Calvin the Humanist

in this lecture we're looking at Calvin as a humanist and we can begin by remembering where we come to so far in the lectures in our last lecture we looked at Calvin's birth and the limited amount of information that we're aware of of his youth in the area of noil as well as his traveling to Paris his enrolling in the college de la Marck where he learned his Latin and his rhetoric from a wonderful teacher named Cordier and then he moved to the College to Montagu and we said that at some point along the way either Calvin's father or Calvin himself or more likely both became convinced that the study of philosophy and eventually theology was not really the path for Calvin long term and so Calvin moved from the study of philosophy and eventually theology to the study of law at the University of oleo now again we've said before that we're trying to figure out what is going on here and it's not simply historical curiosity that has has raised this question because it just stands to reason that if Calvin later becomes a Protestant if he later rejects the church and yet here at a relatively young age frankly about a decade before his conversion really takes shape if Calvin is being directed away from theology by his father and he's being directed towards subjects that are not conducive necessarily to a lifelong engagement or career in the church well then historians are usually in the right for asking the question is there some crack in the armor at this early stage and the answer is we really won't know the two biographies that we've mentioned of Calvin's life give us two separate answers in fact they give us three separate answers because beza gives us two different answers in two of the different editions of his life of Calvin baeza says in his first edition that Calvin transferred out of reverence for his father that is to say his father desired that Calvin would go on to study law in Calvin is a dutiful son and this is what he does : takes a more ethical tone he argues that Calvin in a very short period of time had already come to the conclusion that theology within the Catholic Church was corrupt and therefore he jumped to the study of law Baeza then writes another edition of his life of calvin greatly expanded in nuanced and in this one he argued simply that Calvin and his father changed their mind that a life of theology of service in the Church of a number of different varieties was not the path for him and so instead he chose the study of law and there's really just not a lot of evidence here to make a firm conclusion later in his life Calvin will actually say that his father felt that the path of law was more lucrative he says this in the 1550s which is only a number of years before Calvin himself dies there doesn't seem to be though significant evidence that what's going on here is a fundamental anxiety or a fundamental rejection of the church it's a logical leap in other words to say that a father and a son or both in tandem shows a different path away from the church and towards the humanist study of the law to leap from that to the idea that there is some sort of fundamental problem with the church that Calvin and his father are already experiencing that somehow preconditioned Calvin to the Reformation is really a bit of a stretch even Colin's argument really seems to smack up hagiography the idea that Calvin at a very young age is just a schoolboy and frankly before he's even really studied theology in depth Lee as somehow sniffed him out as being all corrupt is frankly reading the later Calvin back into his early days and that's the epitome of bad history but we do need to explore some of this because I think what's going on here often particularly at the student level when they first encounter this reality that Calvin moves from the study of philosophy in theology to the study of law that they see in this frankly the more modern reality that Calvin seemingly transfers from seminary to law school it it conjures up this really horse distinction between studying things of God in pursuing financial lucrative prospects that are entirely secular in nature now this is not true in Calvin's case for two basic first of all by and large pursuing a life in the church was lucrative it had plenty of prospects the church was wealthy the church had lots of opportunities for patronage pursuing theology outside of monasticism in particular was a perfectly legitimate way of engaging the church and having a lucrative career so when we hear in the record that Calvin's father might have demurred about the prospects of church life as being lucrative it might very well be that Calvin's father's sense that there were fewer options within the church and that there were more options in the study of law so that's the first Calvin is not abandoning a life of poverty or a life of ministry for ill-gotten gain per se the second problem is that the study of law in this day is really not like the study of law in our modern world it has some analogies to be sure but the study of law in a world that is still relatively United in terms of the sword of the state and the sword of the church was in some ways at least according to the modern mind really engaging with the higher level of society from just the other direction again we've already seen this in Luther's life the relationship between church and state was one that was entangled lawyers were very much part and parcel of the life of medieval Christendom and though they might