READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
THEODORE BEZA.THE COUNSELLOR OF THE FRENCH REFORMATION1519-1605BY
HENRY
MARTYN BAIRD
PREFACE
IT
is not a little surprising that there seems to be no life of Theodore Beza
accessible to the general reader either in English or in French. In German
there is, it is true, a satisfactory biography by Heppe,
written for the series of the “Lives and Select Writings of the Fathers and
Founders of the Reformed Church,” edited by Hagenbach,
besides a masterly work undertaken by that eminent scholar, J. W. Baum, on a
much larger scale, but unfortunately left incomplete at his death. Both biographies,
however, were published many years ago, and by Baum the last forty years of the
activity of Beza are not touched upon at all.
Yet
of the heroes of the Reformation Theodore Beza is by no means the least
attractive. His course of activity was long and brilliant. He presided over the
Reformed Church in the French-speaking countries through a protracted series
of years, its recognised counsellor and leader in times
of peril both to Church and to State. The friend of Calvin, he was also the
friend and adviser of Henry IV until within five years of that monarch’s end.
Thus his permanent influence can scarcely be exaggerated. Moreover, his career
was rich in incidents of dramatic interest. Certainly no more impressive and
romantic scene can be found in the history of the period than the appearance of
Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy, when for the first
time Protestantism secured a hearing before the King and royal family, its
advocates not being forced upon their unwilling notice, but, on the contrary,
formally invited to set forth the reasons for its existence and for its separation
from the Roman Catholic Church.
The
history of Protestantism in France could not be written with the part played by
Beza omitted. The author has therefore had not a little to say of him in his
History of the Rise of the Huguenots and in his Huguenots and Henry of Navarre. But the protagonist in the drama of the French Reformation merits separate
treatment, and a thorough knowledge of the man and of his work requires a
development of his life and actions that could find no place in a general
history.
For
the facts I have gone back to the original sources, most of all to Beza’s own
autobiographical notes and to his letters. An indefatigable writer, Beza has
left us a great mass of correspondence, much of it of historical importance. A
portion of that which he judged to be of most permanent value in its bearing
upon theological subjects saw the light during his lifetime, first separately
and afterwards in his collected theological works, entitled Tractationes Theologicae.
I shall have frequent occasion to draw upon these. Of his correspondence more
strictly historical in interest, down to and including the Colloquy of Poissy, Professor Baum gathered a
large store in the documentary appendices of his biography. Professor Baum had
also, many years since, copied with his own hands, but not utilised,
several hundred letters still preserved in the libraries of Geneva, Zurich,
Basel, etc. These copies have recently become the property of the French
Protestant Historical Society and been added to that society’s rich collections
in Paris. Most of these letters have never been published. I have been able to
secure for my book many interesting facts and illustrations derived from this
source.
Besides
his letters, I have made great use of Beza’s extended treatises contained in
the collection already referred to. The original chronicles and memoirs of the
time, including the Histoire Ecclesiastique des Eglises Reformées, erroneously attributed to Beza himself, but
undoubtedly composed under his general supervision, have been my guide
throughout the narrative. For the titles of most of these works I refer the
reader to the appended Bibliography.
As
in my earlier histories, so it is now again both a duty and a pleasure to
express my gratitude to Baron Fernand de Schickler and Mr. N. Weiss, president and secretary respectively of the French Protestant
Historical Society, for many acts of kindness and for valuable help in my later
researches. I owe to the courtesy of Mr. Ferdinand J. Dreer,
of Philadelphia, the facsimile of an interesting letter of the Reformer, now
in his rare col lection of manuscripts.
personae dramatis
CHAPTER
I . 1519-1539. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
CHAPTER
II . 1539-1548. BEZA IN PARIS
CHAPTER
III . 1548-1550. CONVERSION—CALL
TO LAUSANNE—“ABRAHAM’S sacrifice”
CHAPTER IV
. 1554 TREATISE ON THE PUNISHMENT OF HERETICS
CHAPTER V . 1549-1558 . BEZA’S ACTIVITY AT LAUSANNE CHAPTER
VI . 1558, 1559 . becomes calvin’s coadjutor—rector of the UNIVERSITY
OF GENEVA
CHAPTER
VII . 1560 . BEZA AT NÉRAC
CHAPTER
VIII . 1561 . RECALL TO FRANCE
CHAPTER IX . 1561 . RECEPTION
AT COURT
CHAPTER
X . 1561 . SPEECH AT THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY
CHAPTER
XI . 1561, 1562 . FURTHER DISCUSSIONS—THE EDICT OF
JANUARY— MASSACRE OF VASSY
CHAPTER
XII . 1562, 1563. COUNSELLOR OF CONDE AND THE
HUGUENOTS IN THE FIRST CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER
XIII . 1563-1565. BEZA SUCCEEDS CALVIN—EDITS GREEK NEW
TESTAMENT
CHAPTER
XIV . 1566-1574. BROAD SYMPATHY SYNOD OF LA ROCHELLE—MASSACRE of st. Bartholomew’s
day
CHAPTER
XV . CONTROVERSIES AND CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS .
CHAPTER
XVI . BEZA AND THE HUGUENOT PSALTER
CHAPTER
XVII. CONTRIBUTIONS TO HISTORY
CHAPTER
XVIII. 1590-1593 . THE PATRIOTIC PREACHER. HENRY IV’S APOSTASY
CHAPTER
XIX. beza’s later years in geneva
CHAPTER
XX. 1605 . CLOSING DAYS
CHAPTER
I
CHILDHOOD
AND YOUTH
1519-1639
THE
leaders of the great Reformation differed from one another as distinctly in
personal traits as in the incidents of their lives and the work which they were
called to perform. Theodore Beza, whose career and influence I purpose to
trace, did not possess precisely the same remarkable natural endowments that
fitted Martin Luther and John Calvin for the accomplishment of their brilliant
undertakings, but in a different sphere his task was of scarcely inferior
importance, and was accomplished equally well. Like Melanchthon, he belonged to
another and not less essential class of men whose great office it is to
consolidate and render permanent what has been begun and carried forward to a
certain point of development by others. But between Beza and Melanchthon there
was a marked contrast of allotted activity. Melanchthon was born fourteen years
later than Luther, and survived him by the same number of years. He was,
therefore, a younger contemporary of the great German Reformer, and his office
was preeminently that of supplementing what seemed naturally lacking in the
master whom he loved and revered, moderating that master’s inordinate fire, by
his prudence restraining the older Reformer’s intemperate zeal, by his
superior learning and scholarship qualifying himself to become in a peculiarly
appropriate sense the teacher of the doctrines which Luther had propounded.
Beza was still nearer to Calvin in point of birth, for only the space of ten
years separated them. But he outlived Calvin more than four times that number
of years, and ended his life at over fourscore, and early in another century.
Thus while Melanchthon is naturally to be regarded as a companion of Luther,
Beza presents himself to view chiefly as a theological successor of Calvin, in
whose doctrinal system he introduced little change and which he merely accentuated,
and as an independent leader of the French Reformed Churches during over a
third of a century.
More,
perhaps, than any of the other prominent leaders of the great religious
movement of his time Beza is entitled to be styled the ‘‘courtly Reformer.”
Sprung from the ranks of the old French nobility, a man for whom access to the favoured circle of the powerful and opulent was open from
earliest youth, with wealthy connections, nurtured in ease and in the prospect
of preferment, into whatever department of Church or State he might elect to
enter, he manifested in his bearing, his manners, and even in his
language the effects of association upon equal terms with the best and most
highly educated men of his time. This was an advantage that widened the sphere
of his influence, both at the court of Charles IX and at that of Henry IV.
The
members of the family from which he sprang wrote their name De Besze. Theodore himself so wrote it to the end of his days,
save when he gave it the Latin form of Beza. The family was of old Burgundian
stock. Theodore’s birthplace was the town of Vézelay. now a decayed and
insignificant place of somewhat less than twelve hundred souls. Situated about
one hundred and fifty miles southeast of the capital of France, it continues
in its obscurity to carry on a limited traffic in wood, grain, and wine, the wood
being obtained in the extensive forest of Avalion and
being sent down the river Yonne, to supply in part the needs of Paris and its
environs. Even in the sixteenth century, Vézelay lived chiefly on memories of
its past distinction. In attestation of former greatness, it pointed with pride
to a famous abbey church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. The ruins still
crown a hill overlooking the town, and even now arouse the curiosity and elicit
the admiration of such visitors as, from time to time, turn aside from the
beaten ways of travel to more secluded paths. Hard-by is still pointed out the
spot where, on Palm Sunday, in the year 1146, the Second Crusade was preached
by Bernard, the celebrated Abbot of Clairvaux. The slope of a hill at the gate
of the place was occupied on that famous occasion by a throng of lords and
knights, of ecclesiastics and persons of every station, too numerous to be
contained by any building, all of whom were attracted to Vézelay by the fame of
the eloquence and piety of the future saint. Upon the great platform erected
at the base of the hill sat Louis VII, King of France, and near him the orator
who divided with his Majesty the attention of the vast concourse of spectators.
Here it was that, at the close of Bernard’s fervid appeal for Palestine, just
bereft of the flower of its possessions by the fall of the city of Edessa, not
only the lords almost to a man, but Louis VII himself and his wife Eleanor of
Guyenne, begged the privilege of attaching the symbol of the holy cross to
their garments and of joining the crusade soon to set forth to rescue from the
polluting foot of the infidel the land once made holy by the tread of the Son
of God.
Nearly
four centuries had elapsed from the day on which Vézelay resounded with the cries
of “Deus vult! Deus vult!”
interrupting Bernard’s address, when, in 1519, on Saint John Baptist’s Day, the
14th of June, Old Style, or the 24th, New Style, was born the future French
Reformer. He was a son of Pierre de Besze, the bailli
of the place. Vézelay, having lost its importance in other respects, still
retained the honour of being the seat of a royal
officer bearing this designation. The position was as honourable as it was influential. Pierre de Besze had married
Marie Bourdelot, also of noble descent, by whom he
had had six children before the birth of Theodore—two sons and
four daughters. Her kinsmen, as well as his, were persons of prominence.
Nicholas de Besze, brother of Pierre, was a counsellor
or judge of the Parliament of Paris, the highest judicial body in France. Being
wealthy, unmarried, and of an affectionate disposition, Nicholas would gladly
have had all the children of Pierre brought to his house in the capital, there
to be reared under the most favourable circumstances;
nor would he have spared either trouble or expense. Theodore subsequently
styled him the “Maecenas” of the family. Another brother, having entered the
Church, possessed, as Abbot of Froidmont, the means
of rendering himself no less serviceable to the promotion of the interests of
his nephews. Evidently if Theodore should fail of promotion either in Church or
in the judicial career, it would not be from the lack of strong family
connections.
There
must, it would seem, have been something particularly winning in Theodore, the
youngest child in a family of seven children; for he had not emerged from
infancy when his uncle, the member of the Parliament of Paris, being on a visit
to the bailli of Vézelay, conceived so strong an admiration and affection for
the child that he begged to be allowed to take him back with him to the
capital. The father consented. The mother at first demurred, but afterwards
yielded reluctantly in deference to her husband’s command. She insisted,
however, on accompanying her little son to Paris, where she left him. Nor did
she long survive the enforced separation from her child. Theodore, who in after years
set it down as a singular mark of the divine goodness that he had been born of
such a mother, praises, and apparently not without sufficient reason, both the
intellectual and the moral endowments of Marie Bourdelot.
To extraordinary nerve and dexterity she added great kindliness of heart. Her
attention to the wants of the poor was assiduous. They repaid her untiring
solicitude with a sincere love.
It
was no ordinary misfortune for Theodore to be separated from, and shortly after
deprived altogether of, such a mother and at a so tender age. He was but a puny
child, of so weakly a constitution that he barely walked at five years of age.
When this dangerous stage was passed, his physical ailments seemed only to
increase. At one point in his childhood he became the victim of a malady so
painful that he was once, when crossing one of the bridges over the Seine,
about to throw himself into the river for the purpose of ending his life and
his misery in a single moment.
Such
are some of the incidents that have come down to us in regard to Beza’s
childhood and for which we are indebted to the autobiographical notices
inserted in a letter prefaced to his Confession of the Christian Faith. The
letter was addressed to Melchior Wolmar, a distinguished scholar, to whom,
under God, the future Reformer owed, more than to father or mother, that
training both of the intellect and of the affections which qualified him for
the great part he was to play in the affairs of Church and State.
Melchior Wolmar was born in ancient Suabia, or in what now constitutes the southerly part of the kingdom of Wurtemberg, at the little town of Rottweil. Following an uncle, Michael Rottli, to Bern, in Switzerland, he became first pupil, then successor of his kinsman in a Latin school which the latter had founded. Thence Wolmar passed to Fribourg, and a year or two later to Paris. Extreme indigence did not prevent him from gratifying his taste for study, and he gave himself so ardently to the mastery of the Greek language, under the guidance of Nicholas Berauld and other competent instructors, that of one hundred young men that came up for the degree of licentiate at the University, his name was the first upon the list of the successful candidates. The pleasures or honours of the capital were not so attractive to him as to detain him long on the banks of the Seine, or, more probably, Wolmar’s leaning toward Protestant views was too pronounced to make a sojourn at Paris either comfortable or safe. Thus it was that, about the year 1527, he established at Orleans a school for youth which soon obtained a considerable degree of popularity. A few boys were received into the family of the founder. It
was perhaps a year after this time that Beza’s uncle happened to entertain at
his house in Paris a relation residing in Orleans. The guest was a man of high
position, being a member of the king’s greater council. In the course of the meal,
noticing Theodore, who was present, a boy nine years old, he remarked that he
had himself a son of about the same age, whom he had placed with a certain
Wolmar. So highly did he praise the learning and abilities of this foreigner
that, on the instant, Beza’s uncle, who had never before heard of Wolmar,
declared his intention to take the rare opportunity and to send his nephew to
Orleans. He begged that Theodore might be a companion of his guest’s son. He
would make no account of the opposition which all the rest of the family made
to the plan. It is almost needless to say that, when, many years later, Beza
reviewed the circumstances from the standpoint of a Protestant and a Protestant
leader, he could not but regard the impulse that led his uncle on the spur of
the moment to send him away from the University of Paris, long since regarded
as the most august educational establishment of the world, to a school newly
started in a province by a stranger, as a signal exhibition of the direct interference
of God. He styled the day on which he reached Wolmar’s house at Orleans—it was
the 5th of December, 1528—his second nativity; for it was the point in his life
from which was to be reckoned the beginning of every advantage he received.
Never has pupil more enthusiastically admitted the instructor of his boyhood
into the company of men whose pictures he affectionately cherishes in his
memory, than did Beza insert the portrait of Wolmar in the gallery of worthies
which, many years later, he gave to the world with words of high praise.
Judging from the profile there sketched the eminent
scholar’s appearance indicated the strength of the mind that lay within. The
forehead was high and prominent, the nose slightly aquiline, the eyes full of
life, the mouth small but firm.
Melchior
Wolmar was no longer an obscure man. About 1530 he was invited by the good
Princess Margaret of Angouleme, sister of Francis I and grandmother of Henry
IV, to be one of that band of eminent scholars with whom she surrounded herself
in Bourges, the capital of her duchy of Berry. When Wolmar accepted the call,
young Theodore Beza went with him to continue his studies.
If
the autobiographical letter which we print in the Appendix fails to supply us
with a complete list of the branches the boy pursued under his beloved teacher,
his words afford a sketch which the reader’s imagination may readily fill out.
The teacher was painstaking and gave himself unreservedly to his pupils. He
found in Beza a mind fired with a desire to learn. If the natural sciences were
few and imperfectly understood at that time, the literature of ancient Rome
and Greece was a treasury upon which students might draw without stint. It
would have been difficult for a lad of even moderate ability to be constantly
under the faithful instruction of any respectable teacher for seven years
without acquiring great familiarity with the classical tongues. Under so
admirable a humanist as Wolmar, and so unselfishly devoted to his little group
of ambitious youth, Beza and his companions gained a command of both
Latin and Greek such as few men in our times can claim to possess. To Beza
Latin became as familiar as his mother tongue. He used it ever afterwards
readily, correctly, and effectively, as one needed to be able to use it who was
to speak before kings and the most cultured of audiences. The two languages at
once became the key to unlock the treasures of knowledge laid up in past ages.
It was no hyperbole in Beza’s mouth to say that there was not a branch of
learning, even to jurisprudence, into whose mysteries he was not at least
partially initiated under the guidance of an instructor who held himself rather
a friend and companion in study than a distant and austere pedagogue. Best of
all, in Beza’s view, Wolmar had not neglected the religious welfare of his
pupils, and had imbued them with the knowledge of true religion drawn from the
Word of God, thereby giving him a claim to their imperishable gratitude.
Yet
Theodore Beza was certainly at this time no ardent convert in whom clear
convictions of truth had been immediately succeeded by overmastering
convictions of duty and by a determination to renounce all selfish plans in favour of a life of voluntary consecration to a Master
whose service he henceforth joyfully espoused. This assertion is abundantly
proved by his life for the next ten years. Fully as he may have accepted, and
doubtless did accept, the Word of God as authoritative, and sincerely as he
rejected in his heart, and purposed at some future and convenient season to repudiate
openly, such doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church as he had learned to be
unscriptural, along with the rites which he now viewed as absurd and
superstitious, he was by no means ready as yet to make the sacrifices which the
frank acceptance of the “new faith” demanded. If his intellect approved the
creed in attestation of which many humble men and women—carders, weavers, and
the like—cheerfully suffered martyrdom in France about this time, counting the
present life as insignificant and valueless in comparison with the life
eternal, Beza was still to wait many a year before reaching such a condition of
mind and heart as was theirs. The present life with its pleasures and ambitions
occupied both mind and heart pretty fully as yet.
It
is interesting at this point to notice that there was another youth destined to
be a leader in the Protestant Reformation whose life was equally, possibly
even more deeply, affected by contact with Melchior Wolmar. This was the young
student from Noyon, Jean Calvin, who also sought to profit by the German
instructor’s great familiarity with the Greek language. His residence was not a
protracted one. He arrived after Wolmar had removed to Bourges, and he was
very shortly recalled home by the death of his father. Whether the two pupils,
Beza and Calvin, were at this time brought into relations of close intimacy,
is not clear. The disparity of their ages may well have kept apart the young
man of twenty-two and the boy of twelve, but the elder not less than the younger
imbibed the views of their common teacher. It is in fact the statement of
one of the most inveterate enemies of the French Reformation, that it was owing
to a direct suggestion of Wolmar that the young Calvin abandoned the study of
the Code of Justinian to apply himself to the study of theology, and that this
was the beginning of that career which was to prove the source of countless
damage to the Christian Church. Wolmar, although feigning to be a Catholic,
was, says this writer, a means of instilling into Calvin the Lutheran poison,
with which Calvin during his own lifetime in turn infected many thousands of
souls to their eternal ruin?
Calvin’s
stay with Wolmar was suddenly brought to an end, as has been stated. That of
Beza was terminated, four or five years later, by Wolmar’s return to Germany.
Recalled to his native land, Wolmar would gladly have taken with him his
promising student, but Beza’s father resolutely declined to grant his
permission, and insisted that Theodore should retrace his steps to the city of
Orleans, there to devote himself to the mastery of civil law.
As
the son obeyed reluctantly (May, 1535), so he found no great pleasure in his
new task. The study of the law pursued without intelligent method, and taught,
as it appeared to him, in a barbarous manner, inspired him, not with
admiration, but with aversion. Consequently, while not neglecting his legal
studies, he began to devote a considerable, possibly the greater, part of his
time to polite letters, and found a singular delight in both Greek and Latin
authors. It should be remembered that the French tongue was as yet rude. France
had thus far produced few writers of genuine literary merit. There was little
in contemporaneous literature to divert Beza from the perusal of the masterpieces
of ancient Athens and Rome.
Poetry,
in particular, attracted him greatly. He appreciated the verses of the poets of
a bygone age, and it was no difficult thing for a youth of his tastes and
station to imagine himself born to be a poet. Nor indeed was he altogether
mistaken. Whatever may be said of the use to which he at first applied his
poetical abilities, and however much those abilities, when subsequently
employed in the service of religion, have, especially in our age, been
studiously underrated, it will be seen in the sequel that while
Beza was possessed of no genius calculated by its scintillations to arouse the
enthusiastic admiration of the world, his poetical gifts were of no mean rank.
It is no accident that the “battle-psalm” of the Huguenots, so well adapted
to be sung at the charge, as it was so often sung during the course of whole
centuries, was not from the pen of the facile and timid Clement Marot, but from
the pen of Theodore Beza, his resolute and more thoroughly convinced collaborator
in the preparation of the Huguenot psalter.
The
time for writing the Protestant battle-psalm and such serious compositions,
however, was as yet in the distant future, then to be composed under
the play of strong and serious views of life. For the present his poetical
gifts led Beza to associate himself with a select band of young men of similar
tastes, all inclined to unite the study of the law with the more seductive
pursuit of the Muses. They were some of the most cultured and learned members
of the University of Orleans, men who, when at a later date Beza was beginning
his remarkable career as a Reformer in Switzerland, had already secured high honours in the land upon which Beza’s conscientious
convictions had compelled him reluctantly but deliberately to turn his back.
What
the poems were that Beza wrote at this period, we shall examine a little
farther on.
Four
years elapsed from the date when Beza parted from Wolmar—four years of a
decorous and blameless life spent in the society of honourable and scholarly men—when, in August, 1539, his stay at Orleans came to an end. He
had been promoted to the degree of licentiate in law, and he left the
university on the banks of the Loire to return to Paris. Let it not be imagined
that the training he had received at Orleans even in the matter of law had been
insignificant in its bearing upon his subsequent course, nor that he had
failed to exhibit that wonderful power of acquisition which characterised his subsequent efforts in every other department of knowledge. Of his great
popularity with his fellowstudents, there is
evidence enough in the circumstance that “the nation of Germany”—the
scholastic division into which, as a native of Burgundy, he was
admitted—selected him to be its head under the title of “procurator.” As such
not only did he preside over the internal affairs of the students of his “
nation,” but, with the other nine procurators, had a vote in the university
council even in such important matters as the election of the rector of the
institution.
CHAPTER
II
BEZA
IN PARIS
1539-1548
THEODORE
BEZA had lately entered upon his twenty-first year when, having
further literary or professional studies in view, he returned to the
French capital. His prospects and his mental
attitude deserve notice. He was a man
of leisure, well provided with friends, possessed of abundant
means of present support, and apparently the master
of a secure future. His uncle, the member of the judicial
Parliament of Paris, the best friend of his childhood,
had indeed been dead for seven years; but his father’s other brother, the Abbé de Froidmont, was
still alive and was not less attached to him than the
judge had been. Theodore was in the enjoyment
of the revenues of two rich
benefices amounting together to about seven hundred gold crowns. His friends
had made this weighty provision for him in his
absence and despite the fact that he was not
in orders, and, according to his own
admission, as ignorant as any other layman could possibly be of all matters of
a clerical nature. As if this were not enough, his good uncle had fully made up
his mind that Theodore should succeed him in his abbey, worth, at the
very least, five thousand gold crowns a year. Besides this, Theodore’s eldest
brother, so infirm in body that his life was despaired of, held certain other
ecclesiastical benefices. There was every reason to believe that these would
ultimately go to swell Theodore’s income.
In
short, the young man was surrounded with every allurement to a life of ease and
comfort. Relatives and connections of the family by marriage were alike
disposed to further his desires; while other friends, whose favour was conciliated by the reputation he had already gained and by the predictions
made of his future distinction, stood ready to applaud and congratulate.
Whether he should select the Church or the Bar, his success seemed equally
assured.
In
his reminiscences of the period of his life now in question, Beza informs us
that at this very time he was conscious that all these advantages were but
snares laid for his feet by the powers of evil, with the view of preventing him
from choosing the path which his inner convictions prompted him to enter upon.
He had, that is to say, long since formed the resolution that, so soon as he
should find himself master of himself and possessed of a certain competence,
he would leave France. He would make his way to Germany, rejoin his old
preceptor, and, in society with Wolmar, enjoy the liberty of professing his
conscientious convictions, even at the sacrifice of more brilliant worldly
prospects.
Meanwhile,
however, there was little to show that he had not renounced the
hopes kindled within him by the words and example of Wolmar. Without giving a
loose rein to dissipation or riot, and while living what was regarded as an
exemplary life for a young man of station, wealth, and brilliant expectations,
he was quite content to devote the ease conferred upon him by his position to
the pursuit of the Muses and to whatever literary studies his fancy might
dictate.
Such
a life, however, was as far from meeting the legitimate ambition of his father,
as it was from satisfying the demands of conscience. Consequently, the next
few years were in reality as full of struggle and discontent as they might have
been supposed replete with satisfaction and quiet. A brief sketch of Beza’s
experience at this time is fortunately left us in a letter written by him to an
old comrade at Dijon. When he returned from Orleans, Theodore says to his
friend, his father looked to his devoting himself at once to the practice of
the legal profession. Unfortunately the very thought of such a life inspired
him with disgust. The “palais,” or parliament-house, seemed a house of bondage;
to enter its walls was to become a bondman for whom there was no hope of
escaping a hateful drudgery. As much as the father insisted, so
much the son resisted, urging, not without reason, that his previous training,
not to speak of the natural bent of his mind, disqualified him for the
lucrative but repulsive profession to which he was urged. Apparently the
disputes between father and son were frequent, protracted,
and animated. They were ended, or at least adjourned, through the intercession
of Beza’s elder brother. Unable to oppose the united entreaties of his two
sons, the father became less obdurate, and domestic harmony was finally
restored by a compact on these terms: that the two brothers should hire for
themselves a house at common expense, and that, while the elder should devote
himself to the family affairs, the younger should enjoy his liberty to study.
“Accordingly,”
says Beza, “I lived one year and then a second in by far the most blessed
manner, since I lacked neither leisure, nor any kind of teachers, nor abundance
of means, nor, in fine, the inclination to master those studies which, as you
know, have pleased me supremely.’’
The
untimely, if not altogether unexpected, death of his brother broke rudely in
upon Beza’s delight. This blow recalled to the father’s mind his former
purposes regarding his son, and caused him again to insist upon a final
renunciation of the scholarly life to which Theodore had hitherto devoted
himself.
“I
am weighed down,” said Pierre, “by a great mass of affairs, and have reached
an advanced age. It is but just and fair that you, my son, upon whom all my
hopes are fixed, should assume the burden. Yield at length and consult your own
best interests and the interests of your friends, and give up those empty and
profitless studies which you have pursued for so many years.”
Theodore,
however, was not convinced that the path urged upon him was that which he ought
to take, and resisted with great determination. Conscious of the possession of
abilities for which the life of routine in a profession which he detested
offered no scope, he felt that to yield would be to make shipwreck of all
higher aspirations. In this he was doubtless encouraged by the judgments which
his associates had passed upon his literary powers, although not even their
most sanguine anticipations could have forecast the particular sphere of his
brilliant successes. It is difficult, however, in view of the great part which
Beza was destined to play in the religious and political history of the
sixteenth century, to close our eyes to the providential guidance of his mind
and will in the strenuous opposition which he instituted and maintained to
forces that might have made him possibly a counsellor of parliament conspicuous
for intelligence and for greater freedom from class prejudice than his fellows,
but exercising no appreciable influence upon the great movements of the
intellectual and religious thought of his generation.
How
long the obstinate contest between father and son might have lasted, and to
what lengths the former might have gone in his indignation at the
disappointment of his cherished hopes, had it not been for the enlightened
views and calm judgment of the Abbé de Froidmont, are
questions that we cannot answer. That sagacious kinsman, who had more than once
before given useful advice, being now chosen, by mutual consent of the parties,
to the honourable office of umpire, gave a
decision which if it did not satisfy his nephew’s
desires, at least seemed to him slightly more equitable
than the course hitherto prescribed. “Inasmuch as Theodore
is so averse to the practice of the law,” he said,
“ let him indeed continue in the course upon which
he has entered; let him, however, become the
client of some prince or magnate from whom there
may be hope of deriving some fruit of
his labours.”
Sooth to say, the line of life suggested by his uncle was scarcely less
repugnant to the young and ambitious student than
that which his father would have had him follow.
“What
do you fancy that my feelings were then, my friend Pompon? ” he
exclaimed. “Was I to go to the court, I who had learned neither how to
dissemble nor how to flatter? Was I to embrace
this mode of life subject to so many tumults, I who hoped to live in such honourable leisure?”
Yet
yield he must, for fear that worse
might befall him. He had chosen, or there had been chosen
for him, the Bishop of Coutances as the patron
under whose auspices he was to enter upon the life of a courtier;
he had in fact just been introduced
to the palace and household of this “magnate,” when circumstances occurred which, as was thought at the time, merely deferred until a future occasion the
execution of his uncle’s designs, but which
in reality, as it turned out, altogether frustrated
them. In his contemporaneous correspondence the circumstances
in question are somewhat vaguely designated as the “storms
of wars”; but as the letter containing the expression is unfortunately without
the date of the year, it is perhaps impossible to ascertain definitely the
political or military events particularly referred to. Meanwhile Beza gladly
welcomed any respite from the employment to which he had so lately deemed
himself condemned.
“
Thus has it come to pass,” he gleefully wrote, that I have returned to my
former manner of life, in which, unless some greater force shall hinder, I
shall assuredly grow old. And I feel confident that at length I shall leave to
posterity the proof that Beza did not live utterly idle, albeit he lived in the
greatest leisure.”
The
last words, written in the confidence of friendship, give us the clue to the
employments and aspirations of this somewhat obscure period of Beza’s life.
His was no trifler’s existence. If he daily spent some hours in the company of
a select number of wits of his own age, and if he may occasionally have seemed
to have no higher aim than by intercourse with them to strive to give a keener
edge to his incisive speech, by far the greater part of his time was devoted
to more serious efforts. Year by year, partly alone, partly with the help of
the numerous excellent teachers whom he had at command, he was making progress
in the departments of study upon which he had already entered, and entering
fields previously unexplored. All this was to be no less serviceable to him in
that future of which he could as yet have had scarcely even a suspicion, than
the literary acumen which attrition with men of similar tastes and gifts was
conferring upon him. There seem to have been some fruits early in his residence
at Paris of the legal studies imposed upon him by his father, or undertaken
from a sense of compunction at seeming to pay little or no respect to that
father’s wishes. A casual reference made in the postscript of one of his
letters to a treatise on the Salic Law, that might be expected to issue from
the press within a few months, and “ under his auspices,” points apparently to
some results of attention given to the theory of law, which was less repugnant
to him than its practice. Be that as it may, there is, so far as I know, no
evidence that the book or booklet in question ever actually appeared. In the
same letter the writer speaks of devoting hours to the reading of Hebrew.
Occasionally, too, he varied his work by perfecting his acquaintance with
mathematics. To Latin and Greek he undoubtedly still gave great attention. If
the foundations of an accurate knowledge of the latter tongue had been well
laid while he was under the instruction of Wolmar, there must have been built
up during the years of private study at Paris that superstructure of close and
intimate familiarity with the idiom of the language which stood him in good
stead both at Lausanne and at Geneva. It was evidently a long course of
preliminary reading that qualified him for the discharge of the duties of
professor of Greek in the college of Lausanne—a position
which he accepted soon after his expatriation, and which he retained for the
next nine or ten years—as well as for his work of Biblical interpretation.
In
the enjoyment of means and of leisure, now at length secured, to gratify to the
full his literary and studious tastes, it might have seemed that Beza must
possess everything essential to his happiness. It was not so. I have already
referred to the unrest of his soul from the moment of his return to Paris, and
to the distinct purpose which he had soon formed to break loose in due time
from everything detaining him in a land where he could not profess the
doctrines with which he had become imbued from association with Wolmar,—the
purpose to . direct his steps to a country in which liberty of conscience
reigned, and where, in company with his old preceptor, he might live an ideal
existence. This purpose he never renounced. Neither, on the other hand, did the
allurements by which he was surrounded lose their force. Between the higher and
the lower motives, the struggle in Beza’s soul was severe and protracted. I
pass on to the events in which the conflict issued.
Of
these the first was his secret marriage.
Beza
had not taken the first step toward becoming a priest. He had never assumed the
vows that condemn to a life of celibacy. Yet, in accordance with an abuse
against which complaints had certainly been numerous enough, but
which no complaints had been potent enough to eradicate, he was enjoying,
although a layman, the income of more than one ecclesiastical foundation. He
was flattered by the hope of obtaining still greater resources of the same kind
in future. There were many other favourites of
fortune that found themselves in a similar situation. The world was so used to
the sight of laymen fattening upon the Church’s pastures, that the unthinking
were not even greatly startled when the intruder was the most unfit of men for
the discharge of sacred functions, possibly as unblushing in the immorality of
his life as the libertine Abbé de Brantome of a later
period. They were shocked only when the lay abbot married and shut himself off
from the possibility of ever becoming a clergyman.
Claudine Desnoz was the name of the young woman upon whom
Beza’s choice fell. She was of a reputable family, but, as Beza himself admits,
of a family inferior in station to his own. In view of the fact that her
husband, who was by no means indifferent to matters of the kind, has nothing to
say of her gentle birth, we may well dismiss as pure fictions such statements
as that she was the daughter of an advocate of Paris, or the sister of a
bishop of Grenoble. Be this, however, as it may, the marriage took
place apparently at some time in the year 1544, and the witnesses were two of
Beza’s most intimate and honourable friends, both of
them jurists of distinction, Laurent de Normandie and Jean
Crespin. Of the latter I shall have more to say presently. As to the marriage
itself, much as the secrecy with which it was entered into must be condemned,
the union, duly ratified as it was four years later in a public ceremonial,
proved a harmonious and congenial one that lasted until the death of Claudine.
In
later times Beza proved himself no irresolute man. At the present time, whether
it should be said that the desirability of earthly possessions and ease and
leisure to pursue his studies with an assiduity that had won him among his
companions the playful appellation of “the new philosopher,” loomed up before
his eyes in exaggerated proportions, or that the far more exceeding value of
the favour of God and of a clear conscience void of
offence with Him and with men had not yet become to him a living reality, he
long remained in a pitiable condition of uncertainty, not so much respecting
what he ought to do as respecting what he could bring himself to do. Nothing
short of a miracle seemed necessary to draw him out of the mire in which, to
use his own expression, he found himself caught, unable to come to a definite
conclusion ; with all his relations prompting him to adopt some certain course
of life from which he might acquire wealth and distinction, and his kindly
uncle offering him the prospect of still greater property, while, on the other
hand, conscience pointed him in a different direction and his wife pressed him
again and again to execute his long-deferred purpose to acknowledge her before
the world.
That
miracle was wrought in his conversion, which dates from the latter part of the
year 1548.
Before
speaking of this turning-point in his life, it is appropriate that I should
speak of the publication, early in the same year, of the collection of his
poems which came to be styled his Juvenilia. These celebrated pieces belong
altogether to his youth, that is, to the period in which he was in no sense a
Reformer, but, instead, a brilliant and ambitious devotee of belles-lettres.
Though many of them had circulated freely among the author’s friends and admirers,
they had never been given to the public through the press.
It
was evidently not without some scarcely concealed satisfaction at the neatness
of his work, that Beza dedicated these first-fruits of his poetical efforts to
his old preceptor Melchior Wolmar. Beza was twenty-eight or twenty-nine years
of age. Neither the young man who dedicated, nor the old man who accepted the
dedication with obvious delight, saw anything amiss in these poems.
Twelve
years more elapsed, and Beza, now become a man of forty, an avowed Protestant
and a zealous Reformer, had occasion to dedicate to his former teacher a second
volume of an entirely different character, which he entitled a Confession of
the Christian Faith. He assigned two motives for so doing. The one was that he
might return to Wolmar some harvest from the field which Wolmar had sown; the
other, that he might have the opportunity of offering his master a book
infinitely better and more holy than the poems which, it seems, Wolmar had
urged him to republish. To this statement he appended a few pathetic words :
“As
respects those poems, who is there that either has condemned them more than I,
their unhappy author, or that detests them more than I do today ? Would, therefore,
that they might at length be buried in perpetual oblivion! And may the Lord
grant that, since it is impossible that what has been done should be undone,
the persons who shall read writings of mine far different from those poems may
rather congratulate me upon the greatness of God’s goodness to me, than accuse
him who voluntarily makes confession and deprecates the fault of his youth.”
These
are the brave and honest words of a man true to his convictions and more
anxious to set himself right at the bar of his own conscience than to forestall
the adverse judgment of others. For, in point of fact, learned and cultured
men, and none more than the adherents of the other faith, applauded the
sprightliness of his verses and never thought of condemning them as wanton,
certainly never gave expression to such a thought. Thus the grave and learned
President Etienne Pasquier, in his great work on The
Researches of France, remarked that “Beza in his youth composed divers French
and Latin poems which were very favourably received
throughout all France, and particularly his Latin epigrams, wherein he
celebrated his mistress under the name of Candida.” “In 1548,” he adds, “ when
he changed his religion, he made a show of despising them.”
Literary
productions upon which their author himself sets a low estimate have in
ordinary cases a fair chance of being forgotten by others naturally less
interested in preserving them. The odium theologicum of which Beza was
the object may safely be credited with being the cause of the survival and
celebrity of the Juvenilia. In fact, the outrageous misrepresentation of
enemies, determined to discover in what was most innocent untold depths of
depravity, compelled the very author who had vainly sought to consign them to
forgetfulness, himself to bring them out again in subsequent editions, so that
he might be able to show to the world what were in reality these lighter poems
so maligned by men who had a manifest purpose in their inventions. The contrast
between the Juvenilia and the sacred drama of Abraham Sacrifiant,
or the metrical translation of the Psalms of David, might be unedifying enough;
but, at least, the republication was sufficient to cast to the winds those foul
calumnies that breed most readily in darkness and ignorance.
What,
then, were these much-abused epigrams? Just such poems as a very young
man—almost all of them were written before Beza’s twentieth year, although they
were published some years later—might write; especially if that young man were
possessed of a certain skill in composing verses and were much encouraged
thereto by the applause that welcomed his first efforts; most of all if,
wielding a facile pen, he were uncommonly learned for his age in classical
literature, admiring Virgil, adoring Ovid, and conscious of no higher ambition,
so far as style was concerned, than to spend his hours of relaxation in
imitating and endeavouring to equal or, if possible,
excel the wonderful elegance of Catullus. It was the fashion of the age to
indulge in a freedom of language which offends a more modern sense of
propriety, but by no means proves that the life of the writer was impure.
Indeed, the poet indignantly protests against such an inference and confidently
appeals to the testimony of those that knew him intimately to establish the
contrary.
“There
are among my poems,” he wrote, ‘‘a few that are written in somewhat too free a
tone, that is, in imitation of Catullus and Ovid; but I had not the slightest
fear at that time, nor do I now fear, lest those that knew me as I was should
gauge my morals by those playful inventions of my imagination.”
On
this score nothing more need be said than that not
many of the Juvenilia are open to the charge of indelicacy, while many are
above reproach; none more charming and innocent than the celebrated poem
addressed to a fictitious Audebert, a companion and
equal in years, wherein the rival claims of friendship and love are poetically
set forth. It has been the misfortune of Beza, as it is a striking illustration
of the perverse imaginations of those who will see evil in everything on which
they cast their jaundiced eyes, that this most graceful and delightful of
lyrics has been furiously attacked as if it were a shameless avowal of
unnatural passion.
In
sum, it may be safely said that poems which were read and admired by the
cultured throughout France would never have met with censure or provoked
controversy, had it not been that their author, subsequently to their
publication and many years later than their composition, was converted to other
and worthier views of life and its great objects. They belong to a stage of
Beza’s life with which he had completely broken when, under ’the sway of strong
religious convictions, he turned his steps toward Switzerland; and so far from
seeking for a life of quiet and self-indulgence, deliberately renounced a future
of ease for the prospect of comparative poverty, of conflict, and of peril.
CHAPTER
III
CONVERSION
OF BEZA—DEPARTURE FROM FRANCE —CALL TO LAUSANNE—“ ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE ”
1548-1550
THE
conversion of Theodore Beza occurred a few months after the publication of the
Juvenilia and in connection with an illness of so serious a nature that his
life was for a time in doubt. Never had man greater reason to regard an
apparent calamity as a blessing in disguise. He rose from the bed upon which
disease had cast him with views and aims totally different from those which he
had cherished until then. The same letter that has enabled us to trace to some
extent his intellectual development, raises for a moment the veil that hides
the innermost spiritual experiences of the man from the scrutiny of his fellow.
Hours of enforced idleness, as well as of extreme peril and suffering, were the
condition of his gaining the first glimpse of his true character in God’s
sight. Past and present alike seemed to arise and accuse him, and their
testimony could not be silenced or refuted. Turn his eyes which way he would,
he found confronting him the judgment throne of an offended
Deity. The agony was sharp and protracted. It was mercifully succeeded by a
view of the pardon extended to him no less distinct and beyond the realm of
doubt. Abhorrence of his sins was followed by petitions for forgiveness, and
these by a full consecration of his powers to the service of his Saviour. From extreme darkness verging upon despair, he
emerged into a brilliant and enduring light.
Clearness
of religious conviction led to decided and instantaneous action. Old objections
and obstacles vanished or were brushed aside. Theodore Beza once thoroughly
convinced of duty was not the man to postpone action, or, in the apostle’s
words, to be disobedient to the heavenly vision. He did not even wait until he
was fully restored to health, but while still far from strong carried into
effect the resolution which he had formed of betaking himself to a land where
he could freely make profession of his religious belief. He gathered together
such of his property as he could carry with him, and, not announcing his
purpose to any of his friends or relatives, made his way, accompanied by his
wife, and under the assumed name, it is said, of Thibaud de May, to the city of Geneva. He reached it on the 24th of October, 1548.
Such
in brief is Beza’s account of the decisive step of his life—no precipitate and
enforced flight of a villain unwhipped of justice, a flight rendered necessary
by flagitious crimes committed, as malignant and mendacious calumniators
subsequently and down to our times have dared to assert with unblushing
effrontery, but the honourable withdrawal of an
honest man from a country with which were bound up all his prospects of
preferment and of worldly prosperity, that in a foreign land he might seek and
obtain, along possibly with the discomforts of poverty, the freedom to worship
God in accordance with the dictates of his conscience. One of his first acts on
reaching Geneva was to procure the public and solemn recognition of his marriage
with Claudine Desnoz.
His
future was all unknown to him. He possessed no handicraft by means of which the
emigrant may hope, as soon as he has gained a slight footing in a foreign land,
to secure subsistence. Of learned and unpractical scholars there was an
abundance both in Switzerland and in Germany. Many of these were penniless and
a burden upon their hosts. We have no reason to believe that this was the case
with Theodore Beza, who in his quiet removal from his native land may well be
supposed to have been able to bring with him all the funds necessary to meet
the temporary needs at least of himself and his wife. But his open renunciation
of the Roman Catholic Church cut off every channel of supply that had flowed
so freely hitherto, save such as came from the paternal estates; and the anger
of father, uncle, and other kinsmen might well be expected to interrupt, if
not permanently end, all expectations from this quarter. Under these
circumstances, Beza’s thoughts at first turned to a pursuit which, although not
strictly a learned profession, had been taken up by some of the most eminent
scholars of the day. I refer to the printing of books, which, in the hands of
the Aldi at Venice and the Etiennes or Stephens of
his own native land, had attained, or was soon to attain, the distinction of
ranking with the fine arts. Jean Crespin, a native of Arras, came to Geneva at
the same time with Beza. They were men of about the same age. Both had studied
law, and both had been affected by the “new doctrines,” as they were called.
Crespin, in particular, had witnessed in the city of Paris, where he was
admitted as an advocate of the court of Parliament, the triumphant death of at
least one Protestant martyr. The constancy of Claude Le Peintre,
a goldsmith, burnt alive on the Place Maubert, in
1540, seems to have led Crespin to the distinct espousal of the tenets of the
Preformed Churches. Similarity of views brought the young men
together, and they naturally conceived the idea of establishing at Geneva, on
the very frontiers of France, a great printing establishment from which books
and publications of various kinds in favour of the
Gospel might be issued and circulated far and near throughout the kingdom. The
project as a joint enterprise finally fell through; for there was in store for
Beza a career of usefulness of quite a different character and better suited to
his resplendent abilities. But Jean Crespin did not abandon his purpose. His
plans were realised within a few years so
successfully that not only did his presses gain a celebrity for the beauty of
their products only second to the fame of the presses of the great printers I
have named, but became instrumental in giving a great impulse to the doctrines
of the Reformation.
His
own personal activity as an author did good service in his great martyrology,
which, in successive editions and under different titles, chronicled “the
Acts and Monuments of the martyrs who from Wyclif and Huss until this our age
have steadfastly sealed the truth of the Gospel with their blood in Germany,
France, England, Flanders, Italy, and Spain itself.” It was a great historical
and biographical work, not indeed free from occasional errors—errors that may
well be excused, in view of the difficulty and dangers encountered in the
collection of so great a number of particular facts from widely different
sources and even from well-guarded prisons and places of execution—but a work,
nevertheless, for the most part, wonderfully exact and trustworthy, with which
Crespin is to be congratulated for having linked his name for all time.’
But
while it may not have been very long before Beza definitely renounced the
career to which Crespin would gladly have welcomed him, it did not at once
appear to what department of activity a man of such marked abilities should
devote himself. For manifold were the advantages he possessed. His personal
appearance was striking. He was of good stature and well proportioned. His
countenance was very pleasing. Refinement was stamped upon his features. His
whole bearing was that of a man accustomed to the best society. His manners at
once conciliated the favour of the great and found
him friends among the gentle sex. This is the testimony both of the inimical
historian of The Origin, Progress, and Ruin of the Heresies of Our Time,
Florimond de Raemond, and of the Jesuit Maimbourg.The latter writer furthermore volunteers the
statement that it was undeniable that Beza’s intellect was of a very high
order, being keen, ready, acute, sprightly, and bright, for he had taken pains
to cultivate it by the study of belles-lettres and particularly of poetry,
wherein he excelled both in French and in Latin. To which very handsome tribute
the critic somewhat grudgingly adds a concession that Beza knew a little
philosophy and jurisprudence, learned in the schools of Orleans. Allowance
being made in the last sentence for the strong prejudice of the partisan
historian, the portrait may be accepted as sufficiently accurate, as it is
unexpectedly favourable.
That
Theodore Beza was welcomed with delight by John Calvin need scarcely be said.
The great Reformer, now at the height of his renown and usefulness, had never
forgotten the promising lad, ten years his junior, who had studied under the
same teacher and of whose singular brilliancy that teacher had never tired of
making mention. And now that, after a long period of hesitation, Beza, by a
single bold step, had broken with the past and, sacrificing rank, ease, and
every worldly consideration, had thrown himself in for life or for death with
the reformatory movement to which Calvin had devoted his own magnificent
powers, the joy and the thankfulness to Heaven with which the latter welcomed
the new recruit were mingled with lively curiosity respecting the particular
work which Providence had reserved for him to accomplish.
As
I have said, that work did not at once disclose itself to view. The enfeebled
condition of Beza, but lately risen from a very critical illness, did not incline
him to great haste in the search. Thus it was that after a few months’ stay in
Geneva he fulfilled what had for years been a strong wish of his heart, and
made a journey to southern Germany to see his old preceptor, Melchior Wolmar,
at Tubingen. Pupil and teacher seem not to have met since Wolmar made Beza a
brief visit, early in the latter’s stay at Paris, when the German was sent on a
diplomatic errand by the Duke of Wurttemberg to the French court. That was ten
years ago; but the intensity of the mutual love of Wolmar and Beza had suffered
no abatement. The greetings were as kind and affectionate
as could be imagined. Yet Beza made no attempt to carry out his early dream of
study and leisure in Wolmar’s neighbourhood. It must
be supposed that scholarly idleness had lost its charm for a man who had now
acquired a new earnestness of purpose; and in the troubled state of Germany at
the moment, Beza saw no opportunities beyond the Rhine to further the work to
which he had devoted his life.
On
his way back to Geneva Beza naturally passed through Lausanne, the most
important place in what at the present time constitutes the Canton of Vaud, one
of the members of the Helvetic Union. At Lausanne he met Pierre Viret, himself a native of Orbe in this district, who after having played an important part in the reformation
of Geneva, had of late been labouring for the same
cause in his native region. Viret recognised in Theodore Beza the very man whom he needed as a colleague in the Academie,” or University, recently
established at Lausanne, and he begged him to accept a chair in this
institution.
The
Pays de Vaud, as it was styled, had long been a part of the dominions of the
Duke of Savoy. Its conquest by the Bernese was a sequence of the campaign of
1536, in the course of which the great Swiss Canton of Bern sent an army of six
thousand men, under the celebrated Naegeli, to the
relief of Geneva. Not content with having accomplished the chief object of their
undertaking, and encouraged by the absence of the opposition which they had
expected to meet, the Bernese proceeded to annex not only the
district of Chablais, on the southern side of Lake Leman, but the district of Gex, and the greater part of that of Vaud, on the western
and northern shores. At first the rich bishopric of the “imperial” city of
Lausanne was exempted from seizure. But the prize was too tempting. In a second
incursion, made only two months later in the same year, the episcopal domain
also was incorporated in the possessions of the Canton of Bern. For his
misfortune the Bishop of Lausanne, Sebastian de Montfaucon,
had only himself to blame. He had been so imprudent as to write from the town
of Fribourg, where he had taken refuge, a letter inciting the people of his
diocese to take up arms against the Bernese? This was early in 1536. At once
the conquerors set about consolidating their power by the abolition of the
three special “ estates ” of Lausanne, as well as of the “ estates ” by which
Vaud was governed, and by the substitution of a government administered
through eight bailiffs set up at as many places in the district. A solemn
conference, or colloquy, was called by the Lords of Bern and met, in October,
in the cathedral of Lausanne during a number of successive days. Here were discussed
ten theses drawn up by the Reformer, William Farel?
Six commissioners of Bern and of Vaud were present to hear the debate. Four
presidents superintended the sessions. Four notaries kept an official
record of the proceedings, and read, as the occasion arose, any chapter of Holy
Scripture that might be called for. The discussion covered in general the whole
field of controversy between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. It was
carried on with vigour, but with more hopefulness by
the Reformers—Farel, Viret,
Calvin, and others—than by their opponents. As the Roman Catholics entered
upon the struggle reluctantly, their first step was to submit a protest on the
part of the chapter of the cathedral itself against any disputation. God is
not, said they, the author of dissension but of peace, and discussion may be
pernicious to the particular church, which even though gathered in Christ’s
name is liable to fall into error. When this protest and other protests of a
like kind were disregarded, the opposition instituted was somewhat wanting in
courage, as though the result of the matter were a foregone conclusion. Once,
indeed, Jean Michodus, “ the Reverend of Vevey,” grew
confident when replying to the Protestant view of the impossibility of
justification by works as set forth by Saint Paul, and turned upon one of the
champions of the other side, Caroli, formerly a Roman Catholic doctor of the
Sorbonne, now a professed Protestant, although later he returned to his
original faith.
“I
have heard many good doctors at Paris,” said he, “but they did not, like you,
explain the third chapter of Romans as referring to the deeds of the law, but
only to the ceremonies. And you yourself, Monsieur our master
Caroli, I have heard you explain this passage otherwise than as you expound it
now.”
To
which Caroli could only reply:
“
That I expounded this passage as you assert, I confess. I was then of the
number of the persons of whom Saint Peter speaks, those ignorant men that wrest
the Holy Scriptures, because they do not understand them. So I acted, and could
not satisfy my own conscience. Then I set myself to reading the Scriptures and
comparing passage with passage, and praying God to grant me a true
intelligence. And God has opened my understanding. He has brought me to the
true knowledge of His gospel, as you see. Do not therefore marvel if I have
changed; but rather do as I have done, forsake every doctrine not taken from
the Scriptures, and hold by them alone.”
There was a dramatic episode at one point when the ground of justification was under discussion. Farel called for the reading of the latter part of Romans iii., and exclaimed : “You see how that it is freely, without desert, without the deeds of the law, that a man is justified!’’ Hereupon the Roman Catholic disputant, a physician, Dr. Blancherose, burst out: I do not believe that it is so.” At once a Bible was brought and laid before him, not a printed volume of modern times, whose authority might be questioned, but an old manuscript Bible written on parchment, taken from the library of the Franciscan convent, and he was bidden to read the passage for himself. There to his amazement were the words themselves, and, though scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, he cried out: “ It is true. A man is justified by faith as the holy Apostle says! We are not saved by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, God saved us! ” The
commissioners had no judicial powers. They could only report the proceedings of
the colloquy to the Lords of Bern. The answer of the latter was soon
forthcoming. The conference ended on Sunday, the 8th of October; on Thursday,
the 19th, or only eleven days later, the decree was issued. By virtue of their
duty not only to govern their subjects in equity and justice, but “to employ
all diligence and force that these subjects may live according to God in true
and lively faith which produces good works,” the Bernese proclaimed their
decision “to cast down all idolatries, papal ceremonies, traditions, and
ordinances of men not conformable to the Word of God.” In the execution of this
purpose, they ordered all their bailiffs and subordinate officers to make a
personal visitation, immediately upon the receipt of these letters, and command
all priests, deans, canons, and other churchmen so called at once to desist
from all “papistical ceremonies, sacrifices, offices, institutions, and
traditions,” as they desired to avoid the displeasure of the government. They
especially recommended them without delay to overthrow all images, idols, and
altars, whether in church or monastery; doing all this without
disorder or tumult. And they bade all these and their other subjects to betake
themselves, for the purpose of hearing the Word of God, to the nearest places
in which preachers had already been appointed or should hereafter be appointed,
and to give them a favourable audience. As to the
further dispositions respecting the so-called churchmen and church property,
the latter gave promise, with God’s help, of “ so reasonable and holy a
reformation that God and the world shall be well pleased.”
