§11 the Situation in Geneva

I must sketch for you in a few strokes the situation that Calvin found in Geneva. In this context I do not have time for a full account. For this | would refer you to Kampschulte, vol. I.8 Geneva was first a stronghold of the Allobrogi, then a Roman provincial city, then a residence of the kings of Burgundy, then an episcopal city. When Calvin came to it, there were some fifteen thousand residents. It had three governing powers: the bishop; the count or his regent, who lived on an island in the Rhone and had jurisdiction; and finally the free and self-governing citizenry, which had always had a strong sense of its rights. Severe tensions had come into the relations between these forces from the time that the ducal house of Savoy had become overlords of the count in the 13th century and then seized control of the bishopric in the 15th, this time with the help of the papacy, which in this instance betrayed the freedom of the church and for this reason enjoyed little respect among the citizens. The Savoy bishops also discredited themselves among their flock by a worldly, to some extent dissolute, and at any rate unspiritual lifestyle. Early in the 16th century Geneva swarmed with clergy who did nothing for the city. There were seven parishes, five monasteries, three hundred ministers, seven hundred monks and nuns, twenty fraternities, and nine hospitals. The bad moral reputation of the clergy was typical of the day. But at first the decisive factor was political opposition to the house of Savoy represented by the

8. Kampschulte, I, 3ff Barth follows this account except where otherwise noted. church. In spite of everything the church as such still had many warm supporters in the city, as became plain when the conflicts shifted from the political to the religious arena.

In 1519 the citizens tried’to secure their position by a so-called agreement on city rights with Swiss Freiburg. This attempt was defeated and the leaders were executed or imprisoned, but the upshot was that when the Savoyards exploited their victory too unwisely the bishop had to leave the city in 1526. Propaganda against the church was already present. In 1528 the Reformation triumphed in Bern, and when in 1530 the bishop declared the Genevans to be rebels and the Savoyards actually threatened the city, troops from Bern and then Freiburg came to Geneva. This development paved the way for the first Protestant sermon in St. Pierre cathedral. It was delivered in German by a preacher from Bern, the Zwinglian Megander.? A treaty with Savoy gave Geneva security against arbitrary acts, if not its freedom. A council decree ruled somewhat am- ~ biguously that in religion they wanted to live as their ancestors had done but that the gospel should be preached without human additions.!° This was a provisional decision that others would necessarily follow.

What happened, however, was a confused chaos of strokes and counterstrokes from which the only thing to emerge clearly is that the Reformation in this Reformation city was very little a matter of principle. In the summer of 1532 Clement VII wanted an indulgence preached in Geneva. A certain Jean Goulaz put up posters against this, arguing that forgiveness of sins is by grace and faith alone. The result was a violent clash between him and one of the cathedral clergy named Werly. In these weeks Guillaume Farel (b. 1489 at Gap in the Dauphiné) came for the first time to Geneva. This man had been a zealous Romanist, but through Faber Stapulensis in Paris he had changed into an even more zealous Protestant agitator and fighter. He was no scholar or speculative thinker but a matchless man of action, a little man, with a bristly red beard, fiery eyes, a big mouth, a shrill voice, sunburnt as a result of his many wanderings, bony, broad-shouldered, always prepared to speak at a moment's notice to the people.!! His life was a veritable Odyssey or Iliad, for wherever he went sharp and not merely intellectual conflicts arose. More than once he himself was almost beaten to death by enraged masses in French

9. Kaspar Megander (1459-1545).
10. Kampschulte, I, 109.
11. Henry, I, 167.

Switzerland, where he chiefly worked. For the scenes in Geneva at the bishop’s palace and in the streets when he came with his notorious reputation, you must read Kampschulte.!? At first, to avoid the worst, even this bold man had to yield. A further effort was made by Antoine Froment,!3 who said first that he was a language teacher, then held secret Protestant gatherings, then dared to preach publicly on the Place Molard, but finally had to flee.

