§ 72. calvin's conversion. o09
clear and sound judgment, and a keen insight into the evils of despotism and the defects of the courts of justice, but makes no allusion to Christianity. It is remarkable that his first book was a commentary on a moral philosopher who came nearer to the apostle Paul than any heathen writer.
It is purely the work of a humanist, not of an apologist or a reformer. There is no evidence that it was intended to be an indirect plea for toleration and clemency in behalf of the persecuted Protestants. It is not addressed to the king of France, and the implied comparison of Francis with Nero in the incidental reference to the Neronian persecution would have defeated such a purpose.^
Calvin, like Melanchthon and Zwingli, started as a humanist, and, like them, made the linguistic and literary culture of the Renaissance tributary to the Reformation. They all admired Erasmus until he opposed the Reformation, for which he had done so much to prepare the way. They went boldly forward, when he timidly retreated. They loved religion more than letters. They admired the heathen classics, but they followed the apostles and evangelists as guides to the higher wisdom of God.
§ 72. Calvin^s Conversion. 1532.
Preface to his Commentary on the Psahns (^Opera, XXXI. 21, 22, Latin and French in parallel columns), and his Reply to Sadolet {Opera, V. 389). See above, p. 296.
Henry, I. ch. II. Stahelin, 1. 16-28. Kampschulte, I. 230. Lefranc, 96 sqq.
A brilliant career — as a humanist, or a lawyer, or a churchman — opened before Calvin, when he suddenly embraced the
Quintilian, Curtius, Macrobius, Terence, Diogenes Laertius, and especially his favorite Cicero, whom he was for some time in the habit of reading through once a year. Lecoultre gives in an appendix a list of the works quoted by Calvin. He thinks that he was already then at heart a Protestant. 1 " Quum Nero diris suppliciis impotenter sceviret in Christidnos." Op. V. 10. Henry, Herzog, Dorner, and Guizot assume an apologetic aim ; while Stahelin and Kampschulte deny it.
310 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
cause of the Reformation, and cast in his lot with a poor persecuted sect.
Reformation was in the air. The educated classes could not escape its influence. The seed sown by Lefevre had sprung up in France. The influence from Germany and Switzerland made itself felt more and more. The clergy opposed the new opinions, the men of letters favored them. Even the court was divided : King Francis I. persecuted the Protestants ; his sister. Marguerite d'Angouleme, queen of Navarre, protected them. How could a young scholar of such precocious mind and intense studiousness as Calvin be indifferent to the religious question which agitated the universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris ? He must have searched the Scriptures long and carefully before he could acquire such familiarity as he shows already in his first theological writings.
He speaks of his conversion as a sudden one (suhita conversio'), but this does not exclude previous preparation any more than in the case of Paul.^ A city may be taken by a single assault, yet after a long siege. Calvin was not an unbeliever, nor an immoral youth ; on the contrary, he was a devout Catholic of unblemished character. His conversion, therefore, was a change from Romanism to Protestantism, from papal superstition to evangelical faith, from scholastic traditionalism to biblical simplicity. He mentions no human agency, not even Volmar or Olivetan or Lefdvre. " God himself," he says, " produced the change. He instantly subdued my heart to obedience." Absolute obedience of his intellect to the word of God, and obedience of his will to the will of God: this was the soul of his religion. He strove in vain to attain peace of conscience by the mechanical methods
1 " Quum superstitionibiis papains magis pertinaciter addictus essem, quam ut facile esset e tarn profnndo Into me extrahi, animum meum, qui pro (etate nimis obduruerat, subita ronversione (^par une conversion subite) ad docilitatem subegit." Opera, XXXI. 21. Lefranc (p. 40) weakens the sense of this decisive passage.
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