Lausanne
had not waited for the receipt of the decision of Bern. No sooner was the
conference concluded than the people, anticipating the forthcoming decree,
began in an unauthorised fashion the work of
destruction and spoliation. The beautiful cathedral of Notre Dame was the first
victim of their iconoclastic zeal, and a church whose erection is traced back
to the early part of the thirteenth century still bears testimony to the zeal
of men who were resolved to remove every trace of a superstitious worship.
Here, as elsewhere throughout Vaud, there was no lack of opposition; but the
overwhelming influence of the great Canton of Bern everywhere carried the day,
and the whole district was ultimately brought over to a profession of the
Reformed doctrines.
The
immense store of treasures which the cathedral contained was dispersed. A
large part found its way to Bern. But fortunately the government of this
sagacious republic saw the propriety of applying no inconsiderable portion of
the ecclesiastical property that fell into its hands to the promotion of the
higher intellectual interests of the region itself. Whether from disinterested
motives, or from the desire to attach their new subjects to them by self-interest,
the Lords of Bern gave to the communes, or sold to them at an insignificant
price, lands heretofore belonging to churches and monastic foundations, and
we are told that the proceeds of this property served to form those school and
eleemosynary funds which the Vaudois townships still possess at the present
day.
A
fragment of the treasures, or of the endowment of the cathedral of Lausanne,
was applied to the establishment of the “Académie.”
The Bernese in the capacity of lords paramount had, in accordance with the
prevalent ideas of the rights and duties of the civil government, undertaken to
change the religion of the Pays de Vaud. They had taken away a religion that
appealed to the senses and to the imagination of the people, and substituted
for it a religion which presupposed a knowledge of the Word of God; but they
had found themselves utterly unable to supply the teachers or preachers of that
smallest village, absolutely required in order to prevent the inhabitants from
lapsing into a state of still more abject ignorance than had hitherto prevailed.
It was primarily for the purpose of training men for the pastoral office, and
not for that of preparing men for professional or public life, that the “ Académie ” was founded.
Beza
did not at once undertake the duties which he was invited to assume, but
returned to Geneva and consulted with his brethren and especially with John
Calvin. The call was altogether unexpected, and Beza was at first
disposed to decline it. Doubtless, as Professor Baum suggests, the
state of his health, not yet altogether restored, was one chief reason for
this. But it would appear from the sequel that when he thought of deciding to
go to Lausanne the matter of the recent publication of his unfortunate
Juvenilia weighed much in his mind against such a step. But Viret wrote to Calvin, and the latter with other friends endeavoured to remove Beza’s scruples. The authorities of the Canton of Bern, adopting the
action of the Academy of Lausanne, extended a formal but flattering
invitation. To this Beza felt himself no longer at liberty to turn a deaf ear.
It is characteristic of the man, however, and the circumstance throws a bright
light upon the sincerity of his character and the thoroughness of his
conversion, that before he consented to be inducted into the office of a
teacher of sacred as well as secular learning to whom the interests of the
young were entrusted, he was foremost in calling the attention of the
ecclesiastical council which, as the manner of the Reformed Churches was, met
to inquire into his past life and into his doctrinal belief, to the great
error of his youth.
“Of
my own accord,” he writes at a later time, “I made mention of the Epigrams I
had published, lest perchance the matter might be to the damage of the Church,
because there were among them some of an amatory character and certainly now
and then written with too much license, that is, in imitation of the ancient
poets. It pleased the assembly of the brethren that nevertheless I should
assume that function in the Church, in the first place because it seemed
plainly unjust that in the case of a person who had passed over to Christ from
the Papal religion, just as from paganism, there should be imputed to him the
error in question in a life otherwise honourable and
blameless, and in the second place, because I voluntarily pledged myself to
make it publicly known to all men how greatly that inconsiderate act of mine
displeased me”
On assuming his office, Beza took an oath declaring his hearty approval of all the decrees of the disputation held at Bern in 1528 respecting the Christian religion, and promised, on pain of God’s anger, to conform his life and teaching thereto. Thus
began the course of a brilliant and fruitful professorship extending over a
period of nine years—1549-1558. The work was congenial. All his past studies
had prepared Theodore Beza for a thorough discharge of its duties. Greek was his favourite tongue. Its direct bearing upon the preparation
for the Christian ministry of the youth that were drawn to his class-room by
the reputation of his learning, procured him peculiar gratification. There had
been a time when secular learning pursued for its own sake satisfied his
highest aspirations; now he could not be happy without the conviction that, in
the professor’s chair, he was rendering no less important a service to the
advancement of religion than he would have rendered in the pulpit devoting his
entire time to the work of a popular preacher. Thus it was that his labour became from the very start a labour of love. Apart from the inspiration created by contact with bright minds among
his pupils, there was also the friendly intercourse with his eminent
colleagues and the growing intimacy with scholars and theologians eminent for
their attainments residing in neighbouring cities,
men already well known to him by reputation, but now beginning to be familiar
to him through personal relations or by correspondence—no small compensation
to his mind for the losses he had sustained in forsaking home and
native land—men like Bullinger, Musculus, and Haller, not to speak of Calvin
himself and Viret.
We
should have known, even had not Beza himself expressly told us, that it was
this thought and the analogy of the patriarch who, at the bidding of Jehovah,
left the land of his nativity not knowing whither he went, that chiefly
influenced Beza in the choice of the subject of the first poetical production
that he brought out after his conversion. He had not been quite a year at
Lausanne when he gave to the world a sacred tragedy, under the title of Abraham's
Sacrifice. In the preface he introduced it with these words (dated Lausanne,
the 1st of October, 1550):
“I admit that by nature I have always delighted in poetry, and I cannot yet
repent of it; but much do I regret to have employed the slender gifts with
which God has endowed me in this regard, upon things of which the mere
recollection at present makes me blush. I have therefore given myself to such
matters as are more holy, hoping to continue therein hereafter.”
The
drama was written originally for the use of the students, and was first
performed by them in one of the halls of the former officiality, or seat of
the judge representing the late Bishop of Lausanne in the trial of
ecclesiastical cases. So favourable was its reception
by the public, that it was repeatedly brought on the boards. From Lausanne it
passed to other places not only in Switzerland, but in France, where it was
played with great applause in many cities. It was also translated into foreign
tongues. The famous President Etienne Pasquier, while
he is certainly mistaken in the date and occasion to which he
ascribes the work, is a witness whose testimony cannot be challenged to the
impression it made upon himself: “Theodore Beza, a fine poet, both Latin and
French, composed, on the accession of King Henry [the Second], the Sacrifice
of Abraham in French verse, so well portrayed to the life, that, as I read it
in former days, tears flowed from my eyes.” The most pathetic passage is
naturally that which culminates in the last dialogue between the patriarch and
his son as the latter is about to be sacrificed. A modern French critic of high
standing may here be allowed to speak, especially as he institutes a favourable comparison between Beza’s work and that of the
great Racine himself, which might be esteemed presumptuous if instituted by a
foreigner. In analysing the latter part of the drama,
A. Sayous, in his Etudes Litteraires,
observes upon the passage where Abraham turns to immolate Isaac, that
In
which bold advocacy of the composition of the French Reformer, the acute critic
fortifies himself by citing the German poet Chamisso “ who pushed his admiration so far as to compare the dialogue between Isaac and
Abraham to the most divine productions of the Greeks.” 1
CHAPTER
IV
TREATISE
ON THE PUNISHMENT OF HERETICS
1554
WITH
little pleasure we turn from the first of the poetical compositions written
after Theodore Beza’s conversion, to the first of his graver
and more important writings in prose.
Abundant
attention was given in a previous chapter to the youthful error of Beza into
which he fell before he broke with his old thoughts and purposes in life, an
error at a later time not merely deplored, but heartily repented of, candidly
confessed, and publicly condemned by him to the end of his days. I must now
speak of an act of his more mature life which our later age must regard as most
reprehensible, an act for which not only did he never express repentance, but
which he continued to justify as proper and righteous throughout a full
half-century, or to the very time of his death, with an unshaken conviction
that he was in the right. I refer to his public advocacy of the tenet, then
held by the vast majority of educated and religious men, but now as universally
repudiated, that heretics, and especially outrageous blasphemers, may and ought
to be punished by the civil authorities, even capitally. In 1554 Beza first
published his treatise “Concerning the duty of punishing heretics by the
civil magistrate: in answer to the medley of Martin Bellius and the sect of the new Academics”.
The
controversy arose from the execution of the Spanish physician Michael Servetus,
burnt alive at the stake on the hill of Champel, at
Geneva, on the 27th of October, 1553.
The
main facts in the case are incontrovertible and are so familiar to all readers
of history, that the barest reminder is necessary in this place. Having been apprehended
at Vienne, near Lyons, Servetus escaped from the hands of the Roman Catholic
judges by a secret flight, and in his absence was condemned, as a heretic and a
fugitive, to a death by slow fire. But he had avoided one danger only to fall
into another equally appalling. Discovered in the city of Geneva by John
Calvin, and by him denounced to the civil authorities, he was again tried,
found guilty, and sentenced to the same punishment. Calvin had long since
forewarned Servetus of the peril he would incur by coming to Geneva. He now
openly advocated his being put to death. It is the great blot upon his name. It
is the one great error of his life which has given occasion to his enemies and
the adversaries of the Protestant faith to blaspheme. And this is none the
less true if we concede, as we must concede, that his fault
was the fault of the great majority of his contemporaries, even the most pious
and excellent, who with him held the pestilent doctrine that sins against God,
transgressions against the first table of the law, may be punished, even
capitally, by the civil magistrate. It is not that, according to the popular
impression, John Calvin burned Servetus; for, in point of fact, so far from
burning him, he opposed this mode of execution as cruel; but that he, with his
intellect of the highest order and with a heart which we know otherwise to have
been kindly, had not enfranchised himself from old and traditional theories of
the province of the secular power, and as a Christian knew not what spirit he
was of; indeed, that he seemed to have receded from his own tolerant
expressions in the earliest edition of his Institutes, wherein he
asserted, respecting our treatment of the excommunicated, that we should live
with them as with Turks, Saracens, and other enemies of religion, striving,
meanwhile, in every possible manner, whether by exhortation and by teaching, or
by mildness and gentleness, or by prayers to God, to induce them to turn to the
better way and the society of the faithful.
To
cruelty in the putting of men out of the world, the men of the sixteenth
century were, unfortunately, pretty well used. The estrapade, in the neighbouring kingdom of France, had had its host of
victims, and the estrapade, ingeniously contrived to prolong the
tortures of the dying victim, by alternately lowering him into the flames and
hoisting him out, in preparation for a new exposure to the fire,
was, to say the least, quite as cruel as the ordinary execution at the stake.
It was therefore not so much the cruelty of the means used to put Servetus to
death, as the inconsistency of the Reformers in resorting to violence to
suppress heresy, that shocked many contemporaries, as it shocks us.
Among
those that entered a protest against the principle involved in the execution of
Servetus, was a writer who signed himself Martin Bellius,
but whose true name was suspected by Beza of being Sebastian Chasteillon, or Castalio. It
was in answer to his treatise that Beza wrote.
Castalio, if indeed it was he, had given to
his small volume, now become extremely rare, the form of an inquiry into the
question, “Whether heretics ought to be proceeded against, or persecuted, and,
in general, how they should be dealt with.” It claimed to be a book “of the
utmost necessity in this most turbulent time,” and was made up of a collection
of the sentiments of the learned in ancient and in modern times. To us, as we
shall see presently, the chief interest centres in
the remarkable dedicatory letter which the author prefixed to it. Castalio was a very erudite man, whose most noteworthy
production was a new translation of the Bible into the Latin language, the
result of the labours of ten years. In this he
strove, while often making a slight sacrifice of the literal form,
to give to the Holy Scriptures a clearness and an elegance of expression that
would commend them to a wider circle of readers, and enable them to supplant
profane writings in the schools. It is no impeachment of his good intentions,
or, indeed, of his scholarship, to admit that his Bible won no such place as
was anticipated for it by its author. Yet Castalio was no contemptible exegete. If the scholarly reader will take the trouble to
run through the pages of the lengthy treatise in which Beza reviews some of the
passages translated in his own Latin version of the New Testament, and to
compare them with the same passages as rendered by Castalio,
he will convince himself of this. For if he find Beza’s judgment in the great
majority of cases to be more sound than that of his opponent, yet will he
discover others where the latter shows himself superior. Thus Beza’s
interpretation of Heb. v., 7, in which he coincides with Calvin, is forced and
undoubtedly erroneous, while that of Castalio is
endorsed by the latest and best of recent scholars, and is certainly correct. As a teacher and successor of the famous Mathurin Corderius, Castalio had worthily discharged the duties of his
office in the college of Geneva, until, in consequence of differences of
opinion between himself and his old friend Calvin, he voluntarily retired, and
took up his abode first at Lausanne and then at Basel. Here he spent the rest
of his days in an honourable but painful struggle
against poverty. History has in our own times vindicated his claim to be
classed among the first and noblest assertors of the rights of the human
conscience. The letter to the Duke of Wurtemberg which “Martin Bellius” prefixed to his book on the
treatment of heretics, and in which he fully sets forth his views, has been
justly styled “one of the purest inspirations of the century,” “one of those
beneficent revelations that console for the excesses of another age,” in which
“its author proclaims, with rare eloquence, a truth so novel that it was to scandalise contemporaries—the right of every man to believe
freely and to assert his belief, remaining responsible for his errors only
before God.” A few sentences describing the state of Christendom may suffice to
convey a notion of its spirit:
“Nobody
can stand the slightest contradiction, and, although there are today nearly as
many opinions as there are men, there is not one sect that does not condemn
the others; hence exiles, chains, fires, the gallows, and that lamentable array
of punishments for the simple crime of holding views displeasing to the
powerful of the earth, on questions in dispute for centuries and still
unsettled.” “I have long been seeking to find out what a heretic is, and here
is what I have discovered: he is a man that thinks otherwise than we do
respecting religion.” “I ask you, Who would wish to be a Christian, when he
sees men that lay claim to that designation dragged to execution and treated
more cruelly than we treat thieves and robbers? Who would not believe that Christ
is a Moloch or some pitiless divinity demanding human sacrifices upon his
altars? ”
It
is deplorable to see a man of the intellect of Beza, through the long course of
a treatise which, in the edition of his collected theological works, Fills not
less than eighty-five closely printed folio pages, labouring to overthrow the arguments, for the most part clear and cogent, by means of
which Castalio and others, doubtless otherwise his
inferiors in dialectic skill, but on this question speaking from the fulness of
conviction, had built up a structure which in our eyes at least is impregnable.
It is not the only case in which, looking back from a considerable distance of
time upon a past conflict of arms, we cannot divest ourselves of the conviction
that there has been some frightful mistake, and that, from their character,
from their antecedents, from the community of their great aims, the combatants
ought to have been fighting, not as enemies, but as friends, in order to
conserve and not to tear down, making a common front against common foes. Nor
perhaps, is it an unwarrantable surmise that the strong personal friendship in
which he held Calvin, and the ardent desire to vindicate the propriety of
Calvin’s course, added unconsciously to the virulence with which Theodore Beza
treated both the memory of Servetus himself and the man who called in question
the justice of the punishment of Servetus. As for that heretic, he is to Beza,
I may remark, “of all men that have hitherto lived the most impious and blasphemous,”
while the men who have condemned his trial as iniquitous, are for him the
“emissaries of Satan.”
Castalio and his allies, according to Beza,
took three positions, each of which they defended by a variety of arguments.
The first was, That heretics ought not to be punished. The second was, That
heretics cannot justly be punished by the civil magistrate. The third was, That
heretics should not be punished with death. In order to prove that heretics
should not be punished, they alleged that the matters in controversy are not as
yet necessary to be known, nor can they be known save by the pure in heart,
nor, if known, would they make men better; that they cannot be decided by God’s
written Word. They argued from the examples of Judas Maccabeus and of Moses,
from the authority of Gamaliel and Paul, from the Scriptural description, of
Charity, from the mildness and gentleness that should characterise all Christians. They asserted that no class of men are less to be feared than
are heretics. They brought up instances of Christ’s clemency and benignity.
They showed that the civil magistrate leaves unpunished much greater
offenders—Turks, Jews, the proud, the avaricious, and the like. They boldly
claimed that in point of fact no one can be compelled to believe, and therefore
the attempt ought not to be made to compel men to believe.
They
proved that, if to be punished at all, the punishment
of heretics does not belong to the civil magistrate, by our Lord’s own
assertion that His kingdom is not of this world, and by that of Saint Paul that
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Theologians, they said, can defend
their doctrine, as do the professors of the other sciences, without a recourse
to the magistrate. They used Christ and His apostles as examples. They did not
forget to notice that the world is incompetent to judge of heresy, and that
most princes abuse their authority in this as in other things. They fortified
themselves with evidence drawn from the practice of the ancient Church.
As
to the third head, they made effective use of the Parable of the Tares and the
command to let the tares grow until the harvest. To permit the magistrate to
kill the heretic is, said they, to permit him to exercise God’s prerogative of
killing the soul. If heretics are to be slain, then the greater part of mankind
should be put to death. Saint Paul bids us “avoid,” not ‘‘kill,” the heretic,
and enjoins us, ”Judge nothing before the time.” The fear of death makes men
hypocrites. Many are the instances where such punishment has resulted very
badly. By the Church under the Emperors the life of even such an archheretic as Arius was spared.
Such
were, according to Beza, the arguments, often crudely stated, by which the
forerunners of that tolerance which has become the law of our higher civilisation undertook to establish principles which for us
have become axiomatic truths. As historic evidence of human progress they
deserve a place here. Nor would it be altogether uninteresting
to note in detail the answers by which Beza attempts to break the force of the
arguments of his opponents. But more important is it to examine the grounds on
which he undertakes affirmatively to establish his own allegations.
‘‘Heretics
are to be punished.’’ By heretics are not meant unbelievers, like Jews and
Turks; nor men of blameworthy lives, like thieves and murderers; nor men that
err from the truth through sheer simplicity and ignorance; but such persons as
lay claim to be called the faithful, and, having been legitimately convicted
from God’s Word, yet, following their own judgment, so pertinaciously and
resolutely defend certain false doctrines against the Church, as not to
hesitate by their factions to rend the Church’s peace and concord. That such
men ought to be punished, “no one—to my knowledge at least,—” says Beza, “has
been found thus far to call in question, with the exception of these new
Academics.” They are the greatest pests of the Church, true instruments of the
devil for its destruction. The great part of men live far from exemplary lives,
and are exposed to the violent assaults of the external foes of the Church ;
but so long as Doctrine remains safe, . it appears as a brilliant
constellation, a Cynosure by whose rays the pious may hold their course in the
midst of the tempest. But when Doctrine itself is so corrupted that the devil
lurks beneath it, what remains but that very many will embrace the devil in
place of God ? What but that very many, abandoning the hope of knowing the
truth, will cast from them all religion, and, in fine, there will arise a
horrible confusion in the Church of God ? The evil is most grave when Satan has
transformed himself and attacks the very vitals of the Church. Then the most
prompt, the sharpest, of remedies is called for. So far from having no
obligation to keep within bounds the spreading cancer, it may be necessary, in
order to save the rest of the body, for men to resort to cautery and knife.
This is shown by the testimony of God’s Word. Not to speak of laws against
blasphemers and false prophets, or of the acts of Moses, Asa, and Josiah, he
that will not hear the Church, we are told, is to be regarded as a Gentile and
a publican. If this was said of one who had committed a private wrong, much
more ought it to hold good in the case of one who plucks up religious Doctrine
itself. Thus did the apostles give over to Satan the heretics Philetus and Hymenaeus. The conclusion of the whole matter
is, therefore, that “those who think that heretics ought not to be
punished, are attempting to introduce into the Church of God the most
pestilent of all opinions, a view that conflicts with the doctrine first given
by God the Father, subsequently renewed by Christ, and finally practised by the universal orthodox Church by perpetual
consent.” ‘‘So that to me, indeed,” observes Beza, ‘‘such men appear to act
more absurdly than if they were to deny that sacrilegious persons or parricides
ought to be punished; since heretics are infinitely worse than all such
criminals. For which reason I shall not employ more words to
prove this part of the question, which I am confident that all who are not
altogether unjust judges will concede to me.”
If heretics, then, should be punished, by whom may punishment be
inflicted? “They are to be punished by the civil magistrate,’’
Beza replies. The chief end of human society is that God may receive the honour which men are bound to pay Him. Now, the civil
magistrate is the appointed guardian and governor of human society. He ought
therefore in the administration of the affairs of human society to take the
greatest account of this its chief end. It is his duty indeed, so far as in him
lies, to see that no discord shall intervene in the dealings of the citizens
with one another; but since it is not the ultimate and chief end of human
society that men should live together in peace, but rather that, living in
peace, they should worship God, it is the duty of the magistrate, even at the
cost of external peace, if it cannot be done otherwise, to secure the true
worship of God throughout the extent of his jurisdiction. So far is it from
being his duty to abstain from exercising solicitude for religion. But he cannot
conserve religion unless he coerces the pertinacious and factious despisers of
religion by the sword. It remains, that whoever undertakes to divorce the
magistrate from religion either does not know what is the true end of human
society, or conceals what he knows perfectly well. The exterior discipline of
the Church must be entrusted to one of the two—either to the civil magistrate
or to the ministers of the Church—otherwise there is anarchy. It
cannot be entrusted to the latter, else there would be a confused mingling of
the power of the sword and that of the keys. It must therefore be entrusted to
the former. To illustrate: An Anabaptist is denounced. The body of presbyters
assembles. He is summoned, but answers that he will have nothing to do with
sinners. How does the Church act? If it acts according to God’s Word, when the
unhappy man cannot be corrected in any other way, it delivers him unto Satan,
that he may learn not to blaspheme. He, on the other hand, willingly and of his
own accord, separates himself from the Church. Other fanatics follow him and so
a defection arises. Next some disciple of Servetus or Osiander will come forward. On being summoned, he will present himself, but it will be
to judge the Church. Being cast out, he too will find disciples, and hence
another faction. At length some “Academic,” an excellent and modest man,
forsooth, will make his appearance. When summoned, he will come and will
state, by way of preamble, that he is eager to learn, and that he reads and
hears everything. If you undertake to teach him, however, he prays that no
violence be done to his conscience. If you insist and expose his impudence in
corrupting the Scriptures, quite unlike the old philosophers of the Academy,
who used to assert that the only thing they knew was that they knew nothing, he
will tell you that no one knows anything but himself, and yet he will protest
that he condemns nobody. If he can find any means of so doing,
he, too, on being ejected from the Church, will set up another conventicle.
What shall the Church do in these circumstances? Cry unto the Lord, you say.
Yes, and despite Satan’s vain oposition, the Church will be saved. But the
hungry man cries and does not wait to be fed by an angel as was .Elijah. The
bread that is given him or that he seeks to obtain by his industry he regards
as provided for him by God. Suppose that there be in the Church a Christian
magistrate. Must he, who will not tolerate the dissensions of the citizens in
profane matters, remain quiet when the great end for which human society was
instituted is in question ? Or, are those rather to whom the power of the
sword is not entrusted, to be permitted to take upon them to exercise coercion
? Who does not see that if the ministry thus intrude on the office of the
magistrate, as the Roman Antichrist has done, there is the greatest danger of
dire confusion as the result of commingling what God Himself has made distinct?
Then, again, if the pastors, the shepherds of the flock, become transformed
into wolves, what is to be done? You will say, Let a Council be convened and
let it compel the submission of the unruly. But who shall summon the Council,
especially the Universal Council, if not the civil magistrate? For the
apostle’s prescription remains fixed, Let every soul be subject to the higher
powers.
All
this, says Beza, is confirmed by the authority of the Word of God—and here he
cites a multitude of passages of the Old Testament and of the New—and by the
opinions of the learned men of more modern times—Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and the like.
‘‘Heretics
are occasionally to be coerced even by capital punishment.” The right of the
magistrate to punish heretics being once proven, as Beza believed that he had
proved it, he found little difficulty in the matter of the amount or severity
of the punishment. The gravity of the crime of heresy is the first and chief
ground for the infliction of the penalty of death. Inasmuch as the purpose of
the law is to deter men from sin by the example of the punishment meted out to
the wrong-doer, it is right that the judge should take great account of
humanity. Thus it happens that one and the same offence is visited in the same
region, now with a more severe, now with a milder sentence. But there are some
crimes which, because of their enormity, are punished, among all races of men
above the rank of savages, not indeed by one particular kind of execution, but
yet universally by some form of death. Such are parricide, voluntary homicide,
sacrilege, blasphemy, impiety, or the violation of the publicly received
religion, and other crimes of the sort. The case is clear enough as far as
parricide, voluntary homicide, and sacrilege are concerned. It is surprising
that anybody should entertain doubts respecting blasphemy and impiety; for
nobody can deny that the magnitude of a crime is to be measured by the quality
of the person against whom the offence is committed. Blasphemy and impiety, by
which God’s majesty is attacked, are, therefore, so much the greater
crimes as His glory excels the dignity of men. Not that all blasphemers and
impious persons indiscriminately are to be punished, but only those that act
willingly and knowingly. Those that are without the Church must be left to God,
who will judge them or in His own time enlighten them. But those that are
within the Church must be admonished, first, privately, then before a greater
number, possibly dealt with more sharply. But if to blasphemy and impiety there
be added heresy, that is, a stubborn contempt of the Word of God and of Church
discipline, and if a mad fury for corrupting others also has taken possession
of them, what greater or more flagitious crime can arise among men ? If, then,
the mode of punishment ought to be regulated according to the greatness of the
crime, it would seem that no adequate penalty can be found for this heinous
enormity. A man who slays another, or commits any other crime against his neighbour, attacks the commonwealth, yet so as that some
estimate can be made of the injury; but he that publicly opens the way for the
corruption of God’s true worship, starts a conflagration which possibly shall
scarcely be extinguished by the everlasting destruction of an infinite number
of men. Whether to vindicate the glory of God or to preserve human society,
therefore, there are no men whom the magistrate ought to punish more severely
than heretical blasphemers.
Such,
briefly stated, were Beza’s arguments. He found them
to be in full accord with the precepts given by the Lord in the Old Testament
to slay without pity the introducer of strange gods, the false prophet, the
blasphemer, and the profaner of the Sabbath. Such commands, he said, have never
been repealed. The Mosaic Law remains in force, with the exception of the
ceremonial part. Of the other two divisions, the Decalogue or Moral Law, being
an accurate transcript of the Natural Law, in which man’s conscience agrees
with the unchanging will of God, cannot suffer destruction before nature itself
perishes, but abides the certain rule of right and wrong for all nations and
for all ages. The third division of the Mosaic Law, the judicial, is also of
universal obligation, in so far as its precepts do not relate to one people
alone, nor punish the violation of ceremonies now abolished by the Gospel, but
embrace that code of general equity which should everywhere prevail.
“In
fine,” said Beza, “I do not hesitate to affirm that those princes do their duty
who adopt as examples for their own imitation these laws of God, by establishing,
if not the very same kind of penalty, yet certainly the very same measure of
penalty, and who, as against factious apostates, enact some form of capital
punishment for horrible blasphemy and crime. For the majesty of God should be
held to be of such moment among all men, through the everlasting ages, that,
whoever scoffs at it, because he scoffs at the very Author of life, most justly
deserves to be put to death by violence. This I say, this I cry aloud, relying
upon the truth of God and the testimony of conscience. Let my opponents shout until
they are hoarse that we are savage, cruel, inhuman, bloodthirsty. Yet shall the
truth conquer and show at length that those deserve these epithets who, in
their preposterous or insincere zeal for clemency, suffer the wolves to fatten
upon the life of the sheep rather than do their duty in vindicating the majesty
of God.”
Most
deplorable indeed is the error of Beza, both because of the perverted view he
presented of the duty of the Christian Church to appeal to the State for aid in
its conflict with heresy, and because of the equally disastrous notion he
entertained of the duty of the Christian ruler to punish, even with death, the
crime of active dissent from the Church’s tenets. It is impossible for us,
however, to deny the sincerity of the conviction, animating him and his
fellow-reformers, that the indiscriminate admission into the Christian State
of all shades of religious thought would at no distant period prove the State’s
ruin. It was this conviction that rendered Beza blind to the consequences that
were sure to follow, and that did follow, the approval of the principle
enunciated by Saint Augustine that constraint may lawfully be employed to bring
the recalcitrant into the Gospel fold. Not to speak of the justification of
every form of cruelty found by the apologists for Romanism in the execution of
Servetus by Protestants, the enforced conversions of the dragonnades, a
hundred years later, seemed to have an anticipated vindication in the theories
advanced by those Protestant writers who with strange inconsistency have
striven to clear Calvin and Geneva from the imputation of persecution.
Yet
Beza was honest in this. He was also honest in his relentless opposition to Castalio, the advocate of toleration—a man whom, in his
Life of Calvin, written ten years later, he did not hesitate to style a “monster,” who “by advising every man to believe what he chose,
opened the door to all heresies and false doctrines.” Meanwhile, no more singular
fact could be instanced in this connection than that the Protestant martyrs,
commonly known as the” Five from Geneva,” while daily awaiting death at the
hands of the executioner for their religious opinions, set the seal of their
unequivocal approval on the sentence meted out to Michael Servetus. One of
their number, Antoine Laborie, himself informs us of the fact, in a letter
written shortly before his execution. On being reminded by one of his judges
that God distinctly commanded through Moses, that heretics should be most
severely punished, the future martyr tells us:
“I readily conceded that heretics ought certainly to be punished, and for an example I
brought up that impure dog Servetus, upon whom was inflicted the last of
punishments at Geneva; but I bade them be very cautious lest
they should treat Christians and the sons of God as
heretics.”
CHAPTER
V
ACTIVITY
AT LAUSANNE
1549-1558
THE
life of Beza at Lausanne was far from being uneventful.
His health, which we have seen was precarious when he accepted his responsible
post in the University of Lausanne, not without fear that it might tax his
strength beyond his powers of endurance, was subjected to a severe strain by
an attack of one of those strange epidemics which were in the sixteenth century
confusedly spoken of as “the plague.” This occurred in the summer of 1551, when
Beza had been professor for less than two years. Within another twelve months
Providence laid new burdens upon him.
Five
young men, all of them Frenchmen by birth, who had been studying both sacred
and profane letters at his feet and at the feet of his colleagues for a longer
or shorter space of time, conceived the brave project of suspending their
studies that they might visit each his native region in the fatherland and
enlighten their own friends and kindred in the truths which they had themselves
embraced. It was a particularly hazardous venture to which they felt
themselves individually called by God’s Holy Spirit; for the French Protestants
had fallen on exceptionally perilous times. The cruel Edict of Chateaubriand
had lately been enacted. “A right of appeal to the highest courts has hitherto
been granted, and still is granted, to persons guilty of poisoning, forgery,
and robbery,” wrote Calvin respecting the new law;” but this appeal is denied
to Christians. They are condemned by the ordinary judges to be dragged straight
to the flames, without any liberty of appeal.” To forsake the hospitable halls
of Lausanne and enter France, was to rush headlong into a fiery furnace. One of
the five, Bernard Seguin by name, a refugee from the region of Limousin, had been an inmate of Beza’s house, possibly
earning his livelihood in part by service. Another had lived with Viret. But so far from dissuading them, their teachers and
patrons applauded their manly and Christian resolve, and gave them letters
commendatory of their character addressed to the faithful whom they might meet.
However, the immediate issue did not correspond with their expectations. At
Lyons, the very first place of importance which they entered, they were
arrested, thrown into prison, examined on the capital charge of heresy, and
condemned to death. It looked like a sheer waste of valuable lives which with a
little more prudence might have been saved. In truth, however, there was no
waste. Contrary to all anterior probability, under a law meant
to expedite the execution of dissidents from the Church of Rome, they were kept
in prison for over a year. During all that time, and long after, the letters
that they wrote, containing minutes of the fearless words they uttered in the
presence of everything that would naturally have terrified weaker men into
silence or submission, thrilled the hearts of multitudes of men and women into
whose hands they fell. It is safe to say that each of the five “scholars of
Lausanne,” writing from the noisome dungeon of Lyons, made many more converts
than he would have gained had he been permitted to reach his home and preach
without hindrance to his friends and neighbours.
The
cause of the delay that rendered this activity possible is to be found in the
influences which Beza and Viret were able to set in
motion. The young men were the proteges and the recipients of the bounty of the
powerful Canton of Bern, owner of the Pays de Vaud, and founder of the
University of Lausanne. To secure the intercession of the Lords of Bern with
the French King, who was in need of Swiss troops, and to direct the efforts of
Bern in every quarter that appeared to offer promise of success—this was the
incessant study of Beza and his colleagues. They did not hesitate to go in person
and plead before the magistracy the cause of their beloved pupils. If all their
efforts and all the honest endeavours of the Bernese
failed to accomplish the release of the captives, the fault must be laid at
the door of Henry II and of Cardinal Tournon,
rivals in the ignoble practice of violating assurances and promises solemnly
given.
But labours such as this episode of martyr history
imposed were far easier to be endured than the trial that awaited Beza two or
three years later. I have spoken at the beginning of this work of the high
position of the Reformer’s family, of the ambition of his father and uncles,
and of the hopes which both father and uncles based upon the brilliant
abilities of the possession of which Theodore had given proof. Even now,
although four or five years had elapsed since his
withdrawal from France, they could not bring
themselves to renounce the dream of seeing him
once more at Paris, well started upon a career that would add great lustre and wealth to the already fortunate family. They
were encouraged to make the attempt to reclaim him, by false rumours that his success abroad had by no means
corresponded with his anticipations, and that they might more easily persuade
him because he was a disappointed man. First, therefore, Theodore’s elder
brother John presented himself unannounced at Lausanne, fully prepared to offer
sufficient inducements to bring the exile home. If Theodore was surprised by
his unexpected but welcome advent, John was much
more astonished to find Theodore occupying a position of honour and influence.
Calumny had reported him to be living a dissolute
life. He was said to be as much despised by
others for his vices as he was himself wanting in self-respect.
On the contrary, John found him a prominent
citizen of Lausanne, a beloved colleague of scholars of high repute, a teacher enjoying the confidence of his pupils, the pride of a great school of learning. The result of the conference of the two brothers was such as might have been looked for. “You must before this have heard of the unexpected arrival
of my elder brother,” Beza wrote to Calvin.
“ He came to institute a struggle
with me, in which, thank God! I was so successful that I gained access to the attainment of what I never ventured
to hope.” Unfortunately, we have no further information respecting the interview
or its ulterior results. We only know that from
Theodore Beza’s last will and
testament it would appear that some of his nephews had been
brought up in the principles of a pure Gospel.
The
conflict was not over. John Beza at his departure
stated to Theodore that, in case his persuasions proved ineffectual, his aged father would come in person
to make a supreme effort. Accordingly, some months
later, father and son met, on the confines
of Franche-Comté. The Reformer looked forward with no
little trepidation to an interview of which, if he did not fear the consequences, so far as his own steadfastness was concerned,
he dreaded the results in the case of his infirm parent. He therefore wrote
to Farel:
“I
have received a fresh message respecting my father, which gives me great hope that either he will shortly come in person to us,
or that I shall certainly meet him not far from
here. Pray for me, I beg you, that I may not be
compelled to be the minister of death to him through whom the Lord conferred
this life upon me, and, in the next place, that against the impending
temptation, the most severe of all, my strength may suffice that I may truly
and earnestly ponder what the Lord says: ‘Every one that hath forsaken father
or mother for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit
everlasting life.’ For, otherwise, who am I that I should resist these
temptations ? But I hope to be able to do both this and all things through Him
who is in truth my Father.”
About
the same time he wrote to Calvin respecting the same matter:
“A
still harder struggle threatens me with my father, whom I am to meet in five
days on the borders of the [Franche] Comté. May God
give me grace, as I hope in Him, not
only to withstand courageously his powerful assaults upon
my heart, but to win him over, if possible, for my
Master. More than all .other threats I fear that look, the
caressing prayers, the tears of the father, the old man. But I hope that here also, as so often heretofore, my
compassionate God will graciously stand by me, that all may
redound to His glory.”
This
is all that has come down to us respecting the last, painful interview of Beza;
but we infer that after a renewed but ineffectual presentation of all the
motives which his father could marshal, both parent and child returned to their
homes, doubly sorrowful because neither could hide it from himself that their
conference had made the gulf of separation between them wider and final.
It
is not out of place here to draw attention to a feature of the life of Beza
which it had in common with the lives of most, if not indeed of all the rest,
of the Reformers, although perhaps to a higher degree than they. The work
which they were originally summoned to undertake, and which they accepted under
the impression that it was to occupy their undivided attention for the residue
of their days, so far from proving to be their sole vocation, was only one, and
often by no means the most important, part of their future activities. When, at
William Farel’s solicitations, reinforced by his
solemn and awful commination, John Calvin renounced his projected studies
elsewhere, he supposed himself to be assuming charge of the reformation of the
single city of Geneva. He little dreamed of the vast responsibilities, even “
the care of all the churches,” that lay ready to be placed upon his shoulders,
whether he wished to bear them or not. In like manner, Theodore Beza, a
convalescent, distrustful of his strength to do even this work, accepted the
congenial duties of a professorship of the Greek language in the University of
Lausanne, little foreseeing, we must suppose, that his chair would introduce
him, naturally and by easy stages, to an incomparably wider sphere of
usefulness—that, in point of fact, the university class-room was to serve
merely as the vestibule of a grander structure—that from a teacher of youth it
was to make of him a powerful advocate of the oppressed brethren of his own
faith, at a later time the first recognised apologist
before kings and princes of the principles for which the martyrs of the
Reformed Churches of France had ineffectually striven to secure a hearing, and
ultimately the honoured and trusted Counsellor and
Leader of French Protestantism.
It
was in the years now under consideration that Beza took the first steps in this
direction.
We
have seen how the circumstance that he had been their teacher induced Beza to
assume a prominent part in the efforts put forth to save the lives of beloved
pupils, destined victims of religious intolerance. The skill he manifested,
and the consciousness to which he awoke, that his mental characteristics, his
liberal training, his familiarity from infancy with the best society, his
cultivated manners, and his easy and dignified address afforded him special
facilities, and therefore conferred special responsibility, for representing
the cause of the oppressed at court and in the homes of the powerful, opened
his eyes to his advantages and to his duty. As a natural consequence, from this
time forward, whenever there were delicate negotiations to be conducted in
behalf of the churches of his faith, the eyes of men turned with
ever-increasing confidence to Theodore Beza as the most promising man in the Reformed
communion to conduct them. On the other hand, Beza himself permitted no
considerations of private comfort or ease to deter him from undertaking a work
often tedious and burdensome, always making a heavy draft upon his sympathy.
His
first attempt in this direction had a political as well as a religious side.
The alliance between the powerful and aggrandising Canton of Bern and the far less extensive and independent city of Geneva had
been made for a definite number of years and was to terminate on February 8,
1556. It was by no means certain that the ambitious government of the former
state would renew a relation from which the weaker city seemed to derive all
the benefit. Moreover, Bern had more than once made it clear that there was no
lack of persons powerful in its councils who would gladly extend its territory
to the outlet of Lake Leman and hold Geneva upon the same tenure on which it
already held the Pays de Vaud. If this project should fail, there were men
ready to recommend the acceptance of the offers of a close alliance made contemporaneously
by Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. The danger to Protestantism was imminent.
Forsaken by Bern, the nearest and most powerful of the cantons in which the
Reformation had taken root, the republic of Geneva, the object of the
implacable hatred of the Roman Pontiff and of the Roman Catholics throughout
Europe, could not have failed to be ground to pieces between the two adjoining
countries—France and Savoy—of which the one or the other seemed destined to
destroy its independent existence. The danger that menaced
Geneva was a danger menacing Protestantism entire, and Beza helped to avert it,
by exhibiting, and by inducing others to exhibit, to those in power the consequences
that were certain to follow the suicidal policy of disunion. The renewal of the
alliance between Bern and Geneva, in 1557, was in great part the result of
Beza’s intercession at Zurich and with the other Protestant cantons, and
constituted in itself a claim to the gratitude of
the city which was soon to become his home for the remainder of his life. It
formed a new link in the chain already binding him in the closest friendship to
John Calvin.
Meanwhile,
before this disquieting question had been set at rest, another cause of
solicitude arose. The valleys inhabited by the Waldenses, or Vaudois, of
Piedmont, constituted a part of the territories taken from the Duke of Savoy
by Francis I in 1535. During the score of years which the French occupation had
now lasted, the inhabitants, professing to be in full accord with the
Protestants, but claiming that they had held their pure faith for centuries
before the birth of Luther and even from the time of the apostles, enjoyed a
respite from persecution, as grateful as unlooked for. While relentlessly
vexing the adherents of the Reformed faith in their own dominions, Francis I
and Henry II had either from policy abstained from similarly maltreating the
professors of a kindred faith in the newly acquired domain, or, possibly, had
forgotten the very existence of an insignificant body of dissenters who gave
them no trouble in a time of general confusion. In consequence of their
unwonted exemption from external interference, the Vaudois began to make a
freer profession of their faith, to hold more public religious services, and to
seek and obtain the services of twenty or more preachers, many of them trained
for the sacred ministry in Switzerland, and especially at the school of Lausanne.
In the Val d’Angrogna, in particular, they even
commenced the erection of houses of worship. Such boldness could not long
escape notice. The French Parliament of Turin sent two of its members, the
President de Saint Julien and the Counsellor Della Chiesa, with an ample
escort to visit the valleys and put a stop to the progress of heresy. If proclamations
could have effected this, the menaces addressed to those that refused to
submit, and the rewards offered to those who consented to embrace the Roman
Catholic faith, would have sufficed. But the Vaudois either forsook their homes
or were deaf alike to threats and to entreaties. This was in 1556. The next
year more strenuous measures were instituted. It became evident that nothing
short of a determined effort to suppress the Vaudois religion was to be
expected. That it would fail miserably in the end, as all similar efforts,
before that time and since, have failed, was, it is true, almost a certainty.
A Waldensian martyr, put to death for his constancy twenty years before,
expressed the truth in a homely fashion, when, just before his execution and being
already bound to the stake, he requested a bystander to hand him two stones,
and having received them began to rub the one against the other, and then
addressed these words to a crowd now curious to learn the significance of his
strange actions: “You imagine that by your persecutions you will abolish our
Churches, but that will be no more possible for you than it is possible for me
to destroy these stones with my hands or by eating them up.” None the less was
the prospect of one of those massacres, that have so often drenched the
Waldensian mountain-sides with blood, so terrible that no time was lost in
sending forth a cry of distress to summon all friends in Switzerland and elsewhere
to the rescue.
Both
Geneva and Lausanne heard the news with pity and with horror. Among the
destined victims of persecution and death were prominent ministers of whom many
formerly studied theology in those cities under Calvin and Beza. There was no
opportunity for long consultation. Someone must be promptly despatched to arouse the four great Protestant cantons and
the Protestant princes of southern Germany, and induce them to use the
privilege of friends or allies with the King of France, by remonstrating
against the execution of the proscriptive measures ordered by the court. That
man must be courageous, energetic, and quick and fertile in expedients. Above
all, he must be sufficiently catholic in his views to be able to conciliate in favour of the proposed intervention the partisans of the
different shades of the Reformed faith and the Lutherans, whether broad or
narrow in their views. He must, moreover, be a man of conspicuous tact and
address, who from his birth and associations would stand unabashed in
the presence of princes and courtiers. Such a man was found in Theodore Beza,
and the choice of him was fully justified by the sequel. With him went, as
fellow-envoy, the now aged William Farel, the memory
of whose masterful ministry of evangelisation in
French-speaking Switzerland and in the neighbouring parts was still fresh in men’s minds, and whose rash impetuosity, if not
altogether extinguished by added years, was well kept in check by the surer
judgment of his younger colleague, whom he thoroughly respected and admired.
Bern not only gave leave of absence to Beza, but provided him and Farel with strong letters of recommendation to her three
confederate cantons of Zurich, Basel, and Schaffhausen. In these places, as
everywhere else, Beza was the spokesman. Being unfamiliar with the German
language, he spoke in Latin, the universal language of courts and universities,
and his ornate periods and graceful eloquence secured him a favourable hearing from all the learned. When it was necessary, the Reformer Bullinger,
of Zurich, and others gladly acted as interpreters. With the support of such a
man at Zurich, of the leading pastor, Simpert Vogt, at Schaffhausen, and of
Simon Sulzer at Basel, it was easy to bring the magistrates to look favourably on the plan of sending a body of envoys from the
four evangelical cantons to the French court. The “instruction” given to them
as a guide for the discharge of their commission in a delicate undertaking has
come down to us. It was written by Theodore Beza, and is the first
and a very favourable example of his papers dealing
with political affairs.
The
difficulties increased as Beza and Farel pursued
their way, but these were overcome. At Montbeliard—
capital of a county now forming part of France—which, many years before, Farel and Toussain had undertaken
to evangelise in the midst of great commotions, they
found the place altogether won over to Protestantism, but they also found Toussain, who was now at the head of the Church, not only
decided in his adhesion to the Lutheran view of the Lord’s Supper as opposed to
the Zwinglian or to the Calvinistic, but particularly alienated from Geneva and
pronounced in his disapproval of the execution of Servetus, and of the
apologies written in justification of that lamentable event. This did not,
however, in the end, prevent Montbeliard also from
endorsing and heartily recommending the mission of the envoys. At Strassburg Beza was welcomed by François Hotman. This eminent scholar, his attached colleague in the
University of Lausanne, had, a year or two since, accepted a chair in the
University of Strassburg. Here, as elsewhere, the
presence of the venerable Farel, who had written
nothing to offend Lutheran susceptibilities, proved advantageous. The senate of
the city not only paid him and Beza other flattering attentions, but sent Hotman with them, mounted, and with mounted guards of honour, at the city’s expense, to carry two letters, the
one addressed to Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, and the other to
Duke Christopher of Wurtemberg. Both these princes
received the envoys graciously, the former at Baden, where he was sojourning
for his health’s sake, the latter at Goppingen. The Elector Palatine, desirous
of making the German intercession more effective with the French king by the
addition of the influence of Hesse, wrote and despatched by a special messenger of his own a letter to the Landgrave, Philip of Hesse.
An
object which Beza had incidentally proposed to himself in his mission, an
object of even greater permanent importance to Christendom than the rescue of
the Waldenses, was the unification of Protestantism by the reconciliation of
the views respecting the Lord’s Supper held by the two great subdivisions of
the Protestant world. He had conferred at Strassburg with the superintendent and doctor of theology, John Marbach.
At Goppingen he met and conversed long with the eminent Jacob Andreae, his future disputant in a more formal colloquy.
There seemed to be some prospect of substantial agreement, and, as the
references to Calvin’s expressed views were deemed insufficient, Beza was
induced to draw up a new and brief confession of faith touching the chief
point in controversy. Written with the evident desire to reduce to a minimum
the difference between the opinions of Lutherans and Calvinists, the document
is a literary and religious curiosity. In some regards it may be compared with
those extraordinary articles, with their amazing concessions, which Melanchthon
drew up, a quarter of a century earlier, in the vain hope of being
able to bring together such discordant views as those of Rome and those of the
adherents of the Reformation. Calvin and Beza Undoubtedly rejected the opinion
of Zwingli, that the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist are mere
signs. It is equally certain that they did not hold with Luther that the body
and blood of Christ are really present in, with, and under the bread and wine,
though these are not miraculously transmuted into very flesh and blood. But it
must be confessed that, in the Confession now under consideration, as we shall
see, Beza approached as nearly to the Lutheran view as it was possible to do
without actually abandoning the Reformed position.
Both the Swiss and the Germans fulfilled their promises and sent envoys to France. Their reception need not detain us long. The Swiss, honest but simple-minded rustics, were kindly but somewhat contemptuously treated, and received no definite answer to their plea in behalf of the Waldenses. They deserve our respect, however, for this, at least, that when at their departure King Henry II, who, through Constable Montmorency, had previously promised them each a gold chain, now sent them a present of two hundred ducats, they proved themselves to be no mercenary boors, by indignantly rejecting the proffered bounty, with the exclamation: “We seek not gold nor silver, but the safety of brethren who are our members and partakers in the same religion.” The German envoys, who arrived in Paris a full month later than the Swiss, represented seven Protestant princes, all of them entitled to high consideration. They were instructed to impress upon the King of France the injury to his reputation which the report of the cruelties exercised upon his innocent subjects would produce. They were also to urge upon his Majesty the necessity of instituting an impartial investigation, which would surely establish both the purity of the doctrinal tenets and the loyalty of the persecuted. But although a reply was made to the envoys, in the monarch’s name, it was of no very satisfactory import. For it plainly betrayed the annoyance of the king at what he considered an unnecessary appeal of his conquered subjects to their sovereign’s friends, and confined itself to the expression of a hope that the inhabitants of the Val d’Angrogna would henceforth so order their lives, like the rest of his subjects, as not to compel him to exercise severity toward them. Exactly
how much good was effected by the German and Swiss intervention, it is
difficult to ascertain. Despite his affected indifference, Henry and his
advisers were not insensible to the importance of maintaining a good
understanding with their Protestant neighbours and
allies. Beside this, however, the king had within a few weeks more engrossing
and perplexing matters on hand. On August 10, 1557,
his army was defeated with great loss in a pitched battle at Saint Quentin.
Constable Montmorency, who commanded it, was taken prisoner. Paris was
threatened. It was no time to think about the Vaudois and their proposed
annihilation. The project was dropped. Less than two years later, by the treaty
of Cateau Cambresis (on
April 3, 1559), the Vaudois valleys, with all the rest of Piedmont, save Turin
and two or three other places, passed out of the hands of the French and were
restored to their rightful sovereign, the Duke of Savoy.
This
was but the first of three successive visits of Beza to Germany in the interest
of his oppressed fellow-believers. From the Vaudois or Waldensian valleys of
Piedmont the scene of persecution shifted to France and to the city of Paris itself.
So prcarious was the situation of the Protestants of the capital, in view of
the sanguinary legislation of Henry II, that although their number was by no
means insignificant and was daily growing, they dared meet only by night and
with the utmost secrecy. Unhappily a nocturnal gathering held in a house of
the Rue Saint Jacques was surprised by their enemies, and, out of a much larger
number of worshippers, one hundred and twenty persons, mostly women, with a few
men and some children, were apprehended and dragged to prison. Many of them
were shortly put to death, and the mob had the gratification of beholding such
a sight as a Parisian mob never tired of seeing—the victims of its hatred, some
of them young women and respectable matrons, roasted in the
flames of the estrapade. The political juncture was particularly inauspicious
for the “Lutherans,” as the dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church were
still styled. Bigots represented the calamity that had lately befallen the
kingdom in the defeat of Saint Quentin as a direct punishment for its sin in
tolerating heresy, and stirred up the populace to welcome any new blow aimed at
the Protestants. The latter, terrified by what had befallen their brethren, and
apprehensive of what might still be in store, anxious above all to save the
lives of the prisoners from their impending fate, sent in haste to Geneva to
acquaint Calvin with the new disaster and to beg that everything should be
done to enlist the interest of neighbouring Protestant States. Again was Beza chosen, in conjunction with the aged Farel and with Budaeus and
Carmel, to lay the pitiful case of the French before as many as would listen to
their cry of distress. Not once but twice did the Reformer leave Lausanne and
exert himself to the utmost to bring both Swiss cantons and German princes to
prompt and decisive intercession. The direct results were not overencouraging.
The Swiss envoys when they reached the court of France allowed themselves to be
so completely hoodwinked by the Cardinal of Lorraine, always rich in promises
of support, that leaving all to him they found themselves in the end dismissed
by the monarch with a message to the effect that he had expected that Zurich,
Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen would be content with his response to them in the
matter of the Waldenses of Angrogna, and abstain from sending him
ambassadors on a similar occasion, as they had now done. At
any rate, he begged his “very dear and good friends” from
this time forth to give themselves no care or solicitude
respecting what he might do in his kingdom,
since he was resolved to maintain his religion therein as the most Christian
kings, his predecessors, had done. In this matter, he said, he had to
give an account of his actions to no one but to God. The Elector
Palatine wrote a letter which seems to have had some effect
in securing a lull in the persecution. Others,
especially good Christopher of Wurtemberg,
did the same. But the German princes were not always moved to prompt and
effective action. The old disunion between Lutherans and Reformed had not been
suffered to die out by the zeal of the theologians who looked askance at the
orthodoxy of their Swiss brethren and were disposed to magnify rather than to
attenuate the disastrous differences of Luther and Zwingli, now that Luther and
Zwingli had long been in their graves. It seemed to Beza an opportune time to labour to conciliate the favour of the Germans, by showing them that the persecuted French Protestants
whom they were entreated to help were no heretics,
but brethren in substantial agreement with
themselves as to the essential truths of the Reformation
held in Germany. In common with his
colleagues, therefore, he laid before Melanchthon, Brentius, Marbach, Andreae, and the other
most prominent representatives of Lutheran
theology, at their gathering at Worms, a written
exposition of the tenets of the French Churches, of so irenic
a character that the divergences seemed not merely
smoothed down, but almost obliterated. In
all the Augsburg Confession of 1530, they
found but one article which was not in agreement
with their own Confession and which they did not accept—namely, the article respecting the Lord’s
Supper. Even the difficulties in this article
they thought could be removed by a conference of learned and pious
men. Meanwhile, they declared that “they had
never believed, nor had they taught, that the Lord’s
Supper is merely a sign of
profession, as the Anabaptists believe, or
merely a sign of the absent Christ.”
