Hope and Discouragement…

…and war.

…whether the Reformed Church could survive outside of Geneva was questionable.

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett

Calvin’s international influence was first felt in the late 1540s; in the two decades that followed, his influence grew, becoming both more significant and clearer.  This is not to diminish the international influence of others such as Melancthon and Bullinger.

Calvin’s influence spread two ways: first, many would travel to Geneva to learn from him; also, Calvin would correspond with ministers and sovereigns across Europe.  He was tireless and always available in either case. 

This time is filled with stops and starts, hope and discouragement.  Two cases are examined.  First, that of England, then second, of France.

England

Calvin would correspond with the Duke of Somerset in England, who had a position of influence.  This position didn’t last; his last two letters from Calvin to him were written while the duke was in prison.  Bucer and Vermigli took refuge in England, only to find the pace of Reform lacking.

Thomas Cranmer was willing to initiate a council to bring the various Reformers into alliance; Calvin agreed to go, but Melancthon and Bullinger said they would not.  Nothing came of this possibility.  In any case, Reform in England would have had a short shelf life.  Edward died, Mary Tudor came to the throne, and Protestants fled to the Continent.

A group of these exiles made their way to Geneva.  From this group came the Geneva Bible of 1560.  William Whittingham led the translation project.  He was so committed to completing it that he stayed in Geneva for eighteen months after the death of Queen Mary, instead of immediately returning to England.

The manuscripts available to him in Geneva were invaluable: an early New Testament manuscript called Codex Bezae – along with Theodore Beza’s commentaries on this; Beza’s Latin translation of the New Testament.

However…none compared to Tyndale’s 1526 translation of the New Testament into English. 

Whittingham and his team translated the entire Bible into English, including the Old Testament based not only on the Vulgate but also Hebrew. 

The Bible was a success.  Barrett attributes this to one word: accommodation.  The Bible was made easy to read for common people.  Out with Gothic typeface; they added some words for clarity (in italics, so as to identify the additions); maps and illustrations were included.

The Geneva Bible was even printed in quarto editions so that the average English consumer could afford a copy.

Regarding content, there were added textual, exegetical, and theological annotation in the margins.  It was the first full study Bible for the English.  Margins were filled with notes to help readers understand difficult passages.  Of course, these emphasized Reformed themes: predestination, election, justification by grace alone through faith alone.  And, of course, the pope is identified as Antichrist in the commentary of Revelation.

From 1560 until 1611 (at the publishing of the King James Bible), no other English translation enjoyed more editions.  Tyndale’s New Testament numbered five; the Great Bible, seven; the Bishop’s Bible, twenty-two.  The Geneva Bible numbered more than one-hundred-twenty editions.

When Elizabeth came to power in 1558, many of the English elites in Geneva contemplated a return to England.  Calvin saw an opportunity to correspond with a trusted advisor of the queen, hoping to further open the door for Reform.

Once again demonstrating the reality that any possibility of success could be dashed, John Knox, who was mentored by Calvin in Geneva, would write a scathing critique regarding female rulers, urging subjects to rise up against Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth was outraged, and blamed Calvin.  While Calvin’s mentoring of Knox eventually paid dividends in Scotland, it cost him a line of communication to England’s new monarch.  Further, it brought on suppression of any English Reformers associated with Geneva.

France

In France, everything regarding Reform depended on the king.  While Protestantism gained traction with the French people (and even with the nobility), it failed to last in any meaningful sense due to its rejection by the king.

In some sense, the Reformation in France preceded Luther and Calvin.  Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples demonstrated an interest in removing corruption from the church – he was critical of the church, but remained loyal to it.  Of course, Luther went after corruption as well, but he also was after a theological renewal.  So, what one means by “Reformation” will determine with which individual one dates the beginnings of this movement in France.

Luther’s writings were prohibited as early as 1521; Francis I needed allies against Charles V, and the pope was one of these.  By 1542, Calvin’s Institutes made their way into the French language, and a sense of consolidation began. 

