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Calvin's Programme for a Puritan State in Geneva, 1536–1541

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Herbert Darling Foster
Herbert Darling Foster
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Dartmouth College
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Extract

In 1559, the little republic of Geneva was menaced by its former viceroy, the Catholic Duke of Savoy, who had been restored to his hereditary domains by the treaty of Cateau Cambrésis and had begun to take steps to recover the rights which he claimed over Geneva. The Duke's ambassador gave fair words, but a Genevan councillor declined his offer in this Puritan response, “For the sovereignty of God and the Word of God we will hazard our lives.” The council promptly voted “to recommend themselves to God and to keep good watch.” The response of the councillor and the vote of the council reveal the characteristics bred by twenty-three years of Calvin's programme for a Puritan state in Geneva. A sense of a moral obligation to “hazard life for the sovereignty of God and the Word of God,” a quiet trust in God, intelligent preparations for a vigorous defence of God-given liberties through practical human means—these are characteristics of the Puritan. Where he was able to organize the state on these principles, he built up a series of Biblical commonwealths, or Puritan states, Geneva under Calvin and Beza, Scotland under Knox and Melville, the England of Cromwell and Milton, and the Puritan colonies of New England.

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Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1908 , pp. 391 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1908

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References

1 Roget, A., Histoire du peuple de Genève, VI, 2–3 (Geneva, 6 vols., 1870–1881).Google Scholar

2 Registres du Conseil, 9 Nov. 1552, fol. 301; quoted by Choisy, La théocratie à Genève au temps de Calvin—a luminous discussion of the subject, based on careful study of the documents. The standard edition of Calvin's Works (cited throughout this article as Opera) was edited by Baum, , Cunitz, , and Reuss, (Brunswick, 1863–1900)Google Scholar, in 59 quarto volumes. The Institutes are in vols. I–IV. A valuable synopsis, which enables one to compare the matter in the various editions, is in vol. I, pp. l–lviii. The comparison is further aided by the use of different type to illustrate the additions made in the successive editions from 1536 to 1559.

3 Opera, XXXI, 23–24, in the Preface to Psalms. Translation in Beveridge, Calvin's Institutes, I, p. ix, and in Comm. on Psalms, I, p. xi.

4 Opera, I, 186: Episcopos et presbyteros promiseue voco ecclesiae ministros. Ordo, est ipsa vocatio.

5 Ibid. I, 567.

6 Cf. Opera, I, 232 with I, 1105, and with the French edition, IV, 1134.

7 Bretschneider, Reformationsalmanaeh, 1821, p. 76; Kampschulte, Calvin, I, 256, note 1; Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, p. 448.

8 Opera, I, 861 (ed. of 1539): Hominum alii ad salutem, alii ad damnationem praedestinantur … aeterna quoque rerum omnium dispensatio ex Dei ordinatione pendeat. Ibid. 865: Aliis vita aeterna, aliis damnatio aeterna praeordinatur.… Quod ergo scriptura clare ostendit, dicimus Dominum, aeterno ac immutabili consilio semel constituisse quos olim assumeret in salutem, quos rursum exitio devolveret. In this second edition there is an entire new chapter of forty-one pages devoted to “Predestination and the Providence of God.”

9 C. Borgeaud, Rise of Modern Democracy in Old and New England, p. 2.

10 Institutes, in Opera, I, 209, 63, 11–12.

11 Opera, I, 63; II, 168, 147, 150 (Deum mundi gubernacula tenere).

12 Opera, I, 20; II, 895–896.

13 Ibid. II, 162.

14 Ibid. X, ii, 331. Calvin to Farel, March, 1539. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 131.

15 Kampschulte, J. Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf, I, 447 (Leipzig, 1869).Google Scholar This phrase is applied by Kampschulte to another aspect of Puritanism. Kampschulte was a Catholic (later an “Old Catholic”), and did not live to finish his book. A second volume was published in 1899, after his death; it extended only to 1559.

16 Borgeaud, Histoire de l'Université de Genève, I, 122.

17 Winthrop, History of New England, I, 7.

18 Nathaniel Bouton, History of Concord, N.H., p. 154.

19 Gardiner, Cromwell, p. 319.

20 Opera, II, 157.

21 Opera, II, 532 (Institutes, Book iii, chap. 10, definitive edition of 1559). The last sentence appeared first in 1539; all the previous portion of the quotation in 1559. The reader who may wish to know something of Calvin's somewhat unpuritanical attitude toward “the right use of present life and its supports” will find this chapter illuminating. Three other passages which will well repay reading are Book i, chaps. 16 and 17 (on Providence and its application), especially section 4; Book iv, chap. 10, “Conscience”; Book ii, chap. 8, sections 28–34, giving his liberal theories as to Sunday. All these may be found in either Allen's translation, published in London, 1813, and by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 1841; or in Beveridge's translation, published in Edinburgh, 1845–46, by the Calvin Translation Society; or in the quaint Elizabethan English of Thomas Norton in the nine editions published between 1561 and 1634.

