Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation

Transcription

1 T h e A r t i o s H o m e C o m p a n i o n S e r i e s Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation T e a c h e r O v e r v i e w Leading Ideas Martin Luther s Bible The Reformation spread quickly to other countries, and with its spread other reformers and leaders led the way. Among those countries affected by the Reformation were Switzerland and France, and among the leaders came Zwingli and Calvin. Reading and Assignments In this unit, students will: Complete two lessons in which they will learn about the Reformation in Switzerland and France and the Swiss Reformer, John Calvin, journaling and answering discussion questions as they read. Read selected chapters from Macbeth, journaling as they read. Visit for additional resources. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. Galatians 5:13 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. I Peter 2:13 Key People & Events Martin Luther Ulrich Zwingli John Calvin Francis I Henry II Servetus Publication of The Institutes of the Christian Religion Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 1

2 Unit 27 Assignments L i t e r a t u r e a n d C o m p o s i t i o n Macbeth Literature for Units by William Shakespeare from Renaissance I am in blood Stepp d in so far, that, should I wade nor more, Returning were as tedious as go o er. Macbeth, Act III, Scene iv Literature and Composition Read the lesson below, then read Act III of the play. Continue to update your detailed character cards. Create a 750-word Character Analysis on one of the characters you are studying in detail. Use the following link for information how to create an outline for your essay. Using your knowledge of the characters, write an important scene in the play from their point of view. You may write this in dramatic or prose form. Your finished work should be cohesive and express the main events of the scene and include the major characters. You should present the scene in a way that allows the reader to experience the actions through the eyes and emotions of your character. Unit 27 Assignment Background Aristotle s Unity of Plot in Macbeth - Part II From The Tragedy of Macbeth, Edited by E.K. Chambers, B.A. Second, there is unity of philosophic idea. This is to be found in nearly every play; each is the medium of some great thought, some utterance of the poet s mind on deep questions, on love or kingship or character, or on the ultimate nature of the government of the world. In Macbeth the central idea or theme appears to me to be this: A noble character, noble alike in potentiality and fruition, may yet be completely overmastered by mysterious, inexplicable temptation; and if he be once subdued, a curse is forever upon him. Temptation begets sin, and sin yet further sin, and this again punishment sure and inexorable. The illustration of this central idea is to found in the rise and fall of Lord and Lady Macbeth. To them temptation comes in the guise of ambition, the subtlest form in which it can approach high souls. Of the supernatural setting in which it is exhibited there will be more to say Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 2

3 hereafter; for the present, note that as soon as the murder of Duncan is committed there is never any hope of regress - sin leads to sin with remorseless fatality, until the end is utter ruin of the moral sense or even of reason itself; so that death comes almost as a relief, though it be a miserable death without hope of repentance. Such a story is a proper theme for tragedy, because it depicts strong human natures battling with destiny and overcome; had they been weak natures the disproportion between the forces would have been too great, and we should have pathos and not tragedy. Starting from this central idea, the power of Shakespeare s treatment of it is most clearly manifest in the contrasted results of similar circumstances on two characters of different mould and fibre - one that of a man, the other of a woman; one realizing itself in action, the other in thought. When first Macbeth comes before us, it is as a mighty warrior - he is spoken of as valour s minion, Bellona s bridegroom, lapp d in proof; by performing prodigies of person valor he has saved the county in one day from a civil and an alien foe. This is the noble side of him; away from the battlefield his greatness is gone, he sinks to the level of quite common men. Lady Macbeth herself expresses this in a passage which has been misunderstood: Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. The milk of human kindness - that is clearly not a tender nature, of which Macbeth never shows a trace, but rather the commonplace ordinary qualities and tendencies of humankind. As for Lady Macbeth, it is not easy to accept the traditional stage view of her as a sheer human monster and the evil genius of her husband s soul. Hers is both a subtler and a nobler nature than his. Living a woman s solitary life, she has turned her thoughts inward; she, too, is a conqueror and has won her triumphs, not in war, but in the training of her intellect and the subjugation of her will. And withal, she is a very woman still: I have given suck, and know How tender t is to love the babe that milks me; and Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done t; and that despairing cry of horror, Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. Macbeth addresses her in language of love, and she too is wrapped up in him. Her immediate impulse to crime is ambition for her husband rather than for herself, and in the banquet scene she stifles agonies of remorse to save him from blunders. Thus the antithesis between the two is that between the practical life and the intellectual, and the effects of this difference are everywhere apparent. Macbeth is bold and resolute in the moment of action; he can kill a king, and he has a curious gift of ready speech throughout, which avails him to answer unwelcome questions. But when there is nothing actually to be done he is devoid of self-control; he cannot wait or stand still; he becomes a prey to countless terrible Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 3

