J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

=BEDA ATTACKS THE PROFESSORS.=

Meanwhile the Sorbonne, proud of the victory it had gained in bringing Berquin to the stake, decided to pursue its triumphs. The war was about to begin again. It was Beda who renewed the combat—that Beda of whom Erasmus said: 'There are three thousand priests in that man alone!' He did not attack Calvin, disdaining, or rather ignoring him. He aimed at higher game, and having triumphed over one of the king's gentlemen, he attacked the doctors whom Francis had invited to Paris for the propagation of learning. Danès, Vatable, and others having been cited before the parliament, the fiery syndic rose and said: 'The king's doctors neglect Aristotle, and study the Holy Scriptures only.... If people continue to occupy themselves with Greek and Hebrew, it is all over with faith. These folks desire to explain the Bible, and they are not even theologians!... The Greek and Hebrew books of the Holy Scriptures come mostly from Germany, where they may have been altered. Many of the persons who print Hebrew books are Jews.... It is not, therefore, a sufficient argument to say: It is so and so in the Hebrew. 163These doctors ought to be forbidden to interfere with Holy Scripture in their courses; or at least they should be ordered first to undergo an examination at the university.' The king's professors did not hold back in the cause of knowledge. They boldly assumed the offensive. 'If the university of Paris is now in small esteem among foreign nations,' they said to the parliament, 'it is because instead of applying themselves to the study of the Holy Gospels and of the ancient fathers—Cyprian, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin—its theologians substitute for this true knowledge a science teaching nothing but craft and sophistry. It is not thus that God wills to enlighten his people. We must study sacred literature, and drink freely of all the treasures of the human mind.' 164Beda had gone too far. At court, and even in parliament, numerous voices were raised in behalf of learning and learned men. Parliament dismissed the charges of the syndic of the Sorbonne.

The exasperated Beda now employed all his eloquence to get the professors condemned by the Sorbonne. 'The new doctors,' he exclaimed, 'horrible to say! pretend that Holy Scripture cannot be understood without Greek, Hebrew, and other such languages.' On the 30th of April, 1530, the Sorbonne did actually condemn as rash and scandalous the proposition of the professors which Beda had denounced. 165

=SMALL BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT WORK.=

Calvin anxiously observed in all its phases this struggle between his teachers and the doctors of the Sorbonne. All the students were on the watch, as was Calvin also in his college; and when the decision of the parliament became known there, it was received with loud acclamations. While the Sorbonne placed itself on the side of tradition, Calvin placed himself still more decidedly on the side of Scripture. He thought that as the oral teaching of the apostles had ceased, their written teaching had become its indispensable substitute. The writings of Matthew and John, of Peter and Paul, were, in his opinion, the living word of these great doctors, their teaching for those ages which could neither see nor hear them. It appeared to Calvin as impossible to reform the Church without the writings of the apostles, as it would have been to form it in the first century without their preaching. He saw clearly that if the Church was to be renewed, it must be done by faith and by Scripture—a twofold principle which at bottom is but one.

But the hour had not yet come when Calvin was to proclaim these great truths with the authority of a reformer. A modest and devout man, he was now performing a more humble work in the remotest streets and loneliest houses of the capital. One would have taken him for the most insignificant of men, and yet he was already a conqueror. The light of Scripture, with which his mind was saturated, was one day to shine like the lightning from east to west; and no man since St. Paul was to hold the Gospel torch so high and with so firm a hand. When that student, so thin, pale, and obscure, in appearance so mean, in manner so timid, passed down the street of St. Jacques or of the Sorbonne; when he crept silently past the houses, and slipped unobserved into one of them, bearing with him the Word of life, there was not even an old woman that noticed him. And yet the time was to come when Francis I., with his policy, conquests, priests, court, and festivities, would only call up frivolous or disgusting recollections; while the work which this poor scholar was by God's grace then beginning, would increase day by day for the salvation of souls and prosperity of nations, and would advance calmly but surely to the conquest of the world.

124Calvini Opusc.

125'Unico omnium patri suum jus integrum maneat.'—Calvin in Matthæum .

126Desmay, Vie de Calvin , pp. 40-42. Drelincourt, Défense de Calvin , pp. 167, 168.

127'Quo loco constat Calvinum ... ad populum conciones habuisse.'—Bezæ Vita Calvini .

128Archives Générales, x. 8946. France Protestante , article Normandie .

129Genesis i. 5.

130Desmay, Vie de Calvin , p. 41. Drelincourt, Défense de Calvin , p. 168.

131Crévier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris , v. p. 245.

132'Quo alios introduxisti, nusquam ipse ingressus.'—Bezæ Icones .

133'Lassus de itinere pedem extrahere domo non potui.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

134'Proximos quatuor dies, cum me ægre adhuc sustinerem.'—Ibid.

135'Multis precibus, iisque non frigidis, sæpe institit.'—Ibid.

136'Nihil magis appetere quam me adjungi filio.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

137'Nihil unquam magis ambabus ulnis complexus sum, quam hanc amici voluntatem.'—Ibid.

138'Eam obtinuisse ex solenni more voti nuncupandi potestatem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

139'Num jugum illud molliter exciperet? num fracta potius quam inflexa cervix?'—Ibid.

140'Diceres eam ludere cum puppis, quoties audivit voti nomen.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

141'Omnia reponeret in Dei virtute in quo sumus et vivimus.'—Ibid.

142'Habeo litteras inchoatas ad canonicum.'—Ibid.

143'Viermæus cum quo equum ascendo.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

144'In collegio Forterestano domicilium habuit.'—Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie , ii. p. 246.

145Theodore Beza, Vie de Calvin , in French text, p. 12. 'Omnibus purioris religionis studiosis.'—Ibid. Latin text.

146'Ab eo tempore sese Calvinus, abjectis reliquis studiis, Deo totum consecravit.'—Ibid.

147'Qui tunc Lutetiæ occultos cœtus habebant.'—Bezæ Vita Calvini .

148Beza, Vie de Calvin , French text, p. 12. 'Summa piorum omnium voluptate.'—Ibid. Latin text.

149'Mitto ad te rerum novarum collectanea.'—Calvinus Chemino, Berne MSS.

150'Hac tamen lege, ut pro tua fide officioque per manus tuas ad amicos transeant.'—Ibid.

151'Mitto Epitomem alteram G. nostri.'—Ibid.

152'Cui velut appendicem assuere decreveram.'—Ibid.

153'Nisi me tempus defecisset.'—Ibid.

154'Supinum illum Mæcenatem.'—Calvinus Danieli Aureliano, Idibus Septembris 1529. Geneva MSS. Calvin borrows this expression from Juvenal, i. 65: 'Multum referens de Mæcenate supino.'

155'Non potest mores suos nobis accommodare.'—Ibid.

156Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme , liv. ii.

157'Sit assentator suus, et pleno, seu verius turgido pectore, foveat ambitionem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS.

158'Apertam esse fenestram, ne post hæc simus verecundi petitores.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS. An expression imitated from Suetonius, lib. xxviii.

159Calvin, in Lucam , ch. v. 39.