22 Ibid. I, 71, 75, 76, 77.

23 Institutes, in Opera, I, 71, 75, 204, 205, 209. Compare these references on edification and salvation with the preface to the Latin catechism of 1538 (Opera, V, 322). The phrase religionis nostrae puritate (Opera, V, 318) is one of the many examples of the word whence Puritan is derived.

24 Calvin to Sadolet, 1539, in Opera, V, 391; translated in Beveridge, Calvin's Tracts, I, 33.

25 Opera, I, 76–77.

26 Ibid. p. 204.

27 Ibid. pp. 208–209.

28 Ibid. I, 11–14.

29 Ibid. p. 230.

30 Ibid. pp. 245, 248.

31 Opera, I, 248.

32 Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of England, 1603 to 1642, I, 24.

33 Mallet, E., Recherches historiques et statistiques sur la population de Genève, 1549–1833 (Paris, 1837).Google Scholar Mallet concludes that the population never exceeded 13,000 in the 16th century. Mallet gives the above estimate of voting citizens in his La Suissse historique et pittoresque, II, 552 (Geneva, 1855–1866).

34 Registres du Conseil, XXIX, fol. 11ro and 12ro.

35 Opera, XXI, 206, Nov. 10, 1536.

36 Ibid. IX, 891.

37 Ibid. XI, 94; XXI, 272.

38 21 Feb. 1538. Opera, X, ii, 154; in Bonnet, Letters, I, 66: Vulgus hominum concionatores nos magis agnoscit quam pastores.

39 Professor K. Rieker, in the Historische Vierteljahrschrift (Leipzig), translated by Choisy, E. in Revue de théologie et de philosophie (Lausanne, 1900)Google Scholar, separate reprint, p. 19. See also Rieker, , Grundsätze Reformierter Kirchenverfassung (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 64–71Google Scholar; see especially p. 70: “sind die Lutherischen Landeskirchen Anstalten des öffentlichen Rechts, nicht Genossenschaften.”

40 Opera, X, ii, 328: Rex ipse vix dimidia ex parte sapit. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 125; Calvin to Farel, Strasburg, March 16, 1539.

41 Opera, XI, 91.

42 Registres du Conseil de Genève, II (1461–1477), 75, Dec. 10, 1461. Société d'Histoire de Genève, 1906.

43 For a study of “Geneva before Calvin” see an article by the writer in the American Historical Review for January, 1903, especially p. 239, and note 2.

44 The Articles are in Opera, X, 5–14; and in the extremely valuable and scholarly work of A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française, IV, 154–166 (9 vols., 1512–1544, Geneva, 1866–1897). See in Herminjard, notes 1, 6, 7, 11, on similarities between Institutes and Articles. Calvin had been engaged on a French version of his “little book” after his arrival in Geneva. See his letter in Opera, X, 63, translated in Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, I, 45. The document is simply indorsed, “Articles bailles par les prescheurs.” Modern authors like Kampschulte, Herminjard, Roget, Walker, and the editors of the Opera confirm the contemporary statement of Beza and Colladon that Calvin was the author of the Articles.

45 Articles, Opera, X, 8; Confession, Opera, XXII, 92.

46 For the ideas of Bucer, Oecolampadius, and Melanchthon on discipline see Cornelius, Historische Arbeiten, pp. 373–4 and 378, and his references to Richter, Evangelische Kirchenordnungen, I, 158, and to Melanchthon, Corpus Reformatorum, IV, 547 (ed. Bretschneider, 1837). Cf. Kampschulte, Calvin, I, 391, and note 2.

47 See “Geneva before Calvin,” Amer. Hist. Rev., Jan., 1903, pp. 229–231, and notes. Vincent, “European Blue Laws,” in Annual Report Amer. Hist. Assoc, 1897, pp. 356–372; and Lindsay, Reformation, II, 107–113. Principal Lindsay's characterization of the Genevan excommunication as “not in a way conformable to his [Calvin's] ideas” is applicable to the period before 1555, but hardly to the later period, when the consistory had secured the right of excommunication. See Choisy, Théocratie à Genève, pp. 165–166.

