Was Jean Calvin repulsive?

Calvin can cause severe reactions. I once read this: ‘The less said about that repulsive person the better.’ Repulsive is a very strong word to use for a respected preacher and theologian. One wonders if it can have any justification. 

There is nothing remotely repulsive about Calvin’s life-style. He rose at 4.00 a.m every morning for prayer. There was also prayer at lunch-time and at night. There was also a lot of fasting. He spent the day studying, dictating letters, or attending meetings, or writing. He wrote a lot. From 1550 till his death in 1564 it is estimated 100,000 of Calvin’s words were printed every year. And of course every week, he was preaching. There is no scandal in his domestic life. In the summer of 1540 he married the widow of an Anabaptist, Idelette de Bure, and we know they had one son, who died shortly after his birth. When Idelette died in the spring of 1549 Calvin wrote to his close friends, William Farrel and Pierre Viret, ‘I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordered, would not only have been the willing sharer of my indigence, but even of my death.’ Calvin never married again, but lived with his brother Antoinne who, with his wife, looked after the house and any family business affairs. Like many intellectuals Calvin was not a man partial to small talk, as one biographer says, he had a ‘restless urgency’ about him. However he did enjoy a glass of good wine in the company of close friends. It is suggested that the ‘restless urgency’ was because physically Calvin was frail, suffering from migraines and stomach and bowel disorders. He sensed his life could be cut short at any time.

If the word repulsive finds no home in Calvin’s personal life, perhaps its explanation rests in a strong reaction to his teaching. For many would recoil from Calvin’s views on predestination, indeed Calvin shrank from it himself, calling reprobation that ‘horrible’ decree’. It is of course unfair to shrink Calvin’s massive contribution as a writer and preacher to Christendom to this one teaching. The topic barely appears in the 1536 edition of his ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’, and there is only a shortish chapter in the 1559 edition. Moreover Calvin warns his readers not to pry too much into this mystery. It is impossible to think that any fair-minded man would call another repulsive for having a view on predestination, especially when such a view is connected to the teaching of Jesus Christ, and St Paul and St Peter.

Another reason for disliking Calvin’s personality is his reputation for enforcing a strict version of Christianity on Geneva. This happened through the Consistory, a morality committee which Calvin dominated. He was very committed to the Consistory for he saw discipline as being the heart-beat for a successful Christian and church. So Jeffery Watts writes:

 ‘…this towering intellect dedicated the better part of at least one day a week to listening to the mundane and at times even petty stories about Genevans’ quarrels, insults, blasphemies, illicit affairs, marital disputes, and superstitions.’

To this list one can add drunkenness, dancing, gambling, laziness, luxurious clothing, celebrating Christmas, truancy from church, a family’s sleeping arrangements – even choosing a non-Biblical name for your child.

Watts estimates that during Calvin’s time over 5% of Genevans were summoned before this morality court. Often those summoned would be admonished to mend their ways, to be reconciled to an enemy, to forgive, and so have a clear conscience. If the Consistory were not satisfied they could exclude someone from the Lord’s Supper. There is nothing controversial here. If someone claimed to be a Christian, then it was the church’s duty to bring discipline when needed. Moreover visitors noted the positive impact Calvin’s Consistory on Geneva. John Knox famously called the city, ‘the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the apostles.’ And the German pastor, Valentin Andreae, visiting in 1555 wrote:

 “There is in that city as a special ornament, a moral discipline which makes weekly investigations into the conduct and even the smallest transgressions of the citizens. All cursing and swearing, gambling, luxury, strife, hatred, fraud, etc. are forbidden, while greater sins are hardly ever heard of. What a glorious ornament of the Christian religion is such a purity of morals!”

There was though a punitive side to the work of the Consistory, and this was more than banning someone from the Lord’s Supper. For the Consistory worked very closely with what was known as the ‘Small Council’, which ran Geneva. Calvin had particular influence over this council because in 1541 they had invited him back to Geneva to lead the church there. They believed that Calvin’s clear vision for what a godly society should look like would benefit the city more than what Calvin’s more worldly enemies were offering. On his return Calvin got the ‘Small Council’ to agree to his ordinances for church life in the city and so a close partnership began.

That partnership meant the ‘Small Council’ punished people after an investigation by the Consistory. This is where for modern readers reading about Calvin becomes difficult. At the instigation of the Consistory we read of humiliating rituals of apologies, whippings, prison on bread and water, exile, even executions. Sadly there is no shortage of examples. In August 1546 Amied Chappuis wanted to call his son Claude, the name of a popular Roman Catholic saint. but the priest called the baby Abraham. An enraged Chappuis pulled the infant out of the priest’s arms before the ceremony was completed. Calvin’s Consistory, which had initiated the campaign against the use of non-Biblical names, wanted action. Despite a lot of popular pressure the magistrates came down on their side and Chappuis had to spend a few days in prison and publicly confess his errors. Jerome Bolsec, an ex-friar, was appalled at Calvin’s teaching on predestination, calling it ‘scandalous’ and ‘heretical’. That did not go down well with the Consistory and in December 1551 Bolsec was banished from Geneva for life. Pernette Bresson unwisely gave her views about conception to two daughters of ministers. She told them that if you wanted beautiful children you should either look at a beautiful picture or think of a good-looking person, her example was Theodore Beza, Calvin’s protégé and successor. Bresson was already on the Consistory’s radar because she was meeting a lot with a married man which was causing gossip. In May 1562 she was whipped and banished from Geneva.