In 1533 Pierre Viret!4 of Vaud came for the first time to Geneva. As a result opposing steps were taken by the two parties to secure their positions. A council decree to the effect that each should act according to conscience, but that traditional customs should not be derided, and yet that preachers should also stick with scripture, failed to bring either clarity or peace. Werly, always ready to draw the sword for Roman Catholicism, would finally have to pay for the cause with his life. The one who killed him was executed. From a distance the bishop impotently tried to prohibit unauthorized preaching and Bible reading. An attempt by Roman Catholics to swing things in their favor by calling in the scholarly Dominican preacher Guido Furbity!> ended badly for their cause when the foreigner described his opponents as “German heretics,” which at once evoked a protest from Bern.

Meantime Froment and Farel were again on the scene, and in a public assembly they could defy Furbity, who knew Thomas but not the Bible. Early in 1534, amid a great throng, Viret administered the first Protestant baptism. On March 1, 1534, the Franciscan house was stormed and Farel preached in the church there. Freiburg appealed in vain to the earlier agreement. The bishop called in vain for economic sanctions and even a night attack on the city. An attempt to poison Farel, Froment, and Viret failed. In a second disputation the Frenchman Peter Caroli,!6 of whom we will hear more later, tried to put things back on an intellectual level. On August 8 Ami Perrin!” led the decisive attack on the images in St. Pierre, with some shameful acts (feeding the host to dogs), but also with the unmasking of some shameful deceptions (gadgets to make the

12. Kampschulte, I, 118f.
13. Antoine Froment (1508-1581), Froment in Kampschulte.
14. Pierre Viret (1511-1571).
15. On Guido or Guy Furbity cf. Kampschulte, I, 136ff.
16. Peter Caroli (ca. 1480-after 1545).
17. Ami Perrin (d. 1561), captain general of Geneva.

‘250

images of saints sing or angels appear, and a skull of Peter made of stone). The monks and clergy had to admit they were ignorant. On August 12 the mass was ended, and on August 27 the bishop and pope were banished in favor of the sole authority of holy scripture.

By the events of 1535, at the time when Calvin was writing the preface to his Institutes in Basel, Geneva had ceased to be a papal city. But what had it become instead? In keen anticipation the people of Geneva chose a motto made up of the Vulgate of Job 17:12: Post tenebras lux, and the no less bold: Deus noster pugnat pro nobis (based on Deut. 3:22).!18 We should not probe too deeply into what either the spiritual and secular leaders or the image-storming youth from the alleys meant by /ux and Deus. There were places where the visible, historical circumstances under which the so-called Reformation took place were more worthy and significant than in Geneva, and there were other places where they were even less worthy and significant. The great wave of change from the medieval ideal, the wave of the disturbance and disruption of all that had been customary in the West by a factor that in the first instance, since it had no home on earth, we can intelligibly describe only in more or less violent negations, but that, understood, misunderstood, or not understood, was simply there and at work, this wave had now reached these waters, too. That here as elsewhere the waters that were thus ruffled from the surface to the depths were human, all too human, should neither be obscured by a mythical depiction by Protestants nor all too triumphantly exposed by the kind of anti-Protestant account that we find in Kampschulte.!?

Naturally everything that takes place in history, absolutely everything, has a human face, and the more closely we look, a not very edifying face. Educated people like ourselves are much too easily tempted to forget that this is true of all the processes of history and to regard what happened in the studies of Humanists and theologians during the Reformation years as something pure and detached and free. We are tempted to do this because its result, Reformation thought, has given us such fine and bold and illuminating ideas, and it seems as if we are falling from heaven when we become aware that in Wittenberg and Zurich and Geneva there were markets and alleys and council chambers where the Reformation was desperately tainted with sweat and blood and tears and money and alcohol and public papers and all the rest. To safeguard ourselves against the

18. See Doumergue, II, 139f.

19. For Barth’s evaluation of Kampschulte cf. Bw.Th. I, 360. disenchantment that might arise when we realize that the human beast had a hand in the Reformation as well as the human spirit, against the temptation to close our eyes to the way things really were, we have to be very clear that even the apparently pure religious experience and thinking that we find on the intellectual peaks of humanity in the medieval West were also human and earthly and beset with ambiguities, and that the composition of the Institutes and the breaking of images, vastly different though they seem to be, all come under one-common denominator, so that at every point we have to differentiate between what was disturbed, and what caused the disturbance, the Spirit of the Lord from above.