4 imaginings; he is wildly superstitious. In all this Lady Macbeth is the exact converse; she has banished all superstition from her soul; she is strong enough of will to quell her husband s cowardly fears; she can scheme and plot, but she cannot act; she must leave the actual doing of the deed to Macbeth; at the moment of discovery she faints. The emotional effects of their crime are totally different on the pair. In Macbeth the effect is purely fear; there is no word of sorrow or sense of sin, on a base dread lest he should be found out and lose what he played for, if the fatal blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here upon this bank and shoal of time, he is willing to jump the life to come. In time this fear assumes terrible proportions; it drives him to new murders; he slaughters Banquo, he slaughters the family of McDuff; finally he becomes a craven and bloody tyrant; even his old love for his wife is swallowed up in selfishness; when her death is told him he cannot stay to mourn: She should have died hereafter. Only in the last hour of battle does he for one moment recover something of his old brave spirit. With Lady Macbeth the curse works itself out, not in fear but in remorse; it impels her husband to fresh deeds of blood; she has no hand in any murder but the first. But her sin is ever present to her: awake or dreaming she can think of nothing but that awful night, and the stain upon her hand and soul. At last her overtasked brain breaks down; we witness her mental agony in the sleep-walking scene: Here s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! And then she dies, a voluntary and most wretched death. The other personages of the play are completely subordinate to the two central figures. Either they are mechanical, necessary to the incidents and episodes by which the plot moves on, as Ross and Siward; or else they serve to intensify by character-contrast our conception of Macbeth s nature. It is noticeable that Lady Macbeth in this respect, as in other, is entirely isolated. But Macbeth sins both as subject and as lord; in the one relation Banquo and Macduff, in the other Duncan and Malcolm are set over against him. These are loyal, he is treacherous; these are king-like, he is a tyrant. The witches, of course, come under another category. I take it that, wherever Shakespeare introduces the supernatural, he does so with a definite purpose; it is symbolical, pointing the fact that here, just here, we come upon one of these ultimate mysteries which meet us everywhere when we scratch the surface of things. In Macbeth, the supernatural character of the weird sisters denotes the mystery involved in temptation; the mystery, that is, of the existence of evil. They do not tempt Macbeth; he was fallen before he met them; that is brought out clearly enough; they are only personifications of the real internal tempting motives. And, since in the mystery of evil is included the punishment of sin, as well as its origin, so the sisters appear to Macbeth a second time, to ensure his destruction by their deceitful promises. Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 4

