PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION

CALVIN AND CALVINISM
Sources of Democracy?

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

Robert M. Kingdon
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

and

Robert D. Linder
KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY

D.C. HEATH AND COMPANY
Lexington, Massachusetts

CONTENTS

CONFLICT OF OPINION

Extremes:

The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counsellor and his never-failing support. The Puritans, rallying upon those [industrious] classes, planted in their hearts the undying principles of democratic liberty.

—GEORGE BANCROFT

In its initial form Calvinism not only included a condemnation of resistance but it lacked all leaning toward liberalism, constitutionalism, or representative principles. Where it had free range it developed characteristically into a theocracy, a kind of oligarchy maintained by an alli­ance of the clergy and gentry from which the mass of the people was excluded and which was, in general, illiberal, oppressive, and reactionary.

—GEORGE H. SABINE

Did Calvin himself favor democracy as a form of government?

Calvin was as much in favor of the democratic form as he was opposed to the monarchical one. Calvin was a great propagator of democracy, but he energetically tried to ward off its abuses and excesses.

—EMILE DOUMERGUE

From considering only his political ideas, one would certainly be entitled to conclude that Calvin was not a precursor of modern democracy.

—CHARLES MERCIER

If Calvin mixes democratic elements with aristocratic constitutions, he nevertheless remains completely foreign to the dogmas of modern democracy . . . he does not believe either in popular sovereignty or in individual rights.

—MARC-EDOUARD CHENEVIÈRE

As an ideal form, Calvin wavers between pure aristocracy and a mixed form of aristocracy and democracy. Despite this obvious fact, there persist among Calvin scholars assertions which depict Calvin as favoring either a pure democracy or a pure aristocracy and correspondingly speak of a democratic or aristocratic principle in him.

—JOSEF BOHATEC

"Democracy" is not a term in favor with Calvin. He does not advocate democracy in and of itself: he fears its deterioration into anarchy. Nevertheless, his notion of "aristocracy tempered by democracy" approaches our conception of representative democracy. It becomes unmistakably clear in his later writings that the ideal basis of government is election by the citizens.

—JOHN T. MCNEILL

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the elders really represent the Church, which delegates to them its sovereignty. The theory of the representative system is really a Calvinist theory.

—EMILE DOUMERGUE

One believes oneself dreaming, when one learns from M. Doumergue, that "authentic Calvinist conceptions" are "at the origin of the representative system." Even if one gives to the role of the community in the Calvinist Church its largest sense, and even if one neglects the important restrictions on it stipulated by Calvin, one still searches in vain for any new principles this conception would bring to republican Geneva.

—GEORGES DE LAGARDE

Was Calvinist thought the principal inspiration for the earliest 'democratic' revolts against authoritarian governments in Europe?

Calvinist political thought helped more than any other tendency of the time to prevent a full victory of absolutism, and to prepare the way for constitutional and even republican ideas.

—HANS BARON

Religion was the binding force that held together the divergent interests of the different classes and provided them with an organization and a propaganda machine capable of creating the first genuinely national and international parties in modern European history, . . . and popular democratic tyranny appeared both in Calvinist Ghent and Catholic Paris.

—H. G. KOENIGSBERGER

It will be argued below that it was the Calvinists who first switched the emphasis of political thought from the prince to the saint (or band of saints) and then constructed a theoretical justification for independent political action.

—MICHAEL WALZER

A modern moral:

If in our time the realm of politics is to be redeemed from corruption and triviality and snarling partisanship, the church has a function to perform that it has too much neglected. It will not be a waste of time to sit for a while at Calvin's feet.

—JOHN T. MCNEILL

A TABLE OF MEN, BOOKS, AND TERMS

ALTHUSIUS, JOHANNES (1557-1638): German Calvinist lawyer and public official who wrote extensively to defend the political course of the Dutch Calvinists in their struggle with Spain.

