§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL. 241
tion of the Scriptures, Christian liberty, the duty of pastors to preach the Gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith, and denounced images, fasting, celibacy, and Jewish ceremonies (Feb. 23, 1524).! The disputation was successful, and led to the conversion of the Franciscan monk Pellican, a distinguished Greek and Hebrew scholar, who afterwards l)ecame professor at Ziirich. He also delivered public lectures and sermons. Oi^colampadius wrote to Luther that Farel was a match for the Sorbonne.^ Erasmus, whom Farel imprudently charged with cowardice and called a Balaam, regarded him as a dangerous disturber of the peace,^ and the Council (probably at the advice of Erasmus) expelled him from the citj*.
Farel now spent about a year in Strassburg with Bucer and Capito. Before he went there he made a brief visit to- Ziirich, Schaffhausen, and Constance, and became acquainted with Zwiiigii, Mj^conius, and Grebel. He had a letter of commendation to Luther from Q^colampadius, but it is notlikely that he w^ent to Wittenberg, since there is no allusion to it either in his or in Luther's letters. At the request of Ulrich, Duke of Wiirtemberg, he preached in Mompelgard (Montbeliard), and roused a fierce opposition, which forced him soon to return to Strassburp-. Here he found Le Fevre and other friends from ]\Ieaux, whom the persecution had forced to flee.
In 1526 Farel was again in Switzerland, and settled for a while, at the advice of Haller, as school teacher under the
1 Herminjard (I. 193-195) gives the theses from the Archives of Ziirich. The first is the most characteristic : " Ahsolutissimam nobis prcescripsit C/irisliis Vivendi regulam, cui nee addere licet, nee detrahere." CEcolampadius served as interpreter, since Farel's French pronunciation of Latin made it diflScult to understand liim.
2 " Nimirum instrtictus ad tolam Sorbotiicam affligeyidam, si non et peidendam." Letter of May 15, 1524, in Herminjard, I. 215. •
3 He described him in a letter to the official of Besan^on, 1524: "Nihil vidi unquam mendacius, virulentius aid seditiosius." Quite natural from his standpoint. Tlie two characters had no points of contact.
242 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
name of Guillaume Ursinus (with reference to Bern, the city of bears), at Aigle (^len) ^ in the Pays de Vaud on the borders of Valais, subject to Bern.
He attended the Synod in Bern, January, 1528, which decided the victory of the Reformation, and received a commission from that city to preach in all the districts under its control (March 8, 1528). He accordingly labored as a sort of missionary bishop at Murat (Murten), Lausanne, Neuchatel, Valangin, Yverclun, Biel (Bienne), in the Mlinster valley, at Orbe, Avenche, St. Blaise, Grandson, and other places. He turned every stump and stone into a pulpit, every house, street, and market-place into a church ; provoked the wrath of monks, priests, and bigoted women; was abused, called "heretic " and "devil," insulted, spit upon, and more than once threatened with death. An attempt to poison him failed. Wherever he went he stirred up all the forces of the people, and made them take sides for or against the new gospel.
His arrival in NeuchS,tel (December, 1529) marks an epoch in its history. In spite of violent opposition, he succeeded in introducing the Reformation in the city and neighboring villages. He afterwards returned to Neuchatel, where he finished his course.^ Robert Olivetan, Calvin's cousin, published the first edition of his French translation of the Bible at Neuchfi,tel in 1535. Farel had urged him to do this work. It is the basis of the numerous French translations made since that time.
In 1532 Farel with his friend Saunier visited the Waldenses in Piedmont at the request of Georg Morel and Peter Masson, two Waldensian preachers, who were returning from a visit to Strassburg and the Reformed Churches of Switzer-
1 In August, 1526, Bucer addressed him, "Ursinus, yElce episcopus." Herminjard, I. 461.
2 For a graphic account of his labors in Neuchatel, see Vuillemin's Le Chroniqueur, pp. 86 sqq., and F. Godet, Histoire de la reformation et du refuge .dans le pays de Neuchatel (1859), pp. 69-190.