The Reformation loses nothing of its importance if we allow no place for even the remnants of hagiography that we find in the biographies of Calvin by Henry and Staehelin.2° On the contrary, it is only then that we are protected against the danger of falling victim to anti-Reformation polemics such as we find in such a subtle and outstanding form in Kampschulte’s account. We may then quietly accept the thesis that the Reformation in Geneva was essentially political and economic in motivation; the suggestion that the people of Geneva did not really know what had happened to them when they suddenly became Protestant, nor what part had been played by foreign policies such as that of Bern; the question marks that we have to put against such figures as Farel and especially the » Molard preacher Froment; and in my view perhaps something that is a fact even if Kampschulte offers only a little solid support for it,2! namely, that from a human standpoint those who came out best in this Reformation were the nuns,of the St. Clara convent, who with a steadfastness that was worthy of a better cause, even under severe attack, refused to let themselves be reformed by Farel and his worldly associates.

But why should we not also agree that along with others the religious motive played just as big a part in the movement; that the sermons of Farel and the biblical teaching of Froment, no matter how much we might have against their type of evangelizing, could not possibly have been mere clamor, babbling, and appeal to the lowest instincts as Kampschulte depicts them; that we can just as well put a positive as a negative sign in front of the whole movement even with all its far too human components? If we are not afraid to see how questionable are all things human, then we are

20. For Henry and Stiahelin, see n. 4 on p. 129. For Barth’s view of Stihelin’s work cf, his letter to E. Thurneysen dated 12.14.1919.

21. Kampschulte, I, 169ff.

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in a position to see, too, that all things human after their manner and on their level have at least the possibility of justification.

Let us leave, then, the question how far Geneva in August 1535 had not only ceased to be Roman Catholic but had also begun to be Protestant, how far the new motto, so genuinely Genevan and oratorical, corresponded to reality. Let us leave this ambiguous question unanswered. It was to this situation that Calvin was referring when on his arrival in Geneva he said that things had not yet been put in order.2? But as yet Calvin had not come to Geneva. The ecclesiastical revolution of August 1535, itself strongly political, served for its part to sharpen the political situation, for it now ruled out any peaceful settlement with the bishop and therefore with the Savoyards who stood behind him. The bishop could now be content with nothing less than the complete subjection of the city, and the city could feel secure only if totally independent of the bishop. Savoy at once took up the fight with renewed energy, and the people of Geneva, strengthened now by a religious as well as a political shibboleth, resisted with fresh power. The duke overran the surrounding area with his troops, and not without heroism Geneva sacrificed the suburbs, leaving some six thousand people without protection, but making the city itself the more defensible. For the first time Farel and his colleagues now began to make a comparison between fighting Israel and God’s new people in Geneva to whom God would not deny similar victory.23 A regular siege began. Expectantly the people of Geneva began to look to the east, to powerful Bern, as whose envoys Farel, Froment, and Viret, the messengers of the new faith, had come to them. If a stalwart Christian city, Bern, had given the gospel to Geneva, wrote a chronicler in Bern at the time,24 it could not now refuse to undertake the defense of those who were oppressed for the gospel’s sake.

But now there plainly began the game that Bern would play with Geneva during this whole period, and that would cause Calvin so much trouble later. At first it was a double game. To the general surprise Bern for long enough held coldly aloof from Geneva. Remarks like “The shirt is worn much closer than the coat”25 were common currency. But to the other cantons and to the government of ducal Savoy it posed as an advocate

