John Calvin: Pastor. Preacher. Reformer. Tyrant? Part 2

^{Engraving by Nicolas de Larmessin, 1682}

In The Humanness of John Calvin, Swiss historian Richard Stauffer sought to understand Calvin as a husband, a father, a friend, and a pastor.¹ It is incredibly well researched (and I’m thankful to Kevin Twit for recommending it). But in this biography we mainly hear from Calvin himself, especially in his letters. It’s true, private correspondence offers a view into historical figures otherwise unavailable from public works. At the same time, Calvin’s letters do not present the man himself, but the man through the eyes of Calvin. While Stauffer offered what he saw as a corrective to a centuries-long trend of biased accounts of Calvin, it still runs the danger of perpetuating the bias of Calvin himself. It’s not my intent to settle this debate in perspective, but rather to give those a voice who aren’t typically heard in reformed contexts.

We ended our previous exploration into the alleged myth of tyrannical Calvin with the mention of the biography by Jean-Papire Masson.² We will get to that text toward the end. But first, in order to appreciate Masson’s biography, we first have to get to know his teacher François Bauduin.³

François Bauduin (c.1520-1573)

Although he only worked for Calvin for a period in 1547, Bauduin had moved in reformed circles since the early ‘40s. He wrote to Calvin for the first time in 1545 after he and his roommate Jean Crespin were expelled from Arras. Bauduin’s minister in Arras, Pierre Brully, who had formerly replaced Calvin at the French church of Strasbourg, was not just expelled but burned at the stake. Bauduin escaped back to Paris, from which he started writing Calvin, and also visited Strasbourg and Geneva later in 1545.

According to Gary Jenkins, these letters “reveal an almost fawning exuberance, labeling Calvin “mi pater,” exclaiming that he would be an ingrate if he did not pay Calvin proper thanks for his admonitions, and declaring that he was bolstered by a perpetual filial devotion to Calvin. The religious connotations of this devotion are reinforced by the fact that Calvin was hardly more than ten years Baudouin’s senior.”⁴

He first visited Calvin in 1546, and became his secretary in 1547, even living in Calvin’s home. But it was a short arrangement; Bauduin traveled to Lyon in the fall of 1547 where his older brother was in order to find more suitable employment, both financially, as well as professionally. For Bauduin was, like Calvin initially, a skilled jurist, and he aspired to teach law.⁵ Bauduin maintained friendly correspondence with Calvin through the mid-1550s.⁶ Eventually finding his way back to France where he pursued an alternate vision for reformation, Bauduin gradually shifted to a more moderate position than Calvin and the Calvinists vis à vis religious toleration. Through studying legal responses to heresy in antiquity, he concluded that punishing heresy with death was inconsistent with the early church.⁷ Despite this shift, however, “Bauduin had often called [Calvin] his father and tutor.”⁸

The political dynamics are too complex to get into, but to illustrate Calvin’s later beef with Bauduin, Calvin was “infuriated” when Bauduin successfully obtained support from Antoine of Navarre, a French nobleman whom Calvin had long, and unsuccessfully, tried to recruit as an ally in reforming France.⁹ Upon learning of Bauduin’s favorable relationship with Antoine, Calvin wrote to Antoine in August, 1561 to warn him of “a boorish apostate named Bauduin.”¹⁰

Here is a longer quote from The Letters of John Calvin: “There is another clownish apostate, Baudouin, who has already apostatized three or four times from Jesus Christ, and it is just possible he may have so insinuated himself into your favour, as to deceive you with regard to his character, if you were not apprized of it.”¹¹ Calvin included a similar denigration of Bauduin in a December 1561 letter to Antoine’s wife Jeanne, daughter of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, herself the sister of King Francis I and “the linchpin that held early French reform together.”¹² Calvin appears somewhat desperate in his attempts to thwart Bauduin’s influence on these patrons of evangelical reform: “There is a certain boor whom the king, your husband, has appointed to be the tutor of his natural son, who, being an apostate and a traitor to religion, has vomited out in a printed book all the abuse he could invent against me.”¹³

In October 1561, a few months after the letter to Antoine, Calvin published a Response to a Certain Cunning “Moyennuer” [ie middle way], Who under the Guise of Bringing Peace Endeavors to Break the Course of the Gospel in France. This response was to a book by Bauduin’s friend George Cassander, but Calvin believed Bauduin was the author. Thus, when Calvin wrote that the author “having apostasized many times, deserves no more credit than a dog and an enemy of Christ’s cross,” he was referring to his one time secretary.¹⁴

