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

At the time of Calvin’s admission to college, both master and pupil, equally strangers to evangelical doctrine, devoutly followed the exercises of the Romish worship. Doubtless Cordier was not satisfied with teaching his favourite pupil Latin and Greek; he initiated him also in that more general culture which characterised the Renaissance; he imparted to him a certain knowledge of antiquity and of ancient civilisation, and inspired him early with the ardour which animated the classical school; but when Calvin says he was directed by Cordier ‘in the true path,’ he means the path of science, and not that of the Gospel.

Some time after the scholar’s arrival, the director of the college, perceiving him to be more advanced than his class-mates, determined to remove him to a higher form. When Calvin heard of this, he could not repress his sorrow, and gave way to one of those fits of anger and ill-humour of which he never entirely cured himself. Never did promotion cause such grief to a scholar. ‘Dear Master Mathurin,’ he said, ‘this man, so thoughtless and void of judgment, who arranges my studies at his will, or rather according to his silly fancy, will not permit me to enjoy your instructions any longer; he is putting me too soon into a higher class.... What a misfortune!’ 554

It was only a question of removing him, however, from one class to another, and not, as some have supposed, to another college. Calvin, while pursuing higher studies, still remained under the same roof as Cordier. He ran to him in the intervals of his lessons; he hung upon his lips, and during the whole time of his stay at La Marche, he continued to profit by Cordier’s exquisite taste, pure latinity, vast erudition, and admirable gifts in forming youth.

Yet the moment came when it was necessary to part. John Calvin had told his professor that he was intended for a priest, according to the arrangement of his father, who hoped that, thanks to the protection of his powerful friends, his son would attain to high dignity in the Church. The scholar must therefore enter one of the colleges appointed for the training of learned priests. There were two of these in Paris: the Sorbonne and the Montaigu, 555and the last was chosen. One day, therefore, in 1526, the moment arrived when the young man had to take leave of the excellent Cordier. He was greatly distressed: he would be separated from him, not only during the hours of study, but for long days together. All through life his affectionate nature clung to those who showed sympathy to him. He left his master with a heart overflowing with gratitude. ‘The instruction and the training that you gave me,’ he said in after years, ‘have served me so well, that I declare with truth, that I owe to you all the advancement which has followed. I wish to render testimony of this to those who come after us, in order that if they derive any profit from my writings, they may know that it proceeds in part from you.’ 556God has often great masters in reserve for great men. Cordier, the teacher, subsequently became the disciple of his scholar, and in his turn thanked him, but it was for a divine teaching of inestimable value.

When Calvin entered Montaigu College he was distressed, for he could not hope to find there the master he had lost; yet he was eager and happy at having a wider field of studies opening before him.

One of the first professors he noticed was a Spaniard, 557who, under a cold exterior, hid a loving heart, and whose grave and silent air concealed deep affections. Calvin felt attracted towards him. The fame of the young scholar had preceded him at Montaigu; and accordingly the doctor from the Iberian peninsula fixed on him an attentive eye. Slow, calm, and deliberate, as Spaniards generally are, he carefully studied young Calvin, had several intimate conversations with him, and soon passed from the greatest coldness to the liveliest affection. ‘What a wonderful genius!’ he exclaimed. 558

The professor had brought from Spain the fervent catholicism, the minute observances, the blind zeal that characterise his nation.

The scholar of Noyon could not, therefore, receive from him any evangelical knowledge; on the contrary, the Spaniard, delighted at seeing his pupil ‘obstinately given to the superstitions of popery,’ 559hoped that the young man would be a shining light in the Church.

Calvin, full of admiration for the poets, orators, and philosophers of antiquity, studied them eagerly and enriched his mind with their treasures; in his writings we often meet with quotations from Seneca, Virgil, and Cicero. He soon left all his comrades far behind. The professor, who looked on him with surprise, promoted him to the class of philosophy, although he had not attained the required age. 560Then a new world, the world of thought, opened before his fine understanding; he traversed it with indefatigable ardour. Logic, dialectics, and philosophy possessed for him an indescribable charm. 561

Calvin made many friends among his fellow-collegians; yet he soared high above them all by the morality of his character. There was no pedantry, no affectation about him; but when he was walking in the courts of the college, or in the halls where the pupils assembled, he could not witness their quarrels, their follies, their levity of manner, and not reprove them faithfully. ‘He finds fault with everything,’ complained a scholar of equivocal conduct. ‘Profit rather by the advice of so young and conscientious a censor,’ answered the wiser ones. 562‘Roman catholics whose testimony was beyond reproach,’ says Theodore Beza, ‘told me of this many years after, when his name had become famous.’ 563‘It is not the act alone,’ said Calvin subsequently, ‘but the look, and even the secret longing, which make men guilty.’—‘No man,’ says one of his adversaries, ‘ever felt so great a hatred of adultery.’ 564In his opinion, chastity was the crown of youth, and the centre of every virtue.

The heads of Montaigu College were enthusiastic supporters of popery. Beda, so notorious for his violent declamations against the Reformation, for his factious intrigues, and for his tyrannical authority, was principal. 565He watched with satisfaction young Calvin, who, a strict observer of the practices of the Church, never missed a fast, a retreat, a mass, or a procession. ‘It is a long time,’ it was said, ‘since Sorbonne or Montaigu had so pious a seminarist.’ As long as Luther, Calvin, and Farel were in the Papal Church, they belonged to its strictest sect. The austere exercises of a devotee’s life were the schoolmaster that brought them to Christ. ‘I was at that time so obstinately given to the superstitions of popery,’ said Calvin, ‘that it seemed impossible that I should ever be pulled out of the deep mire.’

He surprised his tutors no less by his application to study. Absorbed in his books, he often forgot the hours for his meals and even for sleep. The people who lived in the neighbourhood used to show each other, as they returned home in the evening, a tiny and solitary gleam, a window lit up nearly all the night through: they long talked of it in that quarter. John Calvin outstripped his companions in philosophy, as he had done in grammar. He then applied to the study of theology, and, strange to say, was enraptured with Scotus, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas. The last-mentioned writer had especial charms for him. If Calvin had not been a reformer, he would have become a Thomist. Scholastics appeared to him the queen of sciences; but he was the impassioned lover at first, only that he might be afterwards its terrible adversary.

His father, secretary to the diocese of Noyon, always entertained the hope of making his son a dignitary of the Church. With this object he cultivated the favour of the bishop, and spoke humbly to the canons. John had been for some years chaplain of La Gesine, but this did not satisfy the father; and, accordingly, when the living of St. Martin of Marteville became vacant, Gerard Cauvin solicited and, to his great delight, obtained that church for the student of Montaigu, who, as yet, had only received the tonsure. This was in the year 1527. Calvin, taking advantage probably of vacation time, went to see his family and his new parish. It has been supposed that he preached there. ‘Although he had not yet taken orders,’ says Beda, ‘he delivered several sermons before the people.’ Did he really go into the pulpits of his native country at the time when his inward struggles were beginning? To have heard him would have been a great satisfaction to his father, and his age was no obstacle to his preaching; some great preachers have begun still earlier. But it seems to us, after examining the passage, that he did not speak in his own church until later, when the Gospel had completely triumphed in his heart. But, however that may be, Calvin had a parish at eighteen: he was not, however, in holy orders.