398 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
"O Philip Melanclithon! I appeal to thee who now livest with Christ in the bosom of God, and there art waiting for us till we shall be gathered with thee to that blessed rest. A hundred times, when worn out with labors and oppressed with so many troubles, didst thou repose thy head familiarly on my breast and say, ' Would that I could die in this bosom ! ' Since then I have a thousand times wished that it had been granted to us to live together ; for certainly thou wouldst thus have had more courage for the inevitable contest, and been stronger to despise envy, and to count as nothing all accusations. In this manner, also, the malice of many would have been restrained who, from thy gentleness which they call weakness, gathered audacity for their attacks." i
Who, in view of this friendship which was stronger than death, can charge Calvin with want of heart and tender affection ?
§ 91. Calvin and Sadolet. The Vindication of the Reformation.
Sadoleti : Epistola ad Genevenses {Cal. Apr., i.e. March 18, 1539) . — Calvini : Responsio ad Sadoletum (Sept. 1, 15S9), Argentorati ap. Wendelinum Sichelium excusa. In Calv. Opera, vol. V. 385-416. Calvin translated it into French, 1540 (republished at Geneva, 1860). English translation of both by Henry Beveridge in John Calvin's Tracts relating to the Beformation, Edinburgh (Calvin Translation Society), 1844, pp. 3-68. — Beza, Vita C, Opera, XXI. 129.
Henry, vol. I. ch. XL — Dyer, 102 sq. — Stahelin, I. 291-304. — Kamp- SCHULTE, I. 354 sq. (only a brief but important notice). — Merle d'Aubign£, bk. XI. ch. XVI., and vol. VI. 570-594.
" Another evil, of a more dangerous kind, arose in the year 1539, and was at once extinguished by the diligence of Calvin. The bishop of Carpentras, at that time, was James Sadolet, a man of great eloquence, but he perverted it chiefly in suppressing the light of truth. He had been appointed a cardinal for no other reason than in order that his moral respectability might serve to put a kind of gloss on false religion. Observing his opportunity in the circumstances which had occurred, and thinking that he would easily ensnare the flock when deprived of its distinguished pastors, he sent, under the pretext of neighborhood (for the
1 Opera, IX. 461.
§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. " 399
city of Carpentras is in Dauphiny, which again bounds on Savoy), a letter to his so-styled 'most Beloved Senate, Council, and People of Geneva,' omitting nothing which might tend to bring them both into the lap of the Romish Harlot.^ There was nobody at that time in Geneva capable of writing an answer, and it is, therefore, not unlikely, that, had the letter not been written in a foreign tongue (Latin), it would, in the existing state of affairs, have done great mischief to the city. But Calvin, having read it at Strasbourg, forgot all his injuries, and forthwith answered it with so much truth and eloquence, that Sadolet immediately gave up the whole affair as desperate."
This is Beza's account of that important and interesting controversy which occurred in the German period of Calvin's life, and left a permanent impression on history.
The interregnum in Geneva furnished an excellent opportunity for PieiTe de la Baume, who had been made a cardinal, to recover his lost bishopric. In this respect he only followed the example of dispossessed princes. He brought about, with the help of the pope, a consultation of the bishops of the neighboring dioceses of Lyons, Vienne, Lausanne, Besangon, Turin, Langres, and Carpentras. The meeting was held at Lyons under the presidency of the cardinal of Tournon, then archbishop of Lyons, and known as a bigoted persecutor of the Waldenses. Jean Philippe, the chief author of the banishment of Calvin, aided in the scheme. The bishop of Carpentras, a town on the borders of Savoy, was selected for the execution. A better choice could not have been made.
Jacopo Sadoleto (born at Modena, 1477, died at Rome, 1547) was one of the secretaries of Pope Leo X., bishop of Carpentras in Dauphiny since 1517, secretary of Clement
^ " In Bomance illius meretricis gremium," a frequent polemical designation of the Roman Church, derived from a misinterpretation of the apocalyptic harlot which means heathen Rome (Rev. 17 : 5).