5 Notes From The Tragedy of Macbeth, Edited by E.K. Chambers, B.A Act III, Scene 1 The First Crime is hardly over before it leads to the Second. Macbeth cannot feel secure while Banquo lives; his Genius is rebuked under him; no show of honors can win his affection; he remains courteous, cold, and silent. Nor can Macbeth forget that word in the prophecy of the weird sisters about the succession of Banquo s house to the throne. Banquo s speech leaves no doubt on his view of Macbeth; it shows, too, that in his mind, as in the king s, the promise of the witches is forgotten. Scene 2 From the moment of her sin, remorse begins to lay hold upon Lady Macbeth. She conceals it in Macbeth s presence, thinking to strengthen him, as of old; but the two lives are insensibly drifting asunder. Macbeth addresses her in terms of grim love, but he no longer takes her counsel on his schemes, and only half imparts them to her, even at the last moment. As for Macbeth himself, directly there is nothing to be done, he becomes morbid, brooding over his crimes past and future, and playing about them with lurid words. Scene 3 This scene, in which the Second Crime is accomplished, is the crisis of the play. The escape of Fleance is Macbeth s first check, and from it dates his ruin. Henceforth the irony of the play is against him, and the supernatural powers, which it indicates, slowly work out his punishment. It is a possible theory that the mysterious Third Murder is Macbeth himself. Always a man of action, it would not be unnatural for him to ensure the complete accomplishment of his design by himself taking a secret part in it. Scene 4 The effect of Macbeth s crimes is visible in the degeneration of his powers of mind. Formerly he was startled by the air-drawn dagger, but was able to throw off his weakness. Now the apparition of Banquo masters him with superstitious fears; even the dread of detection cannot restrain him from yielding to them, and the potent influence which his wife had over his will is now sensibly weakened. Scene 5 I believe that this scene is one of the additions made to the original play by Middleton or some other interpolator. The weird and gloomy atmosphere which hangs about Shakespeare s witches is gone; it is replaced by such prettiness as that of II. 23, 24. Hecate, an entirely new and unnecessary character, is introduced. The metre is essentially iambic, and not, as with Shakespeare, trochaic. Hecate is in classical myth Artemis or Diana in her aspect as and infernal deity. In the superstition of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance she became Queen of the Witches, just as Diana, under the name of Titania, became the Queen of Fairies. This belief is very old. Apuleius indeed (De Asino Aureo) give the Queen of Witches the name Caupona; but Scot (Discoverie of Witchcraft) quotes a decree of the fourth century Council of Ancyra, condemning the profession of witches that in the night times they ride abroad with Diana, the goddess of Pagans, or else with Herodias. Scene 6 As in the last scene of act ii, so here we get a side light upon the story; the outside point of view is represented by the lords, who fulfill the functions of the chorus in a Greek drama. Macbeth s conduct has awaked suspicion; his tyranny has made him detested, and already there are hints of the coming retribution. Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 5

6 L e s s o n O n e H i s t o r y O v e r v i e w a n d A s s i g n m e n t s The Reformation in Switzerland and France it was never a national movement, the Protestants always representing a minority, although a strong one These unoffending, devout, and loyal people were denounced as heretics and barbarously slaughtered. Neither age nor sex was respected, and three thousand men, women, and children were put to death. - H.E. Marshall, The Story of Europe Reading and Assignments Ulrich Zwingli The Swiss Reformation began in the can, many in the Forest Cantons clung to the Romish faith. Soon the controversy between the two parties became so bitter that it led to civil war. In France the new religion met with terrible opposition. Yet there Review the discussion questions; then read the article: Reformation Period Switzerland France, pages 7-9. Narrate about today s reading using the appropriate notebook page. Be sure to answer the discussion questions, and include key people, events, and dates within the narration. Be sure to visit for additional resources, websites, and videos. Key People and Events Ulrich Zwingli John Calvin Francis I Henry II Discussion Questions 1. Describe the events and leaders in the Swiss Reformation and how circumstances led to Civil War. 2. What was the result of this Civil War? 3. How was the Reformation movement different in France than it was in Switzerland? 4. How did the leaders of France react to the Reformation movement? Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 6

7 From the book: Story of Europe H.E. Marshall Reformation Period Switzerland France VERY quickly the new religion spread to other lands. Yet, save that it was Luther who, with unconscious courage, first showed the way, the Reformation in other countries had little connection with that of Germany. In Switzerland, the Reformation was led by Ulrich Zwingli. At this time the position of Switzerland was different from that of any other country in Europe. It had wrung itself free from the Empire and from the house of Austria, but it had not yet become a consolidated nation. Each of the thirteen cantons of which it was now composed had its own government, these governments varying considerably one from the other. There was thus not even the shadow of a central government, such as Germany had through the emperor, or Italy through the pope. They had not even a common language. But in fact Switzerland was far more united than either Germany or Italy. Each canton was independent, yet each was a member of a federal league. They used a common flag, a white cross on a red ground, and a common motto, Each for all, and all for each. Since their war of independence the Swiss had had few wars of their own. Yet, in nearly all the wars of Europe the Swiss took part, even at times a decisive part. For since their victorious struggle, John Calvin (Article 2 of 2), the Swiss had earned the reputation of being the best foot soldiers in Europe. And when by degrees paid soldiery took the place of feudal armies, warring kings and princes were eager to hire Swiss soldiery to fight for them. The sense of nationality was still feeble; one nation had as yet little sense of another nation s rights. It shocked none to find the men who had won their own liberty selling their swords and fighting a tyrant s battles. The pope was one of the chief hirers of Swiss soldiery, and besides fighting in his army, they formed his bodyguard, so that intercourse between Rome and Switzerland was constant. But this intercourse was purely commercial, and so far as religion was concerned, Switzerland was singularly free from papal interference. The Swiss Reformation began in the canton of Zurich, and soon spread to Berne. It began as in Germany with an attack on the sale of Indulgences. But although the movement spread rapidly, many in the Forest Cantons clung to the Romish faith. Soon the controversy between the two parties became so bitter that it led to civil war. In 1531 the battle of Kappel was fought, in which the Protestants were defeated and Zwingli himself killed. After this, a treaty was drawn up between the cantons, which left each free to settle its own religious matters. John Calvin Now that Zwingli was dead, John Calvin became the leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, and Geneva took the place of Zurich as the centre of the movement. Calvin was a young Frenchman who had Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 7