22. See above, n. 2.

23. Kampschulte, I, 185, based on A. Froment, Actes et gestes, 179f.

24. Kampschulte, I, 186.

25. Ibid., 189. of the interests of Geneva. When its ally Constance demanded that it should abandon Geneva in the interests of peace, it suddenly insisted on the city rights that it had to observe. But at first no actual steps were taken to relieve Geneva. The bear would not scratch until the city was in the last desperate straits, said the same chronicler?¢ in an excellent understanding of his government's intentions. What was the point of this game? Very simply, the leading idea behind the policy of Bern had always been the openly imperialistic one of restoring the kingdom of Burgundy under Bern’s leadership, and Geneva would be a pillar of this larger territory. For this reason Bern supported the struggle for independence from Savoy, sharpened the conflict by cleverly introducing a religious rift through the brave Farel and his companions, and then, when happily no settlement was possible, despicably leaving Geneva in the lurch so as to show plainly how useful and necessary an alliance with its neighbor was. The people of Geneva were well aware that they could have their independence at this price, but they were freedom loving and clever enough not to fall into this trap. Hentce they decided first to wait and help themselves as best they could.

And help came in a way that fortunately the little powers of this world not infrequently experience. A fourth actor came on the scene. Francis I of France had plans on Upper Italy and therefore against Savoy, whose duke was related by marriage to Charles V and hence his natural enemy. Francis, then, had an interest in securing Geneva. It thus came about that the French negotiated for an alliance with Geneva and a protectorate over it, though Francis did not intend this to include the religious liberty that he was suppressing in his own country. Some inadequate attempts were also made to end the siege. Geneva handled dealings with this dubious patron cleverly, thanking him politely for his friendly intentions but making no concessions in fact. For the time being the game was already won, not by clever Bern or clever Francis I, but by the people of Geneva with whom they were playing it. For now, said the chronicler, prudent Bern summed up things correctly and resolved to help Geneva before the king led the dance.?7

The intervention of a rival from the west worked wonders. Neither the unfavorable attitude of the other cantons nor a warning letter from

26. Ibid., 188, quoting Valerius Anshelm, Berner Chronik, unprinted continuation, 1534.

27. Kampschulte, I, 195, quoting Anselm for the years 1535-36.

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the emperor could now stop the bear marching. Geneva had accepted the gospel, rooted out the papacy, and thus greatly increased the anger of enemies of the divine Word. Bern would cover itself with eternal shame if it did not help the beleaguered city. So said a manifesto of the government to the citizens of Bern.28 On January 16, 1536,29 war was declared on Savoy, and shortly thereafter six thousand men under the tested captain Hans Franz Nageli marched through the Vaud up to Geneva. This was a swift and completely victorious march. It gave Geneva a breathing space. Roman Catholic Freiburg, Valais, and France then joined in so as not to leave all the spoils to Bern. Soon afterward the castle of Chillon was taken and the freeholder Bonnivard of Geneva, who had been imprisoned there for six years, was released from his chains.39 This man would later be an enthusiastic writer of the history of the period and would also come under Calvin’s church discipline, for good reasons. The surrounding territories of Savoy were laid waste, and the Genevans themselves took an active part in this in revenge for the sufferings they had endured so long. God’s OT people were again recalled, for, as we well know, this people had punished neighboring idolatrous peoples with rapine and subjugation.>!

Less along biblical lines was the demand that Bern made upon Geneva that it should recognize the rights of the bishop and the regent in the city. But again, even though a Bernese military presence backed the demand, Geneva managed to evade it. Without doing anything much, Geneva was again in the fortunate position of a skilled checkers player. Bern realized that if it tried to use force, Geneva would be pushed irrevocably into the arms of France. Hence, when the demand was rejected, Bern had to be content with a treaty that upheld the sovereignty of Geneva — the contested rights of the bishop and regent were transferred to the magistrates — but that also bound the city not to enter into alliance or agreement with other states without the consent of Bern, and always, in peace or in war, to keep its gates open to the Bernese, its fellow citizens.>2 What Geneva could not prevent was that Bern, having conquered the Vaud, lay almost directly at its gates, a proximity that in the event would not always prove pleasant. Understandably there would also now be in

28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 197.
31. Ibid., 198, based on Froment, 222ff.
32. Kampschulte, I, 201f.

