364 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
commerce, and literary enterprise. Some of the first editions of the Bible were printed there. By its geographical situation, a few miles west of the Upper Rhine, it formed a connecting link between Germany, France, and Switzerland, as also between Lutheranism and Zwinglianism. It offered a hospitable home to a steady flow of persecuted Protestants from France, who called Strassburg the New Jerusalem. The citizens had accepted the Reformation in 1523 in the spirit of evangelical union between the two leading types of Protestantism. Bucer, Capito, Hedio, Niger, Matthias Zell, Sturm, and others, labored there harmoniously together. Strassburg was the Wittenberg of South-western Germany, and in friendly alliance with Ziirich and Geneva.
Martin Bucer, the chief Reformer of the city, was the embodiment of a generous and comprehensive catholicity, and gave it expression in the Tetrapolitan Confession, which was presented at the diet of Augsburg in 1530.^ He afterwards brought about, in the same irenic spirit, the Wittenberg Concordia (1536), which was to harmonize the Lutheran and Zwinglian theories on the Lord's Supper, but conceded too much to Luther (even the participation of the body and blood of Christ by unworthy communicants), and therefore was rejected by BuUinger and the Swiss Churches. He wrote to Bern in June, 1540, that next to Wittenberg no city in Germany was so friendly to the gospel and so largehearted in spirit as Strassburg. He ended his labors in the Anglican Church as professor of theology in the University of Cambridge in 1551. Six years after his death his body was dug up, chained upright to a stake and burned, under Queen Mary ; but his tomb was rebuilt and his memory honorably restored under Queen Elizabeth. His colleague Fagius shared the same fate.
The Ziirichers, in a letter to Calvin, call Strassburg " the
1 See vol. VI. 571 and 718.
§ 85. CALVIN IN STRASSBURG. 365
Antioch of the Reformation " ; Capito, " the refuge of exiled brethren " ; the Roman Catholic historian, Florimond de Rsemond, "the retreat and rendez-vous of Lutherans and Zwinglians under the control of Bucer, and the receptacle of those that were banished from France." ^ Among the distinguished early refugees from France were Francis Lambert, Farel, Le Fevre, Roussel, and Michel d'Arande. Unfortunately, Strassburg did not long occupy this noble position, but became a battlefield of bitter sectarian strife and, for some time, the home of a narrow Lutheran orthodoxy. The city was conquered by Louis XIV. and annexed to Roman Catholic France in 1681, to the detriment of her Protestant character, but was reconquered by Emperor William I. and incorporated with united Germany as the capital of Alsace and Lorraine in 1870. The university was newly organized and better equipped than ever before.^
Calvin arrived at Strassburg in the first days of September, 1538.^ He spent there three years in useful labors. He was received with open arms by Bucer, Capito, Hedio, Sturm, and Niger, the leading men in the Church, and appointed by the Council professor of theology, with a moderate salary. He soon felt at home, and in the next summer bought the citizenship, and joined the guild of the tailors.*
1 " C'etait le receptacle des bannis de la France." Hisl. de la naissance de I'hergsie, p. 838.
- It will take some time before the irritating question of language and nationality can be settled. When last in Strassburg, I asked, first, a shopkeeper whether the people speak more French or German, and received the prompt and emphatic answer: '■'On park toajours fran^ais a Strasbourg." The next person, in answer to the same question, replied : " Man spricht mehr deutsch." At last, a market-woman told the truth: "Man spricht dietsch." The Alsatian dialect prevails at home, the French in society, the high German in the university, among tlie government officials and soldiers.
3 Not at the end of September, as Stiihelin has it. See Strieker, p. 11, note, where he shows that Calvin preached his first sermon at Strassburg on the 8th of September.
* July 30, 1539. Some historians err in stating that the citizenship was presented to him. See Strieker, 44, and Amial. XXI. fol. 250: " Ujf den