be engaged in the world from the political arm of the world that is not to be interpreted as some sort of secular ill-gotten gain that is antithetical or relatively opposed to the life of the church and more importantly as we're going to see in this lecture and in our next lecture the study of law throughout France at this time was one of the principal avenues for the study of humanism in some of the more principled theologians in exegetes and Protestants as well as Catholics that come from France in the 16th century come out of this world of the study of law and as we'll see in these lectures this one and in our next lecture on Calvin and French humanism what we'll see is that Calvin comes from a very specific context of the humanists method and of the study of texts and the classics in in particular of scriptural reasoning in fact in many ways the study of law is really more just another way of attacking the classics and that is because the study of law itself comes from the Roman judicial laws and the study of the classic past as the foundations of the modern legal system in Calvin's day and so someone transferring to the subject of law knew that they were transferring to a different domain and to a different set of organizing principles per se but they would not have interpreted this as a fundamental rejection of the Catholic Church itself in fact one of Calvin's most important teachers at the University of oleo was a man who was married he was a secular professor type but when his wife died he actually took holy orders and he became vicar general of an established order and became instrumental and the church's prosecution and enforcement of traditional religion of medieval Catholicism in particular in Paris at the Sorbonne in the 1530s which is the very thing that caused Calvin to flee and to land in Geneva down in the Swiss cantons so the way you have to see this is that law and theology church and state are permeable worlds they're not antithetical it's not sacred secular in the modern sense of those words rather it is two ways to serve God and to potentially lucrative paths and what seems to be happening here is is Calvin and his father or perhaps just Calvin's father and Calvin is a dutiful son and obeys Calvin is sent to or Lyon to study law now one of the missing links for understanding Calvin in this day and age then for understanding Calvin's context is the man Pierre robear Oh Lolita now his actual name is Pierre robear but he went in his day by the name o la vita or oh la vita knows in the latin now why is a limit on the missing link well too often the way the biography of Calvin reads is you have this plucky little student this law student who embraces the Reformation who has then run out of the city of Paris and he arrives in Geneva shortly after having published the 1536 edition of the Institute's which is a very short book at the time and according to so many biographies William Farrell who's the man who convinces Calvin to stay in Geneva and a number of others have just simply been stunned by the staggering genius of Calvin this man who deserve enters stage left and the rest of the Protestant world says thank you now I'm not trying to diminish Calvin's importance but in his early days Calvin was the younger brother he was the younger figure on the scene so how then did william farrell hear of calvin and how did calvin get plugged into the swiss reform movement another way of asking the question is why in the world did calvin flee to switzerland he could have fled home for example he wasn't the primary focus of any significant inquisition as to his theology at least not to the sense that he would be chased down well the answer again the missing link is pierre ro-bear or pierre Ribeiro Leviton you see cuz Pierre was actually Calvin's cousin Pierre was born in the same city they grew up together Pierre was born in 1506 which means that he is three years older than Calvin and functions a bit like an older brother Pierre also traveled with Calvin to study first in Paris and then later at Orly all so the two are vitally connected in this reform movement and the reason this is important is because a Levite on actually very quickly in the 1530s becomes instrumental in the Swiss Reformed movement down there in the alpine regions as well as in northern Italy we know that by the mid 15 30s in fact Ola baton had become pretty enamored with the teachings as ving Lee who as we saw in our previous lectures was in many ways the real founder of the initial Reformed movement within the church now the problem here of course is we don't really know what Olivia tones influence was on Calvin we do know that it was personal he's a family member and it is certainly the case that the two become pretty enamored with the Reformed movement the problem though is were not sure where Olaf Eaton stands in the 1520's during their time in oliel and during the time of Calvin's legal studies but it is certainly tantalizing to assume and it's probably fair game to assume on pretty solid ground that a Levite on in Calvin or engaging in reading some of these texts because eventually Allah by Tom makes a beeline for the Swiss regions and becomes engaged involved with Farrell and the Swiss reform movement years before Calvin comes on the scene so for example in 1532 william farrell in Oh Livie Tom take part in the Sham for an Synod and this is a vital Synod Shan Tran is in the area of the modern-day city of and grow Nia which if you follow