
Calvin’s correspondence from 1537 to 1538, in Op. vol. X., Pt. II. 137 sqq. Herminjard, vols. IV. and V.—Annal. Calv., Op. XXI., fol. 215–235.
Henry, I. ch. IX.—Dyer, 78sqq.—Stähelin, I. 151 sqq.—Kampschulte, I. 296–319. Merle D’Aubigné, bk. XI. chs. XI.–XIV. (vol. VI. 469 sqq.).
C. A. Cornelius: Die Verbannung Calvins aus Genf. i. J. 1538. München, 1886.
The submission of the people of Geneva to such a severe system of discipline was only temporary. Many had never sworn to the Confession, notwithstanding the threat of punishment, and among them were the most influential citizens of the republic;486 others declared that they had been compelled to perjure themselves. The impossibility of enforcing the law brought the Council into contempt. Ami Porral, the leader of the clerical party in the Council, was charged with arbitrary conduct and disregard of the rights of the people. The Patriots and Libertines who had hailed the Reformation in the interest of political independence from the yoke of Savoy and of the bishop, had no idea of becoming slaves of Farel, and were jealous of the influence of foreigners. An intrigue to annex Geneva to the kingdom of France increased the suspicion. The Patriots organized themselves as a political party and labored to overthrow the clerical régime. They were aided in part by Bern, which was opposed to the tenet of excommunication and to the radicalism of the Reformers.
There was another cause of dissatisfaction even among the more moderate, which brought on the crisis. Farel in his iconoclastic zeal had, before the arrival of Calvin, abolished all holidays except Sunday, the baptismal fonts, and the unleavened bread in the communion, all of which were retained by the Reformed Church in Bern.487 A synod of Lausanne, under the influence of Bern, recommended the restoration of the old Bernese customs, as they were called. The Council enforced this decision. Calvin himself regarded such matters as in themselves indifferent, but would not forsake his colleagues.
The new rulers proceeded with caution. They appointed new preachers for the country, which was much needed. They prohibited indecent songs and broils in the streets, and going out at night after nine. They took Bern for their model. They enforced the decision of the Council of Lausanne concerning the Church festivals and baptismal fonts.
But the preachers were determined to die rather than to yield an inch. They continued to thunder against the popular vices, and censured the Council for want of energy in suppressing them. The result was that they were warned not to meddle in politics (March 12).489 Courauld, who surpassed even Farel in vehemence, was forbidden to preach, but ascended the pulpit again, April 7, denounced Geneva and its citizens in a rude and insulting manner,490 was imprisoned, and six days afterwards banished in spite of the energetic protests of Calvin and Farel. The old man retired to Thonon, on the lake of Geneva, was elected minister at Orbe, and died there Oct. 4 in the same year.
Calvin and Farel were emboldened by this harsh treatment of their colleague. They attacked the Council from the pulpit. Even Calvin went so far as to denounce it as the Devil’s Council. Libels were circulated against the preachers. They often heard the cry late in the evening, "To the Rhone with the traitors," and in the night they were disturbed by violent knocks at the door of their dwelling.
They were ordered to celebrate the approaching Easter communion after the Bernese rite, but they refused to do so in the prevailing state of debauchery and insubordination. The Council could find no supplies. On Easter Sunday, April 21, Calvin, after all, ascended the pulpit of St. Peter’s; Farel, the pulpit of St. Gervais. They preached before large audiences, but declared that they could not administer the communion to the rebellious city, lest the sacrament be desecrated. And indeed, under existing circumstances, the celebration of the love-feast of the Saviour would have been a solemn mockery. Many hearers were armed, drew their swords, and drowned the voice of the preachers, who left the church and went home under the protection of their friends. Calvin preached also in the evening in the Church of St. Francis at Rive in the lower part of the city, and was threatened with violence.
They received the news with great composure. "Very well," said Calvin, "it is better to serve God than man. If we had sought to please men, we should have been badly rewarded, but we serve a higher Master, who will not withhold from us his reward."492 Calvin even rejoiced at the result more than seemed proper.
The people celebrated the downfall of the clerical régime with public rejoicings. The decrees of the synod of Lausanne were published by sound of trumpets. The baptismal fonts were re-erected, and the communion administered on the following Sunday with unleavened bread.
Bullinger undertook to advocate this compromise before Bern and Geneva. But the Genevese confirmed in general assembly the sentence of banishment, May 26.