Bauduin versus the Lemannic Lord

This section title comes from Bruening who notes the derogatory name Bauduin used for Calvin (and later by Jean Morely for Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza). Lemannic is a French name for Lake Geneva, so the epithet means “Genevan Lord.”¹⁵

Bauduin issued his own rejoinders to Calvin in 1561-1562 and beyond, and his statements help us see how Bauduin experienced and perceived Calvin. In reproducing these from Bruening, I’m sidestepping the complex political, ecclesial and polemical disputes. It’s possible to object that any ad hominem attacks from either Calvin or Bauduin were polemically motivated, but Bauduin’s personal experience with Calvin is important. His objections and criticisms of Calvin are, quite explicitly, less about doctrine and more about the person and character of Calvin. Perhaps Bauduin’s perception was wrong, but if we don’t hear his voice (and many others), we simply cannot “throw out,” as Matt White enjoins us, the perception of oppressive Calvin as a “silly stereotype.” So, here are some extensive quotes from Bauduin, along with commentary from Bruening:

“You condemn almost all as heretics. You want to burn the condemned, and by a similar sentence you would slay those who do not approve of these things. So who, therefore, would you leave alive?” (231)¹⁶

“Bauduin’s second main line of attack on Calvin is the same one that we have seen repeatedly from others, namely that Calvin has effectively made himself a tyrannical pope of a new church. ‘Tyranny,’ Bauduin insists to Calvin, ‘is intolerable in the church. . . . You would be wise to contain yourself. For there are others who also understand what religion is. You err over and over again if you think that whatever pleases you is right. Having been set up on that throne, you scoff at all and order all to silence, so that you alone might reign, command, and hurl thunderbolts.’ [Bauduin] notes that, by contrast with Calvin, ‘there are some serious, dedicated, and wise men, with true zeal for the true religion. . . . who see much farther and know what needs to be done and what should be copied, and who want both church and state to be safe.’” (231)

Here we see Bauduin use “tyranny” (Latin tyrannis) to describe Calvin, if somewhat indirectly. In contrast to Matt White’s argument—where Calvin’s social justice efforts rules out the accusation of tyranny—in the minds of Bauduin and other 16th century anti-Calvinists, a religious tyrant wants control and exercises it by claiming for himself the right to be right. A tyrant’s tyranny wouldn’t be displayed towards the powerless, but towards those who contend with the tyrant’s power and perspective (similar to Calvin’s criticism of Luther noted in Part 1).

“Bauduin repeatedly assaults what he sees as Calvins arrogance in claiming to speak for Christ. ‘What?’ he asks, ‘Do you think that I was ever so lost that I would put you in Christ’s place? Try to persuade others, if you can, that those who depart from you also abandon Christ. I, for one, know just how much distance there is between you and Christ. So that I might draw nearer to him, my conscience compels me to withdraw from your newfangled counsels and conspiracies.’ As we have seen, Calvin’s prophetic sense of self led him to believe that he was, in fact, speaking as God’s prophet in his theological determinations. Bauduin did not buy it.” (232)¹⁷

“In the end, Bauduin, believed that posterity would have the last word on Calvin: ‘What will posterity say, not about me whose name will perhaps be unknown in the future, but about you, the memory of whom you boast will be great and eternal?¹⁸ You might be and might be held to be the greatest theologian, but certainly, unless you become a good man, you cannot even claim to be a theologian.’ Bauduin indicates that he himself will not go into the details of Calvin’s life, ‘but I leave that to your colleague and associate [André] Zébédée to describe, if it is to be done.’” (233)

Bauduin references Zébédée, another former ally of Calvin, who “was one of the first [in 1540] to entreat Calvin to return to Geneva”¹⁹, and whose longtime friendship with Calvin makes him more than a biased political opponent. Zébédée gradually distanced himself from the Calvinist movement over theological differences as well as differences over the use of “pastoral power and authority.”²⁰ Commenting on Zébédée and other anti-Calvinist Protestants, Bruening writes,

“Herein lies a second aspect of the debate, less commonly addressed in the scholarship: Calvin’s opponents objected not only to specific doctrines [like the eucharist], but more broadly to the implied prohibition in Geneva on debate over controversial doctrines that lacked unequivocal biblical or patristic support. Disagree with Calvin, it seemed, and one would end up in jail. For humanists such as Zébédée and especially Castellio…the suppression of debate was a betrayal of the intellectual honesty and openness fostered by the Renaissance. Such hide-bound thinking, they believed, had been the mark of the scholastics and Sorbonnistes whom the reformers were supposed to have left behind. Calvin, they charged, was creating a new kind of ‘papism.’ Bolsec wrote of Calvin a few years later, ‘Although he does not yet have miter or cope, yet he already mimics the pope...and one day he will require kissing his slipper.’”²¹

