John Calvin vs The World: The Man Part 3

Revolution of 1555

Even though Calvin was being propelled into the forefront of the Protestant movement, he still had to deal with opposition from the council in Geneva. The power of excommunication was still with the council but Calvin insisted that it be returned to the Consistory. During the Servetus trial, Philibert Berthelier requested that the council allow him to take communion, even though he had been excommunicated by the Consistory the year before for insulting a minister. The council wasted no time in overturning the verdict of the Consistory. Calvin was furious at the obvious challenge to his authority and again insisted that it was Consistory alone which had the power to excommunicate notorious and unrepentant sinners. The matter was debated at the Council of Two Hundred on November 7, 1553 and the body ruled that the final decisions in matters of excommunication should rest with the council. Calvin was finally and firmly put back into his place.

Two years later, in 1555, a dramatic shift in power took place. Geneva was now considered a refuge for those seeking safety due to their religious beliefs. Many of the refugees were from France, some of them very, very wealthy and some of the most influential were strong supporters of Calvin. The council, realizing the benefit that could be gained from this new influx of wealth into their city, decided to allow them the opportunity, based on their sufficient wealth and social distinction, to apply for the status of bourgeois. And on April 18, 1555 the council began admitting the rich and prestigious refugees  to a bourgeois status. Along with that status came an entitlement to vote in Genevan elections and these new members of the Genevan society promptly exercised that right.

Once they had realized what they had done, the council attempted to block the voting rights of the new bourgeois. That was not very successful. The April and May sessions of the General Council (Geneva’s body of electors) were teeming with Calvin’s supporters. The balance had been tipped in his favor. The process continued with the election of 1536 and by then Calvin’s friends were in charge of the city. He could now focus on what he wanted most, to evangelize his native France. Between 1555 and 1562, more than 100 ministers were sent to France.

Calvin’s Final Years

After the revolution, Calvin’s authority was essentially uncontested during his final years and he enjoyed an international reputation as a reformer distinct from Martin Luther. He was disappointed though due to the fact that there was a lack of unity among the reformers of his day. An good example of this would be the conflict that Luther and Zwingli had over the interpretation of the Eucharist. Based on Calvin’s opinion, Luther placed Calvin in Zwingli’s camp. Calvin however, made attempts to show unification in the movement by signing documents like the Consensus Tigurinus (Consensus of Zurich), which attempted to coalesce the Calvinist and advanced Zwinglian doctrines while still opposing the transubstantiation, the Roman Catholic view, and sacramental union, the Lutheran view.

His ideas on doctrine and polity were also beginning to spread exponentially. He sheltered many Marian exiles (those who fled the brutally bloody reign of the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor in England), who in turn, took his ideas and polity back to England and Scotland under the leadership of reformers John Knox and William Whittingham. He also supported the building of churches by distributing literature and sending ministers, supported by the Genevan church, secretly into France. Secrecy was essential to the operation in France. It became an underground network similar to what was employed by the French Resistance during World War II, allowing men from Geneva to slip across the lines into France. In January of 1561, a message arrived in Geneva from the new King of France, Charles IX, indicating that they had discovered the systematic subversion of authority within France by these preachers sent from Geneva. He demanded that Geneva’s agents be recalled and he wanted assurance that there would be no more incursions. Since the support for the pastors came from the Company of Pastors, an ecclesiastical organization, it allowed the council to deny responsibility, averting a serious rupture between Geneva and France.

In the autumn of 1558, Calvin became ill with a fever and was afraid that he may die before completing his final revision of his master work, the Institutes. He forced himself to work and expounding on his existing material, he increased the number of chapters from 21 to 80. Even though it was based on his existing work, Calvin considered to be “almost a new work,” because it was based on the Apostles’ Creed. First, the knowledge of God is considered as knowledge of the Father, the creator, provider and sustainer. Second, it examines how the Son reveals the Father, since only God is able to reveal God. Third, it describes the work of the Holy Spirit. And finally, the fourth section speaks of the Christian church, and how it is to live out the truths of Scripture, particularly through the sacraments. It also describes the functions and ministries of the church, civil government relation to religious matters and the inadequacies of the papacy. This last edition was published in 1559.

After recovering from the fever, he continued to have health problems. By the early spring of 1564, it was obvious that Calvin was seriously ill. He suffered from symptoms consistent with migraine, gout, pulmonary tuberculosis, intestinal parasites and other internal issues. He preached for the last time from the pulpit of Saint-Pierre on Sunday February 6, 1564. Despite his shortness of breath, he managed to bid farewell to the ministers of Geneva on Friday April 28, 1564. In his document, Discours d’adieu aux ministries, Calvin confessed that he was, and had always been, little more than a poor and timid scholar, pressed into the service of the Christian gospel. He died at 8:00p.m. on May 27, 1564 and at his own request was buried in a common grave with no stone marker.

The Beginnings of a Movement

It was Martin Luther that started the Reformation with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 but with the death of Luther in 1546 and the defeat of the Schmalkaldic League in 1547, Lutheranism was in decline. Calvin’s star however was on the rise. The Institutes were widely read and appreciated, sometimes being cited in works by others of the day. The work rapidly became the one-stop shop for ideas in the second wave of the Reformation. The 1541 edition, published in French, is known to have played a major role in winning converts to his understanding of the Christian faith and the reformation which followed – first in France and subsequently far beyond. Calvin was well aware of the importance of church structures and discipline, devising a model that proved quite adept to international expansion. But expansion is one thing, survivability of a movement is another… Calvinism proved to be capable of surviving under hostile conditions, assuming the status of an underground movement.

Calvin vs The World: The Rise of Calvinism

In the next series of posts we will look at the rise of Calvinism. Thank you again for taking time to read this series, I hope that it has been helpful.

Thanks,
Adam