AMBOISE, CONSPIRACY OF, MAY, 1560: an abortive attempt by a small group of hotheaded young Calvinist noblemen to kidnap the French king (Francis II) and place France under the guidance of his Protestant cousin, the Prince de Condé.

BEZA, THEODORE (1519-1605): French-born Calvinist clergyman and, after 1564, Calvin's successor as leader of the Geneva Company of Pastors.

BOURBON: family name of those descendants of Hugh Capet who ruled France from the accession of Henry IV in 1589, until the establishment of the First Republic in 1792, and again from 18141848.

BUCER, MARTIN (also Butzer and Kulhorn) (1491-1551): close friend of Calvin and the leading Protestant Reformer of Strasbourg from 1527 to 1548.

BUCHANAN, GEORGE (c. 1506-1582): Scottish humanist and tutor of James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) who allegedly was influenced by Calvinism to advocate popular sovereignty.

BULLINGER, HENRY (15041575): after 1531, Zwingli's successor as leader of the Reformation in Zürich.

CALVIN, JOHN (1509-1564): leader of the Reformation in Geneva from 1541 until 1564, and founder of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches.

CATHOLIC LEAGUE: founded in 1576 as a party of the nobility with the essentially conservative aim of preserving the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church in France.

CHANDIEU, ANTOINE DE LA ROCHE (c. 1534-1591): French Reformed pastor of noble birth who staunchly defended the presbyterian church polity of Calvin and Beza in his native land.

CHARLES I (reigned 1625-1649): son of James I and second Stuart king of England; executed for treason by the victorious Parliamentarians at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1649.

CHARLES V (reigned 1519-1556): head of the House of Hapsburg and Holy Roman Emperor.

CHARLES IX (reigned 1560-1574): king of France; second son of Henry II and Catherine de Medici.

COLIGNY, GASPARD DE (1519-1572): Count of Châtillon and Admiral of France, a nephew of the powerful Constable Anne de Montmorency, and one of the key leaders of the Huguenots who was murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, August 24, 1572.

COLLOQUY: in the French Reformed churches, an ecclesiastical body made up of all the ministers and chosen lay representatives from each parish in a given area, corresponding to the presbytery in Scottish and American Presbyterianism.

COMPANY OF PASTORS: In the Genevan Church, all of the ordained ministers of the city-state who held weekly meetings to care for matters related to preaching the Gospel, administering sacraments, and guiding the moral life of the faithful.

CONDÉ: title of one branch of the Bourbon family, princes of the blood, which provided leadership for the Huguenot cause in France during the latter half of the sixteenth century after the conversion of the first Prince de Condé (Louis I de Bourbon, d. 1569) to the Calvinist faith.

CONGREGATIONAL: that form of church polity based on the premise that each individual congregation is self-governing according to democratic principles and procedures, roughly corresponding to democracy in the political realm.

CONSISTORY: in the Genevan and French Reformed churches, a local ecclesiastical body made up of the resident pastor or pastors and representative laymen who met regularly to care for the discipline of the congregation.

COUNCIL OF SIXTY: in Geneva in the Sixteenth-century, an elected advisory council of relatively little importance which stood between the much more powerful Little Council and Council of Two Hundred.

COUNCIL OF TWO HUNDRED: instituted in Geneva in 1527 and elected by the General Assembly of all the citizens, it became a policy making body for the Genevan state in the sixteenth-century.

CROMWELL, OLIVER (1599-1658): longtime Member of Parliament, general in the

Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War, Lord Protector of the English

Commonwealth from 1653 to 1658, and staunch Calvinist layman.

DUPLESSIS-MORNAY, PHILIPPE, see Philippe du Plessis Mornay.

ELDERS: in the Reformed and Presbyterian churches the lay leaders of the local congregations, who in the sixteenth century were sometimes chosen directly by the entire membership and sometimes indirectly by a self-perpetuating church council (consistory or session) made up of the minister and lay representatives.

ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1640 (also the Great Rebellion or the English Civil War): beginning with the Long Parliament of 1640, with actual hostilities breaking out in 1642, and concluding in 1649 with the victory of the Puritan-backed Parliamentarians over the Royalists.