A
few months before, while on the embassy to plead
the cause of the Waldenses, Beza, speaking for himself and for Farel, expressed
himself no less strongly, in a confession
of faith which he handed to the Duke of Wurtemberg, at Goppingen, as setting
forth the doctrine held by the Churches of Switzerland
and Savoy, or Piedmont. A sentence or two from this, the first of Beza’s utterances
respecting the Lord’s Supper, it may be well to
quote, in order to show the length to which the Reformer was
willing to go in the effort to find a common ground on which to stand with his German brethren :
“We confess that in the Lord’s Supper not only all the benefits
of Christ, but also the very substance of the Son of man—I say, that true flesh
which the everlasting Word took into perpetual unity of person, in which He was
born and suffered for us, rose and ascended into the heavens, and that true
blood which He shed for us—are not merely signified, or
set forth symbolically, figuratively, or typically, as the
memorial of an absent person, but are truly and certainly
represented, exhibited, and offered to be applied, there being added to the
thing itself symbols that are by no means bare symbols, but such that, so far
as appertains to God’s promise and offer, they always have the thing itself
truly and certainly conjoined, whether they be set forth to believers or to
unbelievers.”
It
is not surprising that, in his attempt to gain over the German Protestants,
Beza should have incurred not a little risk of alienating his own friends in
Switzerland. His apparent concessions to Lutheran views were highly distasteful
to the adherents of the Zwinglian theology, and Bullinger, the Reformer of
Zurich, had succeeded not only to the influence but in a great measure to the
views of Zwingli. Endeared as he was to Beza by ties of cordial affection and
good-will, Bullinger could not but view the
utterances of Beza at Goppingen with grave apprehension,
as indicative of a danger of schism among Swiss
Churches thus far harmonious. Calvin understood his
friend better and poured oil on the troubled waters. “As there is
no lurking danger in Beza’s confession,” he wrote to Bullinger, August 7, 1557,
“I readily excuse him, because, in consideration of the brethren, with studied
moderation he has striven to reconcile fierce men; especially as he
previously distinctly explained all his different meanings.” But Bullinger was
not fully appeased even by Calvin’s intercession, and Beza’s efforts to
reconcile Lutherans and Reformed by reducing to an apparent minimum the
differences that kept them apart, gave rise to an interchange of letters
between Lausanne and Zurich, extending over a number of months, which even now
may be read with profit. Upon Beza’s project of a conference to be held with
the view of harmonising discordant views upon the
matter under consideration, Bullinger looked with scant favour.
He accepted with kindness the explanations of his meaning which Beza,
sincerely sorry to have incurred the disapproval of so excellent a friend, made
at great length in successive epistles, and he conceded frankly the desirability
of mutual love and holy concord between the servants of a common Master.
“Meanwhile,”
said he and his colleagues, the pastors and doctors of the Church of Zurich,”
it is not any and every sort of a concord that we long for; but a concord that
is religious, moderate, conflicting in nothing with the pure truth hitherto
professed, introducing no obscurity or doubt into manifest light and
perspicuous doctrine, a concord which on account of its clearness shall
be common and welcome to all the pious, abiding and stable, and that shall
scatter abroad no new beginnings of fresh dissensions.”
Thus
it was that Theodore Beza’s attempt to effect a reconciliation between the
warring elements within the bosom of Protestantism
itself, aroused the suspicion, and drew upon him the animadversion, of many of
his own most sincere friends. So had Melanchthon’s equally well-meant project
of bringing together again the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, two- or
three-and-twenty years earlier, drawn upon him the displeasure of the greater
part of those who learned of it. As, however, Philip Melanchthon comforted
himself, when accused of being a deserter to the Protestant cause, not only by
the consciousness of his integrity of purpose but by the support and approval
of Martin Luther, so did Theodore Beza find ample compensation for the not
altogether unreasonable annoyance expressed by others, in the unswerving
confidence extended to him by the great Reformer of Geneva. For to Calvin he
felt a devotion not inferior to that which characterised the relation of the younger of the Wittenberg theologians to his father in the
Lord. Both Beza and Melanchthon, if unsuccessful in accomplishing the
desired union, had this consolation, at least, that
their labours had been expended in the most honourable and humane of causes, the endeavour to realise the great purpose of the common Lord
of all Christian people, that they might be one even
as He and His Father were one. And both Melanchthon
and Beza were specially inspired by an earnest desire and hope
thereby to put an end to the further effusion of blood
at the hands of those professing the same Christian
faith.
CHAPTER
VI
BEZA BECOMES CALVIN’S COADJUTOR AND RECTOR OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA
1558,
1559
IN
the year 1558, Beza resigned the professorship which he had held for a little
short of nine years, to accept a chair in the new institution which Calvin had
long been anxious to found at Geneva, for the promotion of higher learning,
but, especially, of theological science.
His
course in Lausanne had been brilliant and successful. Of this there could be no
question. He had discharged the duties of his office with signal ability and
faithfulness, and had been rewarded for his toil not only by the applause of
the learned, but by a marked increase in the number of his pupils. From a mere
handful of students, the Académie of Lausanne had come to boast an attendance
of seven hundred. To this development no instructor, not even François Hotman, the distinguished jurisconsult, during his
connection with the University, had contributed so much as Beza. The magnetism
of the Reformer’s personality, the profound impression made from the very start
by his wonderful erudition, his wide acquaintance with classical as well as
sacred antiquity, his growing reputation not only as a controversialist, but as
a man honoured in the councils of the leading Protestant
powers of Switzerland and Germany and entrusted with the advocacy of the claims
of the persecuted both of France and Piedmont,—all enhanced in the eyes of the
studious the attraction of the school of learning of which he was a chief
ornament.
Why,
then, did Beza consent to leave a position so enviable and of such extensive
usefulness? The answer to the question is found partly, at least, in the
unfortunate condition of discord and embarrassment of the Church of Lausanne.
The union of Church and State, always a source, if not of actual, yet certainly
of possible trouble, is most productive of mischief in a region which itself is
dependent upon another region, its superior by right of conquest or by some
other form of proprietorship. The natural and healthy development of the
Reformation at Lausanne was hampered by the suzerainty of Bern. It might
perhaps have triumphed over the lukewarmness or positive enmity of the
irreligious part of the subject city; it was impotent when that element of the
population was encouraged by the avowed determination of the paramount
authority to tolerate no innovation in the accepted order of things. The Reformer,
Pierre Viret, had, many years before, taken an
important part in the preparatory work that led to the religious change of
Geneva in advance of Calvin’s advent, and had subsequently been for a time one
of the ministers of that city. He was now and had long been the leading pastor
of Lausanne. It was he, as has been seen, that induced Theodore Beza to accept
the chair he had held with honour to the city and
with credit to himself. A man of solid attainments and of sterling worth, he
was at the same time as impetuous and uncompromising as Farel had been in his youth, and had learned none of the prudence that had come to Farel with advancing years. The laxity of morals of a city
many of whose inhabitants utterly failed to recognise the external change of religion as affecting their personal and social life,
had long weighed upon Viret’s heart and conscience.
To admit to a participation in the most sacred of Christian rites men and
women of whose unfitness there could be no doubt, and who seemed so much the
more anxious to present themselves as their coming was opposed by all the good,
seemed to him as a pastor to be an unjustifiable act of complicity in a
criminal profanation. He resolved to put a stop to it. Having by his ardent
zeal brought his colleagues over to his opinions, he gave notice that at the
coming Easter the customary celebration of the Lord’s Supper would not be
observed. He would not desecrate the most sublime and holy ordinance in heaven
or on earth. He and his fellow-ministers demanded nothing less than the
institution of a system of Church government such as had been successfully
established in Geneva and had made of a city noted for the dissoluteness of its
denizens the model State and Church of Christendom. Instead of the promiscuous
admission to the Lord’s Supper of all applicants, whatever their knowledge or
ignorance, their consistency or inconsistency of deportment, he demanded the
erection of a Church consistory, or session, with power of discipline ranging
from the mildest admonition even to formal excommunication. The better and
more earnest part of the people, especially the fugitives from persecution in
France, welcomed his efforts. But these efforts met with strenuous opposition
from such of the inhabitants of Lausanne as looked back with regret to the
days when, under the rule of the former bishops of the place, there was little
or no inquiry into the life of the laity, or even of the clergy. The resident
representatives of Bern gave to Viret’s opponents the
support of their authority. With a view to the removal of exciting topics from
the pulpit, Bern particularly forbade the public discussion of the subject of
Predestination. Four clergymen of Thonon, believing it to be their duty,
despite the prohibition, to preach on the doctrine in question, were deprived
of their places by the government. The classis of Bern replied by demanding
freedom of preaching and a form of Church government not unlike that of Geneva,
declaring that unless it were granted they could not with a clear conscience
continue to exercise their churchly functions. Thereupon the chief magistrate
and council of Bern resolved to show the world who was master in the Pays de
Vaud, and formally cited by name all the preachers and professors to appear in
person before them in the city of Bern, on or before a given date, to receive
an answer to the “ articles ” in which their demands had been couched. So rough
a summons addressed to the clergy and professors of the subject city was itself
an indignity; the answer which they received amounted almost to positive
insult. For while Viret and his associates were
graciously informed that they might preach about Predestination if they had a
natural occasion to do so and if they preached in a moderate and edifying
manner, they were not encouraged to look for any such improvement in the
administration of the Church as they had declared indispensable to the
continuance of the discharge of their offices. In fact, the Bernese council
demanded a categorical reply, upon the morrow, as to what the pastors and
professors intended to do. They, moreover, intimated that, if the latter
persisted in the declaration they had made to the effect that in case all their
requests were not granted they must ask leave to lay down their offices, they
would not only be allowed to do so, but forthwith be banished from the country.
Beza,
himself no friend of extreme measures, had originally disapproved Viret’s course and maintained a middle ground, entertaining
relations of kindly intercourse with both parties. He doubtless hoped that, in
the course of time and without resort to an attitude of such pronounced
hostility to the ruling power, the desired advantages might be secured through
the milder methods of persuasion and greater enlightenment. That he was
lukewarm or underrated the importance of the points upon which Viret insisted, is disproved not only by his
subsequent attitude when at the head of the Church of
Geneva, but by the vigour, zeal, and ability with which in this very year (1558) he maintained in an extended answer to Sebastian Castalio,
that the doctrine of the everlasting predestination of God is the sole
foundation of man’s salvation. He had been induced, reluctantly and against his
better judgment, to acquiesce in the course taken by his more radical brethren,
lest he might appear to have deserted them at a critical juncture. He thus came
to share in the humiliating journey to Bern and the insolent treatment at the
hands of the chief magistrate and council. These last circumstances, however,
were not needed to complete Beza’s disgust with
the situation of affairs at Lausanne. Long before their occurrence, he had
fully made up his mind to sever his relations with the University and to accept
the more congenial work to which Calvin invited him and in the discharge of
which he had the alluring prospect of association with the great Reformer whom
of all men he honoured and loved most? Viret might be
annoyed at the determination of his colleague, and might blame him for abandoning
a post which Viret himself had by his ill-judged
course contributed to make unendurable for a high-spirited gentleman, indeed,
for a man of ordinary self-respect; he could not induce Beza to reconsider his
action or consent to prolong his stay in a city where he might look for the
repetition of scenes such as he had of late witnessed. The event fully
justified his action. Within a few months, Viret and
the greater part of his associates in Church and University
were themselves reduced to the necessity of following Beza’s example. Within
that time the decadence of the institution to which Beza’s learning
had lent a temporary lustre set in. Thus Lausanne
lost its great opportunity of permanently possessing the school for the
training of the Christian athletes who were to achieve wonders in the cause of
French Protestantism down to the time of the disastrous Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes (1685). How, after that event, Lausanne regained a certain prestige
in the times of the Church of the Desert, it does not belong to us to relate
here.
As
for Beza himself, he said nothing, either at the time or
subsequently, that might seem to reflect upon Pierre Viret,
a man who had in the past deserved well of the
Reformation, and was destined still to do good service, both in Geneva and in the Church of Lyons, a man to whom he was attached by strong
ties of affection. In his letter to Wolmar, within a year and a half later, he
confines himself to the statement, that at the end of his stay at Lausanne, he
returned, with the kind consent of the council of Bern, to Geneva, partly
because he was desirous of giving himself wholly to theology, partly for other
reasons which it was unnecessary to rehearse. And he adds that, not so much of
his own choice, as by the advice of men of great eminence, he was induced at
Geneva to undertake the office of the sacred ministry.
In
Geneva Theodore Beza was at last in the spot where for years, because of his
increasing friendship and intimacy with John Calvin, he had found his chief
intellectual and moral support and sympathy. Geneva is not distant much over
thirty miles in a straight line from Lausanne, and the lake, then as now,
afforded an easy and pleasant route. The proximity of the two cities to one
another had encouraged the younger man to make frequent visits to his old
schoolfellow, now become an associate in the work of the Reformation. It was
time, however, that two such kindred spirits should no longer be separated
even by so trifling a distance. There can be no doubt that irrespective of his
plans for making use of Theodore Beza’s extraordinary scholarship for the
upbuilding of his projected university, Calvin had before this begun to look
to Beza as the most suitable man to succeed to the great and multiform duties which
Providence had thrown upon him. It is true that Calvin himself was not yet
fifty years old, and might, so far as age was concerned, have had the prospect
of a long course of activity. But his constitution, never
robust, was enfeebled by prodigious study and
devotion to the claims of others. At an age when many a scholar is full of strength and vigour,
Calvin thought it none too soon to seek for a younger man to be a sharer of his toil and the prospective heir of an inheritance of unremitting
solicitude for the welfare of the churches.
The
plan of Calvin for the “Académie” of Geneva contemplated nothing less than the
erection of a true university—a daring undertaking in a little commonwealth of
a few thousand souls, poor in resources, and threatened by powerful neighbours. The founders were compelled to solve a difficult
problem as to the source from which the necessary funds could be obtained. It
is a significant circumstance that contemporaneously with the purchase of a
site for the school, there was published an order of the magistrates of the
little republic, commanding all notaries to exhort those persons who might
thereafter employ them to draw up wills, to make bequests for the institution.
As Geneva had hitherto possessed no school for higher learning, a “College,” or Gymnasium, was also created, for the purpose of affording
preparatory training for the Académie, or University proper, thus
replacing a more modest school once taught by Mathurin Corderius,
of whom I have already spoken, a scholar whose Colloquies were long in vogue,
as a manual for the drill of the young in the familiar use of the Latin
language. The study of Latin literature was assiduously pursued in the College
and found no place in the Académie. In the latter a close acquaintance with
the exclusive tongue of the learned was an absolute prerequisite; for who could
profit by instruction given in a language which he understood not at all or
but imperfectly ? Of the departments of a university only the School of
Theology was at first instituted, and of this Theodore Beza was the first head
or Rector. It was hoped that other schools would soon be added, and indeed the
anticipation was partially realised; but the efforts
made in this direction were spasmodic and short-lived. A School of Medicine in
a small town or village encounters insuperable difficulties through the lack of
large hospitals and of clinical instruction. To encourage the study of medicine
at Geneva, it is true, a law was passed in 1564, five years after the
establishment of the University, which permitted the dissection of the bodies
of criminals executed for their offences and even of the corpses of patients
that died at the city hospital. But the provision was inadequate even in an age
which sent men to the gallows or to the block for a great variety of crimes,
and in which the laws of health were very imperfectly known or observed. Three
years later (1567), Beza, in asking the prayers of the pastors of Zurich,
drew special attention to the new medical department of the University.The study of Law fared better than that of Medicine, but the eminent teachers
that were called to lecture were very inadequately compensated for their work
or proved restless for other reasons, and made but a short tarry. This was the case with Hotman, after the Massacre of
Saint Bartholomew’s Day (1572). The School of Theology and its teachers fared
better. Yet the narrowness of the provision for their support, which has been
estimated as the equivalent of one thousand francs, or two hundred dollars of
our present money, was not without its discouraging effect.
The
solemn opening of the institution took place on June 5, 1559, in the spacious
cathedral of the city, in the presence of the two syndics and of the members of
the council of Geneva. The services were impressive. On this occasion Beza, who
had at his arrival been merely constituted public professor of Greek
literature, but had subsequently been chosen (October 15, 1558) to preach the
Gospel and requested to continue his lectures on the Sacred Scriptures, was
formally proclaimed Rector, and inducted into
office.
A
few months later, on November 9, 1559, he subscribed his name to the laws of the Académie,
and to the Confession of Faith of the Church of the city. The signature, “Theodorus Beza Vezelius scholae
rector,” may still be read either in the original Livre du Recteur, or in the faithful transcript of the
manuscript which has been printed in our own days. The name is
followed by the signatures of Antoine Cavallier, of Vire in Normandy, professor of Hebrew; of Jean Tagaut, of Paris, professor of Arts, or Philosophy; and of
François Beraud, of Paris, professor of Greek. The
last two had been colleagues of Beza at Lausanne and had already followed him
to Geneva. Others were yet to come. But with these we have nothing to do here.
As to Beza he began at once to devote himself to theology. Calvin had for
years been teaching this same subject, and he continued to do so, although he
was never formally inscribed as a professor. How they divided the instruction
between them is not quite certain; but it must have been as Calvin, the author
of the entire scheme, had arranged. The instruction of both was essentially
exegetical. Calvin and Beza at first confined themselves to the simple
interpretation of the books of the Bible, and successively lectured upon them
in alternate weeks. At a later time, while one of the two professors continued
to devote himself to exegesis, his colleague treated in his lectures of the
“common places,” or systematic theology.
Self-sacrifice
was the law of the school. The salaries, always inadequate to the support of
the incumbents of the chairs, were neither regularly nor fully paid. In times
of public calamity we shall see Theodore Beza continuing to teach without
compensation, and, indeed, taking upon his shoulders the burden of the entire
school, until the return of better days. And in all periods of the history of
the Académie of Geneva, from Calvin’s time to ours, so high has been the credit
of this seat of learning that men eminent in science have, we are told, accepted
as a great honour the position of teaching
professors. Twice, too, within a space of sixty years, professors raised to the
rank of the first magistrate of the republic have continued, despite this high
dignity, to instruct their students.
These
students, writing their names below the signatures of the professors whom I
have named upon the Livre du Recteur, at first, like
their instructors, subscribed to the doctrines of the Confession of Faith of
the Church of Geneva. This practice continued from 1559 to 1576, when, under
the presidency of Beza, and no doubt with his full approval, the “Venerable
Company of the Pastors ” of the city relieved the young men of the obligation:
“inasmuch,” say the minutes, “as this [subscription] deprives Papists and
Lutherans of the opportunity to come and receive profit from this church, and
inasmuch as it does not seem reasonable to press after this fashion a
conscience that is resolved not to sign what it does not understand. Moreover
the Saxons [Lutherans] have taken advantage of this ordinance to compel our students
that go to them to sign the Confession of Augsburg.”
Calvin
had well selected his colleague and successor. As unsparing of himself, as
indefatigable in labour, as devoted to the interests
of the faith which he had embraced as was his master, Beza of all men living
was best qualified to carry out what Calvin had initiated. Geneva and the world
hardly realised the change when the direction of
affairs passed, after a comparatively brief interval, from the hands of the one
to the other. For Beza, while no blind partisan and no servile imitator, had
heartily accepted the system of Calvin, and had become so thoroughly imbued
with his spirit, that there was no perceptible break in the influence which
emanated from the little city upon the Rhone. Meanwhile, even before Calvin’s
removal, that influence seemed to be doubled by the accession of Beza as
Calvin’s coadjutor, and Beza did for France what Calvin himself could not have
accomplished.
CHAPTER
VII
BEZA
AT NERAC
1560
THE
crisis was fast approaching at which Theodore Beza was to be called to take a
more active part in the affairs of Protestantism than was offered by embassies
in behalf of persecuted Vaudois. Before long the French court, indeed France
entire, was to witness his coming as an advocate of the professors of the
doctrines which men still persisted in contemptuously stigmatising as “new,” and was to hear from his lips the first great plea uttered in defence of those doctrines.
Meanwhile
an incident occurred, at first sight of evanescent importance, but destined to
exercise a lasting influence both upon Beza’s life and upon the course of at
least one great personage in France.
Toward
the close of the brief reign of Francis II, after the conclusion of the famous
Assembly of the Notables at Fontainebleau, Antoine of Bourbon, titular King of
Navarre, was sojourning in the city of Nérac in the province of Guyenne, of
which he was governor by appointment of the King of France. Here he deliberated
with his most trusted supporters respecting the position which he should assume
in the distracted state of the kingdom. The Huguenots, as the Protestants of
the realm had, within a few months, begun to be nicknamed, were making such
rapid progress that the Papal Church trembled for the consequences. In the late
Assembly, Admiral Coligny spoke boldly in favour of
a frank concession of religious liberty and advocated a complete cessation of
persecution. Others supported his views and did not quail in face of the
defiant attitude and threatening words of the Duke of Guise and his partisans.
Antoine had held aloof and had not been present at the discussions. Though
cowardly and unstable, he had given and still gave men reason to believe that
he sympathised with the Reformed and would uphold
their cause. When, therefore, Theodore Beza received at Geneva a very pressing
invitation from the King and the Queen of Navarre to visit Nérac and give them
the benefit of his counsel, it seemed impossible to decline. The “Venerable
Company of the Pastors of Geneva” cheerfully approved his going, while prudently
recording upon their minutes a simple statement that, “ on the 20th of July,
our brother, Monsieur de Beze, was sent to Guyenne to
the King and Queen of Navarre, for the purpose of instructing them in the Word
of God.” Nor did Beza, in his efforts to fulfil the part of his mission which
in their caution the ministers had refrained from mentioning, neglect the rare
opportunity afforded him to work for the more purely religious end which they had
put prominently forward. Consternation fell upon the opponents of Protestantism
when they learned that Beza had from the pulpit preached publicly before his
royal auditors the very doctrines for the profession of which men and women had
for so many weary years been subjected to all forms of punishment, even to
burning to death.
But
Beza’s activity was not confined to the purely religious sphere. For the first
time he had the opportunity to display the abilities of a clear-sighted man of
affairs. He was the best adviser of Antoine of Bourbon. His voice rose in
protest against the insidious projects of the court. When, at the instigation
of the Guises, the King of Navarre was urged to comply with the command given
in the name of Francis II to come northward and to bring with him his younger
brother Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, in order that the latter might have
an opportunity to clear himself of the grave accusations of which he was the
object, no one opposed the foolhardy venture more strenuously than Beza. His
words were little heeded. Antoine, as credulous as he was inconstant,
preferred to listen to the suggestions of Cardinal Bourbon, who came on the
unfraternal errand of luring his two brothers to their destruction. Before
setting out, indeed, the same king who, a few weeks since, had not dissembled
his aversion to the Mass and avowed his preference for the Communion as
celebrated by the Protestants under both forms, was seen approving by his presence
the Roman ceremonial of the Mass, and compelling the attendance of his little
son, the future Henry IV. Deaf to the suggestion of his friends
that, if go he must, he should proceed to court under the protection of a
powerful escort, he persisted in declining the repeated offers made to him
successively, at various points in his journey, of the thousands of men that
could be brought to him from Poitou and Gascony, from Provençe and Languedoc, in the south, and from Normandy in the north. He fancied
himself safe in trusting the person of Condé and his own person to the most
perfidious of personal enemies. Condé, strange to say, for the time partook of
his delusion. Neither awoke to the danger until it was too late. That in the
end they escaped the fate to which one, if not both, of them seemed likely to
be consigned, was due to no foresight of theirs, but to a circumstance beyond
the reach of human prescience—the speedy and sudden death of the boy-king,
Francis II.
The
Cardinal of Lorraine had endeavoured to persuade
Antoine to bring to court in his train the Genevese theologian, as well,
apparently, as the famous jurisconsult François Hotman,
and others of his Protestant advisers. However, neither Beza nor Hotman had any taste for the adventure. Beza accompanied
the Bourbon princes only a part of the way, possibly as far as to Limoges, and
then struck out, through a country far from safe, in the direction of Geneva. Hotman took some other way. Both had heavy hearts, because
both seemed to have laboured in vain. Before Beza
there stretched a journey that would have occupied many days
under the most auspicious circumstances. He must travel unobserved, and
therefore in disguise, and by night. Under the kind protection of Heaven, he
escaped every danger, and safely reached Geneva, where his friends, ignorant of
his fortunes, had well-nigh despaired of seeing him again.
His‘
short absence of a little over three months was not so barren of permanent
advantage as at the time he, and perhaps his friends also, imagined.
Until
now Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, had been
timid. While her husband seemed to burn with zeal for the Reformation, she was
reserved and cold. Sagacious and discerning, she weighed the dangers that
invested an espousal of Protestantism. The principality of Béarn and the rest of the kingdom of Navarre on the northern slope of the Pyrenees
were after all but a contracted territory in a peculiarly exposed situation.
Her ancestors had not been able to protect the greater part of their
possessions from Spanish rapacity. How should she, a woman, rescue the small
remainder, were she to incur the enmity of the Papal See by a change of faith ?
What more effective way than this to invite invasion from without and
insurrection from within? Yet just in the proportion that Antoine’s fervour cooled, did her own ardour rise to a glowing heat. Immediately after Beza’s visit to Nérac, and, it would
seem, greatly as a consequence of his exposition of the Word of God, she came
to a decision from which during all the rest of her life she never
swerved. The story, is best told in the simple narrative of the history of the
Reformed Churches of France composed, if not by Beza, at least under his
supervision :
“The
Queen of Navarre, after the departure of the king her husband, withdrew to Béarn, where she received within a few days tidings of the
arrest of the Prince [of Condé] at Orleans, and of the conspiracy against her
husband, as well as of certain conferences held in Spain having in view the
surprise of her principality of Bearn and the remnant of Navarre. Seeing then
that the trust which she had reposed in man was lost, and that all human help
failed her, and being touched to the quick by the love of God, she had recourse
to Him in all humility, with cries and tears, as her sole refuge, and solemnly
declared her purpose to keep His commandments. Thus was it that, in the time of
her greatest tribulation, she made public profession of the pure doctrine,
being strengthened in her intention by Francois le Guay,
otherwise known as Bois Normand, and N. Henri,
faithful ministers of God’s Word. And committing the issue altogether to the
divine mercy, she put on a virile and magnanimous courage, and started to visit
and provision for a long siege her stronghold of Navarrenx in Béarn, which, it was rumoured,
the Spaniards intended to surprise. There she heard the news of the illness of
the king [Francis II] and, soon after, of his death. At Christmas following the
receipt of this intelligence, she again made a full and clear confession of her
faith and partook of the Lord’s Supper. Very soon thereafter she sent to the
king [Charles IX. her aforesaid Confession of Faith composed by herself, and written
and signed with her own hand; for she was of a singularly fine mind.’’
Certainly
it was worth all the trouble which Beza took and all the dangers he encountered
by the way to know that he had contributed to bring the mother of Henry IV to
so resolute a stand. Nor is it strange, in view of all the circumstances, that
Beza, when referring to this visit, in the dedication to Henry IV of a treatise
published in 1591, should have remarked: “Moreover, Sire, I am myself one of
those that had the grace from the Almighty to be called and received and
attentively heard, proclaiming the word of my Master, in your royal house of Nérac,
thirty-one years ago.”
As
for Theodore Beza, he had shown that he was not only a devoted Protestant, but
an able statesman as well. It was through no fault of his that Antoine did not
present himself at the French court with a body of men sufficient to enforce
the demand for a righteous performance of the promises made at Fontainebleau by
a royal council which, while outwardly approving, had no honest intention to execute its engagements.
From
this time forth the eyes of the Protestants of France
were fixed upon Theodore Beza. When the critical
moment arrived that demanded a man both ardent in his religious convictions and
eminent in his theological attainments, a man firm and unflinching in
the advocacy of the Protestant faith, a man in the
constitution of whose character courage and prudence
were singularly well balanced, it was no
fortuitous thing that Theodore Beza was summoned
to assume an important part with high expectations
regarding his success, which, as the sequel proved,
were not to be disappointed.
CHAPTER
VIII
RECALL
TO FRANCE
1561
THE
contingency to which reference was made at the close of the last chapter arose
in the year following the incidents therein described. It is important
therefore to form some conception of the France to which the Reformer was now
officially invited to return after an expatriation of thirteen years,
interrupted only by the short visit to Nérac. For his native land had undergone
a series of wonderful changes, the most wonderful of them all within the brief
compass of the last few months preceding his return.
When
Beza withdrew secretly from Paris in 1548, he forsook a country governed with a
strong hand, if not in fact by a monarch of mature years, at least, in his name
and under his legitimate authority, by the favourites to whom he chose to delegate the entire management of affairs. Francis I had
then been in his grave but a year. The reign of the monarch whose chief claim
to recognition, whose sole pretence to be called
“great,” was that, as patron of letters and scholars, he aspired to be the representative
of the spirit of the Renaissance, had gone out ingloriously in the glare of the
burning villages of the Vaudois of Cabrières and Merindol,
and amid the lurid flames of the holocaust of the “ Fourteen ” roasted alive on
the squares of Meaux. Proscription of the “Lutheran heresy” and of all
suspected of being tainted with it, was the watchword of the last years of a prince
who was at one time believed to favour what were
still styled “the new doctrines,” despite the stout assertions of their
advocates that they were but ” the old doctrines ” of the Church restated.
If
the Reformed doctrines made any progress during the twelve years of Henry II,
they made it in defiance of the personal hatred of the king and of a systematic
legislation of the most severe and sanguinary character. Yet the advance was
both rapid and substantial. Of this the most satisfactory proof is found in the
excesses of the inquisitorial tribunal erected by the judges of the Parliament
of Paris. That tribunal, from the facility and regularity with which it sent
its victims to the flames, came to be familiarly designated as the Chambre
Ardente. The recent fortunate discovery and publication of the original
records of its proceedings gives, in fact, the impression that one half of the
atrocities of the famous court had not been told and that popular rumour did injustice to the activity rather than to the
humanity of its members.
That
Protestantism actually grew, instead of being destroyed root and branch, was
patent evidence that it possessed extraordinary vitality. Year by year reports
became more frequent of whole provinces “infected” by the “poison” of heresy.
The capital itself contained its body of believers meeting regularly, but with
the utmost secrecy. They had indeed been organised as
a church, with pastors and other officers. Of this the government was possibly
as ignorant as it was ignorant of the fact that, a few months before Henry’s
death, a representative assembly met within the walls of Paris, composed of
delegates from different parts of the kingdom, and adopted a Confession of
Faith and settled the Directory for Worship and the Form of Government of the
Churches for the time to come. But if Henry was not kept fully informed of
these things by his spies, he knew, at any rate, that the judges of his own
high Court of Parliament were by no means sound in the faith as judged by the
tests of orthodoxy. For did he not, within a month
of his death, hear them avow heterodox sentiments in a judicial conference, and
did he not openly declare that he would see the guilty burned before his eyes ?
The
fatal thrust of the misdirected lance of Count Montgomery, in the fatal tourney
in honour of the nuptials of Philip II of Spain and
Elizabeth of France, rendered futile this threat, by depriving Henry both of
eyesight and of life. At his death French Protestantism entered upon a new and
more surprising course of growth and development. The princes and nobles that
came into power were, indeed, no less determined to suppress the
Reformation than Henry had been. But what had appeared possible for a monarch
in the flower of his age, was soon seen to be utterly hopeless for a mere
stripling, confessedly not ruling by himself, who deliberately handed over the
reins of authority to his wife’s uncles, the Duke and Cardinal of Guise. For
now men who might have continued for an indefinite time to submit to the cruel
commands of a lawful king, believed it no sin to oppose the mandates of
subjects who had illegally possessed themselves of the machinery of government.
The outbreak known as “The Tumult of Amboise” (1560) was no strange phenomenon.
It would rather have been strange had no outbreak occurred. Nor is it
surprising that, although the ill-concerted enterprise was speedily put down,
the popular ferment was not quieted but rather increased. Now the religious instinct
of the masses of the people began more openly to demand satisfaction. Unable to
obtain churches for their worship, the crowds resorted to the fields,
especially in the provinces most remote from the capital. The services were
conducted by ministers, many of them trained in the city of Calvin, and were
celebrated, as men said, “after the manner of Geneva,” that is, with public
prayers such as Calvin had drawn up in his liturgy, with the preaching of God’s
Word, and with the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. Mandates of bishops, for the most part non-resident, and proclamations
of royal governors and lieutenant-governors might lead to the capture and
execution of here and there a minister or of some courageous layman. But these
incidents had little or no permanent effect. They did not arrest the advance of
a religion which confessedly bore good fruit by promoting morality and good
order. At this juncture the government resolved to try the experiment of
convening an assembly of the Notables of the realm, for the purpose of
obtaining the best advice for allaying the prevalent spirit of discontent.
But
the Assembly of Fontainebleau (August, 1560), so far from devising the means of
suppressing the Reformation, gave to the advocates of the Reformation their
first opportunity to demand liberty of worship. Here it was that Admiral
Coligny boldly brought forward two petitions, the one addressed to the monarch,
the other to his mother, Queen Catharine de' Medici, and both documents
presented in the name of “the faithful” of all parts of France. The documents
were unsigned, but the admiral asserted that he could secure, if necessary,
fifty thousand signatures in the single province of Normandy. They demanded
houses for worship and the clear recognition of the right to assemble in these
houses for the service of God. Here too it was that, a day or two later, the
same nobleman took the bold step of openly espousing the cause of the
Protestant Reformers. At a moment when, under the law, such sentiments as he
uttered rendered him liable to the capital charge of heresy, he solemnly
declared his belief that, should the houses of worship be accorded and should
the royal judges be instructed to maintain his Majesty’s
authority and the public peace, quiet and universal contentment would at once
return. It was a notable circumstance that the occasion upon which Admiral
Coligny pledged life and property to the belief that the people in nowise
wished the crown ill, the occasion upon which he warned the king’s advisers
that it is a perilous thing to nurture in the king a suspicion of the loyalty
of his subjects, was a Saint Bartholomew’s Day, just twelve years before that
inauspicious Sunday in August on which the greyhaired Huguenot hero laid down his life, a sacrifice attesting the sincerity of his
religious convictions.
The
next twelvemonth, the last that elapsed before Beza’s recall to France, was
probably more eventful than any other period of equal duration in the sixteenth
century. This was certainly the fact so far as the Protestants were concerned.
Francis II died after one of the briefest reigns in French history. The means
devised by the enemies of the Protestants for their destruction, including the
convocation of the States-General that were to seal the overthrow of their protectors,
seemed to have been ordained by Providence for its own ulterior and wiser ends.
With the death of their nephew the Guises lost their undisputed ascendancy, and
the King of Navarre gained a fresh opportunity to vindicate his right, as
first prince of the blood, to the regency of the kingdom. How he was induced to
throw away this advantage and other advantages that might have materially
affected the progress of the Protestant doctrines, and what were the fruits of
his recreancy, I do not purpose to state in detail in
this place.
As
it was, the day of religious emancipation appeared to have dawned. Many
incidents of the early part of the year 1561 might be cited in evidence. One
distinguished Roman Catholic prelate made no little stir by openly championing
the Protestant movement. Cardinal Odet de Chastillon was the elder brother of Admiral Coligny. He had
in his youth entered the Church, having no leaning to the profession of arms.
He had recently been making less and less of a secret of his full acceptance
of the doctrines of the Reformation. He was count and bishop of the old city of
Beauvais, and, as such, one of the twelve ancient peers of the kingdom. Even
thus, however, he could scarcely defend himself against the fury of the
rabble, when it was noised abroad that, not content with fostering the growth
of the “new doctrines” in his diocese, he had at Easter absented himself from
his cathedral and celebrated the great Christian feast in the chapel of his
episcopal palace. There the Gospel had been preached and the Holy Communion administered
“after the manner of Geneva, though something discrepant,”—to use Sir Nicholas Throkmorton’s words,—each participant receiving both
elements at the hands of the officiating clergyman. Naturally the opposition
originated with the clergy.
“
Wherewith,” pursues the English ambassador, “the canons and divers of the
popular people, not content, murmured and assembled in great
numbers to have wrought their wicked wills upon the Cardinal, who shut himself
and his, with divers of the communicants of the town, within his house; yet not
so speedily but that some were hurt and killed, and one of the townsmen brought
violently before the Cardinal’s gate, and there burned out of hand without
further proceeding of justice in the matter.”
This
was in April. Before the close of the same month about one hundred gentlemen
and others gathered in a house of the suburbs of Paris, near the Pré aux Clercs, and
there held Protestant services. Being discovered, an assault was made upon the
house by the populace, but the besieged gentlemen repelled it with harquebuses
and such other weapons as they carried. Seven or eight of the assailants were
killed before the mob was tardily dispersed by the officers of justice. A few
months earlier, the Protestants would certainly have been arrested and tried,
and the sequel would have been a holocaust of victims offered up on the altar
of religious intolerance. Instead of this, the King of Navarre, opportunely
coming to the capital in company with Prince La Roche sur Yon, the Duke of
Longueville, and many other noblemen, to repress disorders, gave some sound
advice to the authors and abettors of all the mischief to which the Parisians
were prone. He called before him in the hall of the Louvre, says Throkmorton, “all the head
curates and churchwardens of all the parishes of the town and two of every
religious house, with the regents [professors] of the colleges, exhorting them
in the king’s name to quietness, and charging others for seditious preaching
and rather moving the people to tumults and sedition than edifying them.”
He
assured them that “when the same should happen hereafter, the king
would make them feel his indignation, and advised them not to molest any man
living without open scandal, nor to seek men in their houses, as had been done
at the instigation of some there present, whom he knew and [who] had changed
their own weed under colour of scholars.”
Thus
wrote the envoy to his royal mistress in May. A few days passed and her Majesty
was informed of a still more significant event. The solemn anointing and
coronation of young King Charles IX was duly celebrated in the cathedral of
Rheims according to immemorial usage, the Cardinal of Lorraine, as archbishop
of the city, officiating and saying mass, and the twelve peers of the kingdom
assisting. But no inconsiderable number of the nobles, and these among the most
powerful, absented themselves,, and their absence was known to be for no other
reason than their unwillingness to countenance a worship which they had come to
repudiate as idolatrous. Of the number were the Prince of Condé, Admiral
Coligny, the Duke of Longueville, Marshal Montmorency, and his
brother Damville. Moreover men noticed that on the
part of most of those noblemen who attended there was little or no reverence
paid at the solemn moment of the elevation of the host. “So far forth, thanks
be to God, is true religion in this country!” exclaimed the Earl of Hertford,
an eyewitness?
At
this time, it may be observed, a little frank espousal of the Protestant cause
on the part of Queen Elizabeth, a few unmistakable words declaring her firm
purpose never to return to the Roman Catholic Church, might possibly have
decided the French noblemen that still wavered between the two religions. As it
was, the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of Spain received confident assurances
from England itself that there would be no difficulty in making the queen
change her religion, and Elizabeth’s envoy informed her that when a Protestant
spoke on the subject to Cardinal Lorraine and Mary of Scots, these “made their
advantage of the cross and candles in your [Queen Elizabeth’s] chapel, saying
you were not yet fully resolved of what religion you should be.”
Yet,
with or without the aid of Elizabeth’s example, the Protestants were becoming
more and more bold. Old proscriptive laws could no longer be executed.
Protestants would assemble for worship. When, a little later, the Queen of
Navarre journeyed by short stages to court, she had preaching services in her
presence wherever she stopped. Then the attendance was marvellous. Fifteen thousand persons joined with her at
Orleans in partaking of the Holy Communion. The city had declared itself of the
new sect, according to the Venetian Suriano.
Earnest
Roman Catholics were startled and discouraged, not least of all the papal
nuncio, the Bishop of Viterbo. So sure was he that everything was going to
rack and ruin, that he sought and obtained his recall. His successor, Cardinal
Santa Cruce, was
a man who never lost heart and who came determined to win in spite of all
difficulties. Yet it may be noted that, before he had been many months in the
country, the correspondence of even this sanguine personage took on almost
precisely the same mournful tone as that for which he had criticised his predecessor, and he too was begging to be permitted to return to Rome, in
order that he might not witness with his own eyes the funeral obsequies of an
unfortunate kingdom.
The
one thing that Pope and nuncio, priests and cardinals, united in dreading as
the direst of catastrophes was the very thing which Huguenots and patriots
with equal unanimity desired as the consummation of all their hopes—that
liberty of conscience and of religious worship might at length be conceded. But, at the bare suggestion that the “heretics”
should be publicly heard in defence of their
erroneous views, bigots were beside themselves with anger. The only way to deal
with such accursed men was to condemn them offhand and without a hearing, lest
their insinuating words should infect others with the poison of heresy. Laymen
added their influence to that of clergymen in dissuading the government from
making a dangerous experiment. On the eve of the colloquy respecting which we
are next to speak, Catharine de’ Medici, who had, or feigned that she had, the
highest respect for the Doge of Venice, while she was suspicious of everybody
else, asked advice of Suriano, the Doge’s ambassador.
The latter gave the customary recommendation—to temporise,
to keep things as quiet as possible, to resort now and then, as occasion
demanded, to persuasion or admonition, to use a little severity, to gain over
by gifts and by promises. But when the queen-mother somewhat shamefacedly
admitted that it had been agreed that Theodore Beza should have a hearing in
the convocation of the bishops, and that she had hopes of gaining him over in
one or another of the ways which the ambassador had just suggested, Suriano demurred:
“In
order that she might never be able to assert that this course had ever been
counselled or approved by me, I told her that the Canons had expressly
forbidden disputing or treating with heretics, and that the bishops would fall
under censure. Such a proceeding would be the source of scandal and peril. If
it is desired to gain Beza in this way, it were better done privately in a
room.’’
Catharine
replying that the bishops were themselves satisfied with the contemplated
arrangement, the ambassador stood his ground, and could only reiterate his strong
belief that privacy was better than publicity, and that in any case only a few
persons should be permitted to be present at the colloquy.
Of
assurances that no important changes would be made, indeed, no changes at all
affecting the religion professed by the kings of France, predecessors of the
present occupant of the throne,—of assurances that the obedience of France to
the Pope would be maintained to the utmost and that no attempt would be made to
alienate the property of the Church—of such assurances Catharine de’ Medici was
prodigal enough. But whether any reliance could be placed on her word was
doubtful. The trouble with her and with her council was that they were as ready
to unsay as to say, and that they did not hesitate, when convenient, to deny
that they had ever uttered any of their previous assertions.
The
queen-mother was, in the estimation of all well-informed men, timid and
irresolute. Whether she would favour or oppose the
progress of the Reformed religion, was a question which it was at the time
impossible to answer with certainty, simply because the decision ultimately
reached would not be made according to principles fixed and stable, but must
depend upon motives of expediency shifting with the apparent demands of the
hour. Of settled convictions upon moral or religious matters she
had, or appeared to have, few or none. She was profoundly ignorant respecting
doctrine.
“I
do not believe,” says Suriano, “that her Majesty
understands what is meant by the word dogmas, but I suspect that, like others
who every day want to dispute concerning religion—all of them, or at least the
greater part of them, ignorant people—she confuses dogmas, rites, and abuses,
as if they were all one and the same thing. Hence there arises every form of confusion
in their disputes and, possibly, also in their opinions.”
But
if Catharine de’ Medici was timid and irresolute, there were others who had
fully made up their minds and had the courage inspired by their convictions.
The King of Navarre might waver and ultimately throw in his lot with the
enemies of the Reformation, but his younger brother, Condé, had no hesitation.
Nor was there hesitation on the part of the three brothers Chastillon—the
Admiral of Coligny, d’Andelot, and the reforming
cardinal, who though he still wore the red robe as a member of the Roman Sacred
College, was, as we have seen, not afraid to celebrate the Holy Communion and
at a later time to take to himself a wife, and, during his residence at Queen
Elizabeth’s court, to do efficient work in the interest of the Huguenots and
of the other Protestants of the Continent. And, behind these and other
important nobles, stood a great body of men, titled and untitled, the majority
unknown as yet to the world, though, as the most virtuous and intelligent
element of the population, exerting a quiet influence, willing and ready,
however, should the occasion come, to suffer loss of property and even death in
attestation of their faith.
The
times had clearly changed essentially since Beza retired from the kingdom and
sought a refuge in hospitable Geneva. True, the battle for religious liberty
was not yet won. Legislation was still hostile in the extreme. It was no easy
thing for a judge to be both equitable and observant of the law; and between
the dictates of the bloodthirsty edicts, as yet unrepealed, and the dictates of
natural justice reinforced by a powerful public sentiment in favour of more leniency in dealing with respectable
citizens whose only fault was that they did not believe what the greater part
of the nation believed or imagined that they believed, the parliaments as well
as the lower courts exhibited a singular record of inconsistency verging upon
absurdity. Of all the incidents of the year of Beza’s return to France, indeed,
the most inconsistent and absurd was the publication of a fresh law, known from
the time of its issue as the Edict of July—little better than an anachronism,
inasmuch as at a juncture imperatively calling for the supply of relief, it
reenacted severe penalties against all such as should attend conventicles where
there was preaching or where the sacraments were administered. The best that
could be said for it was that the measure was evidently of a temporary
character, a sop thrown to the priests to gain a brief respite from their
incessant complaints of the indulgence shown to dissent.
Meanwhile
the government had, some months before, so far yielded to the insistence of the
friends of progress as to decide definitely that an opportunity should at last
be afforded the Protestants of meeting, with their opponents and setting forth
their views and the grounds of those views. Even the time had been fixed. In an
interview which Admiral Coligny held with the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth by
appointment at a place three leagues distant from Fontainebleau, on the 24th of
April, he informed him in profound secrecy “that
yesterday it was resolved, in Council, that in August next the king would
assemble his clergy and keep a National Council in France for religion. And as
the Queen of England had dissuaded the king from accepting the Council of
Trent and [urged him] to desire one in his own realm, where things might be
handled with more sincerity, and it was said that the queen would assist him
therein, it is now thought that she will show herself a good friend to the king
and to the promotion of true religion, if she will send some of her best
learned divines to this assembly, and exhort the Princes Protestant to do the
like.’’
It
is very certain, however, that if such were the hopes of Coligny and other
leaders of the Reformed faith, Catharine de’ Medici never had the idea of
inviting either Elizabeth or any German prince to be represented in a French
National Council; nor indeed of holding any Council at all in which Protestants
should sit as members. As it was, about the same
time as the other two orders of the kingdom were in session in the so-called
States-General at Pontoise, she summoned all the
bishops of France to meet in the neighbouring convent
of Poissy, at a convenient distance from the royal castle of Saint
Germain en Laye. In
justification of her action in calling these representatives of the clergy to
consider the present religious situation of France without waiting for the
General Council of the Church, which was the great desire of her heart, she
excused herself by alleging that she had no intention to make any innovations
in ecclesiastical matters, and consequently no intention to do anything at
which the Pope could take umbrage.
“But,”
said she, “those who are extremely ill are excusable if they apply all sorts
of remedies to alleviate their pain when unendurable, the meantime waiting for
the good physician, which I esteem must be a good Council, for so furious and
dangerous a disease of which those may speak with more boldness who feel it and
are most affected by it.”
Moreover
she defended herself for inviting the Protestant ministers, by calling
attention to the admirable opportunity that would be offered to convince them
of the error of their ways!
“Having
been requested by the greater part of the nobles and commons of this kingdom, a
few months ago, to grant a hearing to the ministers scattered in
various cities of this kingdom, on their Confession of Faith,” she wrote to the
French ambassador at the court of the Emperor, ‘‘I was advised to do so by my
brother, the King of Navarre, the rest of the princes of the blood, and the
members of the council of the king my son. Long and mature deliberation has
convinced me that in such great troubles there is no better or more effective
means of leading the ministers to abandon their views and of drawing off their
adherents than to make their teaching known and discover what errors and
heresies it contains.”
It
was determined therefore for the first time that the Protestants of France
should be heard in defence of their doctrine—a very
simple and natural thing, which they had been asking for years with
persistence, yet a thing which their enemies had as persistently opposed and
denied. They still opposed it, on the present occasion, with one solitary
exception. Cardinal Lorraine, strange to say, was quite willing that the
Protestants should make a public appearance through their chosen representatives,
taking, in fact, so different an attitude from that of his colleagues in the
Sacred College as to lay himself open to not a little suspicion. We shall see
further on whether this suspicion was well grounded.
Undoubtedly,
when the Protestants began to look for the man best qualified to represent them
at Poissy, their minds turned instinctively to John
Calvin, than whom no other was mentally or morally better equipped—a native
Frenchman, moreover, who had never lost his interest in the land of
his birth, but was more active than any other man alive in promoting by his
voice and by his pen the progress of the Reformation in France. Calvin, however,
was not to be thought of for an instant. With all their affection for him, the
ministers of the Church of Paris distinctly told him so and gave him their reasons.
“We
see no means of having you here,” they wrote him, ‘‘without grave peril, in
view of the rage which all the enemies of the Gospel have conceived against
you, and the disturbances which your name alone would excite in this country,
were you known to be present. In fact, the admiral [Coligny] is by no means in favour of your undertaking the journey, and we have learned
with certainty that the queen [Catharine de’ Medici] would not relish seeing
you. She says frankly that she would not pledge herself for your safety, as for
that of the rest. On the other hand, the enemies of the Gospel assert that they
would be glad to listen to all the other [Reformers], but that, as for you,
they could not bring themselves to hear you or to look at you. You see, sir, in
what esteem you are held by these venerable prelates. I suspect that you will
not be much grieved by it, nor consider yourself dishonoured by being so viewed by such gentry.”
On
the contrary, there existed among the adherents of the Roman Catholic party no
such inveterate prejudice against Beza. Men had not forgotten that he was once
addicted to the lighter forms of literature and was a graceful poet. He would
not be out of his native element in the royal court. He might not
equal Calvin in his mastery of the science of theology, but he would be a more
acceptable disputant. The believers of Paris wrote urging him to come; so did
also the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny, who, although as yet unknown to
him as a correspondent, not only sent him a letter but despatched a trusty agent to lay before him the absolute need of him in which Protestant
France stood. As to the King of Navarre, he declared with his usual impetuosity
that Beza had no friend at court to whom his appearance would be more grateful
than to him, and he promised cheerfully to do everything in his power for the
Reformer.
Still
Beza delayed his coming. This is not surprising. The Edict of July, to which
reference has been made, was poor evidence of any intention on the part of the
court to deal fairly by Protestantism, whose condition, so far as public
worship was concerned, it rendered worse rather than better. The Protestants
at Paris were nearly in despair. The colloquy of prelates was in session and
the time was short. Men began to say that the Protestants would not dare to
appear before so goodly a company and stand up for their errors. Should the
colloquy finish its business and adjourn without their having presented
themselves to maintain the cause of the Gospel, the mouths of the malevolent
would be open to decry their pusillanimity and asperse their religion. The
princes hitherto favourable would be disgusted.
Catharine de’ Medici, never slow to make cutting speeches,
was already saying to one and another that she would never be able to persuade
herself that the Reformers had any right on their side if they failed to seize
the opportunity offered them to manifest and maintain the grounds of their
faith. We have an earnest letter in which the Protestants of Paris laid the situation
before Beza, imploring him to make no tarrying, and assuring him that the Edict
of July—better understood at home than it could be understood at a distance—had
been simply made to satisfy King Philip of Spain and the Pope and to extract
money from the purses of the reluctant prelates of Poissy—bad
motives, doubtless, but containing nothing to discourage the advocates of the
truth. Nor was this all. Antoine of Navarre again wrote by a
special messenger, this time to “the magnificent Lords, the Syndics and Council
of the Seigniory of Geneva, ’’ praying them in the most affectionate manner to
consent to send his “dear and well-beloved Theodore de Beze,”
than whom he could ask for no person more highly approved, and to despatch him as expeditiously as possible “to the end that
his delay might not hinder the progress of so good a work.”
It
was no longer decent or possible to turn a deaf ear to such appeals. Without
waiting even for a safe-conduct, Beza set off on the 16th of August for the
scene of the coming theological encounter. Six days later he reached Paris.
CHAPTER
IX
RECEPTION
AT COURT
1561
THE
first tidings that awaited Beza upon his arrival in Paris
were by no means encouraging. It is true that he was informed that a number of
his colleagues, delegates of Huguenot Churches, some eight pastors in all, had
reached the court of France before him, and had been received by the king publicly
and with the utmost kindness. Charles was pleased to permit them to present him
a petition, and assured them, meanwhile looking upon them “with a very goodly
countenance,” that he would communicate their requests to his council and reply
to them by his chancellor. And, inasmuch as these requests were to the effect
that their avowed enemies, the ecclesiastics, should not be permitted to act as
their judges, but that the king himself should preside at the approaching
colloquy, and that the Sacred Scriptures in their Hebrew and Greek originals
should form the sole ground for the decision of controverted points, it must be
confessed that the Protestants might well be pardoned for entertaining
sanguine expectations of the issue. But, on the other
hand, there came news of plots on the part of their antagonists, no longer, as
was believed, vain rumours, but ascertained facts. A
still more tangible cause for apprehension was that the very chief of their
enemies—the same Duke of Guise who, after the enactment of the intolerant Edict
of July, boasted that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the execution
of this law was concerned—expected to reach the royal court on the morrow, at
the head of a powerful band of friends and retainers. Well might Beza write to
Calvin, when he had been but a few hours in Paris, that he did not know but
that he had fallen rather upon a civil war than upon a peaceable conference.