8 become a Protestant, and had been forced to flee from France to escape persecution. After Luther he was the greatest of the reformers, and his influence was far more wide reaching. The French Protestants and the English Puritans alike looked to him as their guide. John Knox was his follower, and taught his doctrine to the Scottish people, and the Pilgrim Fathers carried it across the Atlantic to the New World. Calvin was himself a scholar, and he gathered many other scholars to Geneva, making it the stronghold of Protestantism and the centre of its teaching. It was from Geneva that the first trained teachers and pastors went forth to teach and preach the new faith. But the doctrine they taught was cold and narrow. For Calvin, although a learned man, was harsh and severe. He had none of the human kindliness of Luther, nor the open-mindedness of Zwingli. Persecution of Protestants in France In France the new religion met with terrible opposition. Yet, there it was never a national movement, the Protestants always representing a minority, although a strong one. One reason for this was that the movement was not so much with them a political revolt against secular interference by the Pope as it was with other peoples. For ever since the Babylonish Captivity, when the popes had been more or less subject to the French king, France had been more free than other nations from papal interference, and the headship of the French Church had belonged more to the French king than to the pope. So it came about that not being a national movement, in time opposition and persecution were able practically to wipe out the Protestants of France. By the Treaty of Crespy Francis I had bound himself to crush heresy within his dominions. Far less than Charles V, had he himself any religious convictions, and was personally inclined to tolerance. But his complicated alliances drove him into many inconsistencies. So while he had not hesitated to ally himself with the Protestant princes of Germany against his enemy Charles, and even with the infidel Turk, to ingratiate himself with the pope, he entered upon a cruel persecution of the Protestants of Provence. These unoffending, devout, and loyal people were denounced as heretics and barbarously slaughtered. Neither age nor sex was respected, and three thousand men, women, and children were put to death. Others were sent to the galleys, and their villages laid in ruins. In 1547 Francis died. Throughout his reign he had been stable in one thing in his hatred of the house of Austria. In that, he had shown wisdom. For the menace of Austria was a menace to all Europe, and not to France alone. In combating the desire for world dominion, Francis had, in a sense, fought for Europe. He left France, moreover, actually increased in territory, stronger and more compact than before. He left her also more beautiful and advanced in culture. For he was the patron of both artists and men of letters, and many of the splendid castles which are still the glory of the Loire valley date from his reign. Francis was succeeded by his son Henry II. He was a mediocre and feeble prince, and allowed himself to be guided by ambitious counselors, chief among them the Guises. Before long he was in league once more Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 8

9 with the Protestant princes of Germany against his father s old enemy Charles. But now fortune had forsaken Charles, and from the walls of Metz he retired beaten. During this reign the Reformation made great progress in France. Men high in office, and even princes of the royal blood, joined the movement. Growing bolder in consequence, many, who formerly had only worshipped in secret, openly confessed their adherence to the new faith, and in 1555 the first Protestant church was established in Paris. Henry looked upon the spread of the new faith with fear and anger, and once more persecutions began. But these persecutions only made the Protestants cling more firmly to their faith. L e s s o n T w o H i s t o r y O v e r v i e w a n d A s s i g n m e n t s John Calvin what the man of science does when he takes steam and electricity and puts them into machines. The spiritual exercises applied machinery to Christian conduct. The Institutes did the same for Christian belief. John Hodges, Saints and Heroes Since the Middle Ages Reading and Assignments John Calvin Calvin s chief work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, belongs among the supreme books. It is one of those writings which have profoundly influenced the minds and lives of men. Luther s German Bible and Cranmer s English Prayer book brought the forces of religious thought and conduct into the midst of the people. They provided the materials of discussion and devotion. Loyola and Calvin took the spiritual forces and did with them Review the discussion questions; then read the article: John Calvin, pages Narrate about today s reading using the appropriate notebook page. Be sure to answer the discussion questions, and include key people, events, and dates within the narration. Be sure to visit for additional resources, websites, and videos. Key People and Events John Calvin Publication of The Institutes of the Christian Religion Servetus Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 9