Jean-Papire Masson

That last line provides the title for Bruening’s book: Refusing to Kiss the Slipper. It is an allusion to the medieval practice of demonstrating fealty to the Pope by kissing his slipper. And now, with this context, here is Bruce Gordon at length regarding the biography by Jean-Papire Masson. While some, like Stauffer, consider Masson to be a biased biographer, Gordon believes otherwise (emphasis added):

“A string of hostile Catholic biographies of Calvin appeared after his death dwelling upon the reformer’s tyrannical and heretical tendencies. The most interesting of these is the life of Calvin produced by Jean-[Papire] Masson²², who was a student of François Bauduin, Calvin’s former secretary who had accused him of being a monster. Although his portrayal of Calvin was negative, emphasizing his cruelty and his dictatorial nature, what distinguished Masson’s work was his critical use of sources, a number of which came from Bauduin’s time working for Calvin. Many of the verbal exchanges recorded in this Life came from Bauduin himself, for example when Masson reflected on Calvin’s vices. ‘Although he appeared modest and disposed to expose his thoughts simply, the appearance concealed pride and self-love. This is the vice that all founders of sects are prone to regardless of whether the sect is good or bad. Therefore Bauduin says quite rightly, “your colleagues complain about your arrogance and unbelievable haughtiness.”’ As a result, many of the historical details to be found in Masson’s work are more reliable than the Protestant hagiographies [eg Beza et al]. Unlike Bolsec, Masson did not simply set out to demolish Calvin’s character. He constructed a narrative in which Calvin became all the more dangerous for his prodigious talents. He was, in Masson’s words, a remarkable author, who ‘wrote as much and as well as any secretary if we consider the quantity, the conciseness, the sting, the rhetorical stress, the vigour of expression’. The richness of the information serves only to underscore Masson’s principal point: ‘we have given this account of Calvin’s life as neither his friend nor his foe. I will not be lying if I say that he was the ruin and destruction of France. If only he had died in childhood or had never been born! For he brought so many ills to his country that it is only just to hate and detest his origins.’”²³

That’s quite the sobering conclusion to a biography, and perhaps calls in to question Masson’s claim to be neither friend nor foe. But additional scholars recognize his reliability. Masson was not only Bauduin’s student, he was also his literary executor after Bauduin’s death. Despite this close relationship, and despite the antagonistic relationship between Calvin and Bauduin, “Masson’s account of Calvin [is] remarkably evenhanded.” Additionally, Bauduin was a pioneer in historical method and passed that critical approach on to Masson.²⁴

Irena Backus has produced the only modern critical text and translation (in French) of Masson’s Life of Calvin. As this is merely a blog and not a scholarly essay, I have used Google Translate for the following quotes from Backus:

“[Masson’s] biographies or Vitae (which he distinguishes from his Éloges) stand out for their rigor from those written by his contemporaries. He often uses letters not as an ideological support but as a historical document. However, his Vita Caluini [Life of Calvin] written in Latin in 1583 is not based on letters from the deceased or on personal knowledge but on various written and oral sources. In fact, he relies mainly on accounts by his former teacher François Bauduin as well as on the latter’s controversy with the reformer in the years 1561-1563. Other quotes and allusions demonstrate that Masson had also read Bolsec’s Life of Calvin (1577) as well as the first Life of the Reformer by Théodore de Bèze (1564)…According to his remarks in the first chapter, he also conducted an inquiry among Calvin’s surviving relatives, a typical historian’s approach that did not prevent him from making a gross error in chronology.”²⁵

Here are some other remarks from Masson that give further voice to perceptions of Calvin as a tyrant. I have included the original section headings from Masson’s biography, and emphasized relevant portions.

XVI. Calvin’s manners and behavior

“A burning mind and a great quantity of bile made him quick-tempered. Bucer, though a great defender of the Lutheran sect and a close friend of Calvin, calls him a mad dog and a writer easily inclined to insult, when he scolds him in a familiar letter. He thinks that Calvin judges or rather hates others as he pleases. Bauduin, who had seen this letter with Bucer’s signature, reproached him with the same fault. Melanchthon criticized his morose obstinacy, as he called it. But it was the overload of work, the insomnia and the illnesses which made him difficult and morose to such an extent that the Genevans joked that they would prefer to be in hell with Beza than in heaven with Calvin.” (Backus, 202-203)

XVII. His vices and some insults against him

“He was resentful and cruel. His commentaries, his epistles and his sermons show that he could be biting especially when he approached the subject of the life and morals of the clergy.” (201)