To
feelings of discouragement must soon have succeeded more cheerful emotions. The
King of France and his court had for some time been at his castle or palace of
Saint Germain, or, as it was designated more particularly, in order to
distinguish it from the six- or seven-score places bearing the name of one of
the most popular worthies in the Roman Catholic calendar, Saint Germain en Laye. The very day of Beza’s
arrival at Paris, a messenger rode in haste to convey to the expectant and
delighted Huguenot nobles about his Majesty the welcome intelligence that the
man upon whom more than upon any other they
depended in the approaching struggle was safe
and ready to come to their aid. The distance yet
to be traversed by the Genevese Reformer was but
fourteen miles. Before nightfall a return messenger
was despatched to beg him to come at once to the royal court. Accordingly, the
next day (August 23d), Beza set forth on horseback, accompanied by a cavalcade
of friendly Huguenots, reaching in time for the evening meal the abode of the
Cardinal of Chastillon at Saint Germain, where he and
the delegates of the French Protestant Churches were to be hospitably
entertained.
He
was not allowed to eat in peace, so anxious were his friends to see him and so
pressing were the invitations to come to the castle or palace. A flattering
reception awaited him. On entering he was met by the new Chancellor of France,
not so famous now as he was destined shortly to become, nor so thoroughly
understood to be a lover of country and of toleration, the learned and
venerable Michel de L’Hospital. That great man
coveted the honour of introducing Beza at the French
court, as Beza clearly saw and afterwards wrote down; but the Reformer, not recognising the great heart of L’Hospital,
and the great patriotism which that heart contained, was wary and suspicious.
There was no time, however, for conference. At the door of the chamber into
which he passed, Beza found himself confronted with a number of the grandees of
the kingdom. First came the great admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, whom he had
barely time to salute before the King of Navarre and his brother, the Prince of
Condé, threw themselves upon him, “with a very great affection, it seemed to
me,” as Beza, who by this time was tolerably well acquainted with the shallow
and untrustworthy character of the elder Bourbon, noted not
without some pardonable misgivings. Meanwhile, two prelates drew near, the
cardinals of Bourbon and of Chastillon, both of whom
offered him their hands. It were to be wished that Beza had found space to
relate, in his letter to Calvin, all that was said, for the little that he did
set down is enough to show that in quickness and in tact he was quite ready for the occasion. As he grasped the proffered hand of
Cardinal Bourbon, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of protesting,
doubtless with a mischievous twinkle of the eye, that he, Beza, had undergone
no change since—at Nérac, a year ago—the prelate had declined to speak to him,
for fear of being excommunicated. The poor cardinal, in his embarrassment,
could only answer that he was desirous of understanding matters in truth; to
which Beza naturally replied by begging Bourbon to abide by his purpose and by
offering his own services to that end. A discussion had almost begun, but both
saw that it was no suitable time for controversy, and stopped. To Bourbon’s
brother, the King of Navarre, Beza playfully, yet earnestly, observed that he
greatly feared that his Majesty would soon be less joyful at his arrival,
unless he (the king) made up his mind to change his present course of action.
To this Antoine replied by an outburst of laughter, and Beza in turn confined
himself to assuring him that the words were spoken in all seriousness and that
he would do well to think upon the matter.
Such,
almost in Beza’s own words, were the incidents of the first few minutes of his
stay at Saint Germain. New honours awaited him. He
was conducted by a company “far greater than he could have expected,” to pay
his respects to the Princess of Conde and to the wife of Admiral Coligny. The
next day, which was Sunday, in the lodgings of the Prince of Condé, and in the
presence of a large and honourable company that had
assembled to hear him, the Genevese Reformer preached a Protestant discourse.
At that very moment the prince himself was joining with the Duke of Guise,
before the queen-mother and the royal council, in a solemn act of amity and
reconciliation. The Duke of Guise solemnly asseverated that he was in nowise
the cause or author of the prince’s imprisonment at Orleans, and when the
prince had declared that he held to be wicked all that had been its cause, the
duke positively asserted that he thought so too, and that the matter did not
concern him at all. It was a farce, whose insincerity was transparent to all
eyes, played with scarcely an attempt, on the part of the actors, to conceal
its worthlessness. All that it effected was to permit the prince and the duke
to meet in the ordinary intercourse of life with the semblance of having buried
all recollection of the unfortunate Tumult of Amboise and of the subsequent
counterplot to destroy the Bourbon princes in the last hours of the reign of
Francis II.
That
day the Protestant deputies received from the king a favourable reply to the petition which has already been referred to. They were assured,
although the promise was not as yet in writing and in authentic form, that they
should be admitted to an audience and that their opponents
should not be suffered to act as their judges.
At
about nine o’clock in the evening, Beza was summoned to the chamber of the King
of Navarre. Great was his surprise, on entering, to find that, instead of
Antoine alone, there were gathered the queen-mother, Catharine de’ Medici,
Prince Condé, the Duke d’Etampes, Cardinals Bourbon
and Lorraine, and one or two ladies of the court. Startled though he was and
possibly suspecting some snare laid for him, the Reformer did not lose his
self-possession and promptly addressed himself to Catharine. In a few words he
laid before her the reason of his coming to France. This was in brief his earnest
desire to be of service to his native land. The queen-mother replied
courteously and kindly, expressing her very great joy should a conclusion in
very deed be reached that might procure peace and quiet to the realm. Thus far
there was not a ripple to disturb the interview. Apparently Cardinal Lorraine
did not intend that it should end so amicably. After some complimentary words,
in which he acknowledged the intellectual ability of the new-comer, he added
that he had hitherto known Beza merely by his writings, but now that he had
come he exhorted him to study the peace and concord of the kingdom. As Beza
had heretofore afflicted France, he now had it in his power to assuage her
woes. The taunt did not pass unanswered. Again Beza protested the fervency of
his desire to serve his king and his country. It stood next only to his desire
to serve his God. “So great a kingdom as France,” he
said, “has nothing to fear in the way of disturbance from my slender abilities.
Nay, the idea of such a thing has ever been as alien as possible from my
thoughts. My writings have shown this, and a comparison of their contents will
make it plain.” Have you written anything in French?” asked the queen-mother.
To this Beza replied : “I have written a translation of the Psalms, and a certain
Answer to the Confession of the Duke of Northumberland.” Catharine’s question,
it came out, had been occasioned by the circulation in France of an insulting
song, ascribed to Beza as its author, the previous year. Beza positively and at
some length denied that the song in question emanated from him.
The
mention of defamatory books brought on a theological discussion.
“I
have at Poissy,” said the cardinal, “a book
attributed to you, treating of the Sacrament, in which you assert what seems to
me an absurdity, that Christ is as much to be sought in the Lord’s Supper as
before He was born of the Virgin. Moreover, I am told, although this I am not
willing to affirm, as I have never seen the book, that you state that Christ is
not more in Caena than in Caeno’’—a
play upon words, signifying “not more in the Supper than in the mire.” At this
the queenmother and the other listeners were
evidently moved, but Beza quietly replied that, when the books were produced,
he would not disavow them, if they were his. As to the two propositions which
the cardinal had referred to, the sense of
the former might be true, although only an inspection of the book would show
that; but the latter could not be found either in his books or in those of anyone else possessed of the slightest intelligence in the
world. “Our Confession of Faith,” he added, “proves in what reverence we hold
the Sacraments.”
The discussion drifted into an argument respecting the meaning
of the words of our Lord in the institution of His Supper.
“I teach the children of my diocese,” said the
cardinal, “when they are asked the question, ‘What
is the bread in the Supper?’ to answer that it is
the body of Christ. Do you find fault with this?” “Why should I not approve the words
of Christ?” replied Beza. “But the question
is, ‘In what way is the bread called the body of Christ?’.” Hereupon
he proceeded to set forth his own and the Reformed view—namely, that the signs
used retain their original nature, the bread continuing to be bread and the
wine to be wine; that the thing signified in the Sacrament is the very body of Christ affixed to the cross and His very blood poured out on the cross; that the bread and water used
are not common bread and water, from which, however, they
differ only in that they become visible signs of the
body and blood of Christ; that therefore the
body and blood of Christ, so far as they are truly given
and communicated, are truly present in the use of
the Supper, not, as they are esteemed to be, under,
or in, or with the bread, or anywhere else than
in heaven whither Christ has ascended, that there
He may reside, so far as appertains to His human nature,
until He shall return to judge the quick and the dead; finally, that, in the
Communion, the visible signs are given us to be taken by the hand, to be eaten,
to be drunk in a natural manner, but, so far as the thing signified is
concerned, that is, the body and blood of Christ, they are offered indeed to
all, but they cannot be partaken of save spiritually and by faith, not by the
hand, not by the mouth.
Once
and again in the course of the conversation, the cardinal expressed his
acquiescence in the doctrine propounded. He rejoiced greatly, he said, to hear
that these were the sentiments of Beza and his friends, for he had understood
that they had thought differently. At one point he expressed a hope that for
himself he might retain the doctrine of Transubstantiation; yet he conceded
that it might be omitted by the theologians, and he indeed would be unwilling
that there should be a schism in the churches because of Transubstantiation.
Later on, he protested that he was not urgent in behalf of Transubstantiation
and admitted that Christ must be sought for in heaven. In fact he plainly
showed to the skilled disputant with whom he had to do that his views were by
no means settled, and that he had no true mastery of the subject. His time, he
said, had been taken up with other studies. At length he went so far as to say:
“I
am unpractised in discussions of this kind, but you
have heard what I would say.” “And you in like manner,” returned Beza, “have heard
from me what should satisfy you. I sum all up thus: The bread is the body pf
Christ sacramentally, that is, although that body is today in heaven and
nowhere else, yet the signs are with us upon the
earth. Yet just so truly is that body
given to us, and just so truly is it partaken of by
us through faith, and that to life eternal because of God’s promise, as the
sign is naturally extended to our
hands.”
Beza’s
statement contented, or seemed to content, the cardinal. Turning to the
queen-mother, who had sat through the long discussion, “Madam,” he said,
“I believe so too, and this satisfies me.” Whereupon Beza also
addressed her and exclaimed: “Behold then those
wretched Sacramentarians so long vexed and
borne down with all sorts of calumnies!”
There
was an animated scene for a moment. Catharine de’ Medici, overjoyed, was not
silent. “Do you hear, my lord cardinal, that the opinion
of the Sacramentarians is none other than that which you yourself have approved?” She added a few words about union and conciliation. Cardinal Lorraine himself congratulated the Reformer and said these
very words to him: “Monsieur de Beze, I have greatly rejoiced to see and hear you. I adjure you,
in God’s name, to let me understand your reasons and
that you also understand mine. And you will not find
me so black as some people make me to be.” Beza thanked
him and in turn begged him not to desist from
pursuing the path of conciliation, professing his
own purpose to use for this end every gift God had conferred
upon him. Thus the disputants separated and the
little gathering broke up. Not, however, before witty
Madame de Cursol, one of the
auditors, who understood the cardinal well, had taken his hand as she bade him
good-night with the significant words: “ Good man for this evening; but
tomorrow, what?” With a true intuition she foresaw precisely what came to pass.
Scarcely had the next morning come when the cardinal was boasting that he had
overcome Beza and brought him over to his opinion.
All
these particulars we learn from a letter which Beza despatched to Calvin the following evening. Upon the receipt of it Calvin, not a little
amused at Lorraine’s pretended friendship, wrote to warn Beza not to trust the
prelate’s professions. Thirteen years before, he told him, a papal legate, the
Cardinal of Ferrara, had imposed upon him (Calvin), lavishing caresses upon
him and promising to be the best of friends. And he added playfully his advice
that Beza should not display any over-elation because of Cardinal Lorraine’s
effusive demonstration, nor assume lordly airs toward him, his fellow-
Reformer, in view of the circumstance that Calvin could so easily retaliate,
particularly inasmuch as a papal legate is the superior of any and every
simple cardinal.
Meanwhile
it looked as if the Parisian Protestants might have spared themselves the
feverish haste with which they sent for Beza, and that Beza himself might
have come by slower stages. The prelates were in no hurry to meet either the
representatives of the Protestant Churches or the Reformer from Geneva. They
had been in session for three weeks. Instead of any more imposing designation
which would, if it approached the notion of a national synod, have excited the
ire of the Pope, their coming together had, as we have seen, been styled a
colloquy, that is, a more or less informal conference. Their time had thus far
been spent to little profit; in angry wrangling over such matters as the
discipline of the Church, the number of priests, the dignity of the episcopate
and of cathedral churches, and the reformation of the monastic rules. They
were fully determined, after they had settled all these matters, to adjourn and
go home, without giving the slightest attention to the true object for which
they had been convened.
Happily,
Catharine de’ Medici was for the time under the influence of good advisers,
among whom were prominent the liberal Bishop of Valence and the new chancellor,
Michel de L’Hospital. The one or the other of these
two men was probably the true author of a letter which Catharine had recently
sent to the Pope over her own signature, outlining the radical changes which
she regarded as necessary concessions to the spirit of the times. Being ready
to give up image worship, the denial of the cup to the laity in the Lord’s Supper,
the use of the Latin language in public worship, the practice of the celebration
of private masses, and other abuses to which the bigots
clung tenaciously, she was not likely to listen with patience to the protests
of a few bishops who had the effrontery to propose to disperse without giving
a moment’s consideration to the vital questions that were occupying the serious
thoughts of a great part of France and threatened to create a lasting schism.
But the delays were interminable, and the air was full of rumours that the Protestants would either fail of obtaining the hearing for which they
had been brought to Saint Germain, or, if heard at all, would be heard in such
a manner as to defeat the very object in view. The dilatory government was
brought to the necessity of instant decision when, on the 8th of September,
Beza having been fully sixteen days at Saint Germain, the Protestant
ministers, envoys of the churches, presented themselves before Catharine de’
Medici, and respectfully but firmly demanded that impartial treatment which
they had been promised, and assured her that they would immediately leave
unless measures were taken to defeat the machinations of their enemies.
Whatever
hesitation Catharine had displayed at once disappeared. Before being dismissed
from her presence, the ministers had the satisfaction of seeing informal action
taken by the members of the royal council that were present, granting
essentially all the Protestant requests. The prelates would not be their
judges. The minutes of the proceedings would be reduced to writing by one of
the secretaries of state, but to this official record the
Protestants might add notes or comments of their own. The young king, Charles
IX, would be present, in company with the princes of the blood. To this
determination Catharine remained firm. The Sorbonne, or theological faculty of
the University of Paris, sent some of their number to wait upon her, entreating
her to give no audience to heretics whose teachings the Church had heretofore
often condemned, or, at least, if she would hear them herself, not to suffer
her young son’s orthodoxy to be jeopardised by
exposure to such infection. But Catharine was inflexible. The conference was
appointed for the morrow, and Charles IX. and his suite were to hear what the
Reformers had to say for themselves and for their teachings.
CHAPTER
X
SPEECH
AT THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY
1561
THE
occurrence which is next to be described constitutes
one of the critical events in the history of the Reformation in France.
Its importance can scarcely be exaggerated.
The
adherents of the Reformed Churches had one standing grievance to allege against
the established Church and against the government which in the religious domain
did little more than carry out the suggestions of that Church. They maintained
that the faith they professed was rational and Scriptural. Each separate
doctrine was based upon some distinct utterance of the Word of God. Instead of
being newly invented, their belief was the original belief of the Christian
Church. Upon every point where it differed from the present creed and the
current practice, antiquity was in their favour.
Their opponents who cloaked themselves with the pretence of following immemorial usage were themselves innovators, since they upheld a
system that came into existence long after the times of the Apostles, so that
at best it was fairly entitled only to the designation of
inveterate error. These Protestant claims appeared to the multitude and even
to the greater part of educated men at first sight
strange and paradoxical; for they involved an
overturning of all preconceived notions.
But the Reformers did not ask to be believed on their
own simple assertion. From the greatest to the least they offered
to prove the truth of their statements by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
Their
adversaries stopped their ears. They would not
listen to the Protestants when living and still less
when dying. If a martyr undertook to vindicate the doctrine
for which he was suffering the torture of slow death
by fire, his voice was conveniently drowned by
the incessant beating of drums, unless, indeed, a gag of
wood or iron had already been forced into his mouth to impose silence upon him.
All
that the Reformers asked of the ruling powers was to be
heard. If they could but gain the ear of the king, they
made sure that their arguments were so convincing,
the truth so patent, that there could be little fear
of the result. If he would listen kindly, candidly,
impartially, they cared little for anything else;
but they insisted that he and no one else should preside
at the audience, and that their enemies should not
pronounce upon the truth or falsity of their allegations. If
this last was to be the case, that
is, if the “Gospel,” as they confidently styled
their doctrine, was to be granted a pretended
hearing only to be subjected to the dignity of a prearranged humiliation and
defeat—in this case, and in this case alone, they were resolved to refuse to
plead. Even personal affront was of little account, so long as it affected them
alone. Only let the Word have a fair hearing. All else was immaterial.
It
will be seen that just this personal affront was to be offered them in the
coming encounter. Strange to say, John Calvin had predicted, some ten years
before, the very insult which was put upon the Reformers at Poissy,
and had then expressed in their name a willingness to endure it. For when, on
the 24th of January, 1551, he dedicated to young King Edward VI of England his
Commentary on the Catholic Epistles of the New Testament, he exclaimed with
reference to the attitude of inferiority in which the enemies of the
Reformation so persistently sought to place its friends, “Then let them sit,
provided we are heard, declaring the Truth while standing."
It
was therefore with no slight sense of the importance of the occasion, and with
a hearty prayer to Heaven for help to make good use of it, that, about ten
o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, September 9, 1561, Theodore Beza set out
for Poissy, escorted by a strong detachment of about
one hundred horsemen, sent as a body-guard to preclude the possibility of any such
treacherous attack as, in the present excited condition of the public mind,
would have been nothing less than a national disaster. With him rode,
also on horseback, those faithful and courageous men, the ministers and the
representatives of the churches to whom had been prayerfully entrusted such a
commission as all felt it had never before been the privilege and
responsibility of any similar body of men to discharge. It is not probable
that, even without Beza, they would have proved unequal to the task of setting
forth with clearness and force the Protestant side in the great controversy. In
an age much addicted to discussion, these were picked men, whose equals, for
learning as well as natural ability, could scarcely have been found, man for
man, throughout the kingdom. Three or four ministers stood forth preeminent.
Augustin Marlorat, of Rouen, was the distinguished
man who after the siege and capture of the capital of Normandy, not much over
a year later, in the first civil war, was judicially murdered for his
religion’s sake by the provincial Parliament. Nicholas des Gallars was the well-known pastor of the French refugees at London. John Raymond
Merlin, a skilful professor of Hebrew at Geneva, was
that same chaplain of Admiral Coligny who was as by a miracle saved from the
dagger when, in 1572, his patron was assassinated at the Massacre of Saint
Bartholomew’s Day, and who subsequently, when lying in the garret into which
in his flight he had fallen, was as strangely saved from starvation by the hen
that daily came and laid an egg for his supply. Francois de Saint Paul, more
famed as a theologian, came from distant Provence, where he was honoured as the founder of more than one church.
The
distance from the castle of Saint Germain to the nuns’ convent at Poissy is possibly a little over three miles. A straight
and broad avenue led from the one place to the other, cutting off the greater
part of the extensive forest of Saint Germain on the right from the small
portion that lay on the left hand. It required less than half an hour for Beza
to reach his destination. The Duke of Guise, to whom this duty had been
assigned, received him with as gracious an aspect as he could assume and handed
him and his associates over to the conduct of the captain of the royal guard.
Following the latter, they were subsequently ushered into the presence of
Charles IX.
The
large refectory of the conventual edifice had been prepared for the unusual
meeting, as best it could be, at short notice. A quaint engraving of the time,
which Montfaucon has reproduced in his Monuments
de la Monarchie Françoise may help us to form an
idea of the place in which were assembled all the most distinguished personages
of France.
The
tables of the nuns ran along the sides of the room, the table of the abbess
along the side farthest from the spectator as he entered. In front of this
table sat a number of great lords in a row, and before them in turn the princes
of the blood royal. In advance of these were six detached seats, places of
highest honour. Here sat young King Charles IX, with his younger brother (the future
Henry III), and Antoine, King of Navarre, on his right, while the seats
to his left were occupied by his mother,
Catharine de’ Medici, his sister, Margaret of Valois, future
bride of Henry IV, and Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of
Navarre. Chairs had been arranged for the six French cardinals that were in attendance at court, in two rows facing one another and
somewhat nearer the door. On the spectator’s right were Cardinals Armagnac,
Bourbon, and Guise; on his left Cardinals Tournon, Chastillon, and Lorraine, with the High Chancellor of
France, Michel de L’Hospital,
sitting between the last two. In three rows on
benches advancing towards the spectator’s left
hand were gathered bishops and doctors, while other
dignitaries of the same grade
occupied a similar position on his right. More
toward the centre of the room were a table and seats for
the secretaries of state.
No
seats had been provided for Beza and his companions,
the Protestant ministers and delegates, to occupy on
their arrival. Swiss guards, in their picturesque
costume, and body-guards of the king stood on
either side of the entrance; and the lower end
of the hall was crowded with men curious to witness
and listen to the proceedings.
Charles
IX, being a boy of eleven years of age, opened
the session with the few simple words which he
had been instructed by his mother to utter, and
bade the chancellor to set forth the object for which
the conference had been appointed. Thus directed,
Michel de L’Hospital, seating himself on a stool, “pretty
far forward in the hall toward the right side,” made an appropriate address.
“Both
the king’s predecessors,” said he, “and the king himself have tried every
means, forcible and mild, to reunite his people so unfortunately divided by a
diversity of opinions. Neither force nor mildness has been of much avail.
Consequently the division long since begun has been succeeded by a capital
enmity between his Majesty’s subjects, from which, unless God supplies some
prompt and quick remedy, only the entire ruin of the State is to be
apprehended. It is for this reason that, following the example of the action of
former monarchs in similar straits, the king has called you together, that he
may communicate to you his need of counsel and help. Before all things else, he
begs you, so far as possible, to devise the means of appeasing God, whose anger
is certainly provoked, and of rooting out and removing whatever has offended
Him. And should it be found that, through the sloth and avarice of those that
are in charge of His service, there have crept in abuses contrary to God’s
Word, contrary to the prescriptions of the Holy Apostles and the ancient
constitutions of the Church, his Majesty begs you, so far as your authority
extends, to put forth your hands with a resolution that shall take away from
your enemies the occasion upon which they have laid hold to speak ill of you
and to draw the people away from your obedience. Look also to all that may
reform both your lives and the administration of your charges.
“Now,
inasmuch as the diversity of opinions is the principal ground of troubles and
seditions, the king, following in this the decisions of the two meetings heretofore
held, has granted a safe-conduct to the ministers of the new
sect, in the hope that a kindly and gracious conference
with them may be of great advantage. I therefore
beg this entire company to receive them as a father
receives his children, and to take pains to teach and
instruct them. Then, should the opposite of what was
hoped for come to pass, and no means be found to bring
them back or to unite us all, it will not, at least, be possible hereafter to
say, as has been said in the past, that
they have been condemned without having been heard. When this dispute shall
have been faithfully reported and published throughout the kingdom, as it really was held, the people will be able to
understand that it is for good, just, and certain reasons, and
not by force or authority, that this doctrine has been rejected and condemned. Meantime his Majesty promises to
be, as all the king’s predecessors have always been,
in everything and everywhere, the protector
and defender of his Church.”
Scarcely
had the chancellor concluded his temperate speech
when Tournon, the oldest
of the cardinals present, arose and addressed the
king before L’Hospital could carry out his purpose to summon the Protestants. In spite of every rebuff, the
bigots had not lost courage and strove at the last
moment to prevent the promised conference
from taking place. The cardinal was presiding officer of
the assembled clergy, both in virtue of seniority
and by rank. For he was dean of the
college of Roman cardinals and primate of France
by reason of his archbishopric of Lyons, to which the
primacy was attached. He thanked the king and his
mother for their presence, and briefly complimented the chancellor upon
a speech which he said was so learned, so wise, and so well constructed that it
could not be surpassed. He added that he had come prepared to answer all the
chief points in the letters of convocation sent to the prelates, but that now a
number of questions of prime importance had just been raised, to which he
professed his unwillingness and his inability to reply offhand. He must
consult with his colleagues, and he asked for a written copy of the
chancellor’s propositions. This request L’Hospital denied, saying that everybody had had the opportunity to hear them. Tournon then insisted, on the ground that he needed the
paper especially for the benefit of such bishops as had not been present at Poissy and were coming in from day to day. But L’Hospital refused to accord the dilatory motion and
ordered the Protestants to present themselves and speak.
At
the word, Theodore Beza and the delegates who had chosen him to be their
spokesman were brought into the hall by the captain of the king’s guard, and
came forward until their farther advance was stopped by a rail barring their
nearer approach to the king and to the gathered dignitaries of his court and
Church. Petty malice had planned the arrangement in order to give to the
Protestant ministers the aspect of accused persons who were permitted to clear
themselves of crimes laid to their charge, or of culprits about to be sentenced
to condign punishment. Of petty malice, sooth to say, this was by no means the
only manifestation. “Here come the Genevese curs!”
spitefully exclaimed one of the cardinals, in tones loud enough to be heard
distinctly by Beza as he entered in company
with another minister from the city of Calvin. To
whom the courtly Reformer replied with unruffled composure: “Faithful dogs are
much needed in the Lord’s sheepfold to bark at the wolves.”
Beza,
like his companions, was simply dressed in the long black Genevan gown, worn in
public from the time of the Reformation to the present day by the pastors of
the Churches of France and French Switzerland. On reaching the rail he stood
for an instant and then addressed the young king in these words:
“Sire,
inasmuch as the issue of all enterprises, both great and small, depends upon
the help and favour of our God, and chiefly when
these enterprises concern the interests of His service and matters that surpass
the capacity of our understandings, we hope that your Majesty will not find it amiss or strange if we begin by the invocation
of His name, beseeching Him after the following manner.”
A
hush fell upon the entire assembly, as the speaker, ending this exhortation,
knelt on the floor and began to repeat the beautiful
prayer of Calvin’s liturgy. His
colleagues on his right hand and on his left also knelt.
This example was contagious. The queen-mother fell
on her knees. The cardinals and possibly the bishops arose and stood with uncovered
heads while Beza reverently uttered the Huguenot confession of sins and supplication
for pardon—the very words that had been used and were still to be used by many
a martyr suffering the penalty of death for attending conventicles where this
prayer was customarily repeated. His words were:
“Lord
God! Almighty and everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess before Thy
holy Majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in guilt and
corruption, prone to do evil, unfit for any good; who, by reason of our
depravity, transgress unceasingly Thy holy commandments. Whereby we draw down
upon ourselves, by Thy just judgment, ruin and perdition. Nevertheless, O Lord,
we are sore displeased that we have offended Thee, and we condemn ourselves and
our evil ways, with a true repentance, beseeching Thee that Thy grace may succour our distress. Be pleased, therefore, to have pity
upon us, O most gracious God! Father of all mercies! for the sake of Thy Son
Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Redeemer. Blot out our sins and our pollution,
and set us free, and grant us the daily increase of the graces of Thy Holy
Spirit; to the end that, acknowledging from our inmost hearts our
unrighteousness, we may be touched with a sorrow that shall work in us true
repentance, and that this may cause us to die unto all sin and to bring forth
the fruits of righteousness and purity that shall be well pleasing to Thee,
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Saviour.
“And,
inasmuch as it doth please Thee this day so far to exhibit Thy favour to Thy poor and unprofitable servants, as to enable
them freely, and in the presence of the king whom Thou hast set
over them, and of the most noble and illustrious company on earth, to declare
that which Thou hast given them to know of Thy holy truth, may it please Thee
to continue the course of Thy goodness and loving-kindness, O God and Father of
lights, and so to illumine our understandings, guide our affections, and form
them to all teachableness, and so to order our words, that in all simplicity
and truth, after having conceived, according to the measure which it shall
please Thee to grant unto us, the secret things which Thou hast revealed to men
for their salvation, we may be able with heart and with mouth to set forth that
which may conduce to the glory and honour of Thy holy
name, and the prosperity and greatness of our king and of all those that belong
to him, with the rest and comfort of all Christendom, and especially of this
kingdom. O Almighty Lord and Father, we ask Thee all these things in the name
and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Saviour,
as He Himself hath taught us to seek them, saying, ‘ Our Father, which art in
heaven', ” etc.
The
solemn confession of sins of the Genevan liturgy, and the equally beautiful
prayer of Beza’s own composition with which he had associated it, predisposed
his hearers to listen to the eloquent and forcible address to his Majesty that
followed.
“
Sire,” he said, when he had risen from his knees and again stood at the bar,
‘‘it is a great happiness for a loyal and affectionate subject to look upon the
face of his prince, since it represents to him, as it were, the visible majesty
of God, and he cannot therefore but be greatly moved by the sight to consider
the obedience and submission that he owes him. But if it so happen, that
not only is he permitted to see his prince, but also be seen of him, and, what
is of more importance, heard and finally received and approved, then truly is
his a very great and peculiar satisfaction.
“Of
these four advantages, Sire, it has pleased God in His secret counsels that a
part of your very humble and obedient subjects should for a long time have been
deprived to their very great regret; until now in His mercy, having heard our
continual cries and groans, He has so favoured us as
to grant us a blessing rather desired than hoped for—the blessing of seeing
your Majesty, Sire, and, better still, of being seen and heard by you in the
most noble and illustrious company on earth. Should we therefore never receive
any other advantage now or hereafter, yet would the remainder of our lives be
insufficient duly to thank our God and render worthy praises to your Majesty.
“But
when, together with this, we consider that this same day not merely opens the
way, but invites us and, after so benignant and gracious a fashion and one so
becoming your royal gentleness, constrains us unitedly to testify to our
obligation to confess the name of our God, and to declare the obedience we
render you, we are compelled to admit, Sire, that our intelligence is
incapable of conceiving the magnitude of such a boon, our tongues still less
competent to express what affection enjoins. So great a favour surpassing all human eloquence, we prefer to confess our own impotence by a
modest silence, rather than belittle such a benefit by the defect of our
words.”
Having
thus given utterance in graceful periods, if in an exaggerated style quite
foreign to the taste of our later times, to those sentiments of submission
which the men of the sixteenth century found none too strong
for their unbounded loyalty, the orator proceeded to point out the single
blessing which he and his friends still lacked. They had been permitted to see
their king, to be seen by him, to be received by him with kindness. There yet
remained the fourth point, that their service be accepted as agreeable by his
Majesty.
“This
also we hope to obtain,” said Beza, “and God grant that our coming may put an
end not so much to our past wretchedness and calamities, the memory of which is
as it were extinguished by this happy day, as to what has ever seemed to us
more grievous than death itself, namely, to the troubles and disorders that
have come upon this kingdom by reason of religion, with the ruin of a great
number of your poor subjects. Now several things have hitherto prevented us
from enjoying so great a benefit, and these would still cause us to despair,
were it not that, on the other hand, there are a number of things that tend to
strengthen and assure us.
“There
is, in the first place, a persuasion rooted in the hearts of many persons by a
certain misfortune and perverseness of the times, that we are turbulent and ambitious
men, obstinate in our opinions, enemies of all concord and tranquillity.
It may also be that there are other people whose notion of us is, that,
although we are not altogether enemies of peace, yet we demand it under
conditions so rough and harsh as to be in nowise admissible; as if we were
undertaking to turn the whole world upside down, in order to .create another
after our own fashion, and even to despoil some of their property in order to
possess ourselves of it. There are several other hindrances of like magnitude
or even greater, Sire; but we much prefer that their memory be buried rather
than that we should reopen ancient sores by rehearsing them now that
we are on the point, not of making lamentations and complaints, but of seeking
the most prompt and suitable remedies.
“And
what then gives us such assurance in the midst of so many hindrances? Sire, it
is no reliance upon anything in us, seeing that we are, in every way, of the
smallest and most contemptible in the world. Neither is it, thank God! a vain
presumption or arrogance, for our vesture and lowly condition do not comport
therewith. It is rather, Sire, our good conscience, which assures us of the
excellence and justice of our cause, of which, therefore, we hope that our God,
by means of your Majesty, will be the defender and protector. It is also the
gentleness already to be recognised in your face,
your speech, and your countenance. It is the equity which we see and have
learned by experience to be impressed upon your heart, Madam,”—here he turned
to Catharine de’ Medici. “It is the uprightness of you, Sire, and the
illustrious Princes of the Blood,”—this he said, bowing to the King of Navarre,
the Prince of Condé, and those that sat with them. “It is also the evident
grounds we have to cherish the hope that you, our highly honoured lords of the Council, conforming yourselves to one and the same resolution,
will not be less inclined to grant us so holy and necessary a concord than we
are to receive it. And what more shall we say? There is still another
consideration that encourages us. It is that we presume, according to the rule
of charity, that you, gentlemen, with whom we are to confer”—and here he turned
to the cardinals and bishops on his right and on his left—“will exert
yourselves in conjunction with us, according to our small measure, rather to
clear up the truth than to obscure it; to instruct rather than, to
debate; to weigh arguments rather than to gainsay; in short, to prevent the
malady from making farther progress rather than to render it altogether
incurable and fatal. Such, gentlemen, is the opinion we have conceived of you,
and we pray you, in the name of that great God who has gathered us here and who
will be the Judge of our thoughts and of our words, that notwithstanding
everything that has been said, written, or done during the space of forty years
or thereabouts, you will with us lay aside all the passions and prejudices that
might hinder the fruits of so holy and praiseworthy an undertaking, and that
you will expect of us, if you please, what, with the help of God’s grace, you
will find in us, namely, a mind tractable and ready to receive everything that
shall be proved by the pure Word of God.
“Do
not think that we are come to maintain any error, but to discover and correct
every defect that shall be found, either on your side or on ours. Do not regard
us as possessed of such overweening conceit as to undertake to ruin the Church
of our God which we know to be eternal. Do not imagine that we are seeking the
means of making you like unto ourselves in our poor and humble condition,
wherein nevertheless, thank God, we find singular contentment. Our desire is
that the ruins of Jerusalem may be rebuilt; that this spiritual temple may rise
again; that the house of God built of living stones may be restored in its
integrity; that the flocks so scattered and dispersed by a just vengeance of
God and by the carelessness of men, may be rallied and gathered again in the
sheepfold of the supreme and only Shepherd.
“
Such is our purpose, such all our desire and our intention, gentlemen. If you
have not believed it heretofore, we hope that you will believe it when we
shall have conferred, in all patience and mildness, respecting what God has
given us. Would to God that, without going farther, instead of entering upon
opposing arguments, we might all raise a hymn to the Lord and join hands with
one another, as has sometimes happened between the armies even of unbelievers
and infidels drawn up in battle array. It were a great shame for us if we
profess to preach the doctrine of peace and good will and meantime are the
most easily estranged and the most difficult to reconcile. What then ? These
things men can and ought to desire; but it belongs to God to grant them, as
also He will do when it shall please Him to cover our sins by His goodness and
dissipate our darkness by His light.
“And
while on this topic, Sire, in order that it may be understood that we intend to
proceed with a good conscience, simply, clearly, and frankly, we shall declare,
if it please your Majesty to grant us permission, what in sum are the principal
points of this conference; yet in such a manner that, with God’s help, no one
shall have any just occasion of offence. There are some who think and would
gladly persuade others that we differ only respecting things of slight
consequence, or respecting matters that are indifferent rather than essential
points in our faith. There are others who, quite on the contrary, through lack
of being well informed respecting our belief; suppose that we are agreed as to
nothing whatever, any more than Jews or Mohammedans. The intention of the
former is as praiseworthy as the opinion of the latter is to be rejected. This
will, we hope, appear in the sequel. But certainly neither those who hold the
one nor those that hold the other view open the way to a true and solid
agreement. For if the latter are to be believed, the one of the two parties can
exist only by ruining the other, a thing too inhuman to be thought of and most
horrible in the execution. If again the opinion of the former is to be
received, it will be necessary that many matters remain undecided. From this
there will result discord more dangerous and damaging than ever.
“Thus,
then, we admit (and we can scarcely make the admission without tears) that just
as we agree respecting some of the principal points of our Christian faith, so
also we disagree as to a part of them. We confess that there is one only God,
in one and the same infinite and incomprehensible essence, distinct in three
persons, consubstantial and equal in everything and everywhere, that is to
say: the Father unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten of the Father, and the
Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son. We acknowledge one only
Jesus Christ, true God and true man, without confusion or separation of the
two natures or of the properties of the same. We acknowledge that in so far as
He is man, He is not the son of Joseph, but was conceived by the secret power
of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, virgin, I-say, both
before and after His birth. We acknowledge His nativity, His life, His death,
His burial, His descent into hell, His resurrection, and His ascension, as
they are contained in the Holy Gospel. We believe that He is on high in the
skies, seated on the right hand of God, where he will remain until He comes to
judge the quick and the dead. We believe in the Holy Ghost, who enlightens,
comforts, and sustains us. We believe that there is a holy Catholic, that is,
universal Church, which is the assembly and communion of saints, outside of
which there is no salvation. We are assured of the free remission of our sins
through th? blood of Jesus Christ, in virtue of
which, after that these same bodies being raised again shall have been
reunited to our souls, we shall enjoy blessed and eternal life with God.
“
‘How then?’ someone will say. ‘Are not these the articles of our faith? Wherein
then are we discordant?’ First, in the interpretation of a part of them;
secondly, in that it seems to us (and, if we are mistaken in this particular,
we shall be very glad to know it), that men have not been ‘satisfied with the
aforesaid articles, but for a long time have not ceased adding articles to
articles; as if the Christian religion were a structure that is never
completed. Moreover, we say that what has been newly built, so far as we are
able to learn, has not always been built upon the old foundations. Consequently
it rather disfigures the structure than serves to deck it out and adorn it.
Nevertheless more attention has often been given to these accessories than to
what is essential. But to the end that our intention may be still better
understood, we shall bring out these points in detail.
“We
assert, therefore, and we hope to establish our assertion in all sobriety by
the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, that the true God, in whom we are to
believe, is robbed of His perfect righteousness, if we undertake to set up, in
opposition to His anger and just judgment any other satisfaction or cleansing,
in this world or in the next, than that entire and complete obedience which can
be found in no other than in one only Jesus Christ. And, in like manner, if we
say that He frees us from only one part of our debts, inasmuch as we pay the
other, He is despoiled of His perfect mercy. Hence it follows, so far as we can
judge, that when we would learn on what ground we obtain paradise we must take
our stand upon the death and passion of one only Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer, or else, instead of the true God, we
should adore a strange God, who would be neither perfectly just nor perfectly
merciful.
“From
this also depends another point of very great importance touching the office of
Jesus Christ. For if He alone is not entirely our salvation, that so precious
name of Jesus, that is to say, Saviour, announced by
the angel Gabriel, would not be His proper name. In like manner, if He is not
our only prophet, having fully made known to us the will of God His father for
our salvation, first, by the mouth of the prophets, afterwards in person in the
fulness of times, and later by His faithful apostles; if He is not also the
sole head and spiritual king of our consciences; if He is not also our only
eternal priest, after the order of Melchisedec,
having, by one offering of Himself, made once and never repeated, reconciled
men to God, and become now sole intercessor for us in heaven until the end of
the world; in short, if we are not altogether complete in Him alone, then the
name and title of Messiah or Christ, that is to say, anointed of God and
devoted to this end, will not belong to Him.
“If,
therefore, men will not be satisfied with Christ’s own word alone, faithfully
preached and subsequently reduced to writing by the prophets and apostles,
Christ is dispossessed of His office of prophet. He is also degraded from His
position as head and spiritual king of His Church, if new laws are made for
men’s consciences, and from His place as priest forever, by those who undertake
to offer Him up anew for the remission of sins and who are not satisfied to
have Him as sole advocate and intercessor in heaven between God and men.
“In
the third place, we are not agreed either as to the definition, or as to the
origin, or as to the effects of the faith which, following Saint Paul, we call ‘justifying
faith,’ and through which alone we believe that Jesus Christ with
all His benefits is applied to us. As to good works, if there are some persons
who regard us as despising them, they are very ill informed; for we do not
separate faith from charity any more than we can separate light and heat. And
we say with Saint John, in his first epistle, that whoever says that he knows
God and does not keep His commandments makes himself a liar by his own
conscience and in his entire life. However, we frankly confess that we disagree
in this matter on three principal points. The first is touching the origin and
first source from which good works proceed; the second, what they are; the
third, for what they are good. As to the first, we find no other free will in
man save that which is made free by the sole grace of our Lord Jesus Christ;
and we say that our nature, in the state into which it is fallen, needs before
all things to be, not helped and sustained, but rather slain and mortified by
the power of God’s Spirit, inasmuch as grace finds it not only wounded and
weakened, but altogether destitute of strength and opposed to everything that
is good, yes, even dead and decayed in sin and corruption. And we render this honour to God, that we do not claim to share in this matter
with Him. For we ascribe the beginning, and the middle, and the end of our good
works to His sole grace and mercy working in us. As to the second point, we
accept no other rule of righteousness and obedience before God than His
commandments, as they are written and recorded in His Holy Word. To these
commandments we do not regard it lawful for any creature to add, nor to subtract
from them, so as to bind the conscience. Respecting the third point, namely,
for what purpose they are good, we confess that so far as they proceed from the
Spirit of God working in us, since they proceed from so good a source, they
ought to be called good, although if God were to examine them strictly,
He would find only too much to find fault with.
“We
say also that they are good for another purpose, inasmuch as by them our God is
glorified, men are drawn to the knowledge of Him, and we are assured that, the
Spirit of God dwelling in us (a fact which is known by its fruits), we are of
the number of His elect and predestinated to salvation. But when we seek to
discover on what grounds we have eternal life, we say with Saint Paul that it
is a free gift of God, and not a reward due to our merits. For Jesus Christ, in
this respect, justifies us by His sole righteousness, which is imputed to us,
sanctifies us by His holiness, which is imparted to us, and has redeemed us by
His one sacrifice of Himself, which is granted to us, through a true and living
faith, by the mere grace and free gift of our God. All these treasures are
communicated by the power of the Holy Ghost, making use to this end of the
preaching of God’s Word and the administration of His Holy Sacraments. Not that
these are necessary, seeing that He is Almighty God, but forasmuch as it
pleases Him to make use of these ordinary means to create and nurture in Us
that precious gift of faith which is as it were the only hand to lay hold on,
and as it were the only vessel to receive Jesus Christ for salvation with all
His treasures.”
From
this exposition of the Protestant view of good works the speaker naturally
proceeded to consider the Word of God and the Sacraments to which he had just
referred.
“We
receive as the Word of God only the teachings recorded in the books of the
prophets and apostles, called the Old and New Testaments. For by whom shall
we be certified of our salvation if not by those who are witnesses above
reproach? As to the writings of the ancient Doctors and the Councils, before
receiving them without dispute, we should have first to make them accord
altogether with the Scriptures, and next among themselves; seeing that the
Spirit of God never contradicts Himself. This, gentlemen, we think you will
never undertake to do. Should you undertake to do it, you will please pardon us
if we say that we shall never believe it possible until we see it actually
accomplished. What then? Are we of the race of that wretched Ham, son of Noah,
who uncovered his father’s nakedness? Do we esteem ourselves more learned than
so many ancient Greek and Latin Fathers ? Are we so conceited as to think that
we are the first that have discovered the truth and to condemn for ignorance
the whole world? God forbid, gentlemen, that we should be such. But methinks
you will allow that there have been Councils and Councils, Doctors and Doctors,
seeing that it is not in our days alone that there have been false prophets in
the Church of God, as the apostles warn us in a number of places and,
particularly, in the fourth chapter of the first epistle to Timothy, and in the
twentieth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. In the second place, as to the
Councils and Doctors that are received, since all the truth that can be found
in them must necessarily have been drawn from the Scriptures, what more certain
means shall we find of deriving benefit from their intelligence than by testing
everything by that touchstone, and considering the testimony and the reasons
given by the Scriptures, on which they will be found to have based their
interpretation?”
The
conclusion drawn by Beza is:
“We
therefore receive the Holy Scriptures as a complete declaration of everything
needful for our salvation. As to what may be found in Councils or in the books
of the Doctors, we cannot and ought not to prevent you, or ourselves, from
deriving help from them, provided it be founded on the express testimony of
Scripture. But, for the honour of God, do not bring
up to us their bare authority, without trying everything by this touchstone.
For we say with Saint Augustine (in the second book of Christian Doctrine,
chapter sixth): ‘If there be any difficulty in the interpretation of a passage,
the Holy Ghost hath so tempered the Holy Scriptures, that what is obscurely
stated in one place, is very clearly stated elsewhere.’ I have spoken at some
length on this point, in order that everyone may understand that we are not
enemies either of the Councils or of the old Fathers, by whom God has been
pleased to instruct His Church.”
Beza
had reserved to the last the consideration of two subjects—the Sacraments and
the government of the Church. He excused himself on the ground of lack of time
from the fuller treatment of the former which its importance would justify, and
confined himself to a summary statement of the belief of the Protestant
Churches.
“We
are in agreement [with the Roman Catholics] as we think,” said he, “in the
description of this word ‘ sacrament,’ namely, that the sacraments are visible
signs by means of which our union with our Lord Jesus Christ is not simply
signified or represented to us, but also is truly offered on the Lord’s side,
and consequently ratified, sealed, and as it were engraven by the virtue of the Holy Ghost upon those who by a true faith apprehend Him
who is thus signified and presented to them. I use this word ‘signified,’
gentlemen, not to enervate or annihilate the sacraments, but to distinguish the
sign from the thing it signifies in all virtue and efficacy. Consequently, we
grant that in the sacraments there must of necessity intervene a heavenly and
supernatural mutation. For we do not assert that the water of the Holy Baptism
is simply water, but that it is a true sacrament of our regeneration and of
the cleansing of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ. In like manner, we do
not assert that in the Holy Supper of our Lord the bread is simply bread, but
the sacrament of the precious body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for
us; nor that the wine is simply wine, but the sacrament of the precious blood
that was shed for us. However, we do not say that this change is effected in
the substance of the signs, but in the use and the end for which they are
ordained. Nor again do we say that it is effected by virtue of certain words
pronounced, nor by the intention of him who pronounces them; but by the sole
power and will of Him who has ordained this action so divine and heavenly, of
which therefore the institution ought to be repeated aloud and clearly, in a
tongue that is understood, and distinctly set forth, in order that it may be
understood and received by all that are present. So much for the external
signs. Let us come to what is testified and exhibited by the Lord through these
signs.
“We
do not say, what some, in consequence of having failed to understand us well,
have thought that we teach; namely, that in the Holy Supper there is a simple
commemoration of the death of our Lord Jesus. Therefore we do not say that in
it we are made partakers merely of the fruit of His death and passion; but we
join the inheritance with the fruits proceeding therefrom, saying with Saint
Paul in the tenth chapter of First Corinthians, that the bread which we break
according to His institution is the communion of the true body of Jesus Christ
which was given for us, and that the cup of which we drink is the communion of
the true blood which was shed for us; even in that same substance which He
assumed in the womb of the Virgin and which He took from among us to heaven.
And I pray you, gentlemen, in God’s name, what can you therefore seek or find
in this holy sacrament which we also do not seek and find there?”
The
statement was certainly far removed from the view of the Reformer Zwingli and
of the Sacramentarians so called. But Beza did not hide from himself the fact
that it would satisfy neither the Roman Catholics nor the Lutherans.
“I
understand very well that a reply is quite ready on this point. The one party
will ask us to acknowledge that the bread and wine are transmuted, I do not say
into sacraments of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (for this we
have already admitted), but into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. The
other party, perhaps, will not press us so far as this, but will require us to
grant that the body and blood are really and corporeally either in, or with, or
under the bread. But on this matter, gentlemen, for the honour of God, hear us patiently without being scandalised,
and put off for a time all the opinion you have conceived of us. When either
one of these opinions shall have been proved to us by Holy Scripture, we are
ready to embrace it and to hold it until death. But it seems to us, according
to the small measure of knowledge that we have received of God, that this
transubstantiation is inconsistent with the analogy and
propriety of our faith, insomuch as it is directly contrary to the nature of
the sacraments, in which the substantial signs must of necessity continue to be
true signs of the substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ; and it
likewise overthrows the truth of His human nature and His ascension. I say the
like of the second opinion, that of consubstantiation, which, in addition to
all that has been said, has no foundation in the words of Jesus Christ, and is
in nowise necessary to our being partakers of the fruit of the sacraments.
“If
hereupon someone asks us whether we make Jesus Christ to be absent from His
Holy Supper, we reply that we do not. But if we look to the distance of the
places (as we must when the question respects His corporeal presence and His
humanity distinctively considered), we say that His body is as far removed from
the bread and wine as the highest heaven is removed from the earth, in view of
the fact that, so far as we are concerned, we are on the earth and the
sacraments also, and that as to Him, His flesh is in heaven, glorified in such
wise that, as says Saint Augustine, glory has not taken away from Him the
nature of a true body, but its infirmity. If then anyone would conclude from this that we make Jesus Christ absent from His Holy
Supper, we answer that this is an erroneous conclusion; for we render this honour to God, that we believe, according to His Word,
that, although the body of Jesus Christ is now in heaven and not elsewhere, and
we are on the earth ‘and not elsewhere, we are nevertheless made partakers of
His body and blood in a spiritual manner and by means of faith, as veritably as
we see the sacraments with the eye, touch them with the hand, put them into our
mouth, and live of their substance in this bodily life.
“This,
gentlemen, is in sum our faith on this point. As it seems
to us (and if we are mistaken we shall be very glad to be informed) it does no
violence to the words of Jesus Christ or of Saint Paul. It does not destroy
the human nature of Jesus Christ, nor the article of His ascension, nor the
institution of the sacraments. It does not open the door to any curious and
inexplicable questions and distinctions. It does not at all detract from our
union with Jesus Christ, which is the chief end for which the sacraments were
instituted, and not to be either adored, or kept, or carried, or offered to
God. And lastly, if we are not deceived, it does much more honour to the power and to the word of the Son of God than if we imagine that His body
must be really joined to the signs in order that we should become partakers of
them.
“We
do not touch on what remains concerning the administration of Holy Baptism; for
we believe that no one of you, gentlemen, would place us in the ranks of the
anabaptists, who have no stouter enemies than we are. And as to some other
particular questions on this score, we hope, with God’s help, that, the chief
points being settled in this mild and friendly conference, the rest will be
concluded of itself.
“As
to the other five so-called sacraments, true it is that we cannot give them
this name until we have been better instructed in the Holy Scriptures.
Meanwhile, however, we think that we have reestablished true confirmation,
which consists in catechising and instructing those
that have been baptised in infancy, and in general
all persons before admitting them to the Lord’s Supper. We teach true penitence
also, which consists in a true acknowledgment of one’s faults and satisfaction
to the offended parties, be it public or private, in the absolution which we
have in the blood of Jesus Christ, and in amendment of
life. We approve of marriage, following the injunction of Saint Paul, in the
case of all those who have not the gift of continence, and consequently do not
think it lawful to bind anyone thereto by a vow or perpetual profession, and
we condemn all wantonness and lust in word, gesture, or act. We receive the
degrees of ecclesiastical charges according as God has ordained them in His
house by His Holy Word. We approve of the visitation of the sick as a principal
part of the sacred ministry of the Gospel. We teach with Saint Paul to judge no
man in a distinction of days and meats, knowing that the kingdom of God does
not consist in such corruptible things. Meanwhile, however, we condemn all
dissoluteness, exhorting men continually to all sobriety, to the mortification
of the flesh according to every man’s need, and to assiduous prayer.
“There
still remains the last point—concerning the external order and government of
the Church. Respecting this, we are of the opinion that we may be permitted,
gentlemen, to say, with your consent, that everything therein is so perverted,
that everything is in such confusion and ruin,, that, whether one consider the
order as now established, or have a regard to life and manners, scarcely can
the best architects in the world recognise the marks
and vestiges of that ancient edifice so well adjusted by the apostles with
compass and rule. Of this you yourselves are good witnesses, as you have busied
yourselves about it of late. In short, we shall pass over these matters, which
are sufficiently well understood, and which it were better to cover in silence
than to utter.
“To
conclude, we declare before God and His angels, before your Majesty, Sire, and
all the illustrious company that is about you, that our only purpose and desire
is that the form of the Church may be brought back to the simple
purity and beauty which it had in the times of the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ; and, as to those things that have since been added, that such as shall
be found superstitious, or manifestly contrary to the Word of God, maybe
altogether abolished; that those which are superfluous may be cut off, that
those which experience has taught us lead to superstition may be removed. If
there be found others useful and proper for edification, after a mature
consideration of the ancient canons and authorities of the Fathers, let them be
retained and observed in God’s name, according to what may be suited to the
times, places, and persons, to the end that with one accord God shall be
worshipped in spirit and in truth, under your obedience and protection, Sire,
and the protection of the persons established by God under your Majesty for the
government of this realm. For if there be any that still think that the
doctrines which we profess turn men away from the subjection which they owe to
their kings and superiors, we have, Sire, wherewith to answer them with a good
conscience.