the boot up let's just say it's above the knee it's all the way in the northern part of modern-day Italy it's really at that border between Italy in the Swiss regions and and grow Nia is the location where you have this important Senate in 1532 the Shan for incented which is often called the Waldensian Synod and this is because a group known as the walled Indians who had been attacked by the medieval church and actually assaulted by papal armies as heretics and opposers of the Catholic Church had essentially hold themselves up in these areas of southern Switzerland or northern Italy in the alpine regions and so with the city of and ronia representatives of the walled ends Ian's from Calabria and Apulia as well as other areas had come together in with the help of William Farrell and O Leviton had embraced and come over to the Protestant faith not only that but the Senate actually released 500 crowns which is an extraordinary large sum of money for a levy tom to spend as much time as he can and as much energy as he can translating the Bible from the Greek in the Hebrew into the French and this will culminate eventually in what we today called the O levy time Bible which is the first French translation of the Bible from this century so is it any wonder then Calvin's cousin involved in the Waldensian turn over into the Protestant faith and himself very instrumental in the translation of the Bible into French just a couple of years before Calvin happens the bump into william farrell is somehow attracted to the swiss regions and they reform movement down there now Calvin is his own man and he never gives us much of a cause or a case for believing that a Leviton is the one who led him to the faith but there is this familial connection and it is very powerful and this is certainly wife feral is so keen to have Calvin stay in Geneva with him to effect the Reformation there and we'll look at that story in a later lecture now just what the intellectual context of OU Leviton is in the world that Calvin is engaging in we're going to look at in our next lecture in terms of the ideas involved but we can say something about the context at least now Calvin moves with the city of Orly all and he's there for a brief period of time and it's there in the study of law that Calvin finds his tribe he finds like-minded people of his own age with whom he can study law and he can really engage deeply in the method of exploring the past both in terms of history in grammar and rhetoric it's in early 1528 in fact when Calvin arrives at OU Lille and while he's there he begins to do things that are really symptomatic of where Calvin's going in terms of his intellectual development he starts to take on the study of Greek for example now it takes him some time before he becomes really strong in this language and he will become quite extraordinarily good at his Greek but he begins it here in 1528 and at or leone calvin is exposed to what we might call traditional medieval scholastic method when it comes to the study of law he has a professor there who is profoundly committed to the traditional orders to reading texts as well Springs and resources for affirming traditional doctrines and traditional views of law and culture in the medieval world now what that means is any number of different things but obviously by 1528 the Reformation is in full bloom in Germany under Luther and so part of what's in play here is that the traditional forces the traditional perspective at the university of oliel is being impressed upon Calvin as he is developing his study of law in 1529 though just a short time after Calvin transfers to another French University the University of borsch now at this university which is frankly one of the most important law schools or universities for the study of law outside of Italy so it is at the very top of the echelon zuv power and influence here calvin comes across a really kind of pugnacious intriguing little fellow by the name of aundrea al-saadi an al Ciotti was an italian man and he was a legal professor and he had come really under the influence of one of the nobility within the French crown a woman by the name of Marguerite of Navarre now again we're gonna look at Marguerite more in our next lecture when we look at the overall context of French humanism but needless to say the University of borscht with all Ciotti and the influence of Marguerite of Navarre was saturated with this humanist method in provided Calvin really an antithesis to the more traditional medieval scholastic method of the University of orly all and this is important this is why we're spending so much time on it the tense relationship between Scholastic method on the one hand and humanist method on the other was particularly pronounced in the country of France and this pronounced fight was even more intensified at the level of the universities and I'll explain why that is in our next lecture but Calvin here immediately between 1528 and 15:29 really on the eve you might say of his conversion to the Protestant perspective on the faith it is being put really on the horns of a dilemma to help determine where he is coming from ultimately in terms of his perspective on traditional scholastic categories and tools for engagement and the newer French humanism which had pervaded all types of things from the study of law to the study of theology to the study of the very classics themselves and this tension within Calvin is important because it really is one of the more