10 Discussion Questions 1. Review this unit s leading questions. How did the Swiss Reformation and the life of John Calvin accurately AND inaccurately reflect these Biblical truths? 2. What was Calvin s most important written work? 3. Do you think that Calvin was correct in his treatment of Servetus? Why or why not? 4. Do you think that Calvin was correct in the way he viewed the relationship between the church and the government? Why or why not? 5. Reread the fourth to the last paragraph of this article. This article was published in Do you think the views of theology described in this paragraph still fit today? Why or why not? From the book: Saints and Heroes Since the Middle Ages George Hodges John Calvin Link to book WHEN Luther nailed the theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, John Calvin was only eight years old. In the town of Noyon, where he lived, in France, the greatest person was the bishop, and Calvin s father was the bishop s secretary. It was his father s intention that the lad should be a priest. When he was twelve years old, he was appointed chaplain in the cathedral. At the age of eighteen, he was made the curate of a neighboring parish, and this curacy was changed for a better when he was twenty. In his new parish, he preached several sermons, but his chief duty was to draw his salary. He had not been ordained, and these pleasant appointments were according to those curious arrangements of the time by which church positions were given to laymen, and even to children, for the sake of the money. Somebody else, at a much smaller salary, did the work. This was one of the evils of which Luther was complaining. But Luther s attacks had made little impression on the Church in France. The great rebellion, which he was leading, was not yet taken very seriously in that country. To be a priest seemed still a safe, comfortable, and most excellent occupation. The boy was fond of books, a Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 10

11 good scholar, able to write and speak well, and the best debater in his class. His father s influence with the bishop would be sure to get him a fine position. Some day he might be a great bishop himself. But something happened. Calvin s father fell out of the favor of the cathedral clergy, and Calvin, in the course of his studies, began to find that the Church in France was quite different from the Church, which was described in the New Testament. It was decided that instead of being a minister, he should be a lawyer. He was sent to the University of Paris. He studied law. He was still the best scholar, and occasionally, when one of the professors was absent, he was asked to lecture in Greek. He began to be interested in the new ideas, which were being taught by Erasmus. At that time, Greek was the newest thing in the world of learning. For hundreds of years, the Greeks had been forgotten. Now their statues and their books were re-discovered; and with the statues came a new vision of the glory of art, and with the books came a new way of thinking and a new way of looking at the world. It was remembered that the New Testament was written in Greek, and when Erasmus published an edition of it in its original language, men began to study it with a new interest. So narrow had been the range of knowledge that Thomas Aquinas had written a book in which he intended to include it all! Then the discoveries of Columbus had made it necessary to re-write all the old geographies, and the discoveries of Copernicus had made if necessary to rewrite all the old astronomies. And Luther had begun the Reformation of the Church. It was a wonderful time, and Calvin, in Paris, found himself in the midst of it. He began to change his mind about being a lawyer. He began to interest himself in religion. Then a friend of Calvin s, Nicholas Cop, was elected rector of the University of Paris, and in his inaugural address he declared himself frankly in favor of the new learning. He showed his agreement with the principles of the Reformation. The address made a great stir in Paris. All the conservatives arose against it. The new rector had to make his escape as best he could to save his life. Calvin also was threatened with arrest. His rooms were searched, and his books and papers seized. It was plain that a choice must be made between the old way and the new, and Calvin made it. He resigned his place as chaplain of the cathedral of Noyon, and as rector of the parish of Pont l Évêque. He was imprisoned for a time at Noyon in consequence of an uproar in the Church, caused probably, by outcries against him in the congregation, by those who suspected him of sympathy with the reforming movement. After this, there was no more uncertainly. John Calvin had committed himself to the cause of the Reformation. Calvin was now twenty-five years old. He meant to be a teacher. All his interest was in study. Already he had great learning, which he now increased by reading Hebrew, but the most remarkable quality of his mind was a singular sense of order. He was not contented with his ideas until he had got them in a shape as logical and accurate as a problem in algebra. He found himself among men who had perceived new and wonderful truths in theology, and were discussing them with great enthusiasm, and Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 11