“It
is true that we teach that our first and principal obedience is due to our God,
who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. But if our writings do not suffice
to clear us from such a crime laid to our charge [as disloyalty to our
sovereign], we shall bring up, Sire, the example of very many lordships and
principalities, and even kingdoms, which have been reformed according to this
same doctrine. These will suffice us as good and sufficient testimony for our
acquittal. In short, we take our stand respecting this matter on what Saint
Paul says in the thirteenth chapter of Romans, where, speaking of temporal
government, he expressly enjoins that every soul be subject unto the higher
powers. ‘Nay,’ Saint John Chrysostom says on this passage: ‘even were you an apostle
or an evangelist, for that such subjection does not derogate from the service
of God.’ But if it has happened, or if it should hereafter happen, that some,
covering themselves with the mantle of our doctrine, should be found guilty of
rebellion against the least of your officers, Sire, we protest before God and
your Majesty, that they are not of us, and that they could not have more
bitter enemies than we are, according as our poor condition permits.
“In
fine, Sire, the desire we have to advance the glory of our God, the obedience
and very humble service due to your Majesty, our affection for our native land
and specially for the Church of God—these have brought us to this place in
which we hope that our good God and Father, continuing the course of His
loving-kindness and mercies, will confer upon you, Sire, grace such as that
which He conferred on the young King Josiah, two thousand two hundred and two
years ago; and that under your happy government, Madam [Catharine de’ Medici],
assisted by you, Sire [the King of Navarre], and the other and excellent
princes of the blood and lords of your council, the ancient memory shall be revived
of that renowned Queen Clotilde, who served of old as the instrument of our God
to give the knowledge of Himself to this realm. Such is our hope. For this we
are ready, Sire, to employ our own lives, to the end that, rendering to you very
humble service in a matter so holy and praiseworthy, we may behold the true
golden age in which our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
shall be worshipped by all with one accord, as to Him belong all honour and glory for ever. Amen.”
Here
Beza and his company kneeled for a moment. Then rising he continued, at the
same time presenting to the king the Confession of Faith of the French
Churches:
“Sire,
your Majesty will be pleased to give no thought to our language, rough and
unpolished as it is, but rather to the affection that is wholly given to you.
And, inasmuch as the points of our doctrine are contained clearly and more
fully in this Confession of Faith which we have already presented to you, and
on which the present conference will turn, we very humbly beseech your Majesty
to do us again this favour of receiving it from our
hands, hoping by God’s grace that, after having conferred on it in all sobriety
and reverence for His holy name, we shall find ourselves in agreement as to it.
And if, on the contrary, our iniquities prevent such a blessed consummation,
we doubt not that your Majesty, with your good council, will know how to
provide for everything, without prejudice to either of the two parties,
according to God and to reason.”
Such
was the first plea of the Reformation that reached the ear of a king of France.
It was confessedly not unworthy of the orator from whose mouth it came, of the
rare occasion, of the subject, of the presence in which it was delivered.
One
dramatic incident that interrupted the quiet course of Beza’s speech has been
purposely omitted, in order that the reader may have before him the unbroken
argument. I must go back to narrate it.
The
dignified bearing and the well-chosen words of Beza, uttered with force and
grace, and breathing the spirit of profound conviction, had commanded the close
and respectful attention of his hearers, even when he uttered unpalatable
sentiments, from the beginning of his discourse until he was well on
in the discussion of the nature of the sacraments. It was otherwise when the
Reformer came, after a formal rejection both of the Roman Catholic and of the
Lutheran doctrines, to speak of the relative places of the body of Jesus Christ
and of the consecrated elements in the Lord’s Supper. At the words, “We say
that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven
is removed from the earth,” a number of the prelates who had long been inwardly
chafing with anger and indignation could contain themselves no longer.
Cardinals, bishops, doctors of the Sorbonne, began to express their dissent in
loud and violent tones. Amid the din that instantly arose, Beza’s voice was
quite drowned for the time, and the only intelligible words that could be made
out were exclamations of “He has blasphemed! He has blasphemed God!” coming
from one and another of the ecclesiastics. The bystanders looked for nothing
else than that they should accompany their cries with a symbolic rending of
their clothes. Cardinal Tournon, who had risen to his
feet, turned to the young king, and prayed him either to command Beza to desist
from speaking, or to suffer him with his brethren, the Roman Catholic prelates,
to retire from the place. The queen-mother, however, thought that there had
been quite enough of this, and commanded silence. Cardinal Lorraine, less
ardent or more politic than some of his colleagues, joined with her in the
attempt to restore order. Beza, who meanwhile had stood unmoved the sudden
outbreak of this unexpected storm, continued his speech and finished it
according to his original design.
At
the close of Beza’s address there was a second demonstration. No sooner had he
stopped than Cardinal Tournon, “all trembling with
wrath,” rose and, as primate and presiding officer of the assembly of prelates,
addressed the king. It was, he said, by his Majesty’s express command that the
cardinals and bishops, in order to obey him, had consented (not, however,
without conscientious scruples) to listen to these new evangelists. For they
foresaw that the latter might, as they had done, utter things unworthy of the
ear of a Most Christian King, things that might well have offended many people
who were about his Majesty. The assembly of the prelates, suspecting that this
might occur, had, continued the cardinal, instructed him in this case to
beseech the monarch very humbly not to believe or give credit either to the
meaning or to the words uttered by the person who had spoken in behalf of the
adherents of the new religion, and to beg him to suspend the judgment he might
form on the matter until he should have heard the remonstrances which the
assembly intended to make to him. By this means the prelate hoped that his
Majesty and all the honourable company by which the
king was supported would be able to learn the difference there exists between
truth and falsehood. He begged that a day might be assigned the prelates for
this purpose, and he added that, but for the respect they entertained for his
Majesty, they would have arisen on hearing the blasphemous
and abominable words that had been uttered, and would not have suffered the
conference to proceed. What they had done, they had done in order to obey his
Majesty’s command; and they prayed him very humbly to persevere in the faith of
his fathers, and invoked the Virgin Mary and the blessed saints in paradise,
both male and female, that this might be.
The
cardinal was about to say more, but Catharine cut his speech short. She assured
him that nothing had been done in the affair save by the decision of the royal
council and with the concurrence of the Parliament of Paris. The end in view,
said she, was not to make innovations or commotions, but, on the contrary, to
appease the troubles proceeding from the diversity of religious opinions, and
to bring back those that had strayed from the right way. The truth was to be
established by means of the simple Word of God,, which must be the sole rule.
“We are here to hear both sides,” said she. “Reply, therefore, to the speech of
Monsieur de Beze to which you have just listened.”
Cardinal Tournon declined to accept the challenge on
the ground that the speech had been a long one, and could not be answered
offhand; but he promised that if a written copy were afforded to the prelates,
they would prepare a suitable rejoinder. The point was conceded, and herewith
the proceedings of the day came to an end.
CHAPTER
XI
FURTHER
DISCUSSIONS—THE EDICT OF JANUARY —MASSACRE OF VASSY
1561,
1562
IN
the last chapter I have given a translation of Beza’s speech of September 9,
1561, before the King of France, the chief noblemen of his court, and the
assembled cardinals and bishops of the realm. Of this memorable address I have
inserted nearly the whole, and almost always in a close rendering. Two reasons
have moved me to do this. The speech possesses a peculiar historical importance,
irrespective of the person who was the mouthpiece of the Protestants, now for
the first time officially summoned for their defence to the bar of public opinion. As such, it may be regarded in the light of a
great State paper, wherein every sentence is of weight, while every position
that is taken has a more or less direct bearing on the subsequent course of the
French reformatory movement. This is the more general consideration. The more
special and personal has reference to Theodore Beza himself. As a work of art,
the address at the Colloquy of Poissy exhibits,
better, perhaps, than any of his other productions, the striking oratorical
abilities of the man whose name it instantly made famous. At the same time, its
importance as an exposition of the theological views of Beza, and, we may add,
of Calvin, should not be overlooked in a biographical work like the present.
The doctrinal contrast between the Reformation and the Roman Catholic system,
on the one hand, and between the position of Beza and the positions of the
Reformers of Wittenberg and Zurich, on the other, is so clearly marked in this
document, that the most superficial of readers can have little difficulty in
forming a distinct conception of the individuality of Beza as a theologian.
That
his effort had proved a great success cannot be denied. Friends and foes were
agreed on this point at least. Hubert Languet, the distinguished Protestant
negotiator, who chanced to be in Paris at the time, expressed himself scarcely
more strongly respecting the brilliancy of the oration than did Claude Haton, the curate of Provins. But
whereas the Protestants gave it their unqualified approval, the Roman Catholics
condemned with great bitterness those utterances respecting the sacraments
which had raised the passionate protests of Cardinal Tournon and his associates. There is no doubt that Catharine de’ Medici and others who
shared her politic views regarded Beza’s frank statement as a needless and
offensive expression of opinion, and deplored what they stigmatised as a blunder that came near wrecking the conference. But whoever will look with
calmness at the entire situation must come to a different conclusion. A
suppression of the candid views of the Reformers on so critical
a point might indeed have prevented an explosion of priestly indignation at
this particular juncture. But it could only have postponed what must have come
sooner or later. And such difficulties are for the most part best met when met
most promptly. A conference broken off because of a clear and unmistakable
expression of opinion on an important theological subject—had indeed such a
result ensued—would have wrought far less damage to the Protestant cause than
might have resulted from an insincere and dishonest treatment of a distinctive
dogma, or from a politic silence, by which the whole tone of the discussion
would have been lowered and the selfrespect of its
professors would have been sacrificed. Calvin saw this, and, so far from
condemning, he applauded Beza’s boldness in unqualified terms.
“Your
speech is now before us,” he wrote to Beza on receiving the text of the
oration, “wherein God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The
testimony that stirred up the wrath of the holy fathers could not but be
given, unless you had consented basely to practise evasion and expose yourself to their derision.”
Beza
had nothing to retract and no apology to thake.
Hearing, however, that the queen-mother was, or pretended to be, displeased
with what he had said on the matter of the Lord’s Supper, he wrote to her, the
next day, to explain both what he had said, which, on account of the uproar
created by the prelates, she had possibly not heard distinctly, and the object
for which he had said it. The letter is a model of manly frankness. Far from
modifying his speech in any particular, he repeated for Catharine’s benefit the
very words that had given offence. He declared that what had moved him to use
them was a desire to defend his co-religionists from the charge of
sacrilegiously making Jesus Christ to be absent from His Holy Supper.
“But,”
said he, “there is a great difference between making Him present insomuch as
that He there truly gives us His body and blood, and saying that His body and blood
are united with the bread and wine. I acknowledged the former, which is also
the chief thing; I denied the latter.”
Beza
begged as a favour that he might be permitted to set
forth his views more fully before her and any other persons who might give him
instruction in case he was wrong. He closed his letter with passages from Saint
Augustine and Vigilius, Bishop of Trent, who had
expressed themselves quite as strongly as he had done respecting the matter in
hand.
It
is perhaps needless to say that no such opportunity as Beza asked for was
vouchsafed to him. The prelates, averse from the beginning to anything like
free and fair discussion with the Protestants, were still more disinclined to
treat with them since they had heard the magnificent exposition of the Reformed
doctrines by one who was at the same time forcible and gentle, courteous and
self-possessed. But a promise had been given that Beza should be answered, and
that promise the Cardinal of Lorraine undertook to redeem just one week after
Beza had spoken. The place was the same; the assembled dignitaries were the
same; the Protestants were the same except that their numbers were increased
by the arrival of the distinguished Peter Martyr. In one respect, however,
there was a notable difference. The cardinal, instead of speaking, like Beza,
from behind a bar, was provided with a pulpit from which he might deliver his
discourse as one having authority, and thus appear to be either a learned
preacher instructing the ignorant, or a judge pronouncing the final sentence of
the law upon offenders.
And
how did he attempt to answer the full, clear, and candid exposition of the
Reformed faith made by Beza? Chiefly by an assumption of a lordly superiority,
with a slight admixture of patronising condescension
and unsolicited compassion. He began by lauding at great length both the
temporal authority of kings and the spiritual authority of ecclesiastics. He
concluded with an appeal to Charles IX to adhere to the religion of his predecessors,
all of them loyal to the holy Catholic faith, from whom he had inherited the
distinction of being styled not only “Most Christian” but “First Son of the
Church,” and with a corresponding appeal to Catharine de’ Medici, promising for
himself and all his associates of the Gallican Church that they would not spare
their very life-blood in the maintenance of the true Catholic doctrine, nor
fail to do their full duty in the service of the king and the support of
his crown. On only two points of the Reformed confession did the cardinal even
pretend to enter into argument. He maintained that the Church is no mere
aggregation of the elect, but includes the tares along with the wheat. He
argued that the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist is not spiritual alone,
but real and corporeal as well. As for the rest, he treated the Protestants as
wayward but misguided children for whom he had no reproaches to utter, but
only pity; the more so that they had shown some disposition to receive instruction
and to return to a Church that was ready to welcome them so soon as they
consented to submit to her authority. But if they would not return, and if
their ministers would accord in doctrine neither with the Latin nor with the
Greek Church, and indeed remained at variance with their fellow-Reformers, the
Lutherans of Germany, he suggested that the French Protestants ought to
withdraw to some remote region where they would cease to disturb flocks over
which they had no legitimate authority, to a solitude where at least they might
remain until their new-fangled opinions should grow as old and venerable as the
creed of the established Church.
When
the Cardinal of Lorraine was through, the prelates at once made a dramatic
demonstration of their approval, starting to their feet in a body, and, with
Cardinal Tournon at their head, pressing about
Charles IX. They begged the young prince to remain constant to the teachings
of the Church, and particularly to require that Beza and his
associates should accept and sign what they had just been taught, before being
permitted to receive any additional instruction. The Genevese Reformer rose in
his turn and claimed the privilege of answering Cardinal Lorraine on the spot—a
request which, for reasons of her own, Catharine de’ Medici thought fit to
deny, promising that he should have an opportunity at a later time.
With
this incident the Colloquy of Poissy assumed so
different a shape as scarcely to be the same. The clergy could with difficulty
be persuaded to consent to meet the Protestants a third time, and when they
yielded to pressure, the small room of the prioress was large enough to contain
all that presented themselves—a dozen bishops and cardinals with about as many
attendant theologians bearing ponderous tomes, the works of the Church Fathers
of the first five centuries, from which Cardinal Lorraine was to refute the
Reformed doctrine. On the other side, the twelve Protestant ministers were
again admitted, but not the laymen. Charles IX was absent. In his place came
Catharine de’ Medici and the King and Queen of Navarre, with sundry members of
the royal council. The conference was undignified and disorderly. Its regular
course was interrupted by the intemperate speech of a Dominican friar, Claude
de Sainctes, and by the absurd demand sprung upon the
French Protestants by Cardinal Lorraine that they should answer categorically
the question, whether or no they would consent to subscribe to the
Augsburg Confession which was received by the Protestants of Germany. Evidently
no good could be expected to come from a conference which bade fair to
degenerate into an unseemly wrangle. Yet, two days later, in a meeting at which
Beza was permitted to reply to the prelate’s unreasonable proposal, the
Reformer maintained his dignified composure. He reminded the queen-mother, with
manly frankness, of the issues dependent upon the conference. It was of supreme
importance that this should be conducted in a fair and friendly manner. He
retorted with quiet but effective irony to an ill-timed speech made at the last
session by a Roman Catholic theologian, Claude d’Espense,
who endeavoured to show that the Protestant ministers
were intruders who had assumed their office without a proper “call.” What,
asked Beza, if a bishop were to ask a Reformed pastor his authority for
undertaking to preach and administer the sacraments, and were to be met with
the counter-questions: ‘‘Were you elected to the episcopate by the elders of
your church? Did the people seek for you? Were inquiries instituted regarding
your conduct, your life, and your belief ?” or, “Who ordained you, and how
much money did you pay to be ordained ?” Many a bishop’s cheek would blush were
he compelled to reply to such an interrogatory. Nor was Beza less happy when he
drew attention to the circumstance that Cardinal Lorraine, instead of
undertaking to prove by the Church Fathers of the first centuries the falsity
of the Protestant position and thus affording his antagonists the opportunity to
meet him on the field of honest discussion, demanded
of them that they subscribe to an article said to be extracted from the Augsburg Confession
and treating of the doctrine
of the Lord’s Supper, as the condition of future
conference.
Beza
was ably reinforced by the Florentine, Peter Martyr
Vermigli. This famous Italian exile, now over sixty years of age, respecting
whom an opponent (D’Espense) frankly admitted that
there was no other man of his time that had written so amply and with so much
erudition on the subject of the Lord’s
Supper, had come to France upon the pressing invitation
of Catharine de’ Medici, and provided with
a special safe-conduct from Charles IX. He was
a striking personage. Beza, in his collection of lives
of worthies and their portraits, written long after, felicitously styles him a phoenix born from the
ashes of Savonarola. From a monk and visitorgeneral of the
Augustinian order, Martyr had become a
Reformer, and had fled beyond the Alps. He
was a professor at Strassburg with Bucer. In King
Edward’s reign he laboured in England
with zeal and acquired a distinguished place among those who
strove to make the services of the Established Church
free from the taint of Roman Catholicism. He
was appointed to lecture on the Scriptures at Oxford.
After her accession, Queen Elizabeth, as Bishop
Jewel tells us, was altogether desirous that he
should be invited back to England, that, “as
he had formerly tilled, as it were, the University by
his lectures, so he might again water it by the same.” He had now
been five or six years at Zurich, a coadjutor of Bullinger, at the head of the
Church and exercising a powerful influence across the Channel, especially by
his letters. His great reputation and the dignity of his presence added force
to his admirable address. In French he could not have spoken with freedom. He
would therefore naturally have used Latin, the common language of the learned
world ; but he preferred to fall back upon his native tongue, in order that
Catharine de’ Medici, like himself a Florentine, might understand him the more
readily. A little while later on the same day, when Lainez,
the second general of the Jesuit order, and as such the successor of Ignatius
Loyola, obtained permission to speak and uttered a coarse tirade against the
Reformers, likewise employing the Italian tongue, no objection was made to his
procedure. But Peter Martyr was rudely interrupted by the Cardinal of
Lorraine, who petulantly exclaimed that he did not want to listen to a foreign
tongue.
There
was little more of the colloquy which had begun so pompously, and it adjourned
never to meet again. In its train followed a few private conferences in which
five Roman Catholics chosen for their supposed moderation of sentiment met an
equal number of Protestant ministers in one of the rooms of the mansion
occupied at Saint Germain by the King of Navarre, and deliberated
upon some of the points at issue. Beza was one of the company. His colleagues
were Peter Martyr Vermigli, Augustin Marlorat, Jean
de L’Espine, and Nicholas des Gallars.
The party was compelled by the demand of the bishops at Poissy to take up first the question of the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
Although this was the very point of difficulty between Reformed and Roman
Catholics, less trouble was found in coming to an agreement than anyone not
familiar with the constitution of the joint commission on the Roman Catholic
side would have apprehended. Peter Martyr, loyal successor of Zwingli and
Zwingli’s views, put the matter plainly from the Protestant position when he
told his associates that, for his part, he believed that the body of Christ is
truly and as to its substance nowhere else than in heaven; while he did not
deny that the true body and true blood of Christ, given on the cross for the
salvation of men, are, by faith and spiritually, received by believers in the
Holy Supper. Twice did the conferees laboriously draw up an article which
should express the thought of Martyr, yet in such language as to satisfy both
parties. The first result of their efforts was instantly rejected by the
bishops. When the supposed objection had been obviated by important changes of
phraseology and a second article had been prepared, which the Roman Catholic
members felt confident would prove fully acceptable, their work was scornfully
repudiated and the bearers were dismissed with the accusation of having
betrayed their cause to the Protestants. The Protestants
were no better pleased with the article than were the Roman Catholics, and by
mutual consent all further attempts were abandoned to reconcile what was really
irreconcilable; or, rather, to gloss over substantial disagreement by means of
terms that could be, and would be, interpreted diversely by different persons.
All that could be said to the credit of the recent effort was that it had been
honestly made with the earnest purpose to postpone, or, if possible, avert
altogether, the outbreak of civil war which all intelligent men saw to be
imminent.
With
the discharge of Beza’s commission to plead the Protestant cause in the
Colloquy of Poissy, the object of his coming to
France was fulfilled. He was anxious to resume his duties at Geneva. When,
however, he applied for leave to start on his homeward way, he was so far from
obtaining it that Catharine de’ Medici sent for him and strongly urged that he
should remain at least for a time. Her request might have been disregarded,
high as was the advantageous estimate of his character and services which it
implied. It was otherwise when Prince Condé, Gaspard de Coligny, and the most
prominent members of the Huguenot party added their vehement solicitations,
begging that he should not desert them at a time when it was given out that the
settlement of the religious status of the adherents of the Reformed faith was
about to be settled by an Assembly of Notables. In the circumstances, Beza had
no choice but to subordinate his personal preferences to the general good of
the cause. He was the less anxious to be at home, perhaps,
that he heard from Geneva that the theological school was suffering no
detriment by reason of the absence of one of its two theological professors,
since his colleague was teaching immense numbers of students. Just at this
moment an enthusiastic correspondent of Farel wrote:
“It is a marvel to see the number of persons that listen to Monsieur Calvin’s
lectures. I estimate them at more than a thousand daily.’’ Meanwhile, still more phenomenal was the continual increase of avowed
Protestants in almost all quarters of France. Everybody heard
of the unprecedented gatherings of worshippers that took place in certain
cities and towns; but everybody did not know, as Catharine de’ Medici learned
by instituting a special inquiry, that the Huguenots had over two thousand
churches in France—more precisely, two thousand one hundred and fifty and
over, varying in size from a single church comprising almost all the
inhabitants of some considerable town and ministered to by two or more pastors,
down to a church of a few members in the midst of an overwhelmingly superior
Roman Catholic population. As for Beza, his most pressing desire for the moment
was that the Protestants, conscious of growing numbers, might restrain their
natural impetuosity for at least two months; so sanguine were his hopes that
the coming Assembly of Notables would materially
better their condition.’
The
queen-mother was evidently had to give audience to the Genevese Reformer in
France, and reckoned upon his cooperation in the maintenance of peace. Nor
were his services unimportant.
On
January 17, 1562, the results of the deliberations of the Assembly of Notables
were published in the form of a royal edict—known in history as the Edict of
January. For the first time in French history the Protestants were accorded
official recognition, and gained a part, at least, of their natural rights. Not
only were they suffered to reside in the kingdom, but they were permitted to
worship God in gatherings of unarmed men and women, anywhere outside of the
walls of the cities. If they were commanded to surrender all the edifices of
which they had taken possession situated within the city walls, the loss was of
small consequence in view of the importance of the cardinal concession,
especially as the law guaranteed them safety and protection on the way to and
from their places of worship.
After
the enactment of the Edict of January, there remained much to occupy Beza’s
attention. First of all, there was the task of allaying the dissatisfaction of
his fellow-believers, who had not unreasonably hoped for a law that should
accord complete religious equality both of worship and of profession, and who
were impatient that their anticipations remained unfulfilled. Here Beza’s
ability and wide influence were of great service to the queen, who,
there can be no doubt, was sincerely desirous of ending the present state of
uncertainty and consequent danger, by the cordial acceptance of the edict by
both religious parties. I may instance, in particular, a letter which he drew
up in the name of the ministers and deputies of the Churches while these still
remained at Saint Germain, and which was sent to all the Protestant congregations
throughout France, counselling them to accept loyally the king’s edict, and
encouraging them to hope that the new law would prove only the harbinger of
better things to come. The letter was accompanied by a paper taking up all the
fourteen articles of the new law, examining each in turn, and explaining how it
should be observed. I cannot speak further of these able documents, the circulation
of which had the desired effect of securing the submission of the Huguenots.
Nor shall I detain the reader long with a fresh conference between Protestant
and Roman Catholic theologians, in which Beza played a conspicuous part, and as
a consequence of which he attained yet greater prominence. Catharine de’
Medici still clung to the hope that by discussion a common ground might be
reached. Under her auspices a larger company than the last convened in the
grand council hall of the castle of Saint Germain. Iconoclasm had become a
common feature of the reformatory movement of late, much against the will of
the leading Reformers, despite, indeed, their vehement protests; but it was difficult to restrain
the people, and the statues and paintings of saints,
whether adorning the interior or the exterior of churches, fared ill at the hands of
mobs intent on the forcible removal of the
insignia of popery. It may have
been this circumstance that led Catharine to propose Images and
Image Worship as the special topic for the consideration
of the learned men she brought together. But nothing
came of their debates, unless it be that they
showed not only that the views of the Roman
Catholics and of the Protestants were irreconcilable, but that the
former were not agreed among themselves. It was the Roman
Catholic Bishop of Valence, Montluc, that brought out
the startling fact that one zealous controversialist, Artus Desire, had had the
effrontery to compose a metrical substitute for the
second Commandment, as versified by the Protestants,
wherein the Almighty was made to order,
instead of to forbid, the making of graven images of
anything in heaven, on the earth, or under the earth, and to be greatly pleased with, instead of condemning,
whatever honour or worship was paid to it. Beza’s long speech was a masterly discussion of the
entire theme, and received the strong
commendation of his brethren, however little it may have
convinced his opponents. The profitless conference lasted about a
fortnight, from the 28th of January to the nth of February, 1562.
Twenty
days later came the Massacre of Vassy, the spark
which kindled a conflagration that was to rage in France for most of the rest
of the century.
The
Edict of January, with its equitable, but limited, concessions to the
Protestants, was supremely distasteful to the Roman Catholic Church and to the
bigoted adherents of that Church who would have toleration for none but
themselves. It was, consequently, an object of special abhorrence to the family
of Guise, a family which aspired to represent the most extreme tendencies in
Church and State and thereby to strengthen its already exorbitant influence.
The enactment of the Edict of January was a virtual repeal of the intolerant
Edict of July of the previous summer, respecting which Duke Francis of Guise,
more blunt of speech and less politic than his brother, Cardinal Lorraine, had
openly boasted that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the
execution of the ordinance was in question. He was in a state of irritation
which any fortuitous incident might easily convert into insane fury. On Sunday
morning, March 1, 1562, while on his return from a conference at Sa- verne, near the banks of the Rhine, with Duke Christopher
of Würtemberg, he chanced to enter a small town of Champagne named Vassy, at this time a fief whose revenues were enjoyed by
his kinswoman Mary, Queen of Scots. A congregation of Huguenots were
worshipping in a rude barn which they had transformed into a sanctuary. Their
services were interrupted by the duke’s followers. It is needless here to
decide precisely how the assault was brought on, whether by the nobleman’s
express orders, or by the forward zeal of his attendants and without his
previous participation. The main facts are indisputable. A band of peaceable
Protestants were broken in upon, in the midst of their prayers and hymns, under
the eyes of one of the first noblemen of the kingdom, and men, women, and
children, who had come to worship the Prince of Peace, were slaughtered like
sheep, and without distinction of age or sex. Many fell within the rude but
sacred enclosure, fugitives were picked off by the arquebusiers and slain
before they could reach a place of safety. Fifty or sixty persons dead and
about twice that number of badly wounded were the fruits of that Sunday
morning’s work.
Say
what they would, the friends of Guise could never prove that the massacre was
not in glaring violation of the edict signed only six weeks previously,
forbidding judges, magistrates, and all other persons, of whatever station,
quality, or condition they might be, from hindering, disquieting, molesting,
or in any wise attacking “those of the new religion” in or when going to or
from their places of assembly outside of the walls of the cities.
When
the news reached the French court and the capital, the Protestants loudly
protested against the daring infringement of the law, and demanded the
punishment of the law-breaker, whom they denounced as a murderer. Beza was
still in France. The Churches begged him to represent them and to use
his recently acquired influence in securing from the queen-mother and her
advisers a prompt condemnation of this first blow struck at the Edict of
January. Francour accompanied him as a representative
of the Protestant nobles. The two envoys found Charles IX and Catharine de’
Medici at Monceaux. In an audience at which were present Antoine of Bourbon,
King of Navarre, the recently arrived papal legate, Cardinal Ferrara, and
others, Beza clearly and forcibly set forth the attack that had been made upon
the solemn decree of the king by one of his subjects, on his own personal
responsibility, and the evident plots laid to ruin the Huguenots of France. He
frankly and temperately laid before his Majesty the disasters that must certainly
flow from such flagrant acts of injustice if permitted to pass unpunished.
Catharine returned a gracious reply, promising that the matter should be
thoroughly investigated, and that, if the Protestants exercised self-restraint,
ample provision should be made to satisfy them. The Duke of Guise would not,
she hoped, pursue his journey to Paris. She had written to him and requested
him not to do so.
There
was one person who had listened to Beza’s remarks and to the queen’s
conciliatory response with ill-concealed anger, and who could contain himself
no longer. This was Antoine of Bourbon, formerly, as we have seen, and so long
as it served his purpose, an ardent friend of the Reformation, but of late a
pronounced ally of the Guises, since the promise of the restoration of his old
kingdom had been held forth to allure him, He now broke out with
reproaches against the Protestants for going, as he said, armed to their
preaching services.
“Arms
in the hands of the wise,” replied Beza, “are bearers of peace. The occurrence
at Vassy shows how necessary they are to the Church,
unless safety be otherwise provided, and this provision, Sire, I most humbly
beg you, in the name of the Church which until now has cherished such hope in you,
to make.”
The
legate, a troublesome priest, whose sole mission to France was in the interest
of the maintenance of proscription laws against the Huguenots, here attempted
to support Navarre’s allegations by descanting upon the misdeeds of the
Protestants which recently had caused riot and bloodshed at their place of
assembly near the church of Saint Medard. Beza, having been present on the
occasion referred to, was able to refute the prelate’s calumny on the spot,
after which he repeated the demand for the punishment of the Duke of Guise, who
was known to be coming armed as in a time of war—a procedure from which nothing
but mischief could ensue. Hereupon Antoine of Bourbon threw off all disguise,
and avowed himself the duke’s friend and partisan. “Whoever,” said he, “shall
touch my brother the Duke of Guise with the tip of his finger, will touch my
whole body.”
It
was a critical juncture in the history of French Protestantism, and the
champion of French Protestantism realised the full
responsibility that devolved upon him. First he begged Antoine to hear him
patiently as one whom he had long known and whom he had,
not many months ago, requested to come to France to help in giving peace to the
realm. Next he reminded him that the way of justice is God’s way, and that
justice is a debt which kings owe to their poor subjects. To ask for justice is
to wrong nobody. Antoine had attempted to excuse the massacre at Vassy by alleging that the Protestant worshippers had
thrown stones at Guise and his followers, and that thereupon the former had
been unable to restrain the fury of his men, and bloodshed followed. Princes,
said he, are not to be expected to submit to being stoned. “If that be so,”
the Reformer quietly responded, “the Duke of Guise will be exculpated on
producing the persons who committed the fault.” And then it was that, rising to
the height of that commanding eloquence which few of his contemporaries knew so
well how to attain, he closed his address to the insincere King of Navarre with
words which the Churches of France never forgot, but which, through the ages of
persecution that were to follow, they cherished as a motto to sustain their
courage. “Sire,” he gravely said, “ it belongs in truth to the Church of God,
in whose name I speak, to endure blows and not to inflict them. But it will
also please your Majesty to remember that she is an anvil that has worn out
many hammers.”
Thus
the incident closed, and Beza took his leave. “It was God’s will,” says the
author of the history of the origins of the Protestant Churches, ” that these
words should be spoken to the King of Navarre, and that, notwithstanding, Beza
should return safe and sound, having discharged a sufficiently hazardous
commission.”
Within
a few weeks there broke out the first of those unfortunate civil wars in which
the Huguenots became involved. Conde took the field at their head. Catharine
de’ Medici, who had implored his assistance in letters still extant, the
authenticity of which cannot rationally be doubted,’ ended a period of vacillation,
and not so much consented, as was forced, to put herself into the power of his
opponents. Beza could not in conscience desert the Huguenots at a moment when
his services were imperatively needed. His return to his pulpit and to his
lecture-room at Geneva was of necessity long deferred.
CHAPTER
XII
COUNSELLOR
OF CONDÉ AND THE HUGUENOTS IN THE FIRST CIVIL WAR
1562,
1563
IT
was not without an effort that the French Protestants had succeeded in
obtaining from the little republic of Geneva, ever jealous of its rights, the
“loan” of Theodore Beza until this hour. The earnest letters of the excellent
and highly respected Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of
Navarre, supported as they were by the entreaties of Admiral Coligny and other
Huguenot noblemen, however, prevailed over the reluctance of the Genevese, and
on December 22, 1561, the Great Council prolonged Beza’s leave of absence for three
or four months. We shall see that this was not the last time that the request
was repeated, and that the patience of the government of Geneva was sorely
tried. In the sixteenth century there was such a thing as having a pastor and
professor who was too much in demand.
For
there was one thing upon which friends and foes were in full agreement: both
assigned to Theodore Beza, with signal unanimity, the foremost place among
Protestants for eloquence. Claude Haton, the
prejudiced but discriminating curate whose memoirs are among the most readable
papers of the century and well reflect public sentiment on nearly every point,
proclaimed him the most highly esteemed of all the preachers of France for his
fair words, more than for his learning. To have conceded the superiority in
learning also, would have seemed to the ecclesiastic a species of endorsement
of Beza’s success at Poissy.
The
people, making no such distinction, flocked to the Huguenot services to hear
him. On the very day and at almost the precise hour that the Duke of Guise
entered Paris, despite the queen-mother’s prohibition, Prince Conde was
accompanying the Huguenot minister, with a body-guard of four or five hundred
horsemen (others said more), to a preaching place beyond the Porte Saint Jacques,
where he discoursed to a crowded gathering. The papal nuncio, Cardinal Santa
Croce, writing to the Pope’s minister, Cardinal Borromeo, the next day, found
in this and similar occurrences presages of evil to come. For, as the nuncio
never tired of reiterating at the French court, unless the preachers were
driven from the kingdom, all other precautions would be of little avail for the
rescue of the Roman Catholic cause.
The
duties now devolving upon Beza were of the most varied and complex character, and
the literary training which had qualified him for dealing with very different
subjects was called into constant requisition. As a Christian minister, who
was also the most highly trusted friend of Conde, he was at one moment occupied
in consulting for the best interests of religion and morality in the Huguenot
camp, at another in justifying to friends and foes the course of the prince and
his associates. The tergiversation of Antoine of Navarre had made the position
of his queen, brave Jeanne d’Albret, a difficult one
at court; it had also made the attitude of the Huguenots to the wife of their
new opponent by no means simple. It was soon reported to the Queen of Navarre
that the Protestant soldiers in their camp had dropped all references to her
husband from the petitions which, as dutiful subjects, they were wont to utter
in behalf of the King of France and the princes of royal blood. We have a noble
letter in which Theodore Beza, replying to a communication from Jeanne, who
complained of this omission, as well as of the iconoclasm of the Huguenot
troops, espouses the cause of his brethren with manly frankness and firmness,
yet also with respect and true affection. A few sentences alone can here be
given of a paper that deserves to be reproduced entire. The Reformer does not
conceal his aversion to the prevalent image worship, but neither does he permit
this aversion to prevail over his love of law and order.
“As
to the first point, Madam, respecting which you were pleased to write me,”
wrote Beza, “ I can say nothing about this overthrowing of images, except what
I have always felt and preached: that is to say, that this mode of action does
not please me at all, inasmuch as it seems to me to have no foundation in the
Word of God, and as it is to be feared that it proceeds rather from impetuosity
than from zeal. Nevertheless, because the deed itself is in accordance with the
will of God, who condemns idols and idolatry, and because it seems as if, in so
widespread a movement, there were some secret counsel of God, who, it may be,
intends by this means to put to shame the greatest by means of the smallest, I
content myself with reprehending in general what is deserving of reprehension,
and with moderating such impetuous procedures as much as it lies in my power.
But that destruction of the monuments of the dead is entirely inexcusable, and
I can assure you, Madam, that the prince is fully resolved not only to make the
most thorough investigation, but also to inflict such punishment as may serve
as an example to others.
“As
to the last point in your letter, ... I shall tell you frankly what I think and
what attitude all the Churches of these regions take. So long as the king your
husband gave evidence of the fear of God, he was named with you in the public prayers,
because of the hope that was entertained that he would improve little by
little, as so often he professed his purpose to do. Subsequently, when it was
seen that he was banding together with the enemies of God, still we did not
cease to make supplications for him by name in the prayers of the Church; and
this with so much the more ardour as we foresaw the
danger of ruin to be greater and more evident. This lasted until, to our great
regret, he so burst all bounds as not only to scandalise the Church, but, what is worse, to proclaim himself head and protector of those
whose hands are reeking with the blood of the children of God, of
those who have always professed themselves the persecutors and desperate
enemies of the latter. You may believe, Madam, that it was not without deep
anguish that we heard and witnessed this piteous change, and that we were
brought to this point. For how could we pray against the enemies of God and His
Church, and, at the same time, name one of the chief enemies among those
persons whom we hold in highest esteem ? Yet would I not come to the point of
pronouncing a final sentence of rejection, for there are those who have drawn
very near to that point who yet have received grace and mercy. As for myself,
although I see in him at present more evidence of rejection than of salvation,
yet am I unwilling to determine what God has counselled for the future,
according to the riches of His great mercies, and I am content to be ignorant
of what God has concealed, rather than too rashly condemn the sinner with his
sin. I have not therefore removed him from the prayers, as though cutting him
off for ever from the Church, but his name has merely been omitted from the
place where he was mentioned for the aforegoing reasons. Yet nothing prevents his being comprehended under the general
designation of ‘ the princes of the blood,’ whom we conjoin with the king in
special respect. Otherwise you would have far greater occasion to complain than
he; for it has seemed indecorous to name you without him, and I see that the
greater number [of worshippers], in order to cover the matter in some fashion,
omit mention of you also. And yet I am as certain as that I shall die, that
your memory, Madam, is as precious and dear to all the Churches of God as that
of any person in this world.”
These
words would seem to have been penned shortly after a narrow escape
of Beza from falling into the hands of his enemies, to which he alludes near
the close of his letter.
“
I came near being surprised on my return from Angers,” he writes, “and, from
what I learn, the king your husband, Madam, must have written expressly on the
subject with threats little befitting the service which all my life long I have
desired to render him. Praised be God, who delivered me from this danger,
showing me in very deed that it is better to serve Him than to serve men. But I
protest before my God, that this has not changed my affection, and that I would
not bemoan my death today, were it to conduce to his salvation.”
Very
different in style was the document which Beza was perhaps at this very moment
preparing for publication in the name of the Prince of Condé, and which was
given to the world a week later.
The
three leading Roman Catholic noblemen, having fully determined to precipitate a
civil war, ostensibly for the purpose of hindering the further progress of
Protestantism, but in reality so as to secure for themselves the undisputed
mastery, had just presented to the crown their exorbitant demands in the form
of two petitions, of one and the same date, and constituting in effect a single
document. The contents were sufficiently
radical to satisfy the most bigoted friend of the old order of things. Ignoring
altogether the recent tolerant edict of the king, the subscribers stipulated
that the exercise of any other religion than the Roman
Catholic and Apostolic religion be interdicted in France by a perpetual and
irrevocable law, and that all royal officers, of whatever kind, be compelled to
conform to that religion or else leave the realm. Churches that had been
seized and damaged must be restored and repaired, the sacrilegious must be
punished, all that had taken up arms without authority from the King of Navarre
must lay them down or be pronounced rebels. If all this were done, they
professed themselves ready to retire from the kingdom, in fact, to go to the
ends of the earth. They would not even require as a condition that Condé should
participate in their exile, nay, they would prefer to have him return to the
royal court, where, doubtless, he would deport himself in a manner worthy of a
prince of the blood royal. In other words, should the prince dismiss
all the Protestant troops that were flocking to his standard, he was welcome to
make a fresh trial of the perils that await the credulous man who risks his
neck upon the good faith and promises of inveterate enemies. Only the
opportune decease of Francis II had saved Condé’s life at Orleans, a little
over two years since; he was now invited to find out by a new experience
whether Heaven would a second time interfere as signally in his behalf.
We
can scarcely suspect the Duke of Guise, Constable Montmorency, and Marshal
Saint André of such simplicity as to imagine that they could impose upon the
Prince of Condé; but they had hopes of imposing upon the people by their cheap
display of magnanimity. It required a skilful hand to
defeat their purpose, and certain it is that Condé had at his command no more skilful hand than that of Theodore Beza. The reply which
went out to the world in the name of Louis de Bourbon was so keen that
ordinarily well-informed contemporaries such as the historian De Thou, at a
loss to ascertain who could have composed it, were driven to the absurdity of
conjecturing that it might have emanated from the pen of the shrewd and
versatile Bishop Montluc, author of some of the
ablest State papers of the period.
The
writer branded the pretended petition or petitions of the Roman Catholic
leaders as an arrogant assumption of authority that in no sense belonged to
them. What they had put forth was in point of fact not a petition but a decree,
made by the duke, the constable, and the marshal, with the cooperation of the
legate, the nuncio, and the Spanish ambassador. The league they had formed was
more full of danger and more sanguinary than that of Sulla, or that of Caesar,
or that of the Triumvirate of Rome. Its authors had refused to obey the queen’s
commands and retire to their governments. They had come to Paris in arms,
contrary to her express commands; and no prayer of hers or of the young king
could induce them to leave the capital. They had forcibly brought Catharine and
Charles from Fontainebleau to Melun, and from Melun to Paris. Such was the
reverence and humility of which they prated; while
the love they pretended to bear to their country did not prevent them from
calling in foreign arms to plunder it and, if God did not prevent, to
subdue and ruin it.
“And
then,” wrote Beza in Condé’s name, “ they demand a perpetual edict to settle
matters of religion; and when we ask for the maintenance of the edict that has
been made until the king’s majority, they tell us that this is an uncivil and
unreasonable demand; that it is the prerogative of the king, when it seems good
to him, to change, limit, amplify, and restrict his edicts; and that when we
ask of him that what has already been ordained by him and his council be kept
and maintained during his minority, we wish to keep his Majesty in prison and
captivity. Meanwhile they want the edict which they three have framed to be
perpetual and irrevocable. If the reason alleged by them against us is to be
received, for that same reason we shall conclude that they themselves wish to
detain the king a prisoner both in his minority and in his majority, nay, we
are warranted in saying that they think that they can lord it over not merely
the person of the king, but over the whole realm, since in a matter of so great
importance and involving such consequences, they dare present an ordinance authorised by but three persons. What more did ever
Augustus, Mark Antony, and Lepidus, when by their wicked and infamous
Triumvirate they overturned the laws and the Roman commonwealth ? Had they been
moved by honest zeal, as they assert, by a peaceable and not a seditious zeal,
by a zeal for religion and not for ambition, they would not have begun by
active measures. They would have come unarmed, they would have presented
themselves with humility and reverence; they would have set forth the causes
that moved them to disapprove of the Edict of January; they would very humbly
have begged the king and queen to examine, in conjunction with their council,
with the advice of the parliaments, and the other estates, whether by some
other means a remedy might be found for the troubles, to the preservation of
the honour of God, and of the security and greatness
of the king and kingdom. Had they thus spoken, they would have shown that they
were inspired by no other passion than the zeal of their consciences. As it
is, their course of action sufficiently reveals the fact that religion serves
them only as a means to secure a following and to introduce division among the
king’s subjects. With one portion and in conjunction with foreigners, they
purpose to make themselves masters and lords of everything. To them I am constrained
to say that the princes of the blood, whose enemies they have always been and
whom they have ever driven into the background, so far as they were able, will
not suffer foreigners and persons not called to the government, to take it
upon themselves to make edicts and ordinances in this kingdom. Yet they want
and demand that the Romish religion, which they call Catholic and Apostolic,
alone be established and recognised in France, and
that preaching and the sacraments be forbidden to the adherents of the Reformed
religion. It is a Duke of Guise, a foreign prince, a Sieur de Montmorency, and
a Sieur de Saint André, who enact an ordinance contrary to the Edict of
January, accorded by the king and the queen his mother, the King of Navarre,
the princes of the blood, with the king’s council and forty of the greatest and
most notable personages of all the parliaments. It is these three that draw up
a law against the petition presented by the States, that is to say, the nobles
and Third Estate at Orleans and, later, at Saint Germain; both of which estates
petitioned the king to be pleased to grant places of
worship to the adherents of the Reformed religion. These three make an
ordinance that cannot be executed without a civil war, without putting the
kingdom in danger of evident ruin. This they themselves see and admit. And this
is the way the kingdom stands indebted to them, and this is the fruit born of
their wisdom and good zeal, or, to speak more properly, of their intrigues,
underhand practices, and ambition to rule.”
With
such words did Beza make the Prince of Condé to characterise the new Triumvirs, while defending the cause which these Triumvirs had conspired
to overthrow. Again, as in his letter over his own signature to the Queen of
Navarre, being compelled to touch upon the iconoclasm out of which the enemies
of the Protestants made so great an accusation, he dwelt upon the efforts that
had been conscientiously put forth to check and punish the practice, and again he
contrasted the fault, as fault it undeniably was, of destroying lifeless
statues in stone, with the far more heinous crime of ruthlessly destroying the
persons of men and women made in the likeness of God.
“If
the breaking of images merits punishment, as I fully believe it does—inasmuch
as the act is committed contrary to the king’s ordinance,—what punishment do
those expect who cloak themselves so readily with the king’s name, for the
murders that have been committed by themselves and, following their example and
at their solicitation, at Vassy, at Sens, at Castelnaudary, and at Angers—where it is well known that
five hundred men and women have been slain for no other reason
than their religion? He that dictated the ‘petition’ should have examined his own
conscience and have recognised the fact that it is
not found that the lifeless image has ever cried for vengeance; but the blood
of man, who is the living image of God, cries for it to Heaven, and calls it
down, and brings it, even though it tarry long.”
To
the suggestion that Condé and those who were in arms with him ought to be
declared rebels, the prince was made to respond that this was an article that
called for a reply in another way than in writing. He hoped, he said, within a
few days, to go in search of those that made the assertion, and settle by arms
the question, whether it belonged to a foreigner and two insignificant persons
such as they were, to judge a prince of the blood and two thirds of the noblemen
of the kingdom, and pronounce them to be rebels and enemies of the kingdom.
Finally,
in a passage of great beauty and oratorical force, the prince was made by Beza
to institute a startling contrast between the demand of the new Triumvirs and
that which he himself made:
“I
ask for the maintenance of the Edict of January, and they wish of their own
authority to annul and abolish it. They ask for the destruction of an infinite
number of houses, as well of the nobles as of the common people; I ask and
desire that all the king’s subjects, of whatever quality they may be, shall be
upheld, protected in their estates and property, and preserved from all insult
and violence. They wish to exterminate all the adherents of the Reformed
religion; and I desire that we may be reserved to the time when
the king shall reach his majority (at which time we will obey what he shall be
pleased to command us), and that meanwhile the adherents of the Romish Church
shall not be disturbed, molested, or constrained in their property or in the
exercise of their charges. They demand an armed force to execute what they
have undertaken, and do not consider that they will compel an infinite number
of worthy people to defend themselves. They do not take into consideration the
scarcity of the means at their disposal, nor regard the troubles and the ruin
that civil war brings. What is worse, they have engaged in writing to introduce
foreign arms, which means, in plain talk, to give the kingdom to be the prey of
its enemies. On the contrary, I do not ask to retain my arms, I do not make use
of the king’s money, I do not call foreigners to enter the kingdom, and have
declined those offered to me. God is my witness that I have begged them not to
come and to prevent others from coming, either for or against us.
They
demand that we be declared rebels; they demand our lives, our honour, and our consciences. We demand nothing whatever of
their lives, their honour, their property, or their
consciences, nor wish them any other ill save that to which we are willing to
bind ourselves— which is, that they and we withdraw to our houses, and this
according to the conditions more fully set forth in our Declarations and
Protestations heretofore made and sent to the king and queen.”
Such
was the tenor and such were a few points of the noble document wherein the
brilliant Genevese Reformer supplied the young Prince of Condé with a defence clear and convincing to every dispassionate reader,
if, in those exciting times, any dispassionate readers were still to be found.
A
recital of the incidents of this eventful war do not belong here. The reader
must look elsewhere for the massacres on the one side and the reprisals on the
other, for the wearisome tale of acts of unnecessary cruelty and brutality,
for the blunders almost surpassing belief committed by men who esteemed
themselves and were regarded by others as wise and prudent. Contrary to his
expectations, Beza was detained with the army at Orleans, where he took a part
in drawing up that remarkable set of articles regulating the discipline and
morals of the army, which was intended to make Huguenot warfare a model for
all future generations, but which in reality lasted barely a couple of months.
The daily prayers and the frequent preaching in the prince’s presence devolved
upon him, but was the smallest part of his duties. It was not forgotten that
he was no novice in diplomacy, and when Admiral Coligny’s youngest brother, Andelot, was despatched to levy
troops in Germany as auxiliaries to the depleted army of the prince at Orleans,
it was natural that Beza should be thought of as of all men the most likely to
succeed in securing the favour of the German princes
with whom he had treated when pleading the cause of the persecuted Waldenses of
Piedmont and the victims of calumny and judicial murder in Paris. His visit to
the banks of the Rhine and to Switzerland afforded him an opportunity to go to
Geneva and confer with Calvin.
It
did not permit him to resume his cherished duties at the University and in the
church of Saint Pierre. His allotted place was evidently still in France and
with his brethren who were there fighting against almost overwhelming odds and
never more in need of a clear-headed, far-sighted counsellor, a faithful,
energetic, and untiring man of affairs. Beza’s leave of absence, even with the
renewal which had been granted, had long since run out. But when Calvin added
his solicitations to Beza’s exposition of the critical condition of
Protestantism in France, the syndics and council of the republic were forced to
see that the interests of the Reformation everywhere were involved in their
decision, and preferred the general good to the convenience of Geneva. In doing
so, they recognised the fact that new responsibilities
had been thrown upon Beza, and that, in view of his great administrative
abilities, he had been compelled to assume an office scarcely less important
than that of a military commander, since it had to do with the supply and
control of the sinews of war. The minute of their action, which is still extant,
is as honourable to their disinterestedness as to
Beza’s tried integrity of character.
“Monsieur
de Beze,” the record states, “being called to France
not only as a minister, but also as treasurer, the Council and the ministers
have found themselves in great embarrassment, reflecting, on the one side, upon
the great need we have of so great a man and upon the dangers which he may run,
and, on the other, upon the desolation of the Church and the comfort he will
administer to her, and upon the unseemliness of discouraging, by
a refusal to let him go, those who are with so much valour and firmness defending the cause of the Gospel, and of incurring notable
reproaches at their hands. Finally, we have judged that we ought not to have
our own particular interest so much at heart, as the advancement of God’s
kingdom and glory; and the said Beza has been permitted to act as he shall deem
fit.”
After his return to France, Beza was present at the battle of Dreux, and witnessed the defeat and capture of the Prince of Condé, singularly enough offset in the same battle by the capture of Marshal Montmorency, the commanding general of the Roman Catholics, and the death of Marshal Saint André, a second of the so-called “Triumvirs.” That inveterate calumniator, Claude de Sainctes, who will be remembered as one of the disputants at the Colloquy of Poissy, accused the Reformer, some years later, of having fought in that engagement; an assertion which Beza denied. “I
was certainly present at the battle, both at the beginning and the end (why
should I not, having been duly called there?), and, indeed, which you may
wonder at more, dressed in my cloak and not armed, nor may anyone cast in my
teeth either the slaying of anybody or flight.”
The
first civil war lasted two or three months more. Its conclusion was hastened by
a tragic event. Duke Francis of Guise, while inspecting the works by means of
which he seemed about to capture the city of Orleans, then held by the
Huguenots, was treacherously shot by a miscreant named Poltrot,
and died within six days. By whom the assassin had been instigated to the deed
is even now uncertain. After at first glorying in his act, he broke down
through fear of death and accused Admiral Coligny, Beza, M. de Soubise, and
others. Subsequently he retracted his statements and declared them to be
false; but while suffering his horrible sentence and being torn asunder by
four horses, he again returned to his improbable story. Admiral Coligny and all
those whom he had accused denied with the greatest solemnity that they had
prompted the assassin to commit his dastardly action. With others we have
nothing to do. Theodore Beza said that, so far from having counselled the man,
he had never, to the best of his knowledge, laid eyes upon him. All fair-minded
men cleared him, and most men held the crackbrained assailant of Guise to be a
wild enthusiast whom fancied personal wrongs or the wrongs of his party had led
to seek vengeance for himself.
At
the expiration of hostilities Beza returned to Geneva and resumed the functions
he had been compelled to intermit for about a year and a half. To the
admiration which he had aroused in friends and foes alike, he had added the
strong affection and confidence of all the French Huguenots won by his arduous
and disinterested services in their behalf.
Of
dangers incurred there had been no lack. For just in
proportion as his friends had come to love and
rely upon him, so had the enemies of Protestantism,
within and without the kingdom, come to hate him as the
most redoubtable of opponents. That they
invented falsehoods respecting him was nothing
strange; it was Beza’s experience to the very end of his days. On the present
occasion the fabrication was a rumour that obtained
wide currency to the effect that Beza and Calvin had had so violent a quarrel
that the former did not dare to return to Geneva! In the full belief that the
story was true, the Duchess of Parma, Spanish Regent of the Low Countries,
thinking it likely that Beza might wend his way to Holland or Germany, secretly
ordered the frontiers to be watched and offered a reward of one thousand
florins for Beza’s capture, dead or alive. The Reformer was portrayed as
a man of medium stature, with a high and broad face, and a beard that was half grey.