Fornication could be easily proved if a wife became pregnant too soon after the wedding. The usual punishment for this in the 1540s was three days in prison. Later this increased to six days. For adultery the punishment was much more severe. So in 1562 a rural labourer, Jacques Lombard, was whipped through the streets till he bled. Sometimes adulterers were also banished. And a few were executed. In August 1560 Anne Lemoine and Antoine Cossenex were found guilty of having an adulterous affair. She was drowned; he was beheaded. In January 1561 Nicolas Lenepveaux was beheaded for adultery with several women. In July the same year, Bernadine Neyrod was found guilty of again committing adultery. She was drowned. Her lover, because it was his first offence, was whipped and banished from the city for life.

Execution for adultery: and in two cases, execution for heresy. Jacques Gruet, son of a notary, first got into trouble with the Consistory in 1546 for dancing. He spent some time in prison for this. On June 27^th the next year a threatening note complaining of too many masters was left in Calvin’s pulpit. Suspicion immediately fell on Gruet, and his house was searched. From his papers it was clear he was no fan of Calvin (arrogant, ambitious, sneering), and he held unorthodox religious views. Christianity was a fable, and all the laws were  made for the pleasure of man. Calvin acknowledged that the hand-writing of the note was not Gruet’s – but now there was something perhaps more serious. Heresy. Calvin urged the authorities to be vigorous in their investigation. Gruet was tortured and pleaded guilty to both heresy and writing the note. He was sentenced to death, and beheaded on July 27^th.

The other man to be executed for heresy is better known. This was Michael Servetus. He and Calvin had history. The polymath Servetus had long held colourful theological views, and back in 1534 had asked to meet Calvin to discuss them. Though Calvin travelled to Paris, at some risk, Servetus did not turn up. Later the two had some correspondence which then Calvin shut down, writing to his close friend William Farel that the Spaniard’s ideas were ‘delirious fancies’. In actual fact there were only two aspects of Servetus’ teaching which were against orthodoxy: denials of original sin and the Trinity. He was also against predestination and infant baptism, but that opposition cannot be termed as ‘delirious fancies’. He also believed that the papacy was Satanic and the world would end in the 16^th C. While these might be fanciful, this was fairly standard fare at the time. Calvin continued his letter to Farel, damningly, with this:

 ‘He offers to come here if I agree. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he does come, and my authority is of no avail, I shall never suffer him to depart alive.’

It has been suggested that Servetus had some sort of obsession about Calvin, for perversely in 1553 he did come to Geneva, even to the very church where the reformer was preaching. He was recognised and arrested. Calvin then drew up a document outlining all of Servetus’ teachings, and later appeared in court as a witness. After consulting the other Swiss cities the magistrates unanimously sentenced Servetus to be burned at the stake. This happened on October 27^th.

For a defender of Calvin to say these draconian punishments were not directly his responsibility is disingenuous. They were part and parcel of a system he had created, all the evidence points to him supporting the harsh sentences, and, moreover, it is clear Calvin could be active behind the scenes, as with Gruet, if he thought a more robust approach was necessary.

We will come to what all of this means for how we view Calvin the man, but first there are two unpleasant character flaws to consider: self-righteousness and vindictiveness. Most of the cases that came before the Consistory were the humdrum conflicts of domestic life and the aim of Calvin and his colleagues was to try and bring reconciliation, and an emphasis on their proceedings was that both sides had to bring an apology. Historian Jeffery Watts has this comment regarding Calvin and this issue of making an apology:

There was an important exception to the Consistory’s usual assumption that all parties likely contributed to disputes and accordingly should apologize and forgive one another: whenever Calvin himself was involved in a disagreement, the fault was entirely the other party’s. In more than twenty years of Consistory registers, there is not a trace of Calvin ever issuing an apology, but there were several instances in which the reformer demanded reprisals against anyone who besmirched his reputation or challenged his authority.

Of course it might be there was no genuine need for Calvin to apologize over these twenty years, but given his tendency to have ‘spasms of anger’ it is extremely likely that he sometimes fell below the Scriptural standards of ‘letting everything be done in love’ (1 Cor 16:4)and showing 'perfect courtesy to all men’ (Titus 3:2) It is not unreasonable to conclude that perhaps some self-righteousness was at work.