12 following them out in many directions, but who had not succeeded in bringing them into a system. The old theology was a complete system. It had taken truth, and studied it, and worked it out into conclusions, which explained everything. It was absolutely definite. It had put all things in heaven and earth into what were considered their proper places. It was like a splendidly drilled army, and the enthusiastic reformers, in attacking it, were in the position of a mob of untrained men, without discipline, attacking a regiment of regular soldiers. The mob may be right, and the regiment may be wrong; but the regiment will surely win the day. Calvin saw that the new ideas must be brought into an order as logical as the old. He took them as a drillmaster takes a lot of raw recruits and makes them stand erect, and keep step, and obey the word of command. He had the genius to do it. He contributed to the Reformation the strength of a definite theology. Calvin s chief work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, belongs among the supreme books. It is one of those writings, which have profoundly influenced the minds and lives of men. Luther s German Bible and Cranmer s English Prayer book brought the forces of religious thought and conduct into the midst of the people. They provided the materials of discussion and devotion. Loyola and Calvin took the spiritual forces and did with them what the man of science does when he takes steam and electricity and puts them into machines. The Spiritual Exercises applied machinery to Christian conduct. The Institutes did the same for Christian belief. Calvin s system, however difficult to accept, is quite easy to understand. 1. God, he said, is the ruler of the world. All power is His, all wisdom and all goodness. The highest duty of every human being is to obey His will. 2. The will of God is made known to us by the Word of God, the Bible. This is God s book, and is to be reverenced, and taken without question, and obeyed. 3. But man cannot obey God without help. For the whole human race is bad. It began good with Adam, but when he sinned, human nature became evil. Of ourselves, we can neither do, nor speak, nor think aright. We are like branches growing in a decaying tree. 4. Out of this hopeless state, Christ came to save us. This He did by offering Himself a sacrifice upon the Cross to turn away the wrath of God. 5. We lay hold of this salvation by faith. This is a union of our heart with Christ, like the grafting of a branch into a good tree. One of the consequences of faith is repentance, and another is a righteous life. 6. But some have faith and are saved, and others have not faith and are lost, according to the will of God. From all eternity, without regard to our goodness or our badness, simply of His own pleasure, He appointed some of us to salvation and others to perdition. When it is asked why the Lord did so, we must answer, Because He pleased. But if you proceed further to ask why He pleased, you ask for something greater and more sublime than the will of God, and nothing such can be found. We were predestined to Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 12

13 eternal life or death before the world was made. When he had finished the writing of the Institutes, Calvin went back to France to settle up his affairs, intending to spend the rest of his life in quiet study in Basel. On his return he spent a day in Geneva. That fair city, on the lake, in sight of the perpetual snows of Mont Blanc, was in the midst of a contention between the old faith and the new. The leader of the Protestants was William Farel, an earnest man, energetic and determined, with a voice, which could be heard above the noise of an angry crowd. He came to Calvin and urged him to stay in Geneva. Calvin refused; he must return, he said, to his books at Basel. But Farel insisted; he declared in his great voice that God had other work for Calvin than the quiet tasks of reading and writing. At last, Calvin consented. He said afterwards that God had stretched His hand from on high to stop him. He went to Basel, gathered his books together, and settled in Geneva. The city was governed by the bishop, the duke, and the Sundics. The four sundics were elected annually by the citizens. They chose a company of twentyfive called the Little Council, and the Little Council chose a larger company called the Two Hundred. The three powers -- the bishop, the duke, and the citizens -- were always fighting among themselves, until the duke and the bishop combined against the citizens, and the citizens rose up in might and expelled them both. This political strife against the bishop was Farel s opportunity, and he preached the doctrines of the Reformation so vigorously that the Protestants grew strong enough to seize the cathedral, drive out the Catholics, break the images, and substitute the preaching of sermons for the saying of masses. In May 1536, the General Assembly of the citizens was called together by the sound of bells and trumpets, and they voted they were in agreement with the Reformation. Calvin came in August. Immediately, his influence began to appear, first over Farel, then over the whole city. He applied his clear mind, and strong will, and sense of order, to public affairs. He brought the people under discipline. Men were appointed to inspect the conduct of the people. The city was divided into districts, each with its inspector. Every citizen who was found in fault was to be reported to one of the ministers; and if he refused to change his ways, he was to be rejected from the company of Christians. It was the old excommunication in a new form. The citizens were summoned in groups of ten, to declare their faith, whether they were Protestants or Catholics. If they were Catholics, the sooner they left the city the better. Also in the schools, the children were to be taught a catechism, which Calvin had prepared. Against these rigors a considerable body of citizens protested. They disliked the severity which would abolish, not only dancing and card playing, but the keeping of Christmas and Easter. They hated the inspection, which not only called them to account for misdemeanors, but also prescribed what sort of clothes they might and might not wear. They objected to the interference of the preachers with politics. They refused to be brought under rules, like school children. And the result was that the Two Hundred, after long and stormy Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 13