CHAPTER
XIII
BEZA
SUCCEEDS CALVIN—HE EDITS THE GREEK NEW
TESTAMENT
1563-1565
THE
public records of Geneva bear witness to the general joy and thanksgiving to
God that were felt and expressed at the safe return of Theodore Beza after his
long and eventful absence. He reached his home on May 5, 1563. It was therefore
over twenty months since he had set out upon his important mission, full of
courage, but not blind to the dangers of the enterprise. Within two days of his
arrival, a minute appears on the registers of the Council, to the effect that “great thanks, and offers of every kind of service, have been received from all
the French Protestant lords, for the great and important services which
Monsieur de Beze has rendered to them, as well as to
all the churches of the kingdom.” And a strong light is shed upon the esteem in
which the Reformer was held in his adopted city, and upon the reputation he had
gained through the unselfishness of his past life, by a statement in the same
documents, six days later (May 13, 1563), that a resolution had been passed
voting to grant all that he may need to Beza—“le Spectable de Bèze,” in the curious phraseology of the times—“ who has expended much
money in his travels and who would say nothing about it, even were he in great straits. ”
By
no one was he more cordially welcomed than by Calvin himself, not an old
man—for he was not yet fifty-four years of age—but evidently fast nearing his
end. The relation between the two men had long been of the closest and most
affectionate character. Although the difference of age was only ten years, Beza
had, from the first moment that he set foot in Geneva, assumed to the older
Reformer the relation of a child to his parent. Intense admiration for the
wonderful intellectual endowments of Calvin ripened into a love such as can
exist only between strong characters that think the same great thoughts. Calvin
saw in Beza not the slavish copy of himself, but a scholar of greater polish
and wider knowledge of polite society, better capable of dealing with courts,
with a stronger physical constitution, and therefore having the promise of
being able to accomplish much that was denied to his own enfeebled health. The
mutual discovery of their respective qualifications to carry on different parts
of the great work committed to them, supplementing each other, yet acting in complete
harmony, came early. It came on Calvin’s part long before Beza’s stay at
Lausanne approached its end. For when, in 1551, Beza, having occupied his chair
in the Académie of that city for only two years, was ill of the pestilence that
proved mortal to so many, and was reported to be dying, Calvin
tells us that he was prostrated with anxiety; and this not for himself alone,
but also and chiefly for the Church to which he felt him to be so essential. “I
should not be a man,” he wrote at this time, “ if I did not love him who loves
me with more than a brother’s love and honours me as
a father.” Beza’s life was mercifully spared on that occasion, and, now that
twelve years of the most confiding friendship and interchange of views on every
important point that could interest intelligent men had passed over their
heads, the love was still more intense.
But
a return to the precise relations subsisting between the two men before Beza
went to France was now impossible, so rapidly had Calvin’s health failed. He
must assume the heavier of Calvin’s burdens, while waiting for the dreaded
moment when, with Calvin’s death, he must attempt to bear them alone.
It is a notable circumstance connected with the period of the world’s history of which we are treating, that it gave birth to a horde of writers not merely lovers of scandal but authors of impudent calumny against whose envenomed pen the reputation of no prominent champion of the so-called “new doctrines” was safe, either as to great matters or as to small. Beza’s antagonist at Poissy, the monk Claude de Sainctes, was of this type. Among his many inventions, he was not ashamed to assert that, so far from having been selected by Calvin to be his successor, Beza, in his inordinate ambition and rapacity, scarcely waited for Calvin’s removal from the earth to foist himself upon the Church and State of Geneva. Beza’s reply to this fabrication is, as usual, dignified and crushing. “There
was no one in this city at that time,’’ he writes, “ who did not know that
when, at length, I had returned home from your slaughter-house, that is, from
the first civil war, and when illness precluded Calvin’s presence at our
gatherings and especially at the meetings of the presbyters, I was designated,
by the request of all my colleagues and of Calvin himself, who urged me to
accept when I declined to do so, to sustain a portion of his load. And this
also does everybody know, and the whole Council first of all, that, when Calvin
died, it was only unwillingly and with reluctance that I took upon my shoulders
this load; that in this matter I was moved by no consideration more than by
Calvin’s own will, expressed while he was yet alive; and that I accepted it on
no other condition but that at the end of the year someone else should be elected.
I call God and all my brethren now to bear witness that each successive year I
begged of my colleagues that this should be done, but never obtained my
request.”
The
records of the “Venerable Company” prove the truth of Beza’s solemn assertion.
They tell us, moreover, that the pastors took the precaution to reserve for
themselves the right of examining and, if necessary, censuring even before the
end of the year whatever might seem deserving of reprobation in the conduct
of him whom they continued to regard as only the equal of his brethren.
“The
moderator,” so the minutes read, “shall always recall Monsieur Calvin, who, so
severe against the vicious and the impious, never made use of an inordinate
authority in his relations with his brethren; but, on the contrary, adapting
himself so far as possible to all, managed to lighten the task of each.”
And
so the custom remained until 1580, when a more frequent renewal of the election
came into vogue. Even then it was Beza himself, with the support of Trembley,
that urged a change by which each member was in turn called upon to preside at
the meetings for a single week. The innovation could not, in the very nature of
the case, make any diminution in some of Beza’s other engrossing cares,
especially such as arose from his vastly extended correspondence with the
churches of all parts of Protestant Christendom.
It
fell to Beza’s lot, as the friend upon whom the mantle of the master fell, to
tell the story of Calvin’s life and death to the world, and to tell it
promptly.
Of
Calvin’s works, the last to be finished was his Commentary on Joshua. It
remained unpublished at the time of his death. Beza brought the work out with a
biography of the author prefixed, in lieu of the customary preface from the
author’s own pen. It opened with a few touching and appropriate words.
“Had
it pleased God to preserve to us longer His faithful servant, Mr. John Calvin,
or, rather, had not the perversity of the world moved the Lord to take him to
Himself so soon, the present would not be the last of the works in which he has
so faithfully and happily busied himself for the advancement of God’s glory and
for the edification of the Church. Nor would this commentary issue without
being crowned as it were by some excellent preface, like the rest. But it has
happened to it as to poor orphans who are less highly favoured than their brethren, in that their father has left them too early. However, I
see this orphan to be sprung from so goodly a house, thank God, and bearing so
strong a resemblance to his father, that without any other testimony he will
make himself not only very agreeable, but also very honourable in the eyes of all that shall see it. For this reason I purpose not to
recommend it by any testimony of my own—what need of it ?—but rather to lament
with it the death of him who has been a common father both to it and to me. For
I neither can nor ought I to esteem him less my father because of what God has
taught me through him, than should this book’ and so many other books for having
been written by him. I shall therefore bewail my loss, but this shall not be
without consolation. For, as regards him of whom I speak, I should have loved
him too little while alive here below, if the blessedness into which he is now
admitted did not change my personal sadness into rejoicing because of his gain.
And I should have derived little profit from his teaching so holy and
admirable, from his life so good and upright, from his death so happy and
Christian, had I not been instructed by all these means to submit myself to
the Providence of God with all satisfaction and content.”
A
full year had not passed since Calvin’s death when Beza gave to the world, in
1565, the most notable of his contributions to Biblical science. This was an
edition of the Greek text of the New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns
by two translations into Latin, the one being the text of the Vulgate, the
other an original translation of his own. This latter translation he had
published as far back as in 1556. This was the reason that the present work
bore the misleading designation of a second edition, although it was in reality
the first edition of the Greek text. There were added annotations which Beza
had also previously published, but which on this occasion he greatly enriched
and enlarged.
In
the preparation of this edition of the Greek text, but much more in the
preparation of the second edition of that text which he brought out seventeen
years later (in 1582), Beza might have availed himself of the help of a
valuable manuscript of great antiquity which the fortunes of war threw into his
hands. The uncial now known to the literary world as the “Codex Bezae,” and briefly referred to by the letter D, had
apparently long rested in the library of the Monastery of Saint Irenaeus at
Lyons. It was a copy of the New Testament made in the middle of the sixth
century, and comprised the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles
both in Greek and Latin. In the iconoclasm and pillage to which Lyons was
subjected by Huguenot soldiers in the first civil war, this precious monument
of antiquity was happily saved, and passed into the possession of Beza. The
great Hellenist undoubtedly recognised its value, but
startled, it is said, by the singularity of some of its readings, made little
use of it in the preparation of his editions. When, after a score of years, the
decline of his powers warned him of the near approach of the close of his
period of studious productiveness, he presented the manuscript to the
University of Cambridge, where it may still be seen among the choice
possessions of that seat of learning. In a similar way, Beza had the advantage
of access, for the latter part of the New Testament, to the text of a second
manuscript containing only that portion of the Sacred Scriptures, and dating
from but a little later in the same sixth century. From the circumstance that
it had been found by Beza in Clermont, this manuscript, which is now in the
National Library at Paris, is known as the “ Codex Claromontanus.”
It
was not, however, to these sources that Beza was chiefly indebted, but rather
to the previous edition of the eminent Robert Stephens (1550), itself based in
great measure upon one of the later editions (the fourth or fifth, it is said)
of Erasmus.
“
In order to produce this entire work,” says Beza himself, in his preface, “I
have compared with the remarks of a Valla, Peter Stapulensis,
and Erasmus, the most learned writings both of the Greeks and the Romans, as
well as the moderns, and I acknowledge that I have often been essentially
supported by these, even though I have not made myself so dependent on either
these or those as not to remain true to my own judgment. To all this there was
added a copy from the library of our Stephens which had been most carefully collated
by his son, Henry Stephens (who has inherited his father’s indefatigability),
with some five and twenty manuscripts and almost all the printed editions.”
The
result of Beza’s labours was a new edition of the
text of the New Testament which, especially in the improved form in which it
appeared in 1582 and thereafter, has a recognised place of great influence in the history of Biblical study. That the learned
author succeeded in making all the use of his material, limited as it was,
which a modern scholar trained in the rigid system now practised might have derived even from such inadequate apparatus, cannot be affirmed. The
rules of textual criticism were of the crudest kind, and Beza himself would
seem at times to have adhered with less consistency than at others to the
canons which he himself had laid down. But at least there was progress; and
Beza’s labours in this direction were exceedingly
helpful to those that came after.
The same thing may be asserted with equal truth of Beza’s Latin version and of the copious notes with which it was accompanied. The former is said to have been published over a hundred times: Both were composed with the purpose of conveying a more exact notion of the sense than could be derived from the Vulgate. Both bear in every verse marks of the keen insight, close discrimination, well-trained linguistic skill of a scholar who had made himself by an unusually comprehensive study of profane as well as sacred literature almost as familiar with the idioms of the Greek as with those of the Latin tongue. The apparently unprofitable years spent at Paris in reading the works of the ancients, with no present object in view other than the gratification of personal literary tastes, now bore abundant fruit in an unexpected direction. The Biblical exegete, not less than the elegant orator at Poissy, drew upon a treasury of classic lore stored up in the years of leisure when the chief end of the elegant youth from Vézelay seemed to be above everything else to avoid compulsion to wear life away in the dull and repulsive practice of the law. The merits of his work have been variously estimated; for indeed it possessed along with its conspicuous excellences some peculiarities regarded by adverse critics as undeniable defects. Of these the chief has been found by some to consist in the preponderating influence exercised upon the interpretation of Scripture by the author’s view of the doctrine of Predestination. However this may be, there is no question that Beza added much both by his version and by his notes to a clearer understanding of the New Testament. He was no servile follower of the Vulgate, and while he was not always felicitous, either from the standpoint of style or from that of interpretation, in his departures from the rendering of the Vulgate, it is quite certain, as we might expect to be the case in the serious work of so earnest a student, that he introduced no changes for change’s sake. CHAPTER
XIV
BEZA’S
BROAD SYMPATHIES—SYNOD OF LA ROCHELLE — MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW’S
DAY—THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
1566-1574
WITH
Calvin’s responsibilities Theodore Beza had also
inherited Calvin’s broad sympathies and his insatiable avidity to
learn everything occurring in any part of the world that bore upon the
progress of the kingdom of Christ. This occupied his thoughts almost to the
exclusion of matters of purely secular importance. This filled a great part of
his correspondence, especially with men likeminded but less favourably situated for the receipt of intelligence from
abroad. In particular, his letters to Bullinger, throughout a long series of
years, contain what may properly be styled the current history of Christendom.
A few sentences of a letter to the Zurich Reformer, written from Geneva, June
6, 1566, may serve as a specimen of this correspondence, while giving a
glimpse of the state of Europe two years after Calvin’s death. It has never
been published.
“We
are enjoying our peace, through the singular and
incredible kindness of God. For it is clear to us that never have our enemies
been more animated than they now are against this little church and this
school. But hitherto God has frustrated all the efforts of the wicked. It is
probable that were we to stand aloof and hold our peace [the Duke of] Savoy
would easily secure everything against that slave of all iniquity, Geneva,
wherein reigns that notable robber Beza. We shall live, however, so long as it
shall seem good to the Lord. Doubtless you have learned fully all that has been
done at Augsburg, and how those thunderbolts of theirs have vanished in empty
sound. I hope that the Lord will dissipate the rest of the tempests that are
imminent. . . .
“For
the rest, so far as appertains to the French Churches themselves, they are
happily growing in the sight of their adversaries. But it is certain that the
latter are only watching to obtain an opportunity for overwhelming the chief
men and subsequently ruining the rest. Of this our friends have no doubt, and
meanwhile look to God [for help]. Among the Piedmontese [Waldenses] after the
departure of Mr. Junius, the same thing occurred to our brethren that befell
the Israelites when Pharaoh was wonderfully exasperated at the first appeal of
Moses. What will happen, God only knows. In England, everything is gradually tending
to a manifest contempt of all religion; good men, indeed, groan, but only too
few. In Scotland after the slaying of Secretary David [Rizzio] the queen is
said to have become so insane as even to have his bones interred in the sepulchre of her fathers. Hence fresh disturbances have
arisen. But in short it is represented that all matters are now settled on
conditions that are not unequal, if only they be sufficiently stable. Thus
much I have to write. Farewell, my father, and continue, as you do, to commend us to God. Two
days ago we counted up two thousand students at the promotions of our school.
Pray that the Lord may bless these beginnings, while Satan impotently gnashes
his teeth.”
The
attempt to make of Geneva a model to Christendom for the purity of its morals,
enforced by a legislation of unexampled strictness, was not suspended at
Calvin’s death, but found in Theodore Beza as decided an advocate as it
possessed in his predecessor. Calvin had not been in his grave two years when a
signal proof of this fact was afforded.
The
number of bishops that were converted to Protestantism and resigned their sees,
in the early days of the French Reformation, was larger than one might suppose.
Among them was Jacques Paul Spifame, Seigneur de
Passy, Bishop of Nevers, who, in 1559, forsook the kingdom and took refuge in
Geneva. Here, as a nobleman, he was readily admitted to citizenship, as well as
to the ministry. Subsequently he served as pastor at Issoudun.
Calvin urged him, in a letter still extant, to return to Nevers and take
charge of the newly established Protestant church, showing the people of his
former diocese that if he had formerly been their bishop only in name, it was
his purpose now to be a bishop in deed? But unfortunately Spifame was not of the stuff of which good pastors are made. The inconsistencies that
appeared in his life both when the Prince of Condé selected him for some
diplomatic work in Germany, and when he sojourned at the court of the Queen of
Navarre, led to investigation, and investigation disclosed crime. In the end he
was arrested and tried for adultery at Geneva, and being found guilty was
sentenced to death. Despite his tardy confession and the contrition for his
sins which he testified on the scaffold, by an address to the people that was accepted as satisfactory proof of repentance,
he was publicly put to death on March 23, 1566.
It
need scarcely be said that so severe a punishment for a crime of which in the neighbouring kingdom the courts of justice were not wont to take cognisance, created a
profound sensation and drew down upon the
little republic of Geneva, and upon the ministers
that approved the republic’s course, almost universal
condemnation. But the government did not flinch
in the determination to uphold the law, nor did
Beza fail to espouse its defence. Writing to the eminent Pithou, of Troyes, in
Champagne, less than a month after the event,
he says, in a letter which, I believe, is inedited:
“I
know well that everybody will pass his own judgment, and that
Satan will not spare us. But I hope that the wise
will call to mind the Lord’s warning that bids us
not to judge rashly of our brethren, and therefore, with still
greater reason, not to think ill of an entire Christian
Seigniory and Church.... As to the
others, who will judge as they please, it is God’s province to stop
their mouths, and to Him we appeal from all foolish judgments passed in so many
places against us.”
While
every part of Christendom where the truth was struggling for existence claimed
and secured Beza’s attention and prayers, it was, next to Geneva and its
schools the work in France that lay nearest to his heart. In that kingdom the
interval of quiet was short. Then two more civil wars rudely disturbed the
delusive dream of steady progress in which the Protestants had indulged. The
disasters of Jarnac and Moncontour at first seemed fatal blows from which the Huguenot cause would be slow to
recover, if ever it should recover from them at all. But the marvellous ability developed by Admiral Coligny, in turning
a flight before the enemy into a successful advance that carried war almost to
the gates of the capital, raised the hopes of the despondent and wrested from
unwilling hands the concession of a peace on favourable terms.
So
long as it lasted, the French war brought new cares and anxieties for Beza.
Fugitives poured into Geneva in an almost incessant stream, and these fugitives
were for the time to be provided with food and shelter. At such crises it was
to Beza that all eyes looked for advice and direction. Never did he fail to
secure the needy material aid. Furnished with strong letters of recommendation,
envoys sent from Geneva at his suggestion laid the pitiable condition of the
destitute Huguenot refugees before the charitable Swiss cantons, while by
direct appeals the Reformer reached those that were like-minded in
the Low Countries and beyond the English Channel.
Meanwhile,
although the period was indeed one of deep solicitude, it was relieved, for
Beza, from time to time, by some rays of encouragement and hope. The Church of
Geneva was steadily growing, the theological school received a constant and indeed
a swelling stream of students. In 1569 Beza was able to write to John Knox that
the University had so greatly increased the number of its students that he
believed that there were few institutions of the kind in Christendom that were
better attended. Colladon and he taught theology upon
alternate weeks, and there had now come a third professor, Gallasius by name, driven into this haven, as had an almost countless crowd been driven
thither, by the tempests of France. Yet were there two circumstances that
prevented the Reformer from taking such solid joy as he might otherwise have
experienced from these tokens of prosperity: the one was that if the church
was growing in a marvellous fashion, it was growing
because of the ruin of other churches; the second, that the plague which had
sorely vexed the little city on Lake Leman a year back had within about a month
entered upon a new course of destruction.The state of things was
worse, instead of better, three years later, a few months before the news came
of the Parisian massacre.
“While
you off yonder,” he wrote to the same correspondent,
alluding to the intestine commotions and to the deeds of violence that were
enacted in Scotland, “are exercised by tragedies such as not even Greece
entire celebrated in her theatres, we have meantime been contending for a full
period of six years with the plague, nor are we yet altogether through with
this combat, which has certainly carried off not fewer than twelve thousand
persons in this little town.”
In
fact, he informed Knox, Geneva was no longer the place he had seen years
before, for War and Plague had severely handled her, and the forms of the
school, once crowded with pupils, were now empty.
When
the Peace of Saint Germain, in 1570, closed the deadliest war to which the
Protestants had as yet been exposed, the ardour of
Beza’s interest in the affairs of his native land did not flag. A few months
later there was held, in the month of April, 1571, and within the walls of La
Rochelle, most Protestant perhaps of all the cities of France, the seventh in
order of the national synods of the Reformed Churches, and one of the most
impressive of all these historical assemblies. Not only did Theodore Beza come
all the way from Geneva to preside as moderator over this body representative
of all the adherents of the Protestant faith, but there was a brilliant
representation at its sessions of that large class of princes and nobles that
stood at the head of the Huguenot party and had lately been foremost in
maintaining its rights on the field of battle. Their enthusiasm had never run
higher. Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of
Navarre, was there. With her were the two princes in whom centred the hopes of the Protestants—Henry of Navarre, who, it was hoped, would make
good the damage wrought by the defection of his father, and Henry of Condé,
whom popular expectation regarded as destined to replace his father Louis,
slain at Jarnac. There, too, were Admiral Coligny,
Count Louis of Nassau, brother of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and
others scarcely less distinguished. The national synods were purely religious
bodies, unlike in this the “political assemblies” which were occasionally convened
for more secular purposes. But the present synod seemed almost to be a joint
convention of everything most highly revered in Church and State. The most
august moment was when three copies of the Confession of Faith of the
Protestant Churches having been carefully engrossed on parchment, each copy was
signed, in accordance with a solemn resolution adopted on the first day of the
sessions, not only by all the ministers and elders, but also by Queen Jeanne d’Albret and by all the princes and noblemen in the
company. The first copy was to be preserved in La Rochelle; the second, in a
city of the district of Bearn; the third was sent for safe keeping to Geneva.
It
was not a mere form in which the delegates engaged when giving to the
Confession of Faith which the French Churches had adopted and presented to
Francis II. twelve years before, their renewed and solemn adhesion. It was not
merely to honour Theodore Beza that the Queen of
Navarre and her wise counsellors, disregarding his first refusal, had insisted,
in a reiterated appeal, that he should come to preside over the synod. Nor was
it an accident that the very first subject to be considered was that of the
Confession of Faith, to be followed immediately by the Ecclesiastical
Discipline or Form of Government. The very existence of the churches under
their present constitution was in question, and it had to be decided firmly,
explicitly, and once for all, that the structure whose foundations had been so
firmly laid, but whose order and symmetry the years of war and confusion
through which the Protestants had been passing had seriously menaced, should
be reared according to its original design. There were those who wished to
disturb the representative system with its successive courts, rising from the
session or consistory of the individual church, through the classis or
presbytery and the provincial synod, to the national synod of the entire
kingdom, and, in place of securing to the faithful a purely independent
existence, to subordinate the Church to the State, and make the pastor, instead
of the free choice of the Christian community, the appointee of the civil
magistrate. “ The civil magistrate,” someone had lately written,” is the head
of the Church, and what the ministers are undertaking to exercise is a pure
tyranny.” Theodore Beza was requested by the national synod to reply to the attacks
made upon the Confession and Government of the churches.It was not
the first nor the last of such important charges which were placed in his hands
by the Protestants of France assembled in their highest ecclesiastical
councils.
The
year following beheld the occurrence of an event which changed the whole face
of French history—the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day—of the tragic story
of which we may not in this place even attempt to give an outline.
The
butchery of the Huguenots that began in the city of Paris on the morning of
Sunday, August 24, 1572, afforded a fresh opportunity to Beza, and to the
little republic of which he was now avowedly the leading statesman, to display
their charity toward the persecuted Protestants of France. Several days would
have been required in the midst of profound peace for the tidings to pass from
the capital to the borders of Switzerland; the news was purposely retarded in
the turmoil into which the kingdom was thrown by the dastardly crime that
inaugurated the carnage. Not until
Saturday, the 30th, did the first information reach Geneva, brought by
merchants from Lyons. These were the advance-guard of a great host of fugitives
soon to be expected. Startling as was the
horrible announcement to the majority of the citizens, it can scarcely be said
to have surprised Beza, a keen observer of
contemporaneous history, whom
acquaintance with the main actors in French affairs
and careful study of their characters had prepared
even for so tragic a scene as that now presented to
the eye in his native land. Least of all did the fate
of the magnanimous and unsuspicious Admiral Coligny astonish him; for he had
foreseen the catastrophe and attempted to set the victim on his guard. “Never,”
he wrote to a friend in Heidelberg, “ has so much perfidy, so much atrocity,
been seen. How many times did I predict the thing to him [Coligny]! How many
times did I forewarn him!” Yet Beza’s apprehensions had probably been rather
for the life of the great Huguenot leader, and could scarcely have embraced the
lives of so many thousands, especially of more obscure men, women, and children
whose blood drenched the ground in almost every part of the country. In the
midst of the deep affliction into which the tidings cast him, the faithlessness
of the young king and the ineffable meanness of the afterthought by which it
was attempted to make culprits of the innocent, especially raised his
indignant protest.
“The
king at first laid everything to the account of the Guises,” Beza wrote to a
friend in the letter just quoted; “now he writes that all was done by his own orders.
He dares to accuse of a conspiracy those men whom he caused to be assassinated
at Paris in their beds, men of whom the world was not worthy.”
Most
of all did his sympathies go out toward the region nearest to Geneva, from
which came the majority of those who safely reached its hospitable refuge.
“At
Lyons, all, excepting a small number of persons saved by the cupidity of the
soldiers, presented themselves of their own accord to be shut up in the
prisons; then themselves offered their necks [to the knife]. Not one drew
a sword, not one murmured, not one was questioned. All were butchered like
sheep at the shambles, and meanwhile the pretext was raised of a conspiracy. O
Lord, Thou hast seen these things, and Thou wilt judge! Pray for us too, who
may expect the same fate. Our government is doing its duty, but it is in God
that we must put our hope.”
During
the weeks that followed, Beza found no lack of employment in encouraging and
stimulating the Genevese, whose resources were taxed to the utmost by the
sudden addition to their numbers of a multitude of once prosperous but now
homeless and destitute refugees, only too glad to have escaped from France
with their lives. Not that the citizens themselves needed to be reminded of the
claims of common humanity and a common faith. They could boast, in after days,
of the fact that as fast as the fugitives arrived, they were carried off to
private homes, one citizen contending with another as to which should have the honour of entertaining and caring for those that bore the
marks of having endured the greatest hardships or received the most wounds. In
fact, so fully did individual liberality provide for immediate wants, that, at
first, no public help was called for. Only after the lapse of a month was the
need felt of lightening the burden assumed by the citizens. Then a collection
of funds was made, in which the wealthy councillors and the pastors took, we are told, the largest part. It was Beza who, conscious
that, in the danger that threatened Geneva, regarded by the
fanatics both of Italy and of France as the very ‘‘mine of heresy,’’ his own
peril was the most imminent, turned his Own mind and the minds of others to the
certainty of the divine protection. “My thoughts,” he wrote to Bullinger,” are
more occupied with death than with life.” It was he who, on the day set apart
for solemn fasting and prayer to Almighty God, preached in the pulpit of the
old church which Calvin had so often filled in former years. His words
inculcated firm and unshaken reliance on the goodness of God.
“
The hand of the Lord is not shortened,” he said. “He will not suffer a hair of
our heads to fall to the ground without His will. Let us not be affrighted
because of the plot of those who have unjustly devised to put us all to death
with our wives and our children. Let us rather be assured that, if the Lord has
ordained to deliver all or any of us, none shall be able to resist Him. If it
shall please Him that we all die, let us not fear; for it is our Father’s good
pleasure to give us another home, which is the heavenly kingdom, where there
is no change, no poverty, no want, where there are no tears, no crying, no
mourning, no sorrow, but, on the contrary, everlasting joy and blessedness. It
is far better to dwell with the beggar Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, than in
hell with the rich man, with Cain, with Saul, with Herod, or with Judas.
Meanwhile, we must drink of the cup which the Lord has prepared for us, each
according to his portion. We must not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, nor be loth to drink the gall of which He has
first drunk: knowing that our sorrow shall be
turned into joy, and that we shall laugh in our turn when
the wicked shall weep and gnash their teeth.”
Fully
twenty Protestant pastors had found their way to Geneva. These shepherds driven from their flocks were the special objects of Beza’s fraternal solicitude.
The perils to which they had found themselves exposed did not discourage others from entering upon the studies that would
qualify them to embrace the same dangerous vocation. Beza’s hands were full
with providing for the relief of their extreme
want. “Our school,” he wrote at the beginning
of winter, ” is full, almost too full; but the greater part of our students have come to us in a state
of utter destitution.’’ At that
very time—such was the Reformer's untiring literary
activity—he could write that the second volume of his
theological works, a ponderous folio, was in press, in which, he added, “he contemplated the insertion
of several new pieces, especially some theological
letters, should God grant him leisure.”
The
Parisian massacre, great as was the disappointment of cherished hopes which it created,
did not permanently dishearten Theodore Beza and
those that, like Beza, had looked for the speedy conversion of France to the Gospel. Much less did it chill his affection and dampen his interest in his
native land. After it not less than before it, he remained the advocate and counsellor of French Protestantism.
The
emergency might be purely ecclesiastical, or might have reference to the
political relations of his fellow-believers; but whatever it was, the Huguenots
regarded themselves as entitled to the services of a man equally at home in
religion and in diplomacy. Prince Henry of Conde felt that he could not do
without this prudent adviser; and so often did he invite the Genevese to make
him a “loan” of their leading theologian, that at length, becoming impatient of
the inconvenience to which they were repeatedly put, they politely informed his
Highness that he would do well henceforth to depend on the letters, in lieu of
the visits, of Beza. Nor was the latter less a tried friend and adviser of
Henry of Navarre, who rarely failed to communicate to" the Reformer his
conclusions on all matters of prime importance, and attempt to justify his
course in the Reformer’s eyes, in case he seemed to have acted precipitately or
ill-advisedly. This does not mean that the wayward prince was much disposed to
follow Beza’s recommendations, save where these coincided with his own
predilections. But he professed to value them highly and not to reject Beza’s
“holy admonitions,” even when not profiting by them.
“I
beg you to love me always,” was the postscript of one of his letters,” assuring
you that you could not give a share of your friendship to any prince that would
be less ungrateful for it, and to continue your good reproof as if you were my
father.”
Others
were equally anxious to obtain Beza’s views and more certain to be influenced
by them. The records of the national synods of the French Reformed Churches
prove that at perplexing points it was customary to rely much upon Geneva, and
that Geneva’s wise leader was consulted whether, for example, it was deemed
opportune to draw up a statement of the reasons for which the Decrees of the
Council of Trent were held to be null and void by the Protestant world, or to
frame an answer to antitrinitarian books. No action of importance indeed seemed
complete which had not been communicated to Theodore Beza.
There
was probably no country in which Protestantism had taken any root that did not
claim a share of Beza’s attention, and with which he did not at some time or
other enter into relations by his singularly extended correspondence. Most
interesting to us is his part in the reformatory movement in Great Britain,
and especially in England.
It
is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of the bitter disappointment which
upon their return to England, in 1558, and later, awaited the exiles who had
fled to the Continent to avoid the persecution reigning in England during the
five years of the reign of Queen Mary Tudor. Whereas they had looked for a
still more perfect reformation than under Edward VI., they found a retrograde
movement tending to the reintroduction of theories and practices long since
discarded. In place of greater liberty, they met with more determined
repression. In nothing were they more deceived than in the attitude of the
new queen. Elizabeth, upon whose sincere Protestantism they had built their
hopes during the weary years intervening between her brother’s death and that
of her elder sister, proved to be far less ardent a friend than they had anticipated.
With Geneva and Genevan theologians she had a grievance of her own. It was from
Geneva that had issued the unfortunate treatise entitled “The First Blast
against the Monstrous Regiment and Empire of Women.” John Knox, who wrote it,
was at the time one of the corps of preachers, being pastor of the English
church of the city of Geneva. In vain could it be shown that his brethren in
the ministry had no part in the composition of the treatise, that they
disapproved of it, that Calvin expressed his displeasure to Knox and to Beza,
and was only deterred from publicly condemning it by the consideration that it
was too late for the application of such a remedy to do any good. Queen
Elizabeth’s secretary, William Cecil, was apparently satisfied with the
explanation, but Elizabeth herself would not be reconciled to the Genevese,
whom she regarded as over-severe and precise.
The
new queen was peculiarly fond of pompous ceremonial, more fond, in fact, than
the very bishops whom she selected to take the places of the prelates of Mary’s
time who had been removed by death or whom she had deprived. One of their
number, John Jewel, writing apparently just before his own nomination
to the see of Salisbury, but giving some of the names of his future colleagues, states
his “hope that it has been
arranged, under good auspices, that religion shall be restored to the same
state as it was in under Edward.” But he adds
in the same breath: “The scenic apparatus of divine worship is now under
agitation, and those very things which you and I have
so often laughed at are now seriously and solemnly entertained by certain
persons (for we are not consulted), as if the Christian religion could not
exist without something tawdry. Our minds indeed are not sufficiently
disengaged to make these fooleries of much importance.”
Bishop Grindal, of London, reverting in
mind to this period, wrote six or seven years later:
“We,
who are now bishops, on our first return, and before
we entered on our ministry, contended long and earnestly
for the removal of those things that have occasioned
the present dispute ; but as we were unable to prevail,
either with the queen or the parliament, we judged
it best, after a consultation on the subject, not to desert
our churches for the sake of a few ceremonies, and those not unlawful in
themselves, especially since the pure
doctrine of the Gospel remained in all its integrity
and freedom.”
There
were others, however, and these among the most
sincere and pious of the ministers recently returned
from the Continent, who honestly regarded the
vestments which the queen and her advisers were
determined to reintroduce as more of consequence than even the excellent
bishops esteemed them, and refused to don them; who viewed the use of the sign
of the cross in baptism as no indifferent matter, but as a relic of popery;
who declined to kneel at the administration of the Lord’s Supper, because to
them it seemed to be a plain act of worship and marked a belief in the real
corporeal presence of Christ in His sacrament. The neglect or refusal of these
men to obey the new prescriptions was visited with harsh measures on the part
of the government. The most sincere of Christians and the most devoted of
pastors were deprived of their places for no other reason than their scruples
of conscience. Particulars of the course of events during these most mournful
and disastrous years of English ecclesiastical history must be sought elsewhere.
We have no room for them here, save as bearing upon the position taken by the
Reformers of Geneva and Zurich. For to Zurich and Geneva the unfortunate
clergymen of England naturally turned for sympathy and advice. In those cities
many of them had sojourned during their exile. All of them had formed relations
of friendship with the leading men of the churches of one or both of the
cities. The bishops themselves were on terms of intimacy with Beza, in the one,
and with Bullinger and Rudolph Gualter, Zwingli’s
son-in-law, and Bullinger’s younger colleague and subsequently his successor,
in the other. In fact, Bishop Parkhurst, of Norwich, had during four years
been a . guest in Gualter’s house at Zurich. Theirs
was an ancient friendship begun as far back as when Gualter was studying at Oxford.
Between
the ministers returned from the Continent that protested strenuously against
the innovations and the reintroduction of practices abolished in the time of
King Edward VI, on the one hand, and the new bishops who, after a period of
active resistance, acquiesced more or less completely in the measures dictated
by Queen Elizabeth, on the other, the position of the Swiss Reformers,
consulted now by the former and now by the latter, was of a delicate nature and
by no means free from difficulties. The Zurich pastors were less happy than
Beza at Geneva in meeting these difficulties.
At
first, when the trouble seemed to turn chiefly upon the question of vestments,
or, at least, was so understood by them, the attitude of Beza and that of
Bullinger and Gualter were the same. Beza was at one
with his Zurich friends in treating the matter of ecclesiastical habiliments,
however absurd and unsuitable these might seem to him to be, as too
insignificant to warrant him in countenancing any disposition on the part of
aggrieved ministers to abandon the established church. But a divergence of
sentiment developed itself later, when the queen demanded a slavish submission
and the bishops acquiesced in the demand. The Zurich theologians, having once
given their confidence to the bishops, saw no reason to withdraw it, believing
them men of piety and integrity. More than all, they were determined not to be
involved in a conflict in which the feelings of the contestants had become so exasperated that each side was now to blame, and hardly any remedy could be discovered for the mischief. They disclaimed any power to dictate to the
bishops, and therefore refused positively to take part
against them when they were pleading their own cause. They equally abstained
from attempting to dissuade their opponents from presenting to the elector
palatine a petition drawn up by George Withers, one of their number, with the
view of inducing that prince to use his influence with Queen Elizabeth to
complete the reformation of the Church, or, if this boon could not be obtained,
to secure “for those that abominated the relics of antichrist the liberty of
not being obliged to adopt them against their conscience, or to relinquish the
ministry.” Bullinger
and Gualter wrote to Beza at length that
it was now their decided resolution to have nothing
more to do with anyone in this controversy, whether in conversation or by
letter. “And if any other parties think of coming hither,” they added, “let them know that they will come to no purpose.”
Meanwhile
they remained on such terms of friendship with the
prelates to whom Withers bade the elector palatine
transfer all the blame from the queen, as to be frequent recipients of
presents, especially of cloth, doubtless very welcome to them in their
self-denying and slenderly paid labours, until
Bullinger found himself compelled to beg Bishop
Sandys and Grindal, now become Archbishop of
Canterbury, to desist from sending more. Their enemies were asserting that the
bishops sent presents to learned men to draw them to their side. “ I had
rather,” said the aged Bullinger, “that men who are so ready to speak evil and
calumniate, should not have the least occasion of detracting from me and my
ministry.”
Beza,
on the other hand, although still remaining unmoved in his love and respect for
Bullinger, as his copious extant correspondence abundantly proves, and although after Bullinger’s death, in 1575, continuing his
close relations with Zurich by a frequent interchange of letters with Rudolph Gualter, was much more outspoken in his condemnation of
the course of the queen and in expressions of
sympathy with the distressed ministers who suffered
for their conscientious refusal to conform to her
arbitrary demands.
The letter which Beza wrote to Bishop Grindal(June 27, 1566) is a very long and striking document, intended to stimulate that excellent prelate to put forth strenuous exertion to terminate the distressing state of affairs in England. I shall not even recapitulate the arguments employed to exhibit the dangers of the course upon which the queen had launched the ecclesiastical establishment. He subordinated the question of ritual to doctrine, conceding that, while the latter, as it has come down to us from the apostles, is perfect, admitting neither addition were not fixed by the apostles themselves for all times and all places. But he deplored the retention of practices either absurd in themselves or injurious in their tendencies. He condemned still more strongly the reintroduction of objectionable practices after they had been discontinued for a considerable space of time—practices in defence of which it could not therefore be truthfully urged that they were followed through fear lest the weak might be offended.He charged the responsibility for schism, if schism should arise, not so much to the account of such brethren as might forsake the Church, as to the account of those who virtually expelled them. “Relying
upon your sense of equity,” said he, “I shall not
fear to say this : If those men sin who, rather than have things of the kind forced upon them contrary to their consciences, prefer to leave the
Church, much greater guilt in the sight of God and the angels is incurred by
men, if such there be, who allow flocks to be deprived of their shepherds and
pastors, and thus permit the beginnings of a horrible dissipation, rather than
see ministers in all other respects blameless [officiate] clad in this rather
than that garb, and prefer that no Supper be offered anywhere to the starving sheep, rather than that kneeling be omitted. If
this be the result,” he adds, “which
I can scarcely believe, it will be the beginning
of much greater calamities. And if it be true, as is everywhere asserted, though I do not yet credit it, that private baptism [as
in the Romish Church] by women is permitted, I
cannot see what it is to return from the
goal to the starting-point, unless it be
this. Whence has this foulest of errors emanated,
save from dense ignorance as to the nature of the sacraments? Whoever is
not sprinkled with water (say those that uphold this profanation of
baptism) is damned. If this be so, the salvation of infants will arise not from
God’s covenant (which, however, is clearly the foundation of our salvation),
but from the very seal of the covenant that is affixed, and this not that it
may be rendered more certain in itself, but
rather that we should be made more certain of it. What would be more unjust
still, the entire salvation of infants
would depend upon the diligence or negligence of
parents.”
There
were other rumours still more incredible—so improbable were they—that
the English prelates had reintroduced abuses than
which the antichristian church had none that were more intolerable—the
plurality of benefices, licenses for
non-residence, permits to contract
marriage, and for the use of meats, and other things of that sort. If the story was
true, these were not a corruption of the Christian religion, they were a
clear defection from Christ. Those consequently were
not to be condemned that opposed such
attempts; they were rather to be commended.
The letter ended with some stinging words of rebuke
for those who wished to force the ministers to pledge
themselves to obey whatever the queen and the
bishops might hereafter prescribe in matters of ecclesiastical
ritual.
I
have yet to learn,” wrote Beza, “by what right, whether you
look at the Word of God or at the ancient canons, the civil magistrate is authorised to introduce new rites in churches that have
been constituted or to abrogate old ones; what right bishops have, without the
advice and consent of their body of elders, to ordain anything novel. For I
see that these two curses [arising from] the base and ambitious adulation of superior
bishops addressed to their princes, partly abusing their virtues, partly even
ministering to their vices, have ruined the Christian Church; until it has come
to such a pass that the most powerful of the Metropolitans of the West, by the
just judgment of God punishing both magistrates and bishops, has snatched up
for himself all rights, human and divine. Yet I confess that my whole nature
shudders as often as I reflect on these things and looking forward see that
the same and yet more bitter punishments threaten most of the peoples which so
eagerly embraced the Gospel at the beginning, but now are gradually departing
from it. Nor do I doubt that the same groans of all the good are everywhere
arising. Oh that the Lord may answer them, and for the sake of Jesus Christ,
His Son, give to kings and princes a truly pious and religious mind, and good
and courageous counsellors. May He bestow His Holy Spirit upon the leaders of
His Church, imparting to them, first of all, in abundant measure, both knowledge
and zeal; and may He increase, and preserve the peoples that have already
professed the true faith, in purity of doctrine and rites and in holiness of
life. Farewell, and in turn continue to love me together with this entire
Church and school, and to assist us with your prayers.”
Meanwhile
Beza, as he informs us, was consulted again and again by those
brethren in the English churches who found themselves in the utmost perplexity
respecting their duty, in view of the novelties thrust upon them. To their inquiries
he states that he long avoided replying, and this for three reasons: First, he
was unwilling to believe that such men as the bishops could do things alien to
the duty of their office; secondly, he was reluctant to pronounce an opinion
based upon ex parte statements; thirdly, he
feared that he might do more harm than good. Compelled at length to notice the
points laid before him, he addressed himself first to the most important of
all:
“Can
you approve the irregularity of a call to the ministry when
a crowd of candidates are enrolled, without the
legitimate vote of the body of presbyters, or the assignment of any parish, and after a very
slight examination into their life and morals; upon
whom subsequently, at the mere good pleasure of the bishop,
authority is conferred to preach the Word of God for a
certain time, of simply to recite the liturgy?”
“We
reply,” says Beza, “that calls and ordinations of such a kind
by no means appear to us to be lawful, whether we
look at the express Word of God or the more pure among the
canons. Yet we know that it is better to have something
than nothing. We pray God with all our hearts that
He may grant to England a more legitimate call to the
ministry, in default of which the blessing of the
teaching of the truth will surely be lost to her or maintained
only in some extraordinary and truly heavenly way. We must
beg the queen to attend in earnest to this reform, and
her council and the bishops to further it. But,
meantime, what? Certainly, as for ourselves, we cannot accept the function of
the’ ministry, even if offered, in this fashion, much less seek it. Yet those
to whom the Lord has in this manner opened an avenue to the propagation of the
glory of His kingdom, we exhort to persevere courageously in the fear of God;
on this added condition, however, that they be permitted to discharge their
entire ministry holily and religiously, and consequently to propose and urge,
according to the measure of their office, such things as tend to the amelioration
of the condition of affairs. For otherwise, if this liberty be taken away, and
they be ordered so to connive at a manifest abuse, as even to approve of what
clearly should be corrected, what other advice shall we give but that they prefer
rather to be private individuals than contrary to their conscience to favour an evil which will necessarily soon bring with it
the utter ruin of the churches?”
On
another point about which he had been consulted, namely, whether they might
not continue to discharge their office contrary to the will of the queen and
the bishops, Beza replied that he shuddered at the thought, for reasons which
needed not to be explained.
The
subject of the vestments naturally received attention and condemnation at Beza’s
hands. Yet, after a long discussion of their nature and tendencies, when the
question recurred, “What shall those do upon whom these things are thrust? ” he
could not but reply that they did not seem to him to be of such moment as that,
on their account, either ministers should desert their ministry rather than wear
them, or the flocks lose their spiritual nourishment rather than listen to
ministers thus arrayed. “But if the order is issued to the ministers, not only
to endure these things, but approve them as right by their signatures, or favour them by their silence, what other counsel can we
give than that, after testifying their innocence and trying every remedy in
God’s fear, they yield to open violence?” Such in sum was the advice given by
the Genevese Reformer, not indeed without a strong feeling of discouragement,
yet also with the hope, which he expressed before concluding, that better
things might be in store for a kingdom whose reformation had been sealed by the
blood of so many excellent martyrs.
The
fortunes of Puritanism in England were watched by Beza with interest that did
not diminish as time went on. Less solicitous with regard to details of ritual
than with regard to the integrity of the discipline of the Church, he lent his
full sympathy to the Presbyterian movement. He honoured and estimated at his true worth Thomas Cartwright, that prince of theologians,
of whom on one occasion he wrote: “The sun, I think, does not see a more
learned man.” When Cartwright, for his sturdy maintenance of his views, was deprived
of his chair as Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and of
his fellowship in Trinity College, and forbidden to preach or teach, he crossed
the Channel, and at Geneva was welcomed by Beza and his colleagues. Strengthened
by conference with them and other Reformers of the Continent, he returned later
to his native land in time to support by his voice and vigorous pen the
“Admonition to Parliament for the Reformation of Church Discipline,” which so
infuriated the opposite party, that its authors, Field and Wilcox, were
consigned to prison for their audacity. The Genevese Reformer was held
responsible for a great share of the changes which it was sought to introduce
into the government of the Church of England. Bishop Sandys wrote to Gualter at Zurich (August 9, 1574):
“Our
innovators, who have been striving to strike out for us a new form of a church,
are not doing us much harm; nor is this new fabric of theirs making such progress
as they expected. Our nobility are at last sensible of the object to which this
novel fabrication is tending. The author of these novelties, and after Beza the
first inventor, is a young Englishman, by name Thomas Cartwright, who they say
is sojourning at Heidelberg.”
Unlike Beza, Bullinger’s associate, Gualter, had little sympathy with a movement whose ulterior results he suspected, and had written to Bishop Cox a few months earlier, March 16, 1574: I greatly fear there is lying concealed under the presbytery an affectation of oligarchy, which may at length degenerate into monarchy, or even into open tyranny.
CHAPTER
XV
CONTROVERSIES
AND CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS
WE
see, in his autobiographical letter to Wolmar, that Beza claims for himself, as
a theologian, little or no originality. And, although this letter was written
in 1560, that is, very early in his literary career, and he lived and studied
for not much less than a half-century longer, he would, doubtless, have taken
no very different view at the end of the period. His theology was essentially
the theology of his great master, John Calvin. Accordingly the leading
doctrines of the system of Calvin were also most prominent and fundamental in
that of Beza. If there was any difference, these doctrines were more strongly
accentuated by Beza and more rigidly carried out to their legitimate
consequences. Most of the controversies in which the disciple became involved
arose therefore in connection with the doctrines of the divine sovereignty and
election, and with the Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper.
It
would manifestly be impossible, within the compass of the present volume, to
speak in detail of all the numerous theological disputes in which Beza took
part in the course of his long life, and of the works from his pen to which
they gave rise. The greater number of the latter may be read in
the three large volumes of his Theological Treatises, revised and republished
by the author himself in 1582. Since his opponents were wont to reply, as best
they could, to his arguments, Beza, unwilling to leave the last word to them,
usually rejoined with a defence of his first
position. Thus we not infrequently find two or even three treatises bearing
upon the same point and pursuing the same lines of thought, addressed to the
same antagonist.
It
will be remembered that Beza informs us that the important work to which he
prefixed the letter to Wolmar was his Confession of the Christian Faith, composed
primarily with the hope of gaining over his aged father, by clearing away the
calumnies which the enemies of the truth had circulated respecting it.
Subsequently given to the world, this Confession took a classical position and
was recognised, both by friend and by foe, as an
authoritative exposition of the Reformed belief. The former bought and read
it, especially in the French language, and circulated it in many successive editions.
There are said to have been six French editions printed in Geneva alone, within
three years of the original publication. It was translated into English and Italian.
That it met with the animadversion of the Roman Catholic Church is not
surprising: the reading of any theological writing of Beza is
strictly forbidden by the official Index of Prohibited Books down to our own
times. But it is certainly significant of the influence which the Confession
continued to exercise, long after the death of its author, that about a century
and a quarter from its first appearance—that is, in 1685, the very year that
Louis XIV recalled the Edict of Nantes —it was still so widely read, and
esteemed by the clergy of France so dangerous a book, that it called forth from
the Archbishop of Paris a distinct condemnation in a special circular-letter.
What rendered the Confession specially odious in the eyes of the prelate was
the circumstance that, not content with setting forth the Protestant views on
such important points as the Trinity, the Church and its Government, and the
Final Judgment, the author gave up the last third of the book to a “Brief Contrast
between the Papacy and Christianity,” of a particularly exasperating character.
The amenities of discussion were rarely made of much account by disputants in
the sixteenth century. The very first position which Beza undertakes to
establish is that Papists, in place of the true God, worship a fictitious and
imaginary divinity that is neither perfectly just nor perfectly merciful, for
that cannot be a perfect justice which approves of human acts of satisfaction,
nor that a perfect mercy which only supplies the deficiency in man’s merit.
To
the same class of general treatises belongs A Summary of the Whole of
Christianity, with the alternative title, A Description and Distribution of the Causes of the Salvation of the Elect
and the Destruction of the Reprobate, Collected from the Sacred Scriptures.
At the head stands a table or diagram, occupying a single page, wherein the
author’s conception of the whole scheme of God’s dealings with the human race
is presented to the eye. This is followed by a Brief Explanation of the
Foregoing Table, covering thirty-five pages chiefly taken up with
proof-texts derived from Holy Writ, but introduced by sundry citations from
Saint Augustine, indicating that the question about Predestination is not a
question of mere curiosity or of little profit for the Church of God. This
treatise is, if we except the defence of the right of
the magistrate to punish heretics, which we have considered in a separate
chapter, the first of Beza’s writings on religious topics, having been written
and published in 1555, during his professorate at Lausanne. It is almost
needless to remark that it closely reflects the influence of Calvin.
Ten
years after the Confession and fifteen years after the Summary appeared (1570)
another systematic treatise from Beza’s pen, entitled “A Little Book of
Christian Questions and Answers, in which the Chief Heads of the Christian
Religion are Epitomised”. It was subsequently
enlarged and accompanied by a “Compendious Catechism.” For clearness
of exposition this third treatise, the fruit of Beza’s later
thought, surpasses its predecessors. The three treatises together comprise the
best results of a long study of systematic theology, and the last, in particular, will repay a careful perusal.
On
the subject of Predestination, Beza crossed swords,
as early as 1558, with Sebastian Castalio, in defending Calvin’s doctrine from the accusation of being
contrary to natural affection on the part of God,
as the Father of mankind, and from other similar accusations.
What
Beza believed on the subject of the Lord’s Supper we learn well enough from his own utterances respecting it, both in his great speech before
Charles IX. at the Colloquy of Poissy, and on
other occasions. While denying that the elements of bread
and wine are in the Communion transformed into the
substance of the body and blood of Christ, according to
the Roman Catholic view, or that the body and
blood of Christ are present in, with, and under the
bread and wine, according to the Lutheran view,
he declined, on the other hand, to assert that the
elements are mere signs and that the act of partaking
is a mere commemoration, as was the Zwinglian
view held in German Switzerland, but, with Calvin,
believed that the worthy partaker, not in any carnal
sense, but none the less truly, by faith feeds upon the body of Christ. He
repudiated the notion that he would divorce
Christ from the feast He had instituted.
But not even so did Calvin or Beza escape
attack from the more ardent advocates of the
doctrine of Consubstantiation, and the scholar felt himself
compelled to appear in his master’s defence as
well as his own. To the scurrilous assault made by Joachim Westphal,
at Hamburg, he wrote a careful and, on the whole, a
more temperate reply than could have been expected in the circumstances. It was
entitled “A Plain and Clear Treatise Respecting the Lord’s Supper, in which
the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal are Refuted” (1559). As
Westphal, not content with discussing the main question, had raised a hue and
cry against the rejection by the Reformed of so many ancient usages, Beza
answered in defence of their position that while themselves dropping the
practices which they disapproved, they carefully
refrained from condemning their brethren who
continued to observe such practices when these related to things indifferent. But Beza waxes angry with a holy indignation when he comes to advert to
the gross and vituperative language used by
Westphal as to the witnesses for the faith, members of the Reformed Churches of
France, burned at the stake, whose
ashes were even yet smoking.
“For
the insults which you have not been ashamed to vomit
forth against the holy martyrs of the Lord, whom Popish
tyranny is daily snatching from our assemblies,
you will yourself see to it how you
shall answer at the Lord’s judgment-seat. Their
writings survive and will hand down their blessed memory, whether you approve
of it or not, to a grateful posterity. In the name of all Christian Churches, I
am ashamed that in any Church there could be found a man so insolently wanton
as to utter sharp words against those, even when dead, whom their very
executioners revered while they were dying. Certainly the Lord will not suffer
to go unavenged this more than inhuman and barbarous cruelty. To Him we commend
the cause of His martyrs.”
Nor
does Beza leave unnoticed the abuse which Westphal, at the very same time that
he complains of Calvin’s severity, heaps on Calvin’s devoted head, not only
accusing him of gluttony and winebibbing, but hinting that the Reformer’s
language, being fit only for the ears of courtesans, he had possibly learned
from his mother, the concubine of a parish priest. We can well excuse the
outburst of indignant remonstrance to which Beza gives vent, when he stigmatises, with deserved contempt, the man who, in order
to crush a theological opponent, accuses the most abstemious of men of excess,
and exhumes from the grave a respected matron of an honourable and noble family in Noyon, long since dead, that he may without proof besmirch
her unspotted memory.
To
Westphal succeeded, in 1561, Tilemann Hesshus, as a defender of the Lutheran phase of doctrine,
and as an assailant of the Genevese church and its theologians. That Beza
regarded him as a stupid adversary
was no sufficient excuse for the open contempt and rudeness with which he
treated him, even if we give all the weight possible to the somewhat frivolous
plea that the exacerbation of his temper was due to a particularly annoying
attack of catarrhal fever with which he was afflicted when he wrote.