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First Genevan.Stay

Geneva, in addition to the Roman Catholic Savoy party, which had been eliminated for practical purposes, a party that was more oriented to Bern and Switzerland and a party that was more oriented to France, each of which with some degree of truth could claim to represent the genuine interests of Geneva’s freedom. For the time being, however, Israel had peace [cf. Judg. 3:11, 30, etc.], and it could now put into practice its newly achieved political and religious freedom, which in recollection quickly became one and the same thing.

Council records (21, 197ff.) show us pees the Reformation went ahead under Farel in the spring and summer of 1536. On March 10 and 24 Farel came before the council and in a great speech strongly exhorted them to give the Word of God to the surrounding city areas, bringing them to obedience and setting aside licentiousness and swearing. In this process, remarkably, an important role was played by the setting up of church bells to summon the people more effectively to worship. Above all it seemed necessary to take measures to prevent some of the Genevans from secretly attending mass in the unreformed rural areas on Sundays. On March 31 the magistrate of Vandeuvres made the naive request that his people might be allowed to hear mass on Sundays as they had always done and after it they would willingly listen to a gospel sermon. In view of this kind of failure to understand the situation it was resolved to summon all community leaders and pastors to a conference in the city.34 This took place on April 3, 1536. To an earnest remonstration one of the community leaders made the reply: “Sirs, we are ready to live according to the gospel, but let us live as has been our custom. Our forefathers were good people and we want to follow them. But if we see our neighbors changing their manner of life, we will do the same.”3> One of the pastors present was accused of having a book by means of which he led the people astray. It seems as if he had a collection of sermons, often found, as we know, in pastors’ studies, and the good man could usually find in this something to offer his people on Sundays. Farel treated him roughly: he must stick to the gospel and not to his book of sermons. Another pastor made the sensible proposal that they should be given a month to read the gospel first and then give their answer. It was then resolved that within a month they should state whether the evangelical doctrine taught in the

335 GOAL, N,
34. Ibid.
Bd lbid..198.

city was the “sacred doctrine of truth’ or whether they had doubts about this. In the meantime, however, they should stop ministering in the old style and the community heads should see to it that the people came to sermons (obviously in the city). They agreed to do this.3¢

A similar conference with other pastors took place on April 5. The pastors were told that the aim was now to live as God requires. They confessed that they did not have enough learning to understand how that might be, and they were counseled to come to sermons and to stop reading the mass for the time being.3”7 On April 28 it was resolved that at weddings brides should have their heads covered as Paul enjoined. On May 10 rules for clergy stipends were made. On May 12 it was resolved that some pastors who had read the forbidden mass should be forcibly brought to sermons and publicly made to confess their misdeed. On May 19 Farel and his colleagues made an urgent plea for good lives according to God’s will and for concord among the people. In particular the school system was to be reconstructed to prevent young people from wasting their time. A general assembly should also be called with a view to finding out whether people were all ready to live “according to the reformation of the faith as it was now preached.”38 On the same day the Council of Two Hundred declared that it was not ready to tolerate there being people in the city who were cold in their faith in God.

The popular assembly took place on Sunday, May 21. Bells and trumpets called the people together. When the solemn question was put, the people gave unanimous consent by show of hands and promised and swore before God that with his help they would with one accord try to live “in this sacred evangelical law (!) and Word of God as it has been announced” to them, renouncing all masses and other papal ceremonies and abuses, images and idols, and everything associated with them, and living in unity, obedience, and righteousness.3? It was also resolved to found a school that would be free for poor children and compulsory for all, the renowned Antoine Saunier*® being appointed teacher at an adequate salary.

On July 13 a pastor came forward with the admission that against

36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 199.
38. Ibid., 200f.
39. Ibid., 201f.
40. Ibid., 202. Saunier was French. His dates are not known.