EPISCOPAL: that form of church polity based on the premise that the church should be governed by bishops, roughly corresponding to monarchy in the political realm.

FAREL, WILLIAM (1489-1565): French-born Protestant Reformer who aided Calvin in establishing the Reformation in Geneva in the years 1536 to 1538.

FRANCIS I (reigned 1515-1547): Valois king of France, Renaissance monarch and the ruler to whom Calvin dedicated his Institutes.

FRANCIS II (reigned 1559-1560): Valois king of France who acceded to the throne at the age of fifteen and who was dominated throughout his reign by the Guise family.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CITIZENS OF GENEVA: the assembly of all the citizens summoned only when grave decisions affecting all had to be made; supposedly the repository of ultimate political sovereignty in the Genevan state.

GOODMAN, CHRISTOPHER (1520-1603): English Calvinist and Marian exile who wrote a politically incendiary book entitled How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed in 1558 in which he argued that under certain conditions Christians could engage in popular revolution.

GUISE: a noble French family, closely related to the dukes of Lorraine, which was able to wield tremendous power and influence in sixteenth-century France through marriage into the royal family, extensive service to the French monarchs, and the careful acquisition of local patronage; leaders of the Catholic League during the wars of Religion and sworn enemies of the Huguenots.

HENRY II (reigned 1547-1559): Valois king of France, son of Francis I, father of Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III, and vigorous opponent of French Calvinism.

HENRY III (reigned 1574-1589): last Valois king of France and third son of Henry II to mount the French throne. He was assassinated by a demented Dominican friar in August, 1589.

HENRY IV (formerly Henry of Navarre) (reigned 1589-1610): first Bourbon king of France who in 1593 renounced his Calvinist faith in order to secure the acceptance of his rule by rank-and-file Frenchmen; assassinated in 1610 by a Catholic fanatic.

HENRY VIII (reigned 1509-1547): second Tudor king of England under whom the Protestant Reformation was introduced.

HENRY OF NAVARRE: see Henry IV.

HOTMAN, FRANCIS (1524-1590): French Calvinist scholar, publicist and jurist who in 1573 published Franco-Gallia in which he espoused the principles of constitutional monarchy.

HUGUENOT: a word of unknown origin (perhaps from the German word Eidgenossen, meaning "confederates") which in sixteenth-century France came to designate the French Protestants, both religiously and politically.

INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION: Calvin's most famous work which he first published in 1536 and which went through many editions before its final revision in 1560; perhaps the most influential book of the Reformation era.

JAMES I (also James VI of Scotland, 1567-1625) (reigned 1603~1625): cousin of Elizabeth Tudor and first Stuart king of England.

KNOX, JOHN (c. 1514~1572): Scottish Calvinist minister and key figure in establishing the Reformed Kirk in Scotland.

LAUD, WILLIAM (1573-1645): Charles I's advisor on all matters of religion, relentless foe of Puritans and other Dissenters, and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645 when he was charged with treason and ordered beheaded by the English Parliament.

L'ESTOILE, PIERRE DE (1546-1611): professor of law and foremost teacher of jurisprudence in France in his day who, although a devout conservative, bitterly opposed the Catholic League and the Guise.

LITTLE COUNCIL: in Geneva in the sixteenth-century, the council composed of four syndics, their four latest predecessors, the city treasurer (all elected popularly), and sixteen others chosen by the Council of Two Hundred which carried on the day-to-day business of the state.

LUTHER, MARTIN (1483-1546): German Reformer who touched off the Protestant Reformation by posting his Ninety-Five Theses at Wittenberg in 1517.

MAGISTRATE: common sixteenth-century term for any civil official who was empowered to administer and enforce the law of the land.

MAYENNE, DUC DE (1554-1611): Charles de Guise, member of the powerful Guise family who became the leader of the Catholic League after his older brother's assassination by an agent of Henry III of France in 1588.