In 1547, Henry II succeeded Francis I; real persecutions began.  Hundreds of evangelicals were arrested, found guilty of heresy, and sent to their deaths.  Henry spread the wealth, so to speak.  No longer were lower courts to send cases to higher courts; the lower courts could decide guilt and punishment without further review or oversight.

Give up the faith, meet death, or flee to foreign soil.  Many French Protestants chose the latter, and many of these found refuge in Geneva.  This gave Calvin the opportunity to train many ministers for when the time was right to return to France.  That time came in 1555.

In the eyes of the French authorities, Geneva appeared uninvolved and indifferent.  Maintaining that image was critical; otherwise Geneva risked an attack from French troops.

Henry was determined to stamp out this heresy.  The Inquisition arrived in France by 1557, with the death penalty for heretics.  Further, French mobs would round up entire churches.  Yet, underground churches were a roadblock to Henry’s success, as determined to survive as Henry was to stamp them out.

By the time Calvin died, about one hundred missionaries had landed in France.  Perhaps ten percent of the population was evangelical, including French nobles.  Evangelicals holding to a Calvinist theology were known as Huguenots.

Henry’s reign of terror ended in 1559; he died due to complications resulting from an injury suffered while jousting.  A concern for upholding the constitution followed, with some Huguenots willing to take to the sword to preserve this right.  Their attack was not considered a Protestant attack.  It was a failed attack; bodies impaled on the castle walls.

Attempts at compromise were made, with little success.  Yet there was some improvement: for example, the ability to gather corporately was now permitted.  Perhaps one of the first examples of the freedom to worship separate from a state dictate and monopoly.  There was hope for the Huguenots, but this hope was mistaken.

Conclusion

Despite having the freedom to gather, a Huguenot church was slaughtered, women and children included, by the Duke of Guise.  Huguenots throughout France were enraged.  Unlike times past, French protestants were no longer short in number.  What followed is described as the French Wars of Religion (1562 – 1598).  It, too, was a war of fits and starts.

A treaty was concluded in 1570, between King Charles IX and Admiral de Coligny, who represented the Huguenots: The Treaty of St-Germain.  A new level of religious freedom was available to the Protestants.  The queen, Catherine de Medici (mother of the king) hatched a plot to assassinate Coligny; he was shot, but did not die.  To cover her tracks, she claimed a Huguenot conspiracy to kill the king.  This narrative won the day.

The opportunity for retribution came soon enough.  St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 1572.  Many Huguenots traveled to Paris to attend a wedding.  Coligny was killed first; his body was thrown out of his bedroom window, ensuring that this murder was no secret.

The assassination of Coligny was the signal; all over Paris Huguenots were surrounded and slaughtered by French Catholics on the infamous day that forever became known as the Samt Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

That day was only the beginning.  Tens of thousands were killed all across France.  The French Reformed Church was nearly wiped out.  Roman Catholics across Europe celebrated.

But was it religion at the heart of these wars?

…the Wars of Religion unveiled not only religious but political motives. … A more balanced interpretation defies the label “Wars of Religion” itself.

Epilogue

I used to lay the blame of Christian Zionism on Scofield and his reference bible.  I still believe it is the prime driver of its growth in the last century, but the roots of this disease in the Church go back much further:

Calvin’s successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza, in the 1560s influenced the English and Scots exiles who produced the famed Geneva Bible that the Jews would be converted in the end times, as expressed in a note on Romans 11:15 and 26. “The first volume in English to expound this conviction at some length was the translation of Peter Martyr’s Commentary upon Romans, published in London in 1568,” says Gruber.

While there were some hints of it in the late Middle Ages, and a few drops of it here and there in the early Church, for almost the entirety of the pre-Reformation Church the idea of Jews returning to Israel as some sort of Biblical-prophetic requirement was not considered. 

We don’t even see it in Luther (unimaginable with him) or Calvin.