25}

his promise he had been saying mass frequently, and he was promptly locked up. On July 21 an arrest warrant was issued against another pastor on the same charge. On July 24 Jean Balard, a respected man and tested freedom fighter, was summoned and appeared on the charge that he refused to go to sermons. Asked why, he replied that he believed in God, who taught him by the Spirit, but not in the preachers. No one could force him against his conscience to go to sermons. When told to obey within three days he replied that he would live according to the gospel of God, but he needed no interpretation by private persons, only that of the Holy Spirit through holy, catholic mother church in which he believed. His conscience would not let him go to sermons, and he would not go against it. He had his teaching from a higher source (par plus haut) than the preachers.4! This opposition could have been linked to the influence of Radicals appealing to the Spirit. The man was imprisoned on August 15, for several days taken by force to sermons, and when he persisted in his protest he was banished from the city after ten days of grace. On September 15 Farel was awarded a keg of white paradise wine (unum dolium vini albi de paradys).*

Meantime, at the end of July or the beginning of August, Calvin had come to Geneva. He agreed to stay on two conditions, first, that he should be allowed a few weéks of time (which he used to visit Basel); and second, that initially he should not have any specific office in the church. It is evident that a block still remained, that he did not want to be committed to any particular task.! By the beginning of September we find him starting some Bible studies or biblical lectures in the St. Pierre cathedral (not sermons!). He was also at work on a translation of the /Institutes into French and called himself professor of holy scripture.2 Obviously for the time

41. Ibid., 203.

42. Ibid., 205.

1. Kampschulte, I, 281f; cf. Calvin's letter to his friend E Daniel, 10.13.1536, in CO 10/II, 62-64 (no. 34).

2. Calvin uses this description of himself on the title page of the two 1537 Epistolae, OS I; 287. being he wanted to occupy a kind of middle position between purely academic work and church work. He never became totally a pastor but always remained on the boundary, as it were, standing and working on church soil but always looking beyond it to associated possibilities as a public adviser and an independent thinker, scholar, and writer. Furthermore, in the biblical lectures, which he would not give up even when he was appointed pastor some months later,3 we can see the beginnings of the Geneva academy, which would later4 grow almost of itself out of Calvin's lectures.

What line did this early educational activity in Geneva take? We hardly know anything about it except that he began by expounding the epistles of Paul.» Zwingli opened his preaching ministry in Zurich under similar but more peaceful conditions with an exposition of Matthew's Gospel.® The different texts chosen are typical of both. Remember that Calvin found himself in a totally chaotic situation in Geneva. On his deathbed, saying farewell to his colleagues, he said of this that when he first came to this church there was, as it were, nothing there. Sermons were delivered, but that was all. Idols were sought out and burned, but there was no reformation. Everything was tumultuous (9, 891f.).7 Into this situation he brought Paul and his Romans, which would be the theme of his first commentary three years later.8

It is hard to imagine how things really went. One thing is certain, that even decades later,? when he had for a long time been in the thick of it, Calvin had not by a long way developed the same direct form of eloquence that still grips us in Luther’s sermons. To the end of his days he had to be content to expound, though at once going on to show the relevance and universal validity of his texts, always focusing on the main point, hence not without the fervor that is unavoidable when there is this concentration on the drift and content to the exclusion of all secondary matters; yet always very sober, bent over the Book, not claiming to bring

3. Stahelin, I, 122.

4. In the MS Barth first put the “later” before “Geneva San but then altered it to its present position.

5. Bossert, 66; Kampschulte, I, 283.

6. 1.1.1519; cf. H. Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, ed. J. J. Hottinger and H. G. Végeli, vol. I (Frauenfeld, 1840), 12. The sermons have not been preserved.

7. Discours d’adieux aux ministres, OS II, 401.
8. CO 49, 1-292.
9. The MS had by mistake an unnecessary “when he” here.

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or to represent anything but what stands in it! in all its weight and with all its implications.