These
were discussions of the earlier part of Beza’s course, anterior to the Colloquy
of Poissy, and before the Reformer assumed a place
among the disputants most widely known throughout Christendom. After that
event, and after the death of Calvin coming so close upon it, Beza fell heir
to new controversies, carried on by him, not as Calvin’s younger adjutant, but
as Calvin’s legitimate successor, partly in the same general direction, partly
on new lines.
Some
of these, doubtless, were not only needlessly bitter, but altogether
unnecessary. Such, perhaps, was the controversy that arose from the attempt of Castalio, in his translation of the Scriptures, to modernise his version and replace the Hebraisms of the
Vulgate with good Ciceronian phrases. Yet Beza was right in his position that
fidelity to the text had not in a few instances been sacrificed by Castalio to the supposed exigencies of a flawless Latinity.
In
the case of the aged and respected Italian scholar, Bernardino Ochino, of Siena, there was much to regret in the attitude
taken by Beza and by other Reformers, Ochino was not
only a man of great ability, but a Christian that had sacrificed everything
for his faith. Before his adoption of Protestantism he had enjoyed wonderful
popularity in his native land as a pulpit orator. At the age of fifty he was
the prince of Lenten preachers. The praise lavished upon him by the learned was
surpassed only by the plaudits of the multitudes that flocked to hear him
whenever it was announced that he would speak. If Cardinal Bembo, a leading
scholar of the period, wrote to Colonna, in March, 1539, that
he had never discoursed with a person of greater sanctity, and that he intended
“not to miss a single one of his beautiful, solemn, and
edifying discourses,” the next month he was informing the same correspondent that, at Venice, from which he wrote, Ochino was “literally
adored,” “there was no one that did not praise him
to the skies.” Twice was he elected
Vicar General of the Capuchin Order, and
so well did he stand with the Holy See that
his nomination was cheerfully confirmed by the
Pope. But Ochino was becoming more and more evangelical in his preaching, as the Roman Church became more
and more pronounced in its opposition to any form of reformation. The inevitable logic of his recognition of the doctrine of Justification by Faith led him out of the establishment in
which he held so high and influential a position, to
the lands beyond the Alps where he could give free
expression to his new convictions. He did not hesitate to take
a step which involved the loss of all things that men prize
highest—rank, ease, the esteem of the multitude. He fled
first to Switzerland. The autumn of the year 1542 found him in Geneva, “an old
man of venerable appearance,” according to Calvin, and one who “was greatly respected
in his own country.” He was warmly welcomed by the Genevan Reformers, and he,
in his turn, delighted with the order, purity, and simple worship which he
witnessed, poured out an encomium upon the city and its usages which I should
be glad, were there space here, to reproduce. From this time forth
he lived an exemplary and useful life as a Protestant and a Protestant
minister. When he left Geneva, at the end of three years, he went provided with
a letter of “special recommendation” from Calvin. He was well received by Bucer at Strassburg. At Augsburg
he became by public appointment Italian preacher to his compatriots residing
in that city. Compelled to flee, in 1547, on the approach of the Emperor
Charles V, one of the first of whose demands was that the city should surrender
to him the person of Bernardino Ochino, he was that
same year invited to England by Cranmer, shortly after the accession of Edward
VI. The six years of that estimable prince’s reign were spent by Ochino in labours for his
countrymen sojourning in London whether for mercantile purposes or as exiles
for religion’s sake. Meanwhile he was made non-resident prebendary of Canterbury.
When Mary came to the throne, Ochino hastily retired
to the Continent, and for ten years (1553-1563), or until within
about a year of his death, he lived in Switzerland, first at Geneva,
and afterwards at Basel and Zurich. At Zurich he accepted the office of
minister to Italian Protestants from Locarno. Unfortunately, in this period of
his life, Ochino developed a tendency to indulge in
curious speculations, for a full discussion of which the reader must look
elsewhere. Suffice it to say here that, in a book which he wrote, not so much
by direct assertion as by inference, the soundness of the aged author was
brought into suspicion. If, for the most part, he seemed in the dialogue himself
to assume the defence of the current belief and left
the attack to another, yet, with an impartiality carried to the extreme of
complaisance, he lent such cogency to the arguments of his opponents as to lay
himself open to the charge of a virtual surrender of principles and beliefs
that should have been dear to him. Thus his belief in the divinity of Jesus
Christ and His equality with the Father naturally becomes in the judgment of
the reader more than doubtful. The great problems affecting man and his
destiny, divine grace and human ability, and all the views and theories that
have troubled the ages, are presented in so antithetical a manner, and the
arguments in favour and in opposition are marshalled
in such a formidable array, that the decision is veiled in uncertainty. Of such
contests the natural issue is in doubt, if not in positive despair of the
attainment of certainty in matters of religion. Nor indeed in matters of faith
alone. Ochino exhibited the same method in the
treatment of moral questions. In setting forth the reasons in favour of polygamy and in condemnation of it, he left the
final decision in such suspense that the answer to the question whether, in
certain cases, an individual man might or should marry a second wife during the
lifetime of a first wife was referred to that man’s own decision acting under
the inspiration of God. If, after prayer to the Almighty for the grace of
continence, the gift is not received, Ochino’s ultimate
counsel to him is to do whatever God prompts him to do, if only he knows for
certain that God is prompting him; for whatever is done by divine inspiration
cannot be sin.
That
the Swiss Reformers, Bullinger, Beza, and all the others, should have been
shocked, amazed, indignant, at the promulgation of such views by a professed
adherent of the Reformation, is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that Beza
regarded the last matter mentioned as of such vital importance that he
published, in refutation of Ochino’s views, his two
treatises On Polygamy and On Repudiation and Divorce, extracted from his lectures
on the First Epistle to the Corinthians? That Beza styled him “an impure
apostate” may be explained, if it may not be excused, by the fact that the
whole trend of Ochino’s disputations was directly to
that “academic uncertainty” respecting all truth which the Reformers regarded
as more pernicious than any single error of doctrine, since it sapped the
foundations of all religion. But it was certainly not to the credit of the
Protestant Reformers, especially those of Zurich and Basel, that their
detestation of the utterances of their misguided brother, long their associate
in Christian work and the object of their Christian affection, they forgot the
past too completely, and sanctioned, if they did not urge, the severe
punishment which the magistrates dealt out to Ochino,
without allowing him to be heard in his own defence,
or in explanation of books written, not in the vernacular for circulation among
the people, but in a foreign tongue for the consideration of the learned and
curious. The circumstance that Sebastian Castalio had acted as his translator aggravated the resentment of the indignant
Zurichers at having ignorantly harboured for so long
a time in their city a disloyal Protestant, in one whom they had known only as
a brother in the faith. Old and infirm—he was in the seventy-sixth or
seventy-seventh year of his age,—the venerable man whom all had so lately
united in honouring for his past services was in
midwinter bidden to depart from the city and jurisdiction of Zurich, in company
with his four children, within a term of a fortnight or, at furthest, three
weeks. Basel would not long receive him, Mulhausen refused him a refuge, Nuremberg consented only to his passing the winter
there. From Poland he was expelled with all foreigners not Roman Catholics. He
died of the plague at Schlackau in Moravia, in the
latter part of the year 1564.
Respecting
the bodily presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, Beza continued to be drawn
into controversies, reaching through many years, partly with Roman Catholics,
partly with fellow-Protestants. Among the former the most prominent
was the white friar, Claude de Sainctes, whom he had
encountered at the third session of the Colloquy of Poissy.
It was Claude who had on that occasion made the astounding assertion that
tradition stands on more stable foundation than do the Holy Scriptures
themselves, inasmuch as the latter can be dragged hither and thither by a
variety of interpretations. He showed no more wit in the treatise
which he brought out, five or six years later, under the title, An Examination
of the Calvinistic and Bezean Doctrine of the Lord’s
Supper. The author’s crudity would seem to have warranted Beza’s somewhat
contemptuous designation of him as a “ theologaster.
” De Sainctes had aimed at currying favour with his patron, the Cardinal of Lorraine, by
reinforcing the prelate’s peculiar attempt to confound or win over Beza and
his companions at the great colloquy. The cardinal’s strength did not lie in
the breadth or depth of his theological acquisitions; but he certainly had no
lack of cunning. If, he thought, the Calvinists could not be silenced by argument,
at least their cause would be prejudiced if, in any way, they could be set by
the ears with their fellow-Protestants from beyond the Rhine.
In
his written attack, Claude de Sainctes, reviving his
patron’s tactics, endeavoured to establish that a
difference of theological views separated Geneva from the neighbouring cantons of Switzerland, while there was a fundamental contradiction, amounting to
real enmity, between the Calvinists and the Lutherans. Whereupon Beza reminded
the friar that his contention did not possess even the merit of novelty.
“Have
you forgotten, Claude,” he said, “the answer I gave to your cardinal, in that
more absurd than serious skirmish of his, at a time when he was devising the
very same assault that you are now making? Drawing from his bosom a paper which
he at first pretended to be the Confession of Augsburg, but which was in
reality, as subsequently appeared, a copy of a private confession of a certain
one of the Wittenberg theologians, recently brought to him by one Rascalo, his spy, without their knowledge, the cardinal
inquired of me whether we would give our assent to it. In turn, I asked him to
tell me whether he himself assented to it. Startled by my unexpected reply, he
frankly admitted that he could not do so. Thereupon I retorted : ‘What affair
is it, then, of yours whether we agree with them or no, since you dissent from
us both? And yet, lest you should suppose that I am seeking to evade the
question, I will tell you that we regard those whom you call “Protestants” as
our very dear brethren—that we disagree with the Augsburg Confession on only a
very few points—and that these very points themselves, suitably interpreted,
could easily be reconciled, did not the unreasonableness of certain persons
stand in the way.’ This is what I said on that occasion. I do not imagine that
you have forgotten my words. For this reason I should be the more astonished
that you have now undertaken the same plan, were it not that the whole world
has come to understand what is your sense of shame, what your conscience,”
Into
the systematic refutation of the Roman
Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation and the
Real Presence, occupying in particular the whole of
Beza’s third and last answer to Claude de Sainctes,
there is no need of our entering. Let it be enough to say that it was careful,
comprehensive, cogent. To us, however, the chief interest attaching
to the whole controversy is the personal element which the friar introduced
into the matter in his first attack upon Calvin and upon Beza himself. The
circumstance that he had not neglected a single opportunity to calumniate
them, that he had not omitted a single incident of their lives that could be
misinterpreted or wrested to their disadvantage, makes De Sainctes’s accusations with Beza’s replies uncommonly interesting reading, and invests
them with a certain historical importance. Witness, for example, the triumphant
retort of Beza to the monk’s scurrilous slanders respecting the alleged impurity of his early life at Paris and his compulsory and clandestine
flight to Geneva in order to avoid condign punishment for his vices. “Had I
been seized with the love of lewd women,” said he, ” should
I have betaken myself to that city which is almost the only one where
licentious living is punished by public ignominy and by no insignificant fines,
and adultery by death ?”
More
lamentable than any controversies with the Roman Catholics, because more
unnecessary and more productive of evil and discord within the bosom
of Protestantism itself, were the controversies with representatives of the
dominant phase of the theology of Germany. I am glad that the scope of this
work is such that I am not compelled to rehearse in detail the mournful story
of the manner in which the divergence of views already subsisting became more
and more pronounced, and a mere difference of theory led to a separation, a
schism, almost to a positive hatred, between men who should have loved and
respected each other as members of one Christian host arrayed against one
common enemy.
What
were Beza’s feelings toward the Lutherans we have already seen. What he said to
the Cardinal of Lorraine at the Colloquy of Poissy was the sincere sentiment of his heart,—they were his very dear brethren in
Christ. That there were differences between their views on the mode of
Christ’s presence in the Sacrament and respecting the alleged ubiquity of His
human body, he did not affect to deny. But he was disposed, instead of
magnifying these differences, to reduce them to the smallest possible
dimensions. His manly honesty did not allow him, indeed, to abstain from
strenuously maintaining the truth, as he conceived it to be, against every
successive opponent, but this loyalty to principle did not prevent him from
sincerely desiring, what was also the sincere desire of Philip Melanchthon,
especially in his later years, that a cordial and charitable union might be
effected between the two great branches of the Church of the Reformation. But
that friend of concord was no more, and the loss to
Christendom by his removal by death was in Beza’s view irreparable. Scarcely
had five years elapsed when the latter wrote to the brethren of Bern and Zurich
that the enemy were now hoping to effect their designs with much greater ease than
hitherto because now, as never before, they would have the Papists as allies in
the condemnation of the Reformed, and because “no Melanchthon survived to
restrain them by his great authority.” It is a thousand-fold to be deplored
that his advances toward conciliation were not responded to with a corresponding
cordiality, but met with coldness when they did not call forth an absolute
denial of the fraternal bond. The latter was the case at the conclusion of the
conference held at Montbeliard, in March, 1586. The
excellent Count Frederick of Würtemberg, under whose auspices the gathering of
theologians was held, was an ardent lover of peace and leaned to the Reformed
views. Beza, now an old man, had not, in his zeal for union, hesitated to come
in person and endeavour to find the common ground
upon which he was convinced that Calvinists and Lutherans could honourably stand without sacrifice of dignity or principle.
But the attitude of Andreae, the chief representative
of the other side, was unconciliatory, and, at the
end of the discussion, the two parties were farther apart than they were at its
commencement. In vain had it been made clear to every impartial man that the
two great wings of the Protestant Church were practically in complete accord as
against the Church of Rome. When, the conference over, Beza offered his right
hand in token of love and confidence to the man
with whom the argument had been chiefly sustained, Andreae declined to take it. He could as little see, he said, how Beza was able to esteem
him and the other Würtemberg theologians, to whom he had imputed all sorts of
errors, as brethren, as he
himself could recognise fraternal communion with
Beza, who had shown that he held the imaginations of men above the Word of
God. But while he could not greet him as a brother, Andreae was pleased to offer him his hand as a fellow-man. Beza, however, promptly
rejected the ostentatious mark of condescension.
CHAPTER
XVI
BEZA
AND THE HUGUENOT PSALTER
IT
has frequently been said that to Beza the world is indebted, if not for the
whole of the Huguenot liturgy for the Lord’s Day service, at least for the
beautiful confession of sins and prayer that constitute its most striking
feature. It has been asserted that this simple but grand formula was taken from
the extemporaneous words used by the Reformer at the beginning of his
historical defence of the Reformed Churches and
their doctrine at the Colloquy of Poissy, without
doubt the most picturesque and impressive scene not only in the life of Beza himself,
but in the early period of the French Reformation. We have seen, however, that
the story is a pleasing fiction, and that the confession of sins, so far from
being uttered for the first time before the august assembly that met in the
nuns’ refectory of Poissy, had before then been
repeatedly on the lips of martyrs at the stake, nay, that for nearly twenty
years it had been a component part of Protestant worship, both when secretly
and when openly celebrated, at Strassburg, at
Geneva, and in a multitude of places in France. Composed and used for several
years before Theodore Beza fully broke with the Church of Rome, that liturgy
had for its author not the young student from Vézelay, but John Calvin himself.
But
Beza rendered to Huguenot devotion a service not less notable in another
direction. The worship of God’s house could have been conducted in an orderly
and impressive manner and with undiminished fervour without Calvin’s liturgy at all; but deprived of the metrical psalms the
worship would have lost its most characteristic feature. Without those psalms,
too, the very history of the Huguenots, civil as well as religious, would have
been robbed of a great part of its individuality. In the long conflict that
arose out of the effort to crush the Protestant doctrines and their professors
in France, from the first outbreak of civil war in the middle of the sixteenth
century down to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in the seventeenth, and
indeed far beyond that time, when the Reformed faith was supposed to have been
annihilated, the psalms were the badge by which the Huguenots were recognised by friend and foe alike, they were the stimulus
of the brave, the battle-cry of the combatant, the last consolatory words whispered
in the ears of the dying.
Now the French psalms were peculiarly the work of Theodore Beza. True, indeed, it is that the collection bears and has always borne the joint names of Clement Marot and Theodore de Bèze, and that it was the success of the brilliant and versatile poet of the Renaissance in his attempts to turn the psalms of David into French verse that led Beza to follow his example. But what had been approached by the former, it would seem, mainly as a literary task, aiming first of all at the gratification of the reader, was with the latter a labour of love and an attempt to achieve for the cause to which he had devoted his life the most noble of works. For it can hardly be denied that efforts which give to pious thought the most appropriate vehicle for its expression fall short of no other human ambitions in usefulness and dignity. It
may be admitted from the start that in native poetical genius Beza falls
distinctly below Marot. The verdict of the literary world on this point is not
likely to be reversed. In any production of a kind demanding the exercise of a
lively imagination, on any subject where the light touch of a master in the
graceful expression of thought is of the first importance, there can be no
question that his countrymen would give the palm to the poet whose days were
spent in the court and in the frivolous circles of the great. Yet it is not
unreasonable to look for a more adequate treatment of religious themes at the
hands of a writer in full and lasting sympathy with their high truths than at
the hands of a poet whose religious feelings are either shallow or evanescent.
As Beza could enter more easily than Marot into the devotional spirit of the
Hebrew original, so there are psalms or parts of psalms which have been
rendered by him with a dignity approaching to grandeur, with a dignity which
the most prejudiced critic must confess is unsurpassed in anything from the pen
of Marot. Among these psalms stands prominent the sixty-eighth, of which the
initial stanza of twelve lines deserves, more than any other passage, to be
regarded as the choicest jewel of the entire collection—a worthy introduction
to the psalm which stands unchallenged as, above all the rest, the Huguenot
battle-song. Sung at the charge at many an encounter of the period when the
Huguenots were at their strongest, it is no less associated in every line with
those humbler but scarcely less glorious and equally heroic conflicts when, in
the Camisard war of the eighteenth century, the “Children of God,’’ as they
styled themselves, having survived the supposed overthrow of their religion,
dared defy the arms of Louis XIV.
It was in the year 1533, apparently, that the first of Clement Marot’s translated psalms appeared in print, appended to the former part of that curious work of the Duchess of Alençon, only sister of Francis I, entitled Miroir de très chrestienne princesse Marguerite de France. This was the sixth psalm of David, whose plaintive cry was admirably reproduced in the opening verses, “Ne vueilles pas, O Sire,’’ etc. Six years later came out at Strassburg what has been styled the first edition of the Protestant psalter, containing twelve new psalms translated by Marot, but strangely enough omitting the sixth, with which the editor or publisher seems not to have been acquainted. Two years mere passed, and in 1541 there appeared with the imprint of Anvers (Antwerp) a fuller collection of thirty psalms translated by Marot. Finally, in 1543, there was given to the world by Marot the entire collection of fifty psalms, with which his activity in this direction closed, together with the Song of Simeon and the Ten Commandments, as well as one or two versifications such as the Angelic Salutation, which never found a permanent place in the Protestant psalter. It was to this publication that the poet prefixed the poetical ‘‘Letter Addressed to the Ladies of France ’’ which he had recently written to persuade his fair readers to substitute for the songs of love, always worldly and often foul, with which their abodes resound, songs of quite another strain; yet songs of Love alone, their author very Love, composing them by His supreme wisdom (while vain man has been but the mere writer), and having conferred language and voice to sing His own high praises. Blessed be he, exclaims the poet, that shall live to see that golden age when God alone shall be adored, praised, and sung, and when the labourer at his plough, the teamster on the road, and the artisan in his shop shall lighten their toil by a psalm or hymn; happy he that shall hear the shepherd and the shepherdess in the wood make rocks and lakes echo and repeat after them the holy name of their Creator. The whole was summed up in the closing injunction thus to hasten the coming of the golden age. The poem, if it does not prove that its author was a true Huguenot at heart, a Protestant by deep conviction, at least furnishes evidence that he was not devoid at times of genuine religious feeling. Clement Marot died at Turin in the summer of 1544. After a life of singular variety, in which his unconcealed aversion to the Roman Catholic Church had exposed him to danger and imprisonment in France, and led him to sojourn at the court of Duchess Renee at Ferrara, and for a time in Venice, he spent a little over a year in Geneva. Not only did he frequently confer with Calvin on the matter of the translation of the psalms, but the great Reformer himself recommended the council of the city to employ him at public expense in completing the work. The council rejected the application, and Marot withdrew from Geneva. That he was compelled to do so, having been found guilty of adultery and escaping only through Calvin’s intercession, seems to be a pure fabrication of the royal historiographer Cayet, who, having from Protestant turned Roman Catholic, was not unwilling to circulate stories of the kind against the poet who had attacked his newly espoused faith. For the fact is that no record of any proceedings against Marot has been found on the Genevese registers, while, on the other hand, it is known that the penalty for the crime of adultery had not as yet been fixed at death, and was not so fixed until sixteen years after Marot’s death. At Clement Marot’s death the Protestants had an incomplete psalter, consisting of barely one third of the whole number of psalms, and these not continuous, but with certain gaps. A writer uniting the requisites of a faithful translator to those of a poet by nature it was not easy to find. Marot had no rival during his lifetime, nor had he his equal among the poets that survived him; but it was natural that, under the circumstances, the eyes of Calvin and of others should turn to Beza. The Juvenilia, written and published before his conversion, had long since proved him to possess high literary abilities. He was himself anxious to show that these abilities could be employed to better purpose than when the ambition to rival Ovid and Catullus reigned supreme in his breast. Accordingly, within about two years from the date of his reaching Lausanne, that is, in 1551, we find Beza publishing a separate collection of thirty-four psalms. A year later he republished these in connection with forty-nine of those which Marot had translated. With these eighty-three psalms the Protestant psalter was more than half-way on toward completion. It was appropriate that Beza, in imitation of Marot, should now provide it with a poetic letter dedicatory. Marot had dedicated his psalms to his patron, Francis I, and had written to the ‘‘ Ladies” of France to incite them to sing these in lieu of worldly songs. Beza addressed the epistle which he placed at the head of his work to “The Church of our Lord,” the “little flock” which in its littleness surpasses the greatness of the world, the little flock held in contempt by this round globe and yet its only treasure.” The choice of Beza was the better, and he made of his address, regarded by some writers not without reason as his masterpiece, so excellent an introduction to the psalms that for centuries it continued to hold its place even when the circumstances to which it made reference had long since faded from the memory of the majority of the faithful who used the collection in their devotions The
exordium is calm in its quiet strength.
“Petit Troupeau, qui en ta petitesse
Vas surmontant du monde la hautesse ;
Petit Troupeau, le mespris de ce monde,
Et seul thresor de la machine ronde ;
Tu es celui auquel gist mon courage.
Pour te donner ce mien petit ouvrage :
Petit, je di, en ce qui est du mien .
Mais au surplus si grand, qu’il n’y a rien
Assez exquis en tout cest univers,
Pour esgaler un moindre de ces vers.
Voila pourquoi chose tant excellente
A toi, sur tout excellent, je presente.”
Let
kings and princes, clothed in gold and silver, but
not in virtues, stand back. With them lying flatterers
fill their pages. They are not addressed here. Not
that they are not spoken to; but they have neither ears to hear, nor heart to learn the message. The
poem is for those other true kings and true princes, worthy to possess realms
and provinces, potentates who beneath the shadow of their wings defend the
life of many a poor believer. Let them hear the enchanting harp of the great
David, and being kings hearken to the voice of a king. Let shepherds listen to
a shepherd’s pipe which God Himself was pleased to sound. Let the sheep catch
the divine music which communicates both joy and healing. Do they mourn ? They
shall be comforted. Do they hunger? They shall be filled. Do they endure
suffering ? They shall be relieved.
The
poet was writing, as I have said, in 1551, that is, in the midst of the
persecutions under Henry II. That very year the monarch published a terrible
law against the Protestants of his realm. The Edict of Chateaubriand, of June
27, 1551, we have already seen,1 sent the new heretics straight to
the flames on the mere sentence of an ordinary judge, and cut off all right of
appeal. Nor was Geneva forgotten by the legislator. As Calvin remarked, that
city was honoured with a mention in the ordinance
more than ten times. The importation of books of any kind from Geneva, and
from other places well known to be in rebellion against the Papacy, was
prohibited under severe penalties. So was also the retention by booksellers of
any condemned book, as well as clandestine publications in any shape. Every
printing establishment was now subjected to a visitation twice a year. The
great fairs of Lyons were searched three times a year, because it had
been discovered that many suspected books were introduced into France by that
channel. In fact all book packages from abroad were to be examined by the
clergy, before their contents could be put into circulation. Book-peddling was
utterly forbidden, on the ground that peddlers from Geneva smuggled books into
France under cover of disposing of other merchandise. It became a punishable
offence to be the bearer of a simple letter from Geneva. To have fled thither
was sufficient to lead to confiscation of property, and the informer was
promised one third of the forfeited goods. So resolved was the king to
extinguish Protestantism once for all, that all simple folk were warned not
even to discuss matters of faith, the sacraments, and the government of the
Church, at table, in the fields, or in the secret meeting.
Would
it have been surprising, when Geneva was thus singled out for special hostility
by the malice of Henry II, had Beza, in his general view of the enemies of the
“little flock,” noticed with peculiar execration the king of his native land?
Yet, while the Pope naturally comes in for mention, as the wolf that wears the
triple crown, surrounded by other beasts of his kind,” the poet prefers to call attention among
monarchs only to the good King Edward VI, of England, hospitably greeting on
the shores of his insular domain the fugitives that have escaped the fires of
persecution. For him he prays that, as in his youth he has already surpassed all
other kings, so in his advancing years he may surpass even himself:
“ Que Dieu te doint,
O Roy qui en enfance
As surmonte des plus grands l’esperance,
Croissans tes ans, si bien croistre en ses graces,
Qu’ apres tous Rois toi-mesme tu surpasse.”
But
the poet’s thoughts turned by preference to the victims of persecution with
whom the prisons of France were overflowing. To these sufferers, Beza’s words
were words of encouragement to patience and endurance in the profession of
their faith, with the lips, if speech was allowed them, if not, let courage
supply a testimony which the tongue was not permitted to give. After which the
poet enforces his injunction with a couplet that seems to anticipate by ten
years the famous warning which this same Beza made to the recreant King of
Navarre, to the effect that the Church of God is indeed an anvil to receive and
not strike blows, but an anvil that has worn out many hammers. Let
persecutors, he says, tire of murdering God’s children sooner than the latter
tire of withstanding the assaults of His enemies:
“ Que les tyrans soyent de nous martyrer
Plustost lassez [lasses], que nous de l’endurer.”
The
remainder of the “Epistle to the Church of our Lord” need not detain us long.
In order that no one should have an excuse for not singing God’s praise, Marot,
says Beza, turned into French the psalms once written by David, but, alas! died
when he had completed only one third of his task. What was worse, he
died leaving no one in the world, no learned poet, to continue his labours. This was the reason that when death snatched him
away, with him David also was silent, for all the best minds feared to try their
hands at the task which a Marot had undertaken. What, then, someone will say,
makes you so brave as to attempt so grave a work ? To which question Beza
replies by pleading his own consciousness that his powers fall far short of his
good-will, and by promising to applaud the efforts of those whom he would
incite to enter upon the same office and perform it in a manner more worthy of
its great importance. In conclusion, as Clement Marot had begged the “Ladies”
to cease singing of Cupid, “the winged god of love,” and give themselves to the
celebration of the true, the Divine Love, so Beza challenges the poets of his
time, those “minds of heavenly birth,” to turn from the low subjects of their
songs to themes of higher merit. Let the time past suffice to have followed
such vain inventions, and objects of adoration which shall perish with the
works of their adorers. But whatever others may conclude to do, the poet declares
that, insignificant as he is, he will celebrate the praises of his God. The
mountains and the fields shall be witnesses, the shores of the lake shall
repeat, the Alps shall take up the cry in the clouds.
We
have seen that in 1551 Beza had added only thirty-four psalms to those
translated by Marot, and that the united collection comprised but eighty-three.
Eleven years more passed before the Genevese Reformer gave to the world (in
1562) the remaining sixty-seven, and thus completed the psalter. The appearance
of this work coincides in time with most striking events in the history of the
French Protestants, and itself marks a singular crisis in their fortunes.
Up
to this date the psalms in the vernacular had been almost uniformly proscribed
by Church and State. The singing of them by the common people was taken as a
sure sign of heresy. It is true that there was a short period in the reign of
Francis I. when they seemed to be in high favour at
court. Charmed by the rhythm, or by the music to which they were sung, the
monarch and the nobles of his suite were pleased to adopt certain psalms as
their favourite melodies, quite regardless of the
religious sentiment expressed. According to the account of a contemporary, a
gentleman by the name of Villemadon, Francis himself
was so much pleased with the thirty psalms translated by Clement Marot and
dedicated to the king, that he bade the poet present his work to the Emperor
Charles V, who in turn set high store by the translation, rewarding the author
with a gift of two hundred doubloons, encouraging him to complete his work,
and asking him, in particular, to send him as soon as possible his version of
the psalm “ O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever ” (Ps. cvii.).
The
dauphin, the future Henry II, showed particular fondness for the psalms, and
ordinarily went about singing or humming them, to the great satisfaction, we
are told, of all good and pious souls. Nothing more was needed to induce the
courtiers, and even the king’s old mistress, Diana of Poitiers, to pick out
each his or her favourite psalm, and beg of the
dauphin to let them have it, to his no small perplexity as to which one of them
he should thus gratify. For himself, Henry, as yet childless, though he had
been married to Catharine de’ Medici for not far from a score of years, chose
Marot’s rendering of the one hundred and twenty-eighth psalm—a selection
dictated, doubtless, by the wish that he too might be blessed as the man that
feared the Lord, his wife being as a fruitful vine by the sides of his house,
and his children like olive plants round about his table. It was about the same
time, and for a similar reason, that Catharine de’ Medici declared her
preference for the one hundred and forty-second psalm (“I cried unto the Lord
with my voice,” etc.).
The
short-lived enthusiasm of the court for the singing of the psalms had little or
no effect upon legislation. For nearly twenty years after this time the laws
against the use of the psalter in the vernacular continued to be as severe and
were as persistently executed as ever. It was not, as has been said, until
1562, that a change, induced by political considerations, was effected.
For
two years and more France had seemed to be arousing itself from the sleep of
ages and clamouring for the Word of God. Thus, for
instance, in 1558, about a year before the sudden death of the persecuting
Henry II, a singular and unlooked-for outbreak of psalm-singing took place in
the heart of Paris and on the favourite promenade of
the best society, the so-called Pré aux Clercs. Here, just across the Seine from the Louvre, it
happened one afternoon in May that two or three voices started the tune of one
of the proscribed psalms. In an instant other voices joined in, showing that
the words and the air were familiar to many, and soon almost the whole body of promenaders—students, gentlemen, ladies among the rest—were
unitedly celebrating God’s glory. The next day, and the next, the thing was
repeated. There were said at last to be five or six thousand engaged in the
unlawful act of praising the Almighty in French, among them many notable
personages of state, including the King and Queen of Navarre. The irregularity
did not escape the notice of the bigots of the neighbouring college of the Sorbonne, the theological faculty of Paris; nor did they rest
until the bishop of the city had called the attention of parliament to an
incident which was declared to tend to sedition, public commotion, and a
disturbance of the public peace.
Other
features of the awakening are referred to elsewhere, and need not be recalled
here. Let it suffice my present purpose to repeat what Montluc,
Bishop of Valence, said in his famous speech in the Assembly of Notables held
at Fontainebleau, in August, 1560, while the old laws were still in
full force. After begging the young king (Francis II) to have daily preaching
in his palace, in order that the mouths of those might be closed who asserted
that God was never spoken of among those about his Majesty’s person, the
prelate turned to Catharine de’ Medici and Mary of Scots, and exclaimed:
“And
you, Mesdames the Queens, be pleased to pardon me if I venture to beg you to
command that, in place of silly songs, your maids and all your suite shall sing only the psalms of David and the spiritual songs that contain
the praises of God. And remember that God’s eye searches out all places and all
men in this world, but rests nowhere [with favour]
save where His name is invoked, praised, and exalted.” “And hereupon,” he
added, addressing himself to the king, “ I cannot abstain from saying that I
find extremely strange the view of those who would interdict the singing of the
psalms, and who give occasion to the seditious to say that we are no longer
fighting against men but against God, for we strive to prevent His praises from
being proclaimed and heard by all.”
This
he followed by proof which it would have been difficult for his opponents to
refute, and which they took good care not to notice.
The
Guises kept the good advice of Montluc and others
from bearing fruit, but the movement which he represented did not stay its
course. At last in September, 1561, the colloquy came. It was no longer a
matter of doubt that a considerable body of people in
France had espoused the doctrines of the Reformation; although it had not yet
been decided definitely how they were to be dealt with. Then it was that a few
weeks before the publication of the tolerant Edict of January, Beza
secured for the complete psalter translated by Clement Marot and himself a
privilege, or governmental authorisation and
copyright. The date of its issue was December 26, 1561.
And
now began a very deluge of editions of the psalter following one another almost
without intermission. Such was the new and quickened demand, that it was
difficult, almost impossible, to keep up with it. Besides other issues which
have undoubtedly escaped notice, we know of twenty-five or twenty-six distinct
editions that were put out within the bounds of the single year 1562; that is,
a distinct edition on the average for every fortnight. Six different printers
or companies of printers published nine editions in the city of Geneva alone
for circulation in France. Paris was not far behind with seven editions. Lyons
had three. Saint Lo had one. Five editions were without designation of place.
There are known fourteen editions of 1563, ten of 1564, thirteen of 1565—in all
more than sixty editions in four years.The books were of all
sizes. There were diminutive volumes and stately folios. No other book of the
period, not the most fascinating of romances, had such a surprising circulation.
It was not curiosity that had to be gratified; it was a veritable famine for
the Word of God that had to be satisfied. The men, women, and children even
would sing the psalms, and at any price they must have the books containing the psalms, for use at home, in the shop, especially
in ' over two thousand congregations.
That
the Reformed religion gained ground in no slight extent from the stress that
was laid upon psalm-singing, is a fact that cannot be ignored; nor can it be
denied that the psalms themselves owed much of their power to the suitable and
attractive music to which they were set. In the Roman Catholic churches the
psalms were indeed repeated, but in a language not understood by the laity,
being monotonously chanted by the clergy. The enemies of the Protestants might
inveigh against the novelty of permitting every worshipper to take part in what
was the priest’s prerogative by immemorial usage. They might with Florimond de Raemond condemn and ridicule as incongruous, if not
positively indecorous and profane, the very idea that these holy compositions of David the king should be transferred from the
church to the workshops of artisans; that the cobbler
as he sewed shoes should sing the divine “Miserere”
(the fifty-first psalm) at his bench, or the
blacksmith as he smote upon the anvil, drone the solemn
“ De Profundis ” (the one hundred and thirtieth
psalm), or the baker hum some other psalm at his oven. They might make much of the confusion
arising in a great congregation when in one part of
the vast building in which they were assembled
the singers were engaged in repeating one verse and in a distant
part a different one, the leader being unable by use of hands or feet to bring
them into unison. They might protest that not without reason had the Catholic
Church prohibited the promiscuous, rash, and indiscreet use of those holy and
divine hymns dictated to David by the Holy Spirit Himself, on the ground that
the worship of God is not to be mingled with our ordinary actions, unless with
an attention and reverence bred of honour and
respect, and that a boy ought not to be permitted to delight himself at his
work with the psalms as with a pastime, in the midst of vain and frivolous
thoughts. They might question whether when, in the smaller congregations, the
maidens raised their sweet voices in song, their hearts were as firmly directed
to God as both the hearts and the eyes of the listening youth were riveted upon
the fair singers? Whatever the jealous enemies of the Protestants and their
worship might affirm or suspect, at least they could not deny that in the popular
use of the psalms lay a most attractive feature of the Protestant service.
The
celebrity attained by Beza as a translator of the psalms led the national
synods of France to look to him for help when the need was felt of enriching
the worship of God’s house with additional hymns. Late in the century, the
thirteenth national synod, meeting at Montauban in 1594, requested him “ to
translate into French rhyme the Hymns of the Bible, for the purpose of their
being sung in the church together with the Psalms.’’ Four years
later, the fifteenth synod, of Montpellier, inserted in its records a minute to
the effect that “ as regards the Hymns of the Bible which have been put in
rhyme by Monsieur de Bfeze, at the request of several
synods, they shall be sung in the families to train the people and incline them
to make public use of them in our churches; but this regulation shall have
effect only until the next national synod. ” ’
The
fact, however, seems to be that the Huguenots took less kindly to these later
poetical productions of the venerable author than to his early efforts. The
hymns, sixteen in number, appeared in 1595, but promptly fell into disuse. On
the other hand, Marot’s and Beza’s psalms retained their place in the love of
the Huguenots, throughout the checkered existence of French Protestantism,
though with many verbal alterations dictated by changes in the French language,
down almost to our own times.
CHAPTER
XVII
beza’s contributions to history
THEODORE
BEZA’S direct contributions to historical science were few. He was
a scholar and a teacher first, and by preference; afterwards a man of
action through the strength of his convictions and the force of providential
circumstances. As a teacher he wrote to inform and convince others, and readily
passed from the field of calm and quiet instruction into the field of
controversy, that he might refute and silence those who held different views
from his, and who undertook to maintain these views by argument. As the man of
action he was chiefly concerned with the future of the great cause to which he
had deliberately sacrificed every prospect of wealth and promotion in his
native country. Present duties left him little time to look backward, had his
tastes inclined him so to do. The nearest approach that Beza ever made to
entering upon the writing of history was a sketch dashed off on the spur of the
moment and with a distinct bearing upon present controversies. I have already
had occasion to refer to the Life of Calvin, as a tribute of filial love and
respect to one whom he held above all others to be entitled to the appellation
of father. Melchior Wolmar alone could have disputed with John
Calvin the claim to be Beza’s intellectual and spiritual parent. But great as
was Beza’s indebtedness to him who had emancipated his higher powers from the
slavery of ignorance and superstition, and implanted a thirst for the truth, it
was to the wonderful hold that Calvin took upon him that was due the mysterious
change that made of Beza a true Reformer qualified to take up the onerous work
of leader of the Church of Geneva and preeminently the counsellor of French Protestantism.
The
Life of Calvin breathes in every line the deep affection and unbounded
reverence in which his biographer holds him. It is no blind panegyric, but a
eulogy based on firm conviction. The writer’s contention is contained in two or
three sentences:
“It can be affirmed (and all those that have known him will be
good and sufficient witnesses to the truth
of this), that never has Calvin had an enemy
who, in assailing him, has not waged war against God.
For from the time that God introduced His champion
into the lists, it may well be said that Satan has selected him, as though having
forgotten all the other challengers, for the object of
his assault, and has sought to bring him, if
possible, to the ground. On the other
hand, God has shown him this favour,
that He has conferred on him as many trophies as he has had enemies opposed to
him. If therefore an inquiry be instituted into the combats
he has sustained from within for doctrine’s sake, nothing can make them appear slight but the
diligence he has used so as
not to give his enemies leisure to recover their
breath, and the steadfastness God has
conferred on him never to yield, be it ever so little, in the Lord’s quarrel.”
In
carrying on these struggles with God’s enemies, of whom Beza gives the
formidable list, and wherewith he occupies many pages of his treatise, he does
not deny that the subject of his biography was vehement and by nature prone to
anger, but maintains that that vehemence in God’s service assumed a truly
prophetic type and invested him with a majesty apparent to all.
“
Those who shall read his writings and shall seek the glory of God in
uprightness, will there behold the shining of the majesty whereof I speak,”
says the admiring writer. “As for those who at the present time treat religion
as they treat political affairs, being colder than ice in regard to the affairs
of God, more aflame than fire in what concerns themselves, and call anger
everything that is more frankly said than pleases
them; as he never tried to please that kind of people, I also shall make it a
matter of conscience not to amuse myself with answering them. What then would
these wise men say, these men so moderate (provided that God alone be in
question), if they had had experience of such anger from closer at hand ? I
feel confident that they would have been as much displeased as I myself esteem,
and shall all my life long esteem, myself happy to have been the hearer of so
great and rare an excellence, both in public and in private.”
To
Theodore Beza has been commonly ascribed the authorship of an extensive work
that appeared in three volumes at Antwerp in 1580. The title in translation
reads: “Ecclesiastical History of the Reformed Churches in the Kingdom of
France; wherein are truthfully described their revival and growth from the year
1521 until the year 1563, their laws or discipline, synods, persecutions both
general and particular, the names and labours of
those who have happily toiled, the cities and places where they were established,
with the account of the first troubles or civil wars.”
Of the value of this history too much cannot be said. It is the earliest, as it is the fullest, account of the first forty years of the Reformation in France. It is accurate, thorough, authentic. There is no pretence of anything like fine writing, the author being quite content with the simple statement of events as they occurred. This being its object, its author has not hesitated to incorporate into his narrative extensive passages in which the phraseology agrees word for word with passages in other contemporary Huguenot writings, such as the Histoire de l’Estat de France sous le Regne de Francois II, attributed to Regnier de la Planche, the Commentaries of Pierre de la Place, the Martyrology of Jean Crespin, and others. Documents of importance are inserted without change or abridgment. The stories of the growth and development of individual churches are reproduced apparently in the very words of the local accounts forwarded to Geneva or Paris. In short, it is a compilation laboriously and judiciously made, the general trustworthiness of which has been established beyond controversy by a comparison with information derived from other sources, and, within our own days, more than once corroborated by the unexpected discovery of official documents long hidden from the knowledge of men. Who the true author was will perhaps never be known. It was certainly not Beza, although he was a friend of Beza and doubtless received much help from Beza in the collection of materials for the composition of the work. This is evident from a mere inspection of the book itself. The writer speaks of Beza uniformly in the third person. He is prevented by no feeling of modesty from praising Beza’s great speech at Poissy, asserting that it was delivered in a manner very agreeable to all those who were present, as the most difficult to please subsequently admitted, and that it was listened to with remarkable attention until the orator reached the point in his discourse which the prelates chose to make an occasion for their noisy interruption. He refers to conversations which he had himself held with Beza; as where he says: “Beza made no answer for the moment because, as I have since heard him say, he was satisfied with replying to the chief point without touching upon what was accessory.” He inserts an address made by Beza to Queen Catharine de’ Medici in the name of the Protestant ministers in the great council chamber of the castle of Saint Germain, prefacing it with the remark that it was “as follows, so far as could be gathered.” But the inference drawn from the contents of the work that it was written by someone else than Beza is converted into certainty by a passage in a letter to the Landgrave of Hesse, from the hand of Beza himself, who, in sending a copy of the history, soon after its publication, commends it both for its substance and for the fidelity and absence of all literary embellishment with which it is written, ‘‘although the author has suppressed his name, fearing that truest of sayings, ‘ Truth begets hatred.’ Somewhat
more than a mere collection of eulogies, yet decidedly less than a series of
unprejudiced biographies, was a book, the genuine work of Beza, that saw the
light of day in the same year 1580. It bore the title leones (Images), with a
sub-title showing that it consisted of “True Portraits of the men,
illustrious for learning and piety, by whose ministry chiefly, on the one hand,
the studies of good letters were restored, and, on the other, true religion was
renewed in various regions of the Christian world within our memory and that
of our fathers; with the addition of descriptions of their life and works.”
It was a veritable gallery wherein the reader seemed to pass successively in
front of not far from one hundred picture-frames, intended to be filled by
correct representations of the most famous characters of the modern religious
world. The desire of the author had indeed outrun his ability. Over one half of
the places were unoccupied, and the descriptions confronted blank spaces which
the reader was exhorted, if possible, to supply with the necessary canvases.
None the less were the rude delineations of the more fortunate subjects
calculated to deepen in the reader’s mind the impression made by those heroic
characters that had played a prominent part in the religious affairs of the
century. A few representatives of earlier centuries were there in their
appropriate places—the forerunners or advance-guard in the great procession,—Wyclif,
Hus, Jerome of Prague, and Savonarola; but the majority were men of
contemporary times, or, at least, of times within the memory of men still
alive. To anyone that remembers the close connection which the Reformers always recognised as existing between the progress of
letters and the advance of pure religion, it will not be startling to find
occupying no inconspicuous place not only the great humanist Erasmus, of
Rotterdam, in company with his rival Reuchlin, but Francis I, of France, as
the patron of learning and of the Renaissance, with the corps of literary men
with whom he and his sister surrounded themselves—Bude, Vatable, and Toussain—while Michel de l’Hospital,
Scaliger, and the great printer Robert Etienne, or Stephens, were not far off.
Clement Marot, the translator of one third of the psalter, had his own place as
a reward for the extreme usefulness to the Churches of the work which he had
accomplished, a work deserving eternal remembrance; despite the fact,
recorded by his appreciative continuator, that the
poet had never, even to the last days of his life, amended his bad
morals, acquired during a protracted residence at court, that worst of teachers
of piety and honourable deportment. Apart from the
pictorial illustrations, the leones, notwithstanding the brevity of the
sketches, constitute an important source of trustworthy information, to which
we willingly admit our indebtedness on more than one occasion. For if the
spirit of high appreciation pervades the work, the words of panegyric are, for
the most part, reserved for the epigrams that are interspersed—a species of composition
to which Beza was much addicted even down to his latest years.
No
more convenient place than this may occur to make a passing reference to the
circumstance that Beza interested himself in the matter of the correct
pronunciation both of the Latin and Greek languages and of the French, and
published short treatises on the subject of the first two in the years 1580 and
1587, and of the third in 1584. This last treatise, of which copies have now
become so extremely scarce as to be practically unobtainable, possesses a real
value as a historical discussion of the fluctuations of Beza’s native tongue.
CHAPTER
XVIII
BEZA
THE PATRIOTIC PREACHER—BEZA AND HENRY IV.’S APOSTASY
1590-1593
THE
patriotism which Beza had always exhibited in behalf of
the little commonwealth which he chose to be his adopted country, had
a fresh opportunity to display itself in the new dangers that menaced Geneva in
the years from 1590 to 1592. The peril came from the persistent efforts of an
implacable enemy, the Duke of Savoy. To the exposure to actual warfare were
added the discomfort and losses of a state of virtual siege, emphasised from time to time by an approach to a real
famine of bread. There was dissension at home. If the greater part of the
citizens did not falter in their purpose, there was no lack of faint-hearted
men, even among the citizens, men who would have been glad to purchase safety
with submission. But in the crisis of the peril the voice of Beza was raised in
no irresolute tones proclaiming from the old pulpit of the church of Saint
Pierre the same doctrine that he had advocated more than a generation before.
The sermons which he preached—he believed they would be his last—were intended
to be a testimony and, so to speak, a testament
containing a final recapitulation of the teaching of a lifetime. He inculcated,
on the one hand, repentance and amendment of life in the sight of God, and, on the other, a bold and unflinching maintenance of
the rights and the liberties of the republic. The war was unavoidable. It was
also just, because waged in self-defence. Seldom has
an orator of threescore years and ten more vigorously or more eloquently set
forth the motives for a hearty and hopeful prosecution of an honourable struggle. Let me give
a single passage which has deservedly called
forth the admiration of an acute writer of recent times, who,
referring to its construction formed altogether on classical models, well
observes that we might almost fancy that we were listening in Athens itself to
the voice of Pericles exhorting his fellow-citizens to persevere in carrying on
the Peloponnesian War.
“Humanly speaking,” says Beza, “common sense of itself
teaches us to lay down life for the salvation
of our country and for a just freedom. And, before going any farther, people of
Geneva, how often, in conflict against the same enemies, have your fathers,
when reduced to the last extremity, maintained very
bravely that liberty which they have
left you—a liberty
which I also hope and dare assure
myself that, with the Lord’s help, you will
preserve to the very end! And this for a reason still more just
than that which all your predecessors had. For, not to
mention the yoke of a miserable slavery which men
would impose upon us, it is Goal’s glory and truth, it is our souls, our
conscience, our eternal salvation that are now at stake, whatever colour or pretext may be alleged to the contrary. As for
all the fine promises that may be made to you on this point, have you not made
proof enough of what the good faith and the honesty of those with whom you have
to do amount to? And as to us, gathered here from so many different places,
who have found here not an Egypt, but all gentleness and kindness, can it be
that there should be found one in the midst of us that would consent, in so
cowardly a manner and with such base ingratitude, to leave the home under the
shelter of which we have been received, rather than show by our deeds, and
until the last breath of life, that it was zeal for the glory of God alone, and
the desire to be fed with His holy Word, and to serve Him purely, that made us
renounce all the advantages of this world in order to obtain that pearl of
great price which we have found and which illuminates us in this place ? I do
not believe it, nor is it this that leads me to speak. I speak solely for the
purpose of persuading those that may be in doubt, and confirming those that may
in any way be-wavering.
“But
let us consider whether the difficulties are such and so great as they are
represented to be. If it be a question of provisions, it cannot be said that
there is a lack as yet. If in this circumstance we do not recognise the great and extraordinary kindness of God, experienced more than once within
a few years, when not only war, but famine, from far and near, threatened to be
immediately upon us, shall we not deserve by our ingratitude that what we fear
and still worse may befall us? I ask, upon his conscience, if there is a
person in this assembly who had he thought that this war would last three months
only, would have dared to promise himself that there would be a market for the
purchase of the necessaries of life in Geneva? Yet God has brought this to
pass and still continues it, after the loss of harvest and vintage, after so
many fires and the devastation of the whole region. And what shall make us
distrustful respecting the future, if it be not forgetfulness of the past?
What! shall those miserable Parisians and other conspirators against their
king go so far as to eat their horses and asses, instead of renouncing what
they have so miserably undertaken, and can it be that we should lose courage so
soon in so just and necessary a defence of our
property, our lives, and our souls ?
“
Our money has given out. Perhaps our enemy is not in less perplexity than we
are. But, however that may be, He that has provided for us hitherto is not
dead, He will never die. And were those to fail us who serve us only for
money’s sake, let us boldly say that we should have lost nothing whereon we
ought to have leaned. A single man armed with faith toward God, with zeal for
His glory, and with love of his country, will be worth a thousand hirelings.
The chief captains are confined to their beds in consequence of disease or
wounds. So be it ; God will raise them up again when it shall please Him, and
when they shall be needed. We shall then have learned from experience more than
once, to the great astonishment of the captains themselves, that the arm of the
God of hosts is not dependent upon either the prudence and experience of
captains or the valour of soldiers to such a degree
that He cannot do His work all by Himself, when it so pleases Him. And when
will it please Him ? When those who fear Him and trust in Him have need.
“We
have been twice beaten with rods within a few days ; but
let not our enemies boast. It is neither their courage nor their strength that
has done this, but our fault and rashness. To go back to the source of this
disaster, it is our too great and long-continued errors that God has determined
to chastise very lightly and for our great good, if He be pleased to grant us
grace to amend our ways. The ten tribes of Israel in the very just and
necessary war against Benjamin lost forty thousand men in two battles ; yet
they did not desist and happily accomplished what they had justly begun. And, I
pray you, ought this sortie, which met with poor success in consequence of our
great mistake, to have more power to astonish us and lead us to adopt
disorderly plans than over six stout and stiff encounters against a larger
force of our adversary shall have to encourage us when we have God before us
and with us? If the Lord demands our lives as a sacrifice for His glory, what
greater happiness could we desire than to pass from this life into life
everlasting in so just a defence of the cause of the
Lord and of our country together? And those who, by reason of a lack of the
true and holy steadfastness of which we speak, may be disposed through cowardice
to abandon, our standard, whereon the name of Jesus Christ is inscribed,
whither shall they flee to escape from His hands ?
“
Now this is not spoken, my brethren, for the purpose of trumpeting the war, to
which may our good God and Father be pleased to put a good and happy end. But
in order that we may reach it, let us not take counsel of distrust or of an
inordinate apprehension of the difficulties that offer. But knowing how we
entered upon the war, let us commit ourselves to Him who is the safe refuge of
the oppressed and who requites the proud and ambitious. Let us acknowledge and
correct the faults because of which what had been well and holily
resolved upon has not always been carried out in like manner. Let us ask Him
for the increase of zeal unto His glory, and of the faith needed in the midst
of such tempests, that we be not swallowed up of them, but reach the haven
through all these winds and storms. Let us not join His arm to the arm of flesh
; but commit ourselves to Him with such prudence as it may please Him to give
us, as well respecting the means as respecting the time of our deliverance. Let
us keep bound and close, first to Him, the strongest of the strong, and then to
one another, by a true mutual love, so as at last to say with David : ‘ I
waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me.’ So doing, what have we
to fear, since God is for us, and death itself is made for us the entrance into
the true life ? Otherwise, we must needs come to what was published in the camp
of God’s people in the matter of war : ‘What man is there that is fearful and
fainthearted ? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart
melt as well as his heart.’ But I dare to hope that none such shall be found,
and that rather the great God of hosts will show us His great wonders. Amen.”
It
is a somewhat singular circumstance that so staunch a Protestant, so fearless
an advocate of the principles of the Reformation as Theodore Beza should have
been misrepresented as actually approving, if not applauding, the act of
apostasy by which Henry IV secured undisputed possession of the crown of France
at the price of the denial of his conscientious convictions. Still more strange
is it that it is not a Roman Catholic, but a Protestant biographer of
the Reformer and a writer of no mean repute, Friedrich Christoph Schlosser, who
makes the paradoxical assertion, maintaining that Beza gave a signal proof that
he was far removed from a blind fanaticism, in that, instead of lamenting the
king’s defection, he regarded that defection as a necessary step to heal the
wounds of a country rent asunder by religious dissension.