48 Opera, X, 9.

49 Even Professor Walker, the author of the latest and the most judicious life of Calvin, does not seem to the writer to take this difference in point of view between Calvin and the council quite sufficiently into account or to scrutinize sufficiently the blanket vote of the council, “the rest of the articles is passed.” He says (p. 192), the councils “promptly adopted the Articles with slight reservations” (mentioning the marriage questions and the monthly communion), and then adds, “but the plan which Farel and Calvin had presented became the law of Geneva in its essential features.” This seems to neglect the following facts: (1) one of the “essential features,” if not the essential feature, “discipline of excommunication,” was a part of the article on the communion, and so probably went by the board with the refusal to adopt monthly communion; (2) the vote of the Little Council was modified by the vote of the Council of Two Hundred, which made it clear that it was the magistrates who were still to continue to look after morals and see that the city “lived according to God”; (3) the council had already exercised the right of excommunication, and refused it to the ministers the first time it was suggested; (4) the right of excommunication remained a bone of contention until 1555; (5) the only things actually done were the adoption of creed and catechism; (6) Calvin himself felt the thing essential to a “lasting church” had not been done, and was obliged again in 1538 to insist upon the adoption of the same thing as a condition of his return. The votes of the councils are in Opera, XXI, 206–207. For earlier and later votes see Amer. Hist. Rev., Jan., 1903, p. 227, note 6, and Herminjard, IV, 26, and Opera, XXI, 220. For modern comments see Kampschulte, Calvin, I, 289, 290; Roget, I, 23; Cornelius, Historische Arbeiten, p. 137, who suggests with reason that their votes may not have been quite clear to the councils themselves.

50 Opera, X, ii, 154; Bonnet, Letters, I, 66.

51 In Opera, XXII, 33–96; and in Rilliet et Dufour, Catéchisme français de Calvin (Geneva, 1878). For facts regarding the actions of council see Herminjard, IV, 185, notes 8–10; Rilliet et Dufour, xxxii, lx–lxi; Registres du Conseil for April 27, 1537, quoted in Opera, XXI, 210–211. Calvin afterwards revised the catechism in the form of question and answer. In this form it became the basis of religious instruction of the Reformed Churches. Fourteen editions were printed in English alone before the Puritan exodus to New England in 1630.

52 Opera, XXII, 86.

53 Ibid. XXII, 95, 92.

54 Acton, History of Liberty, I, 178.

55 The discussion of the commandment in the first edition of the Institutes is in Opera, I, 36–38. The provision for rest for animals here included is, with the provision in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 (see articles 92–93, “Off the Bruite Creature”), an interesting example of the Hebrew element in Calvin and the Puritans. The discussion in the Catechism of 1537 is in Opera, XXII, 41–42; that in the Catechism of 1542 is in Opera, VI, 65. The passage in the final edition of the Institutes is not essentially different from that in the first, and may be found in the English translation in Book ii, chap. 8, sections 28–34. The editor of the sixth American edition of Allen's translation naïvely wrote in his “Advertisement,” “It is much to be lamented that so great a mind should have been led astray on so important a point.”

56 These and other military phrases are in Calvin's preface to the Latin edition of the Catechism, 1538, Opera, V, 319, 321; also in French translation in Rilliet et Dufour, Catéchisme, pp. 133, 137. This preface, written during the bitter fight of 1537–38, breathes a strikingly militant spirit and a spirit of liberty. Cf. Opera, V, 322; Rilliet, p. 142.

57 The various votes of the council are in Registres du Conseil, XXX, fols. 208, 212, 219, 222; XXXI, fols. 32, 61, 81, 90, March 13–Nov. 15, 1537. The votes are reprinted in Opera, XXI, 208–217. For the banishments see also Roget, Hist, du peuple de Genève, I, 42–45. The street from which no one came was the Rue des Allamans. This street had in the Council of Two Hundred twelve representatives in 1535, and at least three in 1538. MS. Rolle du Conseil des CC (Dartmouth College Library); Registres du Conseil, 12 Feb. 1538, XXXI, fol. 191ro.

58 Roset, Chroniques de Genève, Liv. iv, ch. 9 (ed. Fazy, Geneva, 1894). The objections are recorded in Registres du Conseil for 26 Nov. 1537 (printed in Opera, XXI, 217, and in Roget, Histoire, I, 43).

59 Registres du Conseil for 26 Nov. 1537 and 16 Jan. 1538, in Opera, XXI, 217, 222; Roset, Chroniques, Liv. iv, ch. 10; and Roget, I, 68; Opera, XXI, 217.