At the first, when he emerged from his study to speak to the public, this was how it had to be, though we do not have any of his lectures from this period. Nevertheless, a remarkable thing happened. These biblical lectures, which to our way of thinking might seem to be doctrinaire, made an impression and were well attended, as though a mysterious underground and paradoxical relation had come into being between the mixture of error and force!! that was then called the Genevan reformation, and the thinking of Romans that came from such a different world. Already on September 5 Farel was before the council stating how necessary the lectures were that “this Gallus” was giving in St. Pierre and asking them to see to it that they were continued and supported. It was resolved to do this.!2 But nothing much actually came of it, for in February 1537 the council itself had to report that Calvin had received almost nothing by way of remuneration and it was resolved to pay him six taler.!3

What he surely did receive in quick time was the respect and admiration of the other pastors, though he played a secondary role in relation to Farel, and was content to serve as the latter’s chief of staff. By May 1537 Farel was no longer going before the council without being accompanied by this colleague who was twenty years younger. Farel and Calvin constantly appear together now in council records, and when the crisis broke, as though by an oversight on the part of the scribe, we suddenly find Calvin and Farel.!4 The real relation between the two had probably for a long time been in this reverse order. And when, three years after they left Geneva, the situation became untenable, the Genevans knew where they had to turn, and Calvin, no, M. Calvin ministre,}5 had now become the only one to address the council in the church’s name. That the reversal could take place without the slightest friction or dissension between the two not only arouses sympathetic regard from a human standpoint but is also an indirect proof of the strict objectivity to which the two subjected

10. For this formula in Barth cf. the preface to his Romans (Oxford, 1933) in the second and later editions, 2ff.

11. Cf. Goethe’s Zahme Xenien IX.
DACOD 204
13. Ibid., 208.
14. Ibid., 224 (4.19f.1538).
15. Ibid., 282.

themselves. Farel understood the strange art of not just letting himself be led but also letting himself be taught by the other even in things in which he had already formed his own different convictions apart from Calvin, for example, in eucharistic teaching, in which he was originally a fully pledged Zwinglian.1¢ ‘

And to this stormy and unpredictable man, who at 69, for example, would marry a young girl over the protests of all his friends,!” Calvin would be no less loyal. The friendship that linked two such different characters all their lives, and that on Calvin's side showed no signs of reserve or being forced, proves too that in spite of everything we might note concerning it, Farel’s reformation in Geneva also took place on a different plane from that which is historically visible. Calvin could speak on his deathbed about Froment, the moral preacher, though not without a twitching in the corner of his mouth.!8 But he loved and honored Viret and Farel as well as respecting them, though going his own way and not theirs, and though it was only as his students that they became unambiguously what they were.

In October (1-8) 1536 the Bern government had arranged a disputation at Lausanne.!? In the conquered territory of Vaud Roman Catholicism still had strong support. Viret was preaching in one of the Lausanne churches, but mass was still being said in the cathedral. Clearly the victorious state had to take steps to cut the religious ties that still linked the area to the previous government. With Viret, Peter Caroli (a Sorbonne doctor and Protestant refugee), Farel, Calvin, and two other Geneva pastors would represent the Protestant cause. On the Roman Catholic side, which was much more resolutely and perspicaciously advocated than at Geneva, a physician, Blancherose, was outstanding. But here, too, most of the priests were characterized by a total lack of counsel or knowledge. The

16. In treating Farel as a Zwinglian Barth follows such older authorities as J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, Histoire de la réformation.. ., 5 vols. (Paris, 1838ff.; ET New York, 1849f£); and C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel und Peter Viret ... (Elberfeld, 1860). More recent research shows that this view does not allow for nuances and has little basis in Farel’s works; cf. E. Jacobs, Die Sakramentslehre Wilhelm Farels (Zurich, 1978), 354, who concludes that we must abandon the idea of a Farel who first followed Zwingli and then Calvin as too simple, Farel being in fact closer in his eucharistic teaching to the Strassburg reformers.

17. CO 17, 335f. (Calvin to Farel, no. 2958) and 17, 351ff. (to Neuenburg colleagues worked up about the matter, no. 2966); cf. Schmidt, Farel, 35.

18. Discours d’adieux aux ministres, OS I, 401, 36ff.

19. Schmidt, Farel, 19ff.

Protestant theses (9, 701f.; Müller, Symb. Biicher, 110)° laid strong emphasis, as was usual in Zwinglian circles, on the saving work of God and the spiritual nature of salvation. Christ was sacrificed for us once and for all, hence the only church is the fellowship of the reconciled and believing, Christ is present only by the Holy Spirit, the sacraments are symbols and signs of hidden things, the only priesthood is that of administering the Word and sacraments, confession of sins is made only to God and only God can forgive sins, and the only possibility of serving God is the spiritual one of love for God and neighbor.