In
point of fact, so far from acquiescing in Henry’s defection, Beza opposed it with
all his might. Using the freedom of an old friend, he wrote earnestly in
advance to dissuade the king from showing any weakness. His letter has been
brought to light and shows that Beza, at seventy-four years of age, had lost
none of his old-time vigour. Apprehending the
increasing severity of the attacks to which Henry would certainly be exposed in
the conference with the Roman Catholic prelates for which the time of meeting
was already determined upon, the Reformer tells the monarch that the prayers of
his fellow-believers continually rise to heaven that by his steadfastness he
may win in the sight of God and man a crown far more precious than the two
earthly crowns (of France and Navarre) which were already divinely conferred
upon him, although as yet he had not come into complete possession of them. He
therefore begs him to see to it that, in the coming conference for
instruction, the truth shall be provided with good and sufficient advocates as
against the teachers of falsehood, and that only such arms shall be
allowed as ought to be employed in this spiritual combat. Let not the king
permit himself to be dazzled by the glitter of alleged antiquity and of Fathers
and Councils of the Church, but insist on an appeal to the Holy Scriptures
alone, all additions thereto of whatever kind having first been removed. Then
let the world know that he enters into this conference, not because he is in
doubt or irresolute respecting a religion in which he has been nurtured from
his infancy, but because he would have all men know that he is a lover of
truth, and neither a heretic nor a relapsed person, as there are some that dare
to affirm. Let Henry make it understood that he cannot and will not suffer
violence to be done to his own conscience, as he will never use violence toward
the conscience of others. Let him therefore humble himself and from the bottom
of his heart pray for a truly contrite spirit, to the end that having obtained
pardon for everything wherein he has offended, being a man as he is, God may not
take away from him His Holy Spirit, without whom it were far better to have
been only a simple private person rather than a king or prince, yea, never to
have been born at all rather than live and draw upon himself a condemnation so
much more severe as he has received more favours from
the Creator. As to the difficulties of his position, let Henry ask himself
whether he has not by the grace of God encountered and overcome greater perils
from his childhood up. Has he never been accompanied by fewer friends ? Has he
never been more destitute of human help ?
Here
Beza could scarcely have been more frank and insistent.
“Have not your most faithful servants been massacred, as it
were, in your very arms ? And how many times has your life been at the mercy of
your enemies, in thousands and thousands of ways ? Thereupon, what has become
of the enemies of God and your enemies, against whom He has stretched forth His
powerful arm, yea, often when you could not have imagined it ? Have not those
enemies that remain still to do with the same Judge and for the same cause ?
Has that great God changed in His power against His hardened enemies, or in His
will to maintain and raise up His own servants, when and in such manner as it
shall please Him ? The issue can never be other than very good and very happy
for those that follow Him without straying from the path by which He leads
them. Moreover, Sire, we are
assured that, over and above what we have said, and all that could be
said on this point, you have not forgotten and never will forget that precious
sentiment of which, as we have learned, you were so expressly reminded by the
late queen, your mother of immortal and most blessed memory, in her last will
and testament, namely, that ‘God knows them that honour Him and casts dishonour on them that dishonour Him.’ Nor also, as we believe, have you forgotten
that excellent speech which God put into your heart and into your mouth to
utter in the midst of alarms, as it has been reported to us : ‘If it be my
God’s will that I reign, I shall reign, despite any attempt to prevent me;
and if it be not His will, neither is it mine.’ They were words worthy of a
king Most Christian both in name and in fact. Such God grant that you may
always be, for His glory and for the establishment of your France, and may your
Majesty remember the firmness of the poor city of Geneva, for religion’s sake
reduced to great straits,—Geneva that is little in power, but very sincere in
its attachment to your service.”
The
letter closed with a reference to the instructive example of King David,
rescued from a thousand deaths, miraculously carried to the throne, and, after
exposure for years to civil war, finally placed in full possession of his regal
rights; and with a prayer that Henry might surpass even David, by avoiding
David’s faults and imitating David’s virtues.
The
author of so sturdy a plea for manly perseverance amid temptations to weakness
would have been slow to approve the pusillanimous surrender of principle made
by Henry IV, on July 25, 1593, at the abbey of Saint Denis. He would have been
the last man on earth to applaud the Abjuration as a necessary step to heal the
wounds of his unfortunate kingdom, or, to use a more modern phrase, as a
disinterested sacrifice of personal preferences upon the altar of patriotism.
CHAPTER
XIX
beza’s later years in geneva
THE
last twenty or twenty-five years of Beza’s life at
Geneva were years of diminishing activity, but not of idleness. Burdens too
heavy for his impaired health were gradually thrown off, but there remained a
wide range of labours useful to Church and Republic.
His
property did not, we may believe, place him among the wealthy citizens of
Geneva. It sufficed for his wants and not only made him independent of
others, but permitted him to gratify his well-known hospitality and liberality.
Thus it was that, on occasion, when the University lost its professors whom it
had no means of paying, Beza was glad to carry on the work of instruction at
his own charges, until the advent of better times.
With
the same gratitude to Heaven with which in his autobiography he chronicles the
fact that he was born of a noble Burgundian family, he alludes in his later years
to the comparative ease of his pecuniary circumstances. He was no indigent
refugee. In dedicating the first edition of his collected theological works to
Sir Thomas Mildmay (in February, 1570), he stated it
as his chief reason for so doing, that the English knight had in times of great
calamity generously relieved the necessities of the poor exiles who had
forsaken their native land for the Gospel’s sake.
“
Since then,” he adds, “I also am one of their number—by no means indeed needy,
by God’s kindness, but nevertheless so united with them by the same spirit in
Christ, that whatever things befall them I regard as my own,—I have believed that I could not escape the vice of ingratitude, unless I gave expression to the respect
in which I hold you, by proffering
these volumes as a pledge. The time is most opportune; since I
had them in my hands at the very moment when the announcement reached me of
your benevolence toward our poor
students.”
Evidently
the Rector of the University of Geneva was not dependent upon the scanty
emolument, irregularly paid, of his office, but had retained or recovered no
insignificant part of the family inheritance. If the sight of the honourable position attained by Beza, the professor at
Lausanne, had affected deeply his father and brothers, who had learned of his
departure from France with great displeasure, the admiration of the survivors
knew no bounds when, at the court of France, about the time of the
Colloquy of Poissy, their kinsman gained such
distinction as he could not possibly have acquired through the favour and patronage of his Roman Catholic connections.
One
circumstance, a result of Beza’s voluntary withdrawal from France in 1548, has
not been noticed. A year or more had elapsed since he reached Geneva, when the
“procureur general,” or king’s attorney, attached to the Parliament of Paris
took cognisance of the fact. As an absentee Beza was
summoned to appear before the court within the space of three days, and, having
failed to present himself, was, on the last day of May, 1550, condemned to be
executed in effigy, all his property being declared
forfeited to the king. The sentence was never published or executed. Fourteen
years later, both Henry II. and Francis II. being now
dead, the Reformer obtained from Charles IX. (August 1, 1564) a formal annulment under the great
seal of France and accompanied by honourable expressions. It was the king’s will,
moreover, that Beza should enjoy, in company
with all his other subjects, the full benefits of
the edict of pacification. The document was a complete refutation
of the malignant accusations of Beza’s enemies.
This
was three years after the Colloquy of Poissy. To the
period of the colloquy itself belongs a touching incident of family history.
The Reformer was unexpectedly visited at court, probably at Saint Germain, by
his brother Nicholas, toward the end of September, or at the beginning of
October, 1561. The brother brought the intelligence that the aged father—he was
seventy-six years old—was fast declining in health, and was anxious to see his
son Theodore at Vezelay before he died. The latter dutifully promised to go there on his return to Geneva. But, as we
have seen, the return was long deferred. The colloquy was followed by private
conferences, the conferences by the Assembly of Notables, and there was no one
whom the queenmother and the royal council regarded
it more important for the peace of France to detain at court than Beza. With
the passage of time, Pierre de Bèze became more urgent. In a letter written to
his son in French, which Beza translated and inserted in his own letter of
November 25, 1561, to Calvin, he said:
“
That you have not yet come, my son, I forgive, because you have wisely placed
public affairs before private. But see to it that you remember also what you
owe a parent, and that you do this as soon as possible, when you shall be
permitted. I desire that your brother, also, who is there, should come with his
wife, and that you should summon your wife also when you come. For
I have resolved in the presence of you all, my children, to make my will, and,
if so it please God, to die. Consequently you will do me a grateful service if
you should be able to bring also from her monastery your sister, who is now my
only daughter.”
It
was an unfortunate conclusion to the matter that Beza and his father after all
did not meet again. The civil war broke out. It became impossible for Beza to
traverse Burgundian territory, and the long-looked-for opportunity never came
to reach Vézelay before his father’s death.
I
have said that Beza’s burdens were somewhat lessened as the years passed on.
Let it not be supposed, however, that they were, until the very last, what
most men would call light. In a letter to Melanchthon’s son-in-law, Gaspard Peucer, written in 1594, we find a few lines telling us
what he could and did accomplish at seventy-five years of age.
“With
the exception of a trembling of the hand that almost prevents my tracing a
line, I am well enough, thank God! to preach every Sunday and to deliver every
fortnight my three theological lectures. The auditorium is pretty well filled
for these trying times. I am overwhelmed with occupations of different sorts
and infinite in number—net those which depend on my office and to which I am
accustomed by virtue of it, but occupations that come every instant from
without, difficulties that must absolutely be met and solved, of which you can
easily imagine the multitude and importance in this whirlwind of war that drags
us along. Thus it is that in the midst of agitations,
I struggle and am nearing the end of my course, with
my spirit as much as possible on high.”
Meanwhile
Beza found time to give a careful and final revision to the French version of
the Bible in common use among Protestants. This was essentially the
translation made by Robert Olivetanus, a cousin of
John Calvin, regarding which the most interesting circumstance was that the
Waldenses of Piedmont, out of their deep poverty, had collected the sum,
enormous for them, of fifteen hundred gold crowns, to pay the expenses of the
printing, in 1535, by Paul de Wingle, in the village
of Serrières, near Neufchatel.’ Calvin and others had laboured to perfect it. Now Beza and his
colleagues—especially Corneille Bertram, who held the chair of Hebrew— gave it
a further revision. Thus was developed the famous “Bible of the Pastors and
Professors of Geneva,” which, from 1588 on to almost our own times, has passed
through a multitude of editions and exercised a vast influence on successive
generations of readers. The remarkable preface was written by Beza at the
request of the Venerable Company of Pastors. The Library of Geneva still boasts among its many objects of interest a
richly bound copy of this Bible, bearing the arms of France and
Of
all the lectures in the University, those of Beza were naturally the best
attended. The students of all the faculties made it a point to be present at
them, no matter what part of the Bible he happened to be commenting upon. It
was the Epistle of Paul to the Romans when young Louis Iselin, in 1581, wrote a
letter to his uncle which has come down to us. Beza’s lecture hour alone was
announced by the ringing of the bell of the cathedral of Saint Pierre, as if
calling to a religious function, and precisely as it used to ring for the
lectures of John Calvin before the University was instituted.
Nor was this strange. Beza was the first citizen of Geneva, the man who was always at his post, however it might be with others, the one man whom everybody went to see on arriving, and again before his departure. No student was well satisfied with himself unless he took away a letter of commendation from the old patriarch, or, at the very least, an album in which was inscribed his characteristic signature with some verses kindly composed for the occasion. In the estimation of the University and of the burgesses, and not less in that of the outside world, Beza stood for both School and State. Every appeal to foreign princes or foreign commonwealths for one or the other either originated from him or was urged under his patronage. It was the authority of his great name, the memory of his great services in the past in behalf of Protestantism, that secured the great results which flowed from the appeals, the abundant funds which saved both the school and the commonwealth from a destruction which otherwise might have overtaken both almost at any moment in a long succession of years. So long as he lived, such was his high standing, such were his relations with the Protestant sovereigns of Europe, that they made of him, as it were, a permanent minister of foreign affairs. In
the year 1588 Beza’s wife died of the plague after a married life of forty-four
years. She was the Claude or Claudine Desnoz whom he
had espoused secretly, but before witnesses, three or four years before leaving
France, afterwards confirming and ratifying his engagements in the presence of
the church, immediately upon his arrival at Geneva. The union, although
childless, had otherwise proved a source of unmingled happiness. The wife, whom
he had married for love and in an irregular manner, was devoted, affectionate,
and helpful. Her husband celebrated her virtues and his own grief in a long
consolatory poem addressed to the eminent Jacques Leet,
a member of the Council of Geneva, who, not long after the death of Beza’s
wife, had been called to pass through a similar affliction. Not
many months, apparently, after Claudine’s sudden death, Beza married a second
wife, Genevieve del Piano, the widow of a Genoese refugee. Being now in his
seventieth year, and somewhat of a victim to rheumatism, he had been urged to
this step by his friends, who wished to provide him with a companion in his
loneliness. As the expressions of his joy over his new union were moderate, so
the results were satisfactory to the full measure of his wishes and prayers.
“Here
again, esteemed friend and very dear brother,” he wrote to Pastor Grynaeus, of Basel, August 20, 1588, “ here again, by the
advice of friends, and led by the very many inevitable ills of old age to seek
for the help of another, I have returned to matrimony. I have taken to wife a
widow approaching her fiftieth year, so adorned, according to the testimony of
all good people, with piety and every matronal virtue, that a wife more
suitable and more to my mind could not fall to my lot. Regarding this blessing
of God toward me, I wish you to render thanks to Him with me, and to join your
prayers to mine that the sequel may correspond to this commencement.”
Beza
had no children by either of his wives.
The
even tenor of the aged Reformer’s later years was interrupted by a curious
attempt at conversion.
A young ecclesiastic of noble family, born at Sales, a castle belonging to his family in the neighbourhood of Annecy, was at this time engaged in a brilliant work of proselytism which was to render the name of Francis of Sales famous throughout Christendom. It has been the boast of his friends and admirers, that by his instrumentality no fewer than seventy thousand Protestants, constituting almost the entire population of the district of Chablais, east and south of the Lake of Geneva, were brought into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. His methods have been represented as purely spiritual, inspired by love and carried out in gentleness. In reality they were an appeal to worldly considerations, backed by a display of military force and characterised by cruelties such as have rarely been exceeded in the history of religious intolerance. The conversion of Chablais was a foretaste of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; for the Dragonnades of the Duke of Savoy were only the counterpart, on a smaller scale, of the “booted missions” organised under Louvois and executed by Foucault and the other servile intendants of Louis XIV. The future Saint Francis of Sales was the prototype of the prelates of that monarch’s court. It was while engaged in the reduction of the Protestants of Chablais that a suggestion was made to Francis
of Sales that he should try his skill in bringing
over to Roman Catholicism Theodore Beza, the hero of many
an intellectual contest and the famous Protestant champion.
Beza was born in early in the century. Sales was horn in 1567, when two thirds
of the sixteenth century had elapsed In 1597, the former was consequently
almost an octogenarian, the latter was barely thirty years old. What a triumph
would it be if the experienced Goliath of the heretics were to be overthrown by
a well-directed pebble from the sling of the youthful David!
Francis
of Sales was moved to make the attempt by a papal brief of which his nephew has
given us a translation:
“ Dear and well-beloved son : We have
been informed of the piety that is in you and the zeal you have for the honour of God, a thing that has been agreeable to us. The
messenger will intimate to you in our name certain matters which concern the
glory of God and which we have much at heart. You will employ herein all the
diligence which we promise ourselves from your prudence and affection to the
Holy See. At Rome, October 1, 1596.”
All
accounts agree that Francis of Sales made several visits to Beza at his home in
the city of Geneva, and that he was met with kindness. Beza was, says Auguste
de Sales, the future saint’s nephew and biographer, “a handsome old man of
about seventy years, who affected an appearance of gravity and his visitor, “
on entering his abode, did not forget the dictates of civility in saluting him,
as also Beza received him very courteously.” According to the same authority,
Francis introduced the conversation with a jest, of no great merit certainly,
but sufficient to draw a hearty laugh from his indulgent host. It consisted in
a play of words, made on the spur of the moment, upon an inscription which had
caught the guest’s eye below a portrait of Beza’s great predecessor. By the
slight change of two or three words in the Latin verses, Francis of Sales,
without marring the metre, had made Geneva from “
happily ” to “ insanely ” listening to the words of her
great teacher Calvin, and that teacher’s writings “ condemned,” in place of “ celebrated,” by the pious throughout the world.
From
trivialities the talk turned to things more serious, and Francis of Sales plied
Beza with the question so commonly raised in contemporaneous controversy with
Protestants, whether a man could not be saved in the Roman Catholic Church. To
this Beza promptly answered that a man might thus be saved, not, however, by
means of that multitude of ordinances and ceremonies with which Christ’s
teachings had been overlaid. A discussion ensued on the subject of good works
which would be immaterial to our purpose, even could we know with certainty
what was really said.
Francis
did not fail to report this interview to Pope Clement
VIII, in words reproduced by his nephew:
“I
began by entertaining good hopes of the conversion
of the first of Calvinistic heretics. With this object in view, I entered Geneva several times, but never had the
least opportunity to speak to the man in private ; until finally, three days
after Easter, I found him alone and did my very best. But his heart was not
moved. He is altogether stony, being inveterate in his hardness, as the result
of a long series of years miserably spent. Perhaps I shall bring him back to
the fold ; but what is to be done ? ”
To
which the pontiff replied in his letter of May 29, 1597:
“Your
zeal is worthy of a servant of God. We approve what you have done until now,
in the matter of bringing back the lost sheep. We passionately seek this divine
work. Prosecute therefore, with the help of the grace of God, what you have
begun.”
Thus
encouraged, Francis repeated his visit and entered upon new discussions,
involving the question of good works and the authority of the Holy See. In the
course of the conversation, as he reported, Theodore Beza made the remark: “ As
for myself, if I am not in the right way I pray to God every day that He will
lead me into it.” The words, for some reason or other, gave his visitor fresh
hope, possibly because they were accompanied by a sigh. In a third interview he
returned to the charge. His panegyrists regard it as a signal proof of his
courage that he thrice exposed himself to the peril of entering Geneva and
encountering enemies enraged at him by his previous visits; though certain it
is that never was he safer in his life than he was within its walls. It was on
this occasion that, approaching Beza, as his nephew
tells us, De Sales made an extraordinary speech:
“
Sir, you are doubtless agitated by many thoughts, and
since you recognise the truth of the Catholic religion, I do not doubt that you have the wish to return to
her. She calls you to enter her pale. But it may be that you fear lest, should
you return to her, the comforts of life may fail
you. Ah! sir, if that be all, according to the assurance I have
received from His Holiness, I bring you
the promise of a pension of four thousand
crowns of gold every year. In addition, all your effects will be paid for at
double the price at which you value them.”
Up to this point we may believe Francis
of Sales’s nephew. Another biographer, Marsollier, writing in the
present century, in a notice prefixed to the complete works of
Saint Francis of Sales, asserts that, convinced of
Beza’s friendly dispositions toward
him and resolved to take advantage of
them, Francis informed the Reformer that he had brought with
him a pontifical brief, recently received,
in which Beza was offered an honourable refuge
wherever he might choose to go, a pension of four thousand gold crowns, the payment for his furniture and books at his own valuation, in fine all the security he might judge proper to exact.
Up
to this point, I repeat, we can
believe narratives possibly the one a reproduction
of the other, but both from Roman
Catholic sources. It is otherwise, however, when Auguste de Sales
makes “poor Beza remain speechless with his eyes fixed upon the ground, and
then confess that the Roman Church was the mother Church, but add that he did
not despair of being saved in the religion wherein he was.” Whereupon the
future saint gave up the case as lost and returned to Thonon. Fortunately there
are other accounts that have more verisimilitude and do less violence to our
knowledge of Beza’s manly dignity, to which his nearly fourscore years had
lent a still greater title to respect.
“
When,” adds a Genevese manuscript, “ Beza heard these odious words, a severe
majesty replaced on his countenance the kindly cordiality with which he had
been speaking to the young priest. He pointed to his library shelves empty of
books ; for these had been sold to defray the expenses of the support of a
number of French refugees. Then conducting his visitor to the door, he took
leave of him with the words : ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’. ”
And
an oral tradition makes Beza conclude his leavetaking with the trenchant observation: ” Go, sir, I am too old and deaf to be able to
give ear to such words!” But whatever
may have been the particular form of De Sales’s dismissal, this much is certain, that he returned whence he came without having
effected his purpose. Unfortunately he or his friends had boasted of his
victory before it was won. Therefore the news was spread throughout Europe that
De Sales was about to lead his aged convert in triumph to be
reconciled to Mother Holy Church at the See of Saint Peter. Crowds waited at
Siena and elsewhere on the road to Rome for the edifying spectacle, but waited
in vain. Beza never came. Others reported the story differently. The
arch-heretic, Calvin’s successor, had died, forsooth, but, before his death, he
had recanted in the presence of the Council of Geneva, had begged them to be
reconciled to the Romish Church and to send for the Jesuits, and had himself
received absolution by special order from the Pope, at the hands of the
(titular) Bishop of Geneva, Francis of Sales. Wherefore, after Beza’s death,
the city sent to Rome an embassage of submission. It is Sir Edwin Sandys that
gives us, in his Europa Speculum, this amusing account of the death-bed
conversion of the Reformer, who did not die for a good period of eight years
yet, and of the “ambassadors of Geneva, yet invisible.” The Jesuits took part
in the matter by printing a document which Lestoile,
in his Journal, says began with the words: “Geneva, mother and refuse of
heresies, now at length that Beza is dead, embraces the Catholic faith. ” As
for Beza himself, thus quickly blotted out of existence by popular rumour and inimical pamphleteers, it seemed good to him to
vindicate both his own existence and his honour, by
publishing a letter that very year and over his
own name, full of the old sprightliness and setting forth
with relentless sarcasm the shameless inventions of
the members of the ” company of monks that lyingly assume the name
of Jesus.” This and a pungent epigram called out by the same circumstances are
among the very last of the products of Beza’s pen that have come down to us.
But
up to the end of his life the passion for letters continued, and now that the
time for sustained labours had clearly passed, it was
chiefly in poetry that he continued to divert himself, the epigram which had
been the pastime of his youth thus becoming the solace of his old age. The
homeliest circumstance of every-day life afforded subject enough for verses—Latin verses, of course—in which the trivial occurrence was turned to spiritual
account and made to bear a higher interpretation. In the freedom of familiar
correspondence with his old friend, Grynaeus, the
pastor of Basel, he jots down, for example, the fact that that very morning of
his seventy-sixth birthday, his aged servant had greeted him on awaking with
news from the poultryyard. A hen had been bought a
month before and had been lost sight of at once; she just now appears, but not
alone; fifteen little chickens, her progeny, follow and crowd about her.
“You
see,” he writes to Grynaeus, “by this homely incident
how unconventionally I treat you. I gave thanks for this increase of wealth to
the Author of all good, and I saw in it—shall I tell you?—without regarding
myself in this as being guilty of superstition—the presage of some special favour. I even composed on this subject an epigram, and I
send it to you, in order not to leave you a stranger to these
light relaxations of my mind.”
The
eight verses enclosed were of faultless Latinity, but need not be transcribed
here. The thought was simple but pious. The hen bought but a month ago rewards
her purchaser, who expended for her but ten sous, with a whole brood of young.
“And I, O Christ full of benignity, what fruits have I returned to Thee in the
seventy-six years that I have lived until now? ”
It
was five years later (1600) that a nobleman from Guyenne, happening to pass
through Geneva on his way back from Rome in company with the physician of the
King of Morocco, as Florimond de Raemond relates,
called upon Beza. The patriarch, now past fourscore, received his visitors with
all his old-time dignity, courtesy, and affability. He was clad in a long tunic
that came down almost to his feet and girt with a leathern belt held by a large buckle in front. His beard was long and grey. His hair
reached his well-turned shoulders. Upon his head was a broad hat of generous
dimensions. Altogether the sketch drawn by Raemond’s pen is a counterpart of the famous portrait that still hangs in the Public
Library of Geneva.
Beza
had been writing, and still held in his hand some leaves of paper on which his
visitors could see verses written and re-written with many erasures, and when
he looked up and greeted them at their coming in, he remarked as he called their attention
to the lines, “This is the way that I beguile my
time!” It is a pleasant view to which the historian
introduces us, of a man of magnificent natural endowments
and magnificent achievements in Church and State, placidly occupying the
enforced leisure of old age, and striving to
forget the ailments of a suffering body, by the composition of unpretending
stanzas, for the amusement of himself or
the chance friend that might drop in. Not so in the opinion of his suspicious visitor. We hardly know whether we
should rather be diverted by the silliness or be disgusted by the malignant suggestions of the
“nobleman from Guyenne.” He could not read the verses Beza had been scribbling, and therefore used to
say that he was in doubt whether they were of an amatory character or not; but,
at any rate, he sighed and said to himself: “Alas! Does this holy man, with one
foot already in Charon’s bark, so spend his
old age! Is this the sort of meditations with which a
theologian occupies himself! ’’
Meanwhile, though apparently retired from active participation
in affairs whether of Church or of State, Beza did not fail to exert himself to good
purpose where anything could be done by him
either for the advantage of the cause of religion
or for the good of the republic of Geneva.
Henry IV, in particular, entertained for him a reverence and accorded to him
a consideration which even the events of the unfortunate Abjuration, and Beza’s
manly frankness in rebuking that Abjuration, had been unable to disturb. Nominal
Roman Catholic that he was, the tone of his correspondence was unaltered.
“Monsieur
de Beze,” he writes, February 9, 1599, “I have heard
with much satisfaction of your continued good-will towards me, and that you
lose no opportunity to exercise it for the advantage of my affairs. This increases
still more the favour which I have always borne you,
and while waiting to display it in deeds, I have been desirous to assure you
anew by this message, that you could not seek for its manifestation for
yourself or for others in any matter in which you will not find me greatly
disposed to gratify you. Meantime I pray God to have you, Monsieur de Bèze, in
His holy guard. This ninth of February, at Gandelu.”
Nor
were these empty words, as the event proved. In 1600, Henry, when starting out
upon his Italian campaign, passed near Geneva, and encamped, at the distance of
two leagues from that city, before the fort known as Sainte-Catherine. This
fort, originally erected by the Duke of Savoy, had been a source of great
annoyance and anxiety to the Genevese, ever suspicious, and not without good
reason, of their neighbour and enemy. When the syndic
and deputies of the city went out to congratulate the monarch, the latter
inquired very kindly regarding the health of Theodore Beza and expressed a
desire to see him. Despite his years, the Reformer promptly hastened to pay
Henry his respects, and greeted him with a short address in the name
of the pastors, which could not have been better received.
“My
father,” Henry replied, addressing the Protestant patriarch in the hearing of
all, “your few words signify much, being worthy of the reputation for
eloquence which M. de Bèze has gained. I take them very kindly and with all the
tender feelings they deserve.”
And
then upon the very spot he granted to the Genevese what Beza and his
fellow-citizens had asked.
“I
want to do for you,” he said, “all that may be to your convenience. Fort
Sainte-Catherine shall be torn down, and here,” pointing to the Duke of Sully,
who stood by, “ is a man in whom you may trust with good reason, and to whom I
now issue my commands.”
The speech was the more remarkable as a testimony of affection and esteem because Henry had styled Beza “father,” a title which, as Benoist observes, is little used by Protestants in addressing their pastors, but upon which the monks pride themselves and which they have, as it were, appropriated to themselves among the Roman Catholics. They were consequently scarcely less indignant when the king applied it to Beza than they were a year later, when, before restoring Fort Sainte-Catherine to the Duke of Savoy, according to the terms of the treaty of peace, he secretly allowed the inhabitants of Geneva to destroy the walls with their own hands, a permission of which they availed themselves so gladly that, when the moment arrived for turning the fort over to their hereditary enemy, there was not one stone upon another where the walls had lately stood. The
perils to which Geneva was exposed were not dissipated by the overthrow of Fort Sainte-Catherine, for
Charles Emmanuel was an implacable foe whose treacherous attempts upon the republic ended
only with his life. He made little account
of compacts or of treaties of peace. Scarcely had two
years elapsed since Henry’s visit when a new and more formidable
conspiracy was set on foot. The Savoyard frontier at
that time ran closer to Geneva than the French frontier does at present; the
canton having gained a considerable accession of territory and population in
the nineteenth century. An army secretly massed on the border could traverse the
intervening space and reach the walls by a few minutes’ march.
This is what occurred on the night of December 21, 1602, one of the
longest, as it is apt to be one of the
darkest, nights of the year. There
were eight thousand soldiers in the force that stealthily
approached the fortifications, preceded by their four
generals and a picked body of troops. It is
said that as the ladders were raised and
the advance-guard began to climb in the most profound silence, the Savoyards were encouraged by the whispers of
the Jesuit missionaries in attendance, who said: “Climb boldly; every round is a step heavenward!” The
project had almost proved a complete success, for no one on the
inside had perceived them, when a sentinel on guard gave the alarm by
discharging his musket. Two hundred men had already scaled the walls and stood
on the ramparts. A few soldiers had actually entered the city. The main body
was approaching the gate which a traitor had agreed to open to them. But a
Vaudois, Mercier by name, thwarted the plot by his presence of mind and let the
portcullis fall. The citizens, awakened from their sleep, rushed to meet such of
the enemy as had penetrated into the streets, and slew to the number of three
hundred of the assailants. The survivors were put to flight, and retired to
Savoy. Sixty-seven that were taken prisoners were afterwards ruthlessly
beheaded. Of the Genevese there were but seventeen killed.
The
conflict over, the people flocked to the church of Saint Pierre to render
thanks to Almighty God for His wonderful interposition in their behalf. In the
religious services Theodore Beza, notwithstanding his advanced age and bodily
feebleness, took the most prominent part. At his bidding the worshippers with
one accord chanted the words of the one hundred and twenty-fourth psalm, turned
into verse by the Reformer himself a half-century before, than which no
jubilant words more appropriate to the occasion could have been found in a
collection that lends itself wonderfully to the expression of every phase of
human experience.
“
If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
Now
may Israel say ;
If
it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
When
men rose up against us ;
Then
they had swallowed us up quick,
When
their wrath was kindled against us.
“
Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us
As a prey to their teeth.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers ;
The snare is broken and we are escaped.
Our
help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and
earth.”
On
every recurring anniversary of “The Escalade,” from that day to this, the same
psalm is joyfully sung in Saint Pierre at the commemorative services; and the
visitor sees upon one of the bas-reliefs of a fountain erected in 1857, on the
Rue des Allemands, and known as “The Monument of the
Escalade,” a representation of Theodore Beza in the act of returning thanks to
God.
CHAPTER
XX
CLOSING
DAYS
1605
HONOURED for his long years of service, revered for his signal piety and the virtues that had characterised his entire life, held in special veneration as the sole survivor of the group of Reformers that glorified the first half of the sixteenth century, and now by his very aspect recalling an age long since passed, Theodore Beza spent the remnant of his earthly existence in placid contentment and with a happy anticipation of the rewards of the heavenly. As his infirmities increased, so also multiplied the sedulous attentions of his devoted friends and of his colleagues in Church and University. A touching evidence of affection and solicitude was given in the resolution adopted by his brethren of the ministry, a few months before the end, to the effect that at least two of their number should visit him daily, to inquire respecting his health, and to minister such comfort as they might be able. Thus as the flame of life flickered in the socket before quite going out, there were always friendly eyes that watched with mingled hope and fear. When for a brief moment he seemed to be snatched from the borders of the grave, there sat by his side those from whose lips the precious assurances of the Gospel were doubly precious, because recalled by friends with whom he had enjoyed sweet communion in the past. On Saturday, October 12, 1605, he listened with folded hands and with evident joy, as his colleague La Faye recited the words of Saint Paul, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and discoursed respecting God’s grace to the called according to His purpose, whom He has justified and glorified. On the morrow, the last day of his life, he awoke feeling so much relieved of suffering that he rose, allowed himself to be dressed, offered his morning prayer, took a few steps, and ate a little food. It was characteristic that his last thoughts before the end came were directed to his beloved Geneva, which for its own sake, and as the representative of the cause of the truth, had long been dearer to him than life itself. “Is the city in full safety and quiet?” he asked. Then, on receiving an affirmative answer, he suddenly sank down, losing strength and consciousness at once, and in a few minutes passed peacefully away, while sorrowing friends prayed about his bedside. A
great man, indeed, had fallen, over whose mortal remains all that was highest
and best in Church or State in Geneva did well to weep, deploring the loss that
both State and Church had sustained.
There
is still in existence, saved by one of those strange freaks of fortune which occasionally
preserve the most fragile of shells through the midst of the storms that dash
to pieces the most strongly built frigate, a copy of the simple notice that summoned
the friends to attend the last rites in Beza’s honour.
It runs thus in translation:
“What the haven is to those that sail, that is the removal into another life to
those whose death is precious in the eyes of the Lord. Inasmuch, therefore, as
yesterday that great light of the Church, that reverend man, Doctor Theodore
Beza, worn out with years, was peacefully translated from this transitory and
wretched life to that other life in which there is eternal blessedness free
from disquietude, and inasmuch as he is this day to be consigned to burial, the
illustrious and generous lords, counts, barons, nobles, all in fine that apply
themselves to letters now present in this Academy, are invited, in the name of
the Pastors and Professors, to-day at noon, to pay this last honour due to so great a man and one that has died in so
pious a manner, and to attend his funeral. Whose body indeed, like as the
bodies of all that die in Christ, is sown in corruption, but shall be raised in
incorruption : in such wise that neither death nor life shall separate us from
the love which is in Jesus Christ our Lord, who translates His children from
death to life. He died on the thirteenth of October, 1605.’’
In
imitation of his great master, John Calvin, and in
accordance with the city ordinances, Theodore Beza, before his death, had
expressed a wish that his body should be interred in the public cemetery of Plainpalais, outside the walls. His preference was
disregarded, and the magistrates ordered that the place of burial be in the
heart of Geneva itself. It was not so much for the sake of conferring superior honour upon the great theologian and leader that this
resolution was reached, as to forestall the possibility of danger to the
republic. A watchful enemy was in the neighbourhood,
and might take advantage of the moment when all Geneva’s best citizens and most
valiant soldiers should have gone forth accompanying Beza’s remains to the
grave, to make a sudden attack upon the defenceless place. Moreover, there were rumours that the enemies
of the Reformer intended at a later time to disinter his corpse and, if they
exposed it to no other indignity, to carry it off in triumph to Rome.
Accordingly, it was to the buildings then known as the cloisters of the
cathedral church of Saint Pierre that Beza’s body was carried on the shoulders
of his former students, and was there laid to rest within a stone’s throw of
the sacred edifice where he had for so many years lectured and preached.
Strange as it may appear, during the course of the eighteenth century the
cloisters, having fallen into a ruinous condition, were torn down, and the tomb
of Beza shared in the demolition. Whither his remains were taken is unknown.
It is as impossible for the visitor to Geneva at the present time to discover
the last resting-place of Theodore Beza, the pupil, as to identify the humble
and unmarked grave of his master, John Calvin, at Plainpalais.
Church and State pledged themselves to one another over Beza’s grave to concord and a union of effort for the welfare of Geneva. Speaking through his successor in the moderator’s chair, the Venerable Company recalled to memory the fact that the Reformer had been not only a shining light in the house of the Lord, but a wall of defence to the republic of Geneva, which owed to his prevalent intercession every honour and every favour which it had received at the hands of foreign princes. And the syndic who responded in the name of the magistracy, reciprocated the hope that, for the advantage of the common country, there might ever subsist a good understanding between Church and State. To the accomplishment of this end, he urged that all should walk in the footsteps of those two great men, John Calvin and Theodore Beza, who had so happily served the interests of the commonwealth.
APPENDIX
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
LETTER OF BEZA TO WOLMAR
Prefixed
to his “ Confession of the Christian Faith,” and printed in the first volume of
the Tractationes Theologizes, second
edition, revised by the author [Geneva], 1582.
THEODORE
BEZA, of Vezelay, to Melior [Melchior] Wolmar Rufus, his most respected preceptor and parent, grace and
peace from the Lord.
As
often as I recall my past life (and this I do very frequently as is meet), so
often do your numberless acts of kindness to me necessarily come into my
thoughts. And although I can in no way make you an adequate return, yet am I
resolved to cherish them as becomes a man who is grateful and mindful of
benefits received. Since, then, it has pleased me to call this little book a
Confession,—I have decided to join to the profession of my faith the narrative
of my previous life, and indeed to commence at the very beginning. For I hope
you will suffer me, as it were, to become a boy again in repeating matters the
narration of which I trust will not be irksome to you nor useless to myself.
It
pleased Almighty God that I should first see the light of this world in the
year of our Lord 1519, on the twenty-fourth of June, the day consecrated as the
birthday of John the Baptist, and in Vézelay, the ancient city of the Aedui.
My parents were Pierre de Besze (Beza) and
Marie Bourdelot, both of them, thank God, of noble
stock (would that rather they had been imbued with the knowledge of the true
God!) and of unblemished reputation. I was educated most
tenderly in the paternal home. I had at that period an uncle on my
father’s side, Nicholas de Besze, a member of the
Parliament of Paris, who was indeed himself unmarried, but was so fond of the
children of his brother, that is, my father, that he would have been glad to bring them at once to his home, and
spared neither expense nor diligence in having them reared
in the most honourable manner. Having by chance come
from Paris to visit his relatives, he was seized by a certain love for me when I was still but an infant, God even then providing for my salvation, and did not desist until he had obtained from my father the
permission that, though I was still a babe at my nurse’s breast, I should be
taken to Paris. This, as I often remember to have heard, my mother took greatly
to heart, as though foreseeing coming disaster; yet, deferring to her
husband’s authority, she accompanied me when I was but lately weaned, as far as
Paris. Thence having returned home, not very long after
she fell from a horse and broke one of her thighs, and with her own hands set
it. For she was, as I have understood, much inclined,
by a natural impulse according to the notions of
women, to the study of physiology, and had from infancy
exercised herself in such matters. Most willingly, and
not without a certain dexterity, was she wont to relieve
the poor in various ways of this kind; to such a degree
that she was beloved by all as after a fashion
their common parent. As for myself, I account it a
singular kindness of God that it was His will that I should
be born of such a woman. But, to return to my subject,
shortly after this, my mother was seized with a raging
fever and died at the age of thirty-two years. It was a great loss to our
family. She left seven children, namely, four girls and three boys, of whom I
was the youngest, having not yet completed my third year.
Meantime,
though I was brought up at Paris with the greatest care, I was rather dying
than living; for I was so prostrated by continual languor that it was almost
five years before I left the cradle. And scarcely had I left it when
unfortunately I contracted a cutaneous disease from an attendant with whom as
a child I was playing, ignorant of the danger of contagion. The malady was of
itself obstinate, but at that time particularly severe, because the unskilfulness of the physicians, although in a very
celebrated city, was such that they used only the strongest and therefore the
most cruel drugs to expel the disease. My mind shudders to remember what
tortures I underwent at that time, my uncle looking on with pity and trying
everything to no purpose. And here, too, I wish to relate a singular example of
the Divine kindness to me. Since the surgeon who had undertaken to treat me
used to come to our house, and my uncle would on no consideration permit him
even to lay his finger on me in his absence (so tenderly and ardently did he
love me), this most humane man could no longer be the witness of such great
suffering. He therefore ordered his valet de chambre to accompany me daily,
together with a relation of mine whom he was rearing with me, and who had been
attacked by the same complaint, to the house of the surgeon, since he could not
even bear the sight of the latter. My uncle resided in that part of the city
which is known as the “University” [the part south of the river Seine]. The
surgeon, on the other hand, lived not far from the royal castle called the “Louvre”
the two quarters being united by a bridge that takes its designation
from the Millers (Pont des Meunier). So, then, we had to cross this bridge to
our daily tortures, which were particularly intolerable at that time of life.
We would hurry on and the servant followed, as servants are wont to do, without
watching us carefully enough. Here I remember (and my mind shudders at the
remembrance) my kinsman, who even then breathed a warlike spirit, often urged
that we should cast ourselves into the river that flowed below, and thus once
for all deliver ourselves from our sufferings. I, being more timid by nature,
was at first horrified, but afterwards, compelled by the violence of my
suffering and greatly pressed by him, I promised that I would follow his
example. So, then, but this one thing remained for Satan to effect our ruin, when the Lord, having compassion on us, brought it to pass that my
uncle, chancing to return from court without suspecting anything of the kind,
met us and, noticing that the servant followed us afar off, bade us return home
and ordered that the surgeon should resume his visits to our house. Thus,
then, the Lord rescued us as from the jaws of Satan himself, and put it into
the mind of my uncle, as soon as I had been healed of that disease, to have me
taught at home by a tutor to distinguish the forms of the letters and to unite
syllables. For God was so favourable and kind that my
uncle determined to devote me wholly to the study of letters.
Here
again God preserved me in a marked and altogether unexpected way. For whereas
I was living in that city which heretofore had been esteemed the most
flourishing school of the whole inhabited world, it came to pass that, contrary
to the advice of all our friends, and on a sudden impulse, rather than by calm
judgment, I was sent to Orleans to you, my revered teacher, who at that
time had established there a school for the training of a few select youths. Now
you yourself were altogether unknown to my uncle, but by the singular
providence of God it happened that on one occasion there supped with him a
certain one of our kinsmen, a citizen of Orleans and a member of the king’s
greater council. When this man caught sight of me, he remarked that he had a
son of his own of just my age, whom he had placed under the instruction of one
Wolmar, a man most learned in the Greek language—a thing that was at that time
quite a novelty—and possessed of wonderful skill in the training of youth,
according to the judgment of Nicholas Berauld and Pierre Stella [L’Estoile],
most learned men. Thereupon my uncle, doubtless inspired thereto by God, not
only welcomed the suggestion, but solemnly promised shortly to send me to Orleans,
and asked his guest to be permitted to make me the companion of the latter’s
son.
Thus
it came to pass that I reached you on the nones of
December [the fifth of December] of the year of Our Lord 1528—a day which I am
wont with justice to celebrate not otherwise than as a second birthday. For
that day was in my case the beginning of all the good things which I have
received from that time forward and which I trust to receive hereafter in my
future life. For, from the time when you received me, a mere boy, into your
house to train me in company with pupils of great promise already more
advanced in their studies, what labour did you not of
your own accord undergo in forming me ? What trouble did you not take in
teaching me, first at Orleans, afterwards at Bourges, when the Queen of Navarre
had called you thither by the offer of an honourable salary to profess Greek literature ? In fine, what exertions did you not put
forth in order not to appear wanting in your duty to me in any direction ? For truly affirm that there was no famous Greek or Latin writer of
whom I did not get a taste in the seven years which I spent with you; that
there was no liberal study, not even excepting jurisprudence, whose elements,
at least, I did not learn with you as my instructor. You wished indeed to have
only a few pupils, but all these you desired so to train, that when you sent
them out you might have in them so many witnesses in the family of your
unbounded diligence. Nor did this expectation cheat you. A thing happened to
you which has happened to very few others: I can scarcely remember that anyone
left your school, excepting me alone, who did not attain to notable learning.
It was, however, by far the greatest of the benefits I received at your hands,
that you so imbued me with the knowledge of true piety sought in the knowledge
of the Word of God, as in the most limpid fountain, that I should be the most
ungrateful and churlish of men did I not cherish and honour you, I say not as an instructor but as a parent. When your wife’s father
induced you to return from France to Germany, what stone did you and your
gentle wife leave unturned to induce my father to permit me to accompany you
to Germany ? So much did both of you love me and so much in turn did I revere
you, that it was only with the greatest reluctance that you left me behind, and
only with the greatest sorrow could I tear myself away from you.
That
first day of May, therefore, was fixed in my mind and will always remain there,
on which I was dragged from you, and you departed toward Lyons, while I in accordance
with my father’s directions set out for Orleans. I do not remember nor shall I
ever remember a day of greater sadness and grief.
Three days later, in the course of the year 1535, I reached Orleans with the purpose of applying myself to the civil law. But there, being strangely averse to this study, which was taught in a barbarous manner and without method, while pursuing it I spent a much greater part of my time in polite literature and in the perusal of the writers of the two [classical] languages. I took wonderful delight in the study of Poetry, to which I felt myself drawn by a certain natural impulse. This led me to have the closest intimacy with all the most learned men of that University, men who at present are enjoying the greatest honours in France. At that time they greatly incited me to join with civil law the study of polite literature and poetical culture. Here therefore before my twentieth year I composed almost all those Poems which, a few years later, I published and dedicated to you. Although there are among them several written with somewhat too great freedom, that is to say, in imitation of Catullus and Ovid, yet I by no means feared at that time, nor do I even now fear, that anybody who then knew what sort of a man I was, would judge of my moral character by these fictitious exercises. But of this hereafter. Accordingly
I thus lived in Orleans, in company with most honourable and learned men, until I was promoted to the grade of licentiate, as it is
called. This occurred, I remember, on the second day before the Calends of
August [the thirtieth day of July], 1539, when I had entered upon the
twentieth year of my life. I then returned to Paris. My uncle and “ Maecenas ”
had died some years before, but another uncle was still alive, the Abbe of Froidmont, who loved me just as much. But, good God! how
important it is for us that we have friends not only rich and loyal, but also
truly pious and religious! Certainly those who were most desirous of being of
advantage to me came as nearly as possible to ruining me. When I reached
Paris, first of all, I found that many members of Parliament, partly kinsmen
and connexions, partly old friends of our family and
these personally very friendly to me, had conceived great hopes of me in
consequence of the opinions expressed by certain persons. To this fact was
added the circumstance that I had been loaded —I a lean youth and moreover, as
I testify truthfully, utterly ignorant of such matters, and in my absence—with
two fat and rich benefices, the revenues of which amounted annually to seven
hundred crowns, more or less. Moreover, my uncle, whose abbacy was valued at
not less than five thousand crowns a year, had mentally designated me as his
successor. Finally, my eldest brother, whose health was even then so infirm as
to be despaired of, held certain other benefices in reserve for me. In short, I
found an infinite number of snares laid for me on every side by Satan. As for
myself, I shall here confess, as I ought, how matters stood. I had previously
determined that as soon as I should be master of myself and should have
obtained certain resources, I would leave France and go to you, preferring the
freedom of a pure conscience to all other things. I used very often to beg of
God with prayers and tears to hearken to me, bound as I was by this vow. But I
was young and abundantly provided by my relatives with leisure, with money,
with all things, in short, rather than with good counsel, when Satan suddenly
threw all these things in my way. I confess that I was so allured by the empty
glitter and vain enticements of these things that I suffered myself to be
wholly drawn hither and thither. But why should I here relate the infinite
perils in which I involved myself, casting knowledge and discretion to the
winds ? How often at home and abroad did I risk body and soul ?
Yet while the recollection of all that period cannot but be on many accounts
very bitter, on the other hand the singular and incredible kindness of Almighty
God to me causes me to be filled, as often as I remember them, with a certain marvellous delight, as I recognise within me the clearest and most distinct exemplifications of the fatherly care
with which that best of fathers has promised to attend His elect. For though I
had of my own accord strayed from the way, He never suffered me so to wander
that I did not very often utter groanings and cling fast to that vow which I
had made regarding an entire repudiation of the papal religion. In fine He
brought it to pass that I so ordered my life that, by His singular kindness,
though I deserved neither the one nor the other distinction, I was held to be
in piety not the lowest among the pious, nor in culture altogether rude among
the cultivated. Besides those hindrances which I have mentioned, Satan had
thrown about me a triple snare, namely, the allurements of pleasure that are so
great in that city, the sweets of petty glory which, in the judgment of Marcus
Antonius Flaminius, himself a very learned poet and an Italian, I had attained
in no small measure by the publication especially of my Epigrams, and, lastly,
the expectation set before me of the greatest honours,
to which some of the leading members of the court called me, while my friends
incited me, and my father and uncle did not cease from exhorting me. Yet it was
God’s will that I who, wretched man that I was, had entered so perilous a path
with my eyes open, should escape these dangers also. For, in the first place,
that I might not be overcome by those base desires, I espoused a wife, secretly
however, I confess it, and with the privity of only two pious friends, partly
that I might not scandalise others, partly because I
could not as yet bring myself to renounce that
accursed money which I derived from priestly
benefices, “as the unclean dog cannot be frightened off from the besmeared leather ”. There was, however, added to the rite of betrothal
an express promise that I would at the very
first opportunity put all hindrances aside and bring my wife to the Church of
God and there publicly ratify my marriage with her, engaging meanwhile to bind
myself to none of the popish orders. Both of these engagements at a subsequent
time I religiously fulfilled.
Moreover
the same most kind Father effected my determined rejection
of that paltry glory and the honours held forth to me, to the wonder of my friends and the reprehension of
most of them, who jocularly styled me “the new
philosopher.” Meantime I was still plunged in the
mire. My friends urged me at length to embrace some kind of life. My uncle
placed everything at my disposal. On the one side, conscience pressed me and my
spouse called on me to fulfil my promise. On the other, Satan with most placid countenance used his blandishments. My
income was made greater by the death of my
brother. I lay as it were incapable of coming to a decision in the midst of this mental solicitude. How wonderfully the Lord had compassion upon me, I shall here most cheerfully narrate.
Lo! He inflicts upon me a very severe
illness, to such a point that I
almost despaired of life. What should I do, wretched man that I was, when I saw before me naught but the terrible judgment of God ? What more shall
I say? After infinite tortures of mind and body, the
Lord, pitying His runaway slave, so consoled me that I
entertained no doubts of the concession of His pardon to
me. Therefore I renounced myself with tears, asked for
forgiveness, I renewed my vow openly to embrace His true worship—in short, I
consecrated myself wholly to Him. Thus did it come to pass that the image of
death, seriously confronting me, excited in me the desire of the true life
that lay dormant and buried, and that disease was for me the beginning of a
true soundness. So wonderful is the Lord in that He casts down and raises up,
wounds and makes whole again His children by one and the same stroke.
As
soon therefore as I could leave my bed, I burst asunder every chain, collected
my effects, forsook at once my native land, my kinsmen, my friends, that I
might follow after Christ, and, accompanied by my wife, betook myself to Geneva
in voluntary exile. Accordingly, on the ninth day before the Calends of
November [the twenty-fourth of October], a.d. 1548, having left Egypt I
entered that city, and there found what previously I could not even suspect,
although I had heard the commonwealth greatly praised by certain pious men.
There I took up my abode. Subsequently while I was revolving in mind what
course of life I should pursue, and after I had made a visit to you, my father,
at Tubingen, lo! as I anticipated nothing of the
sort, the Academy of Lausanne called me thither to be a professor of Greek
Literature. The illustrious Council of Bern having ratified this invitation, I
was compelled to follow the call of Christ. Accordingly in the following year I
came to Lausanne. There, thank God, I believe that I so lived in the society of
my colleagues, most learned and excellent men, as not to displease any good
person. From that place, after ten years, partly because I was desirous of
giving myself altogether to Theology, partly for other reasons which need not
here be recorded, I returned again, with the kind permission of the Council, to
this city [Geneva] as to a most peaceful haven. It was not so much my
own will that brought me, as the judgment of men of the greatest authority that
compelled me to come, that I might assume the office of the sacred ministry.
May the Lord supply me such strength to sustain this very weighty burden, that
I may discharge its duties with some edification of the Church!
You
have here, my father, a brief narrative of the entire life of your pupil, nay,
rather, of your son who was too unseasonably torn away from you. I have written
it, because I am wont gladly to view, and not without very great profit to
myself, so many examples of the divine providence for my preservation. Nor do I
doubt that you, above all others, are wont to be similarly affected by my
success. I wrote this 'Confession of my Faith at first in the French language,
for the purpose of satisfying my own father, whom the calumnies of certain
persons had alienated from me, as though I had been an impious man and a
heretic, and with the further view of winning him, if possible, to Christ in
his extreme old age. Subsequently I was urged to publish it, and did not
hesitate to do so. I have put it in Latin; if only I am suffered by the learned
to call Latin what I have preferred to express in a simple and artless mode of
speech, rather than adorn by a far-fetched and abstruse eloquence. These same
subjects, I confess, have been happily set forth by many writers, especially in
this century of ours, and indeed among the first (for I shall state the case as
it is, despite the prattle of envy) by that great John Calvin, my second
parent; who has treated of all these matters very copiously in his Institutes,
and very briefly but very accurately in his Catechism of this Church [of
Geneva]. From these books also I profess to have derived the present work. But where
there is such a superabundance of viands, nothing forbids that the same feast
be repeated with a slight change in the arrangement, to the great enjoyment of
those that partake. Moreover, I deem most useful the zeal of those who compose
short and perspicuous summaries of these controversies, in order that such
persons as apply themselves to the reading of the Sacred Scriptures may have
certain heads ready at hand, to each of which they may afterwards refer and
accommodate what they read. In fine, I hope that some of my readers may admit
that they have received some profit from this labour of mine.
Moreover
I have desired to dedicate to you this treatise, whatever it may amount to,
partly because it is very just that you should reap some fruit from the field
which you first sowed, of such sort as can be gathered from land not over
fertile; partly in order that, in place of those books of Epigrams of mine,
which you desired me again to publish, you might receive this book which is
infinitely better and more holy. For so far as respects them, who is there that
has condemned them more than I, their unhappy author, have done, or who today
detests them more? Would therefore that they might now at length be buried in
a perpetual oblivion! And may the Lord, as I hope may be the case, grant that,
since that which has once been done can never be undone, those persons who
hereafter read writings of mine very diverse from those poems, shall rather
congratulate me upon the greatness of God’s goodness to me, than accuse him
who voluntarily confesses and deplores the fault of his youth. Farewell.
Geneva, this fourth day before the Ides of March [the twelfth of March], a.d. 1560.
|