60 Opera, XXI, 220.

61 The votes of the council are printed in Herminjard, Correspondanee, IV, 403, note 2, and in Cornelius, Historische Arbeiten, 159, note 1. On the deposition of the preachers' partisans from the Council of Twenty-five see Roget, Histoire, I, 75, and note 2. The new magistrates of 1538 were the more bitter as they had themselves been defeated in the election of 1537. The bitter party struggle between the ins and the outs during these two years may be followed in Roget or Cornelius.

62 Opera, XXII, 92.

63 The letter of Bern to the Genevan council is in Herminjard, IV, 403; cf. Cornelius, p. 160, and also the later letter of Bern, Herminjard, IV, 416. The four festivals were Christmas, Circumcision (New Year's), Annunciation, and Ascension; see Herminjard, IV, 413, note 17, and V, 137, note 9.

64 Opera, V, 322.

65 Ibid. X, ii, 325, Calvin to Farel, Strasburg, 16 March 1539. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 121.

66 Opera, X, ii, 188; Herminjard, IV, 424. Farel and Calvin, 27 April 1538, to the Council of Bern.

67 The council of Bern had written, “avec vous ministres Calvin et Farel amiablement sur ce convenir.” Herminjard, IV, 416, and Cornelius, 174, note 1.

68 Roset, Chroniques, Liv. iv, ch. 17: “Ils crioent la petolle de Dieu, parlans de la parole.” Cf. Herminjard, IV, 426.

69 Calvin and Farel to the Council of Bern, 27 April 1538, in Herminjard, IV, 425.

70 The various votes of the council and replies of Calvin and Farel are in Registres du Conseil, quoted in Opera, XXI, 223–227; Herminjard, IV, 416, 423–426; Cornelius, pp. 174–179.

71 The full conditions submitted by Calvin and Farel, May 1, 1538, to the Synod at Zürich are given in Herminjard, Correspondance, V, 2–6. They include the points of discipline, excommunication, more frequent communion, singing of psalms in public worship, already asked for in the Articles of 1537 but not granted. They add a method of adjusting the difficulties about the ordinances of Bern; a division of Geneva into “definite parishes”; a proper increase in the number of ministers; a “legitimate installation of ministers” by ministers; prohibition in both Bern and Geneva of “lascivious and obscene songs and dances composed to the music of the Psalms.”

72 Opera, X, ii, 325. To Farel, 16 March 1539. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 121.

73 Opera, XI, 36 (in illa carnificina iterum torqueri).

74 Ibid. XI, 91, Oct. 21, 1540. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 212.

75 Ibid. XI, 167. In Bonnet, I, 231.

76 Cor meum velut mactatum Domino in sacrificium offero—mihi esse negotium cum Deo qui huiusmodi astutias deprehendit. Ergo animum meum vinctum et constrictum subigo in obedientiam Dei. To Farel, 24 Oct. 1540. Opera, XI, 100, and Herminjard, Correspondance, VI, 339, give the date correctly as 24 Oct. 1540 rather than Aug. 1531, assumed in Bonnet, Letters, I, 280.

77 When Calvin preached his first sermon after his recall in 1541, he began at the same place in the Scriptures where he had left off in his last sermon three and a half years before.

78 Calvin's “Projet d'Ordonnances Ecclésiastiques,” with the emendations of the council, are given in Opera, X, 15–30. The amended ordinances were adopted by the primary assembly, 20 Nov. 1541; Registres du Conseil, XXXV, fol. 406ro. Calvin's draft with emendations still exists in the archives of Geneva, Pièces Historiques, No. 1384. The oath for the ministers is in Opera, X, 31–32. The revised Ordinances of 1561, Ibid. 91–124. For the changes which Calvin urged in 1560 in order to secure a sharper distinction between “temporal and spiritual jurisdiction,” see 120–123, and note.

79 This oath called for in the Ordinances was passed by the council, 17 July 1542. See Opera, X, 31–32.

80 See Winthrop's “Arbitrary Government Described,” etc. (1544), in appendix to R. C. Winthrop's Life of Winthrop, II, 440–458 (ed. 1869).

81 See Choisy, Théocratie, pp. 175, 185.

82 See “Geneva before Calvin,” Amer. Hist. Rev., Jan. 1903, p. 221, 237–238, and notes. For Calvin's proposals and the council's votes in 1560 regarding sharper distinction between church and state see Opera X, 120–123.