important reasons why Calvin becomes a Protestant he has put very naturally between these two categories in fact he has put between these two categories in a way that Luther never was Luther as we saw was always the Scholastic man and he embraces some of the humanist perspective later after his excommunication in particular the study of languages for translation of the scriptures but Luther always remains something of a Scholastic man he was always a dialectician always a man who was ready for an argument but not necessarily ready for long historical grammatical exegesis of a text he's more of a system ax Titian we I'd say in our modern language than a biblical theologian Calvin during his education between 1528 and 1530 is being put to the point and we see this actually because in Calvin's first printed work the first time he put his pen to paper and it came to print Calvin is actually asked to somewhat referee this question one of Calvin's old buddies from his days in or Lyon and beyond was Nicholas dushman and do Sherman had just like Calvin studied at the University of oleo and he had studied as well at the University of borscht all Ciotti was just that much of a lightning rod that a number of people went to study with him and do Sherman with Calvin as well as some of their other buddies had gone down to borscht in order to study with al Ciotti well do Sherman at this point in 15 30 and 31 had sat down to write a tract excoriating the methods and the haughtiness of all Ciotti in the book would be published by the title the Antipolo Ghia which in its longer title is that it is an anti apology or a critique who might say in modern english of the method and the style and the conclusions of all Ciotti and do sherman takes the more traditional scholastic opinion on things and reaching for his buddy he asked Calvin to write the preface to this book well the book is published on the 6th of March 1531 and again this is the first time Calvin's writing the first time his own words are put in publication for print and purchase in what's so important about Calvin's preface here is not that it really tells us much of where Calvin's going to go as a reformer but it gives us a hint or clue as to the context of the world that Calvin is living in because here his good friend uu Sherman has taken sides he is chosen the Scholastic method more of a systematic method and he has rejected al-saadi with his more humanist style well Calvin in the preface really not helping his friend out much at all actually plays the referee Calvin attempts to the best of his ability and whether or not he achieves this is up to the reader Calvin attempts to you come to a conclusion that both can be within the limits of possibility in terms of the method of studying theology but Calvin decides not to choose sides yet and this is vital because in the context of the French humanist movement there still was by this time in the 1530s a belief and a desire that the humanist method could live within the context of the Catholic Church and that it could reform it from within and it could challenge some of the problems that they felt were there in the Catholic Church in particular related to theology Calvin here in 1531 is signaling that he believes that the humanists method has some things to say that are better critiques and better intellectual uses of text of the Scriptures or of theology then where medieval scholasticism on its own had gone calvin is leaning towards humanism but he is not rejecting outright scholasticism now that's not saying that humanism is Protestant or scholasticism is Catholic but it does show that Calvin within the context of the French reform movement of the late 20s and early 1530s is wrestling with and struggling with we're good intellectual engagement with the scriptures in their originals can live with in an increasingly hostile environment of the Parisian universities as they seek to reject everything that has to do with the reform movement of Luther by this point in the late 1520's Luther has come out pretty boldly not only against the Catholic Church but now also against Erasmus in 1525 and so increasingly humanists in France like Calvin are being asked to choose and are being urged to figure out where they fit within this increasingly polarized spectrum between Protestantism on the one hand in its commitment to the scriptures in the originals and the more traditional medieval scholastic approach of places like the University of Paris and so important is this context and so important is this backdrop that we're actually gonna spend our next lecture on that as we attempt to understand where Calvin is coming from even before he arrives in Geneva okay that's it next we're going to be looking at Calvin in the context the wider context of the French humanist movement

Channel: Ryan Reeves

Views: 27,054

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Keywords: Humanism (Belief), John Calvin (Founding Figure), Calvinism (Religion), Philosophy (Field Of Study), Pierre Olevitan, Pierre-Robert Olevitan, Olevitanus, Chanforan synod, Waldensians (Military Combatant), University Of Orléans (College/University), Protestantism (Religion), Protestant Reformation (Event), Lutheranism (Religion), Martin Luther (Founding Figure), Evangelicalism (Religion), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (College/University), Ryan M. Reeves

Id: VFl371p36KQ

Length: 24min 14sec (1454 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2015