Watts also refers to the treatment given to those who challenged his authority. This points to Calvin perhaps having a vindictive streak. Watts gives the example of Pierre Ameaux who had called Calvin an ‘evil foreigner’ amongst other insults. The city officials demanded a public apology from Ameaux, but only in front of their assembly, known as the Council Of Two Hundred. This was not enough for Calvin. He went to the Small Council and said he would refuse to preach until Ameaux had done public penance. And this is what happened. Ameaux had to walk through the streets bareheaded, carrying a torch, and kneeling to ask God for forgiveness. In his biography of Calvin, Bruce Gordon, tells the story of Henri de la Mare, a minister, who in Calvin’s eyes had not been completely loyal. So Gordon writes that Calvin never missed an opportunity ‘to make the man’s life a misery…He was moved from a parish in the city to the countryside’, his house and even church building were not properly maintained; his allowance was never raised. Then for his sympathy with Ameaux he was imprisoned and dismissed. It would seem that both men were victims not of sensible Christian discipline and forgiveness, but Calvin’s personal vindictiveness. Self-righteousness and vindictiveness are not pleasant qualities. However very few of us are unacquainted with their shadows. Given all of Calvin’s strengths and talents it would seem churlish to write him off as repulsive solely over these character flaws, especially when we are looking on from such a distance.

We are still left though with Calvin’s close involvement in those draconian punishments. If one envisages Servetus being led in silence to the execution pyre with Calvin’s lieutenant, William Farel, at his side, and then to hear the shriek of horror as the fire was lit, the word ‘repulsive’ is surely not out of place. It was a repulsive sight – deemed so by many others across Europe at the time. Indeed the whole idea that a Christian minister, preaching God’s love for sinners, should also be involved in meting out punishments such as whippings, imprisonment, exile, and execution is surely repugnant. 

But I am not sure they make Calvin himself repulsive.

For Calvin was acting wholly within the cultural norms of his own day. One would have hoped that this man steeped in the Bible would have been able to have raised his vision beyond those cultural expectations. But he wasn’t able to. Nor was Philip Melanchthon, nor was Frederick Bullinger – both supported the execution of Servetus. The irony is that John Calvin, the great opponent of the Roman Catholic church, was unable to escape the influence of this church when it came to heresy. In Calvin’s mind to tolerate heresy and blasphemy was to be their supporter. That was exactly the logic of the Roman Catholic church and their inquisition. This line of thinking finds no place in the New Testament. Here the horrors are inflicted on Christians. There is not a whisper of a minister of Christ seeking to inflict them on others and Calvin is wholly wrong when he tries to argue that the incident concerning Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5 supports Christians using the death sentence. The root of this thinking goes back not to Jesus, but to Augustine who believed that people should be ‘compelled’ to enter the church. In the Medieval period this cemented into what historian Paul Johnson calls the ‘Total Society’. This is the world Calvin was born into. Everyone, except the Jews, were Christians. The idea that people could choose to be Christians was not on his radar. Moreover he and the other reformers were ferociously hostile to those who opposed infant baptism, which ensured the continuation of the ‘total society’. Augustine and to a certain extent Luther accepted that once forced into the church, the wheat and the tares would grow together. For Luther the important issue was that people understood that salvation was by faith. Calvin though put the emphasis on discipline, hence his commitment to the Consistory and all that followed from that, including, when necessary, to apply severe punishments to serious sin and heresy. In this he was diligently sincere. Calvin believed that if Genevans followed Christian standards, this would create a happier society, and, more importantly, be pleasing to God.

This vision was of course, to use his own words about Servetus, full of ‘delirious fancies’, not least because Jesus taught that most people will take the broad road, not the narrow one. However it was a fanciful vision held by nearly every Christian leader – Protestant or Catholic – in Europe. Hence my hesitation to use the word repulsive about Calvin as a man because of these severe punishments. In our day many believe it is right for a woman to be able to execute her unborn baby. I and many others find such a deed repulsive, however I would never dream of calling the woman who takes that fatal step, or the doctor who signs the execution warrant as being repulsive as people. I accept they live in a different moral paradigm. If we rightly hesitate to call repulsive those in our own day who act differently to our own mores, how much more should we hesitate when looking back on those who lived in a different age.

While we should perhaps use kinder words for Jean Calvin, nevertheless we should eschew the tendency of some preachers in the Reformed tradition who refer to the Frenchman as if he was a perfect saint whose every word is almost on a par with Scripture. And we should never forget why the word repulsive is used by his critics. It was because he wanted to impose his morality on an entire society. 

This is a doomed venture. That is the lesson of history. Think 17^th England; or the prohibition in 20th USA.  It is also the lesson of the New Testament. The new Jerusalem is in the future; not now. So whenever we see this oft failed vision raising its head, as it has done recently in America, sensible Christian leaders need to call it out for what it is – delusional fancy. And they need to call Christians back to what the New Testament asks them to do – preach the Gospel of God’s love to sinners and serve the poor. If only Calvin had stayed with that mandate and left the running of Geneva to the Caesars of his day then nobody in their right mind would ever think that such a derogatory word as repulsive could have any connection with Calvin. That though was not the sort of world Calvin was engaging with. Church and state were not separate, and with that reality in mind, we should be temperate in our language about Jean Calvin.