“He was of a morose appearance and of bad composition, so as to vomit anger and fire and to impose his will without tolerating the slightest contradiction, because he did not want to be considered inferior or secondary to anyone. Indeed, he could not bear a peer, nor suffer an inferior if not obedient.” (P. 204)²⁶

XIX. Calvin’s Qualities

“In his Reply to Bauduin [translator footnote: “Masson’s summary is absolutely accurate”], [Calvin] affirms that all his enemies are declared adversaries of Christ, that he has never had personal enmities, nor has he sought them out of passion, nor occasioned them through his fault…Until now, no success had gone to his head, he endured without being shaken the many storms that shook him, he lived in harmony with his peers and he was a faithful friend. Bauduin relates all this about Calvin using the same terms as him, but he adds: ‘He makes these remarks and many others of the same kind in his little book, but he does not refute any of my accusations with these few words. May Calvin therefore forgive me for being incapable of believing what is only vanity.’”

A Perceptive Contradiction

Here we’ve come full circle to a contradiction between Calvin’s self-perception and how others perceived him. Bauduin said he saw through Calvin’s claimed virtues; where Calvin saw himself as agreeable, easy to get along with, and never doing anything personally to cause conflict, Bauduin saw that self-perception as “only vanity.”

It’s hard to arbitrate this discrepancy through written texts alone, not to mention the distance of time, language, and culture. But I hope this study of Calvin helps us think more critically, even as critical friends, when “myth” is used to describe the perception of Calvin as a tyrant.

Quote from Bruce Gordon

“Calvin’s waspishness indicated his extreme sensitivity to any criticism, perceived or real. His instinct was to see criticism of himself as a moral or intellectual shortcoming in others. . . . Calvin’s mind frequently turned disagreement into conspiracy against him. As he grew in his sense of prophetic calling he increasingly saw dissent as disloyalty, and as something deeply personal.”²⁷

Question (of the rhetorical variety)

If it is possible to move from myth to fact in the matter of Calvin as an alleged tyrant, how will that ever happen if we don’t listen to Calvin’s original critics in their own voices?

1 Richard Stauffer. The Humanness of John Calvin: The Reformer as a Husband, Father, Pastor & Friend. Abingdon Press, 1971.

2 It sounds too pretentious to say John Calvin with French pronunciation, but as Jean-Papire Masson needs to be distinguished from his brother Jean-Baptiste Masson, it’s hard to avoid French pronunciation with “Papire”; however, I’m going to stick with referring to him as Masson.

3 His last name is variously spelled Baudouin and Bauduin. I’m confused as to why scholars don’t modernize that to Baldwin the same way they do Calvin’s name.

4 Gary Jenkins, Calvin’s Tormentors: Understanding the Conflicts that Shaped the Reformer (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 95.

5 Jenkins, Calvin’s Tormentors, 96.

6 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 220-221.

7 William Bouwsma, review of “Concordia o tolleranza? François Bauduin (1520–1573) e i ‘Moyenneurs.’” By Mario Turchetti. Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 200. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1984. Church History 1986, 55(1):105-106.

8 Irena Backus, “Un Chapitre Oublié de La Réception de Calvin En France. La ‘Vita Caluini’ de Jean-Papire Masson (1583): Introduction, Édition Critique et Traduction,” Bulletin de La Société de l’Histoire Du Protestantisme Français (1903-2015), vol. 155, 2009, p. 200.

9 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 225.

10 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 226.

11 Letters of John Calvin, edited by Jules Bonnet, translated by Marcus Robert Gilchrist (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1858), 4:241.

12 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 11.

13 Letters of John Calvin 4:246.

14 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 229.

15 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 229, 279.

16 Servetus is only one well-known example. Jacques Gruet is another, and he might appear in a later post.

17 On Calvin’s self-perception as a prophet, divinely appointed by and to speak for God, see John Calvin as Sixteenth Century Prophet by Jon Balserak.

18 This is a good place to check for anti-bias bias; Calvin is on record, even the record of his anonymous tombstone, of not wanting to be memorialized.

19 Breuning, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 107.

20 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 114.

21 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, 126.

22 As noted last week, Gordon misattributes the biography to Papire’s brother Jean-Baptiste Masson.

23 Gordon, Calvin, 338-339.

24 Jenkins, Calvin’s Tormentors, 106.

25 Backus, “Un Chapitre Oublié,” 182.

26 This has an especial ring of truth to it, for many of Calvin’s chief evangelical opponents were, like Calvin, men of impressive intellect. Gordon notes “an evident sense of intellectual superiority” in Calvin.

27 Gordon, Calvin, 89, 91.