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CHAPTER XVII.
FIRST LABOURS OF CALVIN AT PARIS.
(1529.)

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=CALVIN REVISITS NOYON.=

CALVIN, having bid farewell to the towns and châteaux of Berry, had arrived in the midst of those hills and plains, those green pastures and noble forests, which stretch along both sides of the Oise. He approached that little city of Noyon, which had been one time the capital of the empire of Charlemagne, and where Hugues Capet, the head of the third race, had been elected king. But his thoughts were not on these things: he was thinking of his father. As soon as he caught a glimpse of that beautiful Gothic cathedral, beneath whose shadow he had been brought up, he said to himself that its pavement would never more be trodden by his father's feet. He had never before returned to Noyon in such deep emotion. The death of Berquin, the death of his father, the future of the Church and of himself—all oppressed him. He found consolation in the affection of his family, and especially in the devoted attachment of his brother Anthony and of his sister Mary, who were one day to share his exile. Bowed down by so many afflictions, he would have sunk under the burden, 'like a man half dead, if God had not revived his courage while comforting him by his Word.'124

His father—that old man with mind so positive, with hand so firm, and whose authority he had venerated—was not there to guide him: he was free. Gerard had decided that his son should devote himself to the law, by which he might rise to a high position in the world. Calvin aspired, indeed, to another future, but from obedience he had renounced his most ardent desires; and now, finding himself at liberty, he turned towards that christian career in which he was to be, along with Luther, the greatest champion of modern times. 'Earthly fathers,' he said on one occasion, 'must not prevent the supreme and only Father of all from enjoying his rights.'125

As yet, however, Calvin did not meditate becoming a reformer in the same sense as Luther. At that time he would have liked to see all the Church transformed, rather than set himself apart and build up a new one. The faith which he desired to preach was that old christian truth which Paul had preached at Rome. The scribes had substituted for it the false traditions of man, but this was only one reason the more for proclaiming in the Church the doctrine which had founded the Church. After the first phase of christian life, in which man thinks only of Christ, there usually comes a second, where the christian does not voluntarily worship with assemblies opposed to his convictions. Calvin was now in the first of these phases. He thought only of preaching the Gospel. Did he not possess a pulpit in this very neighbourhood, and was it not his duty to glorify God from it? Had it been in his power, he would have done so in St. Peter's at Rome; why, then, should he refrain in his own church?

=CALVIN'S PROMOTION AND PREACHING.=

Calvin had friends