83 Rousseau, Du contrat social, Liv. ii, ch. 7, note.

84 The Latin text of the franchises of 1387 with the French translations of 1455 was published by E. Mallet in Mémoires et documents de la Société d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Genève, II, 271–399. For interest-taking, see Arts. 34, 35, 39, 77.

85 Institutes, Opera, I, 239.

86 Opera, XLV, 749.

87 Opera, XLVIII, 137, 138.

88 Ibid. X, 246, De usuris.

89 Calvin's letter on usury is in Opera, X, 245–249. Ashley, Economic History, II, 458–460. See also R. H. Dana, Jr., in Mass. House of Rep., Feb. 14, 1867. Reprinted in Economic Tracts No. IV, published by the Amer. Soc. for Political Education, 1881. See pp. 32–36, 43.

90 See Kampschulte, Calvin, I, 429.

91 Letter to Daniel, Geneva, Oct. 13, 1536, in Opera, X, ii, 64: otiosis illis ventribus, qui apud vos suaviter in umbra garriunt. Translated in Bonnet, Letters, I, 46.

92 Registres du Conseil, XXX, fol. 248, printed in Opera, XXI, 211.

93 Herminjard, Correspondance, V, 4; also in Cornelius, Arbeiten, p. 182, note 3. This liberty was one of the conditions which Calvin and Farel presented to the synod at Zürich as essential before they would return to Geneva.

94 This attitude was protested against by the Bernese and Genevan ministers after Calvin's exile. See Herminjard, Correspondance, V, 137, and note 9; ibid, pp. 137–138, for the criticism of the extremists by the Bernese and Genevan ministers.

95 “Pource quil dist aut commandement de dieu six jour tu travallieras et que lon avoyt fayct le jour de noel feste,” is the quaint entry in the Genevan Registres du Conseil, XXXII, fol. 255, for 27th Dec. 1538.

96 Opera, V, 65.

97 Proclamation of 1560, reprinted by Cazenove (Montpellier, 1879). Quoted in Borgeaud, Histoire de l'Université de Genève, I, 166.

98 M. Weber, “Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus,” in Archiv für Socialwissenschaft und Socialpolitik, XX; for effect of “Beruf,” “calling, “see p. 38 and following, and Part ii, Ibid. XXI, 1–110 (Tübingen, 1905).

99 Opera, I, 206.

100 Ibid. X, 23–25. A careful study of medical conditions in Geneva to the end of the 18th century has been published by Dr. Leon Gautier in the Mém. et doc. de la Soc. d'Hist. et d'Arch. de Genève, 2nd series, Tome X.

101 See Opera, X, under the various “Ordonnances” and “Consilia,” especially 125–146, 203–210, 231–266. For the new method of heating see Opera, XVI, 496, with sketch of furnace; see comments in Roget, Histoire, V, 58. See also references in Kampschulte, Calvin, I, 428–430; and in H. Wiskemann, Darstellung der in Deutschland zur Zeit der Reformation herrschenden national-öconomischen Ansichten (Leipzig, 1861), pp. 79–87.

102 Sprott and Leishman, Book of Common Order, pp. 96–97. The editors followed the edition of 1611, but modernized the spelling.

103 Strype, Life of Grindal, ch. xii, p. 114; Life of Parker, Bk. iv, ch. v, p. 325. Cf. Procter and Frere, Hist, of Bk. of Common Prayer, pp. 86 ff., 131–133. Calvin's Liturgy, or “Form of Prayers,” for Geneva of 1542 is in Opera, VI, 173–184. Knox's translation is in various editions, most conveniently in Sprott and Leishman, Book of Common Order of Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1868). It is also in Knox's Works (ed. Laing), VI, ii, pp. 293 ff.; “The Form of Prayers, etc., used in the English Church of Geneva,” Ibid. IV, 141–214. The English Puritan's use of the “Genevan form” is commented upon by Strype in his Life of Grindal p. 169, and Life of Parker, p. 65.

104 The subject of Calvin's liturgy is discussed in Doumergue, Calvin, II, 479–524, with bibliography; and is briefly summed up in Walker's Calvin, pp. 222–226.

105 Borgeaud, Histoire de l'Université de Genève, I, 35.

106 The Latin text of the “Programme” of Jan. 12, 1538, is printed in Herminjard, Correspondance, IV, 455–460. It was printed in French at the same time, and reprinted by Bétant in 1866. See also Buisson, Castellion, I, 145–149; Borgeaud, Histoire de l'Université de Genève, I, 16–18.

107 Borgeaud, Histoire de l'Université de Genève, I, 83.