Calvin did not speak at this disputation until the fifth day.?! Perhaps this was because he had been sick in bed at Geneva for ten days just before it,22 the first of many sicknesses. Or perhaps he felt a need to become acquainted first with the new situation and to let Farel and Viret take the lead. Or it may be that he had an instinctive aversion for the Bernese background of the whole affair. Or perhaps he could not be wholly satisfied with the theses because they did not contain much that was dear to his own heart: the majesty and glory of God, the authority of holy scripture, an eschatological outlook, the paradoxical presence of Christ in the sacrament, the sanctification of individuals in the community as an inescapable task. But finally on the fifth day he saw cause to make his own incisive contribution, though it would not be much more than the verdict of an expert (9, 877).73 In discussion of the Lord’s Supper Blancherose had said that the Protestants were contradicting the fathers. Farel could not answer this charge.”4 Calvin with his knowledge of the history of dogma felt that he should now join in the proceedings.

He did not forget to begin by saying that we really have enough in the Law and the Prophets and do not need to use either the living or the dead as our authorities. For this is not just a matter of temporal policy for the present life but a question of the spiritual rule of God for eternal life in which we have to recognize God as the only king and lawgiver.?5 (It is worth noting that a link between biblicism and eschatology comes to light here. It is because we have to do with eternal things that the Bible is

20. Les articles de Lausanne, CO 9, 701f.

21. CO 9, 877. Calvin stated that he had kept silence thus far sill had meant to do so to the end seeing the replies of Farel and Viret were so adequate.

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235 COVES H-8G:
24. Cf. Schmidt, Farel, 21.
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COWNS.8: normative rather than the fathers, in whom this orientation is not sufficiently strong.) Nevertheless, if there was to be an appeal to the fathers, Calvin thought he could show that they favor the Protestant view more than they do the Roman Catholic. His contribution was primarily a brilliant display of his erudition. From memory he could adduce a passage from ‘Tertullian, another from Pseudo-Chrysostom, and six from Augustine, and give the sources.*° Furthermore, he could give an outline of his christology and eucharistic teaching?” with a precision that shows clearly that he lived and moved regularly in that whole world of thought of which he had given only one demonstration in the Institutes. A Franciscan monk named Todi then rose up in a kind of ecstasy and declared that he had now seen the truth, that he knew what the gospel was teaching, that in order not to sin against the Holy Spirit he must confess this, that he was asking the people to forgive him for so long leading them astray, and that he was leaving his order.?8 This was the high point of the whole disputation.

Calvin spoke again twice when the other side appealed to the authority of Pope Gregory VII, using not wholly impartial sources, again extemporaneously, to show what kind of man Gregory was.?? When the Bernese mayor Jacob of Wattenwil, who was present for the occasion, declared the disputation over on October 8 and held out the prospect of a decision by the government, it was evident to everyone that the goal had been reached and reformation would take place in Vaud. Caroli was appointed the first pastor in Lausanne and Viret the second.3° We shall hear more about both.

On October 16 Calvin went with Caroli to a synod at Bern dealing with the so-called Wittenberg Concord. Thanks to the unwearying efforts of Bucer and Capito this document had been drawn up as an instrument of peace between Lutherans and Zwinglians. Luther on the one side and the Swiss on the other were not enthusiastic about it. Calvin did not take part in the proceedings. As is still the custom to this day, the discussions of church and state bodies in Bern were held in dialect, and it is quite possible that the French guests were simply unable to follow the course of

26. Ibid., 879-81.
27. Ibid., 882-84.
28. Doumergue, II, 216.
29. CO 9, 884-86.
30. Schmidt, Farel, 22.

the lively debate. It is hard to see what other reason there could be for Calvin maintaining silence when such an important matter was under discussion.