With gloomy prospects for the future, yet trusting in God, who orders all things well, the exiled ministers travelled on horseback in stormy weather to Basel. In crossing a torrent swollen by the rains they were nearly swept away. In Basel they were warmly received by sympathizing friends, especially by Grynaeus. Here they determined to wait for the call of Providence. Farel, after a few weeks, in July, received and accepted a call to Neuchâtel, his former seat of labor, on condition that he should have freedom to introduce his system of discipline. Calvin was induced, two months later, to leave Basel for Strassburg.
467 Not in August (as stated by Beza, Annal. 126, 203, and most biographers). He went to Basel for two weeks (August 4-19), and returned to Geneva, according to promise, about the middle of August, for settlement. See his letter to Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, in Herminjard, IV. 87; comp. 77 note; also Rilliet and Roget.
468 Beza (Vita, XXI. 125): "At ego tibi, inquit [Farellus], studia tua praetexenti denuncio omnipotentis Dei nomine futurum ut, nisi in opus istud Domini nobiscum incumbas, tibi non tam Christum quam te ipsum quaerenti Dominus maledicat. Hac terribili denunciatione territus, Calvinus sese presbyterii et magistratus voluntati permisit, quorum suffragiis, accedente plebis consensu, delectus non concionator tantum (hoc autem primum recusarat), sed etiam sacrarum literarum doctor, quod unum admittebat, est designatus anno Domini MDXXXVI. mense Augusto." With this should be compared Calvin’s own account in the Preface to his commentary on the Psalms, and Ann. Calv. 203 sq. Merle d’Aubigné, at the close of vol. V. 534-550, gives a dramatic description of Calvin’s first arrival and interview with Farel at Geneva, with some embellishments of his imagination.
469 Michelet has an eloquent chapter on the transformation of Geneva by Calvin, who made it from a city of pleasure and commerce "a fabric of saints and martyrs," a "ville étonnante oùtout était flamme et prière, lecture, travail, austerité" (XI. 96).
470 "Ille Gallus." Annal. Calv. XXI. 204. The Registers were then kept in Latin, but after 1537, in French. The native languages superseded the Latin with the progress of the Reformation.
471 Under that date the Registres du Cons. report: "Icy est parlédeCalvinusqu’il na encore guère reçeu et estéarrestéque l’on luy délivre ung six escus soleil" (Annal. 208).
472 Ann. 208-210."Conseil des Deux-cents (Lundi 19 Mars). Fuit propositum negotium illorum Katabaptistarum sur lesquelz a estéadviséque iceulx et tous aultres de leur secte soyent perpetuellement bannys de ceste citéet terres dicelle sus poenne de la vye." They were asked to recant, but answered that their conscience did not allow it, whereupon they were, "perpetually banished."
473 The troubles with Caroli began in January, 1537; the synod convened May 13. Opera, X. 82, sqq.; letter of Farel, p. 102, of Calvin, 107; Annal. 207 and 211. Kampschulte (I. 296) gives a wrong date (March).
474 Confessio de Trinitate propter calumnias P. Caroli, signed by Farel, Calvin, and Viret, and approved by Capito, Bucer, Myconius, and Grynaeus, in Opera, IX. 703-710.
475 On the controversies with Caroli, see Beza, Vita, in Op. XXI. 126 sq.; Letters, Nos. 638, 640, 644, 645, 665, in the 4th. vol. of Herminjard; Ruchat, vol. v.; Henry, I. 253; II. 37, 182; III. Beil., 209; and Merle d’Aubigné, VI. 362 sqq.
476 Beza treats the Confession as a work of Calvin, but the Strassburg editors defend the authorship of Farel. Opera, XXII. Suppl. col. 11-18. Beza says (XXI. 126): "Tunc [i.e. after the disputation at Lausanne, 1536] edita est a Calvino Christianae doctrinae quaedam veluti formula, vixdum emergentie papatus sordibus Genevensi ecclesiae accomodata. Addidit etiam Catechismum, non illum in quaestiones et responsiones distributum, quem nunc habemus, sed alium multo breviorem praecipua religionis capita complexum." But the Catechism appeared two months before the Confession."lam vero confessionem non sine ratione adjungendam curavimus." Calv., Opera, V. 319. Rilliet, l.c. p. IX.: "La Conf. de Foy n’a paru que quelques mois plus tard." The Confession is an extract from the Catechism, as the title says. Merle d’Aubigné (VI. 337) regards the confession as the joint work of Calvin and Farel.