14 discussion, banished Farel and Calvin from Geneva. Calvin went to Strassburg, and resumed his studies. He occupied himself with reading and writing, he taught theology, and preached four times a week. He took much interest in arranging the services of the Church. Luther and Cranmer had made few changes in the old forms of worship. They had each translated the prayers from Latin into the language of the people, and had shortened and simplified them. Luther had introduced the singing of hymns. Calvin, like Luther, desired to have the people sing; but instead of hymns, he introduced the psalms in meter. That is, Calvin s hymns were like our Old Hundredth Psalm. To Calvin, however, the most important part of the service was the sermon, and the prayers he left for the most part to the discretion of the minister. He paid no heed to the ancient order of service. Thus, he established the manner of worship which became common in all the reformed churches, except the Episcopal and Lutheran. Meanwhile, in Geneva, matters were going from bad to worse. In 1541, Calvin was formally requested to return. He came back the undisputed leader of the Genevan Church. It is characteristic of him that on the first Sunday after his return he took up the course of sermons, which had been interrupted by his banishment, and preached as if nothing had happened. He had been preaching on the Epistle to the Romans, and on he went week after week, book by book, and sentence by sentence, through the New Testament and into the Old, during the remaining thirteen years of his life. Calvin s great purpose was now to make Geneva a City of God. The first step was to set the Church in order, and this he did on the basis of the New Testament. All the elaborate organizations, which had grown through the long centuries of Christian history, he set aside. Finding no bishop in the Bible, he would have none in Geneva. The church officers were pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons, and the elders and deacons were to be laymen. The Church had been governed by the clergy. It had been believed that grace was given them from heaven, and that this grace they gave in turn to the people, through the sacraments. Calvin brought the people themselves into the administration of the Church. The ministers were elected by their fellow-ministers, but they could not enter upon their office until they had the approval of the congregation. These pastors and teachers were called presbyters, and this system by which the presbyters were ordained by other presbyters, was called Presbyterian. Thus Calvin, who had changed the old order of worship, by substituting extempore prayer for the prayer book, changed also the old order of the ministry, by substituting ordination by presbyters for ordination by bishops. He made a complete break with the Ancient Church. He founded, in Geneva, a new Christian society whose only connection with the old was that it held its services in the old churches. Having thus arranged the Church, the next step was to deal with the lives of the people. This matter the ministers took in hand, and delivered the more serious or obstinate offenders to the magistrate to be punished. All that Calvin had undertaken before was now repeated, and much more. Everybody s private life was under watch Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 14