MEDICI, CATHERINE DE (1519-1598): descendant of the famous Florentine Medicis and wife of Henry II of France who was very active and influential in French politics during the reigns of her three sons: Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III.

MILTON, JOHN (1608-1674): English poet and philosopher who held many Calvinist views and who in many ways was the epitome of the religious ferment which accompanied the English Civil War.

MONTMORENCY, ANNE DE (14931567): Constable of France and head of one of the country's most powerful noble families.

MORELY, JEAN (also Morelli): sire de Villiers, a French nobleman who became a Calvinist about 1547, and subsequently one of the most articulate leaders of the congregational faction in the French Reformed Church from 1562 until his disappearance from the scene in 1572.

MORNAY, PHILIPPE DU PLESSIS: (also Philippe de Mornay) (1549-1623): Huguenot statesman, soldier and lay theologian who advocated representative government and constitutional limitation of monarchy.

PHILIP II (reigned 1556-1598): Hapsburg, son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, king of Spain and champion of the Roman Catholic faith in Europe in the last half of the sixteenth century.

POLITIQUES: the term used to describe those French Catholics who, after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, felt that considerations of state and political unity were more important than any religious issues.

PONET, JOHN (c. 15141556): Edwardian bishop with Calvinist leanings who, while a Marian exile in Strasbourg, wrote the first book by an English Reformer condoning tyrannicide.

PRESBYTERIAN: that form of church polity based on the premise that the church should be governed by elders and ministers of equal rank, roughly corresponding t republicanism in the political realm.

PURITANS: those individuals within the Church of England in the sixteenth a' seventeenth centuries who wanted to make the Church more Protestant and "purify" it of all Roman practices.

RAMUS, PETER (1515-1572): victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 who had gained notoriety as an anti-Aristotelian philosophy professor at the University of Paris and as a lay leader of the congregationalist faction in the French Reformed Church.

REFORMED CHURCH: common self-designation of the Calvinist ecclesiastical bodies in countries like France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland in the sixteenth century.

ROMANS 13: key passage in the New Testament in which Paul explains the obligation of the Christian to obey those in political power.

ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES (1712-1778): lineal descendant of French Huguenot and Genevan-born philosopher whose political writings supposedly influenced t} men of the French Revolution of 1789.

SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE, August 24, 1572:  when perhaps as many as 70,000 Huguenots were killed in France in an attempt to put an end to their religious and political influence in that Country.

SAINTS: common Puritan term designating God's "Elect."

SYNDICS: in Geneva, the magistrates elected by the General Assembly of the citizens.

SYNOD: in the French Reformed Church, representative assemblies of the local congregations held at both the provincial and national level which met periodically to deal with ecclesiastical matters of provincial and national concern.

TROELTSCH, ERNST (1865-1923): German theologian and sociologist who in a number of essays argued that the Reformation produced an essentially authoritarian governmental structure, both in church and state.

VALOIS: family name of the French kings from Philip VI (1328-1350) to Henry III (15741589).

VENERABLE COMPANY OF PASTORS: see Company of Pastors.

VINDICIAE CONTRA TYRANNOS: famous Huguenot tract of undetermined authorship first published in 1579 which posited a contractual theory of government and argued for the right of inferior magistrates to lead popular revolutions against tyrannical monarchs.

WARS OF RELIGION IN FRANCE: a series of civil wars in France from 1562-1598 which had both religious and political ramifications.

WILLIAM OF ORANGE (also William of Nassau and the Prince of Orange) (1533-1584): leader of the Dutch Calvinists in their struggle for independence from Spain who in 1584 was assassinated by an agent of Philip II.

WILLIAMS, ROGER (1603-1684): English-born dissenting clergyman, founder of Rhode Island and staunch advocate of religious freedom who is sometimes placed in the Calvinist tradition.

ZWINGLI, ULRICH (14841531): the Protestant Reformer of Zürich whose followers gradually amalgamated with the Calvinists after his death on the battlefield in 1531.