477 Annal., 206, "Nov. 10. La confession acceptée. Vers la même époque première edition du catéchisme."
478 Reg. du Cons. 17 and 27 avril, 1537. It had been previously examined and adopted in manuscript.
479 Among others by George Bancroft, in his Lit. and Hist. Miscellanies, p. 406: "Calvin was the father of popular education, the inventor of the system of free schools."
480 Memoire de Calvin et Farel sur l’organisation de l’église de Genève. In the Registers of the Council, it is called "les articles donnés par MeG. Farel et les aultres predicans." The document was recently brought to light by Gaberel (Histoire de l’église de Genève, 1858, Tom. I. 102), reprinted in Opera, vol. X. Part I. 5-14. A summary is given by Merle d’Aubigné, VI. 340 sqq.
481 Annal. Calv. 206 sq.
482 Bullinger’s letter to Farel and Calvin, Nov. 1, 1537 (in the Simler collection of Zürich), and in Op. X., Pt. I. 128, also in Herminjard, IV. 309. Bullinger recommends three worthy English students of the Bible, "Eliott, Buttler, and Partridge," who had spent some time in Zürich. Bullinger had made the acquaintance of Farel at the disputation in Bern, January, 1528, and of Calvin in Basel, February, 1536.
483 Annal. 213: "De la confession: que l’on donne ordre faire que tous les dizenniers ameneront leurs gens dizenne par dizzenne en l’église S. Pierre et la leur seront leuz les articles touchant la confession en dieu et seront interrogués s’ils veulent cela tenir; aussi sera faict le serment de fidelitéàla ville." A dizennier is a tithingman, or headborough.
484 Annal. 216 from Reg. du Cons. Tom. 31, fol. 90. But the order could not be executed. Not one from the rue des Allemands would subscribe to the Confession. Even Saunier was opposed to the imposition of a personal pledge.
485 The Congregational or Independent and Baptist churches, however, while they disown the authority of general confessions, and hold to the voluntary principle, usually have local or congregational creeds and covenants which must be assented to by all applicants for membership. In this respect the Presbyterian churches are more liberal.
486 According to the testimony of Claude Rozet, the secretary of state. He himself had not sworn the Confession, although he had read it publicly and taken the oath of the citizens in St. Peter’s, July 29, 1537.
487 Beza, in Calvin’s Opera, XXI. 128.
488 The new syndics, Claude Richardet, Jean Philippe, Jean Lullin, and Ami de Chapeaurouge, were pronounced enemies of Farel and Viret. Ami Porral was not re-elected. Grynaeus of Basel wrote several letters of comfort and encouragement to Farel and Calvin, Feb. 13, March 4, March 12, 1538. In Herminjard, IV. 361, 379, 401.
489 Ann. 222, "de point se mesler du magistrat."
490 He compared the state of Geneva with the kingdom of frogs, and the Genevese with rats. Merle d’Aubigné, VI. 455.
491 The same Council deposed Claude Rozet, the secretary of state, who, in his official capacity, had recorded the oath of the people to the Confession of Faith, July 29, 1537. Registers of April 23, 1538. Rozet, Chron. MS. de Genève, Bk. IV. ch. 18 (quoted by Merle d’Aubigné, VI. 485).
492 Beza, Rozet, and the Registers all report this answer with slight variations. Farel’s answer to the messenger was: "Well and good; it is from God."
493 See the 14 Articles drawn up by Calvin and Farel, in Henry, I. Beilage, 8; in Op. X., Part II. 190-192, and in Herminjard, V. 3-6.
494 Herminjard, V. 107 (note 11); and p. 163.
495 See the correspondence in Herminjard, IV. 354-359 and 384-400; V. 103-109; 161, 162; 186-200. Du Tillet writes under his nom seigneurial De Haultmont to Charles d’Espeville (Calvin). His last letter is dated Paris, Dec. 1, 1538, and closes with the desire to remain, always his friend and brother in Christ." There is also an answer of Bucer to Du Tillet from Strassburg, Oct. 8, 1539 (in Herminjard, VI. 61-70), in which he refutes four objections which Du Tillet had made against the Protestants, viz.: 1) that they seceded from the Church of Christ; 2) that they rejected good customs and observances of the Church; 3) that they spoiled the goods of the Church; 4) that they denied many true dogmas and introduced false dogmas.

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