15 and ward. Every house in Geneva was regularly visited, and the inhabitants were questioned as to their knowledge of the Bible and the catechism, as to their absences from church, and as to any criticism, which they might have made in their conversation on the minister. All the family quarrels were examined. All the disobedient children were called to account. If anybody made a noise during a sermon, or laughed in church, or said that the pope was a good man, or that Calvin was a bad man, he was punished. A member of the Little Council, one of the influential men of the city, ventured one time to speak his mind about Calvin, presumably at his own dinner table. The words were reported, and the rash critic was sentenced to be marched around the streets, dressed in his shirt, bearing a torch in his hand, and to beg the pardon of God and of the government on his knees. A boy who threatened to strike his mother was publicly whipped and banished from the city. A woman who sang an idle song to a psalm tune was beaten with rods. The ministers refused to baptize children with the names of saints, and a small riot arose in the congregation when a child, whose parents wished him to be called Martin was named Abraham against their will. Such severities, naturally, angered the people, and in spite of all inspections and punishments, a party of opposition grew in strength. They hindered Calvin; they took the other side in the many controversies in which he was engaged; they named their dogs after him, they put him in peril, not only of his power, but also of his life. Then came an enemy named Servetus. Servetus was a heretic. By profession a physician, and a very skillful one, he was interested also in theology. The Reformation had made it easy to attack all the old beliefs, and of this situation Servetus availed himself. And this he did, not only with much freedom of thought, but also with much freedom of expression. It was the fashion of the time for debaters to call one another names, but Servetus carried it to an extreme. Thus, he made an assault on the theology of Calvin. He objected to Calvin s ideas both of God and of man. He denied the doctrine of predestination, held that man is able to please God, and rejected the common belief in the Trinity. In the midst of these discussions, Servetus came in disguise to Geneva, was recognized and arrested in church as he listened to Calvin s preaching, and was put on trial. It was then the general opinion that heresy was an offense to be punished with death; for while a murderer destroyed only the body, a heretic was a poisoner of his life. But the case was much more than a single trial for heresy; for all the enemies of Calvin rallied to the defense of the heretic. It was plain that the result of the trial would be the maintaining of the ending of Calvin s power in Geneva. The man was finally condemned, and sentenced to be burned alive. He sent for Calvin and begged his pardon for any offense which he had committed against him, and asked for an easier death; but this the court would not permit. Thus he died, crying with his last breath, Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have pity on me! Calvin continued to be the master of Geneva till the day of his death. He made the city, not only well-behaved, but prosperous. He fostered its trade in silks and velvets; he cleaned its streets. Above all, he founded the University of Geneva, a Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 15

16 great school of sound learning, whose scholars were afterwards influential all over Europe. The city became a model of what a Christian community should be. Its doctrine, its worship, and its discipline affected all Protestantism, outside of Germany where the ideas of Luther reigned. The Puritans brought the example of Calvin out of England into New England. In 1903, three hundred and fifty years after the burning of Servetus, a memorial stone was erected on the place of his martyrdom. The first name on the list of subscribers was that of the Consistory of the Genevan Church. This was not a criticism on the act of Calvin, but rather on the age in which he lived. In many respects wiser than his time, he, nevertheless, shared in its errors, even as he breathed its air. That was unavoidable. What to him seemed right, and was the best he knew, to us seems wrong because the world goes on growing, and grows better. The theology of Calvin has been in great part outgrown also. Where he thought of God mainly as the Sovereign of the world, we think of Him rather as the Father of all men. Where he thought of the Bible as a divine book, dictated by God, we think of it as a human book, written by men who increased century by century in the knowledge of God. Where he thought of man as wholly bad, and saved only by the sacrifice of Christ, and even then saved only in part, according to the pleasure of God, without reference to the good or evil of their lives, we think of man as progressing, more and more, towards goodness, by the help of Christ, into an eternal life where everybody shall reap what he has sown. We see, however, that Calvin s true teaching the God is to be obeyed rather than man, and that in His presence all men, great and small, are valued without regard to wealth or position, made men independent and taught them that the supreme authority of the conscience. It was the foundation of democracy. And we see also that Calvin s exaltation of the Bible made men study it. There they were to learn the will of God for themselves. There they were to determine what was right and wrong, no matter what was said by Church or state. They must be educated, then, in order to be able to read that book; hence, public schools everywhere, and colleges. Thus, for our free and universal education, as well as for our free government, of and by and for the people, we are in debt to Calvin. As Calvin lay in his last sickness, he summoned the ministers of Geneva to meet him in his room about his bed, and addressed them as St. Paul addressed the elders of Ephesus. He recounted his labors and his pains, and the hard battles he had fought and won. What a life it has been, he said, for a poor scholar, shy and timid as I am. He asked their pardon for his faults, in particular for his quickness, vehemence, and readiness to be angry. He exhorted them to continue the good work, and taking each one by the hand, he commended them severally to the blessing of God. We parted from him, says one of them, with our eyes bathed in tears, and our hearts full of unspeakable grief. Thus he died, fifty-five years old. Unit 27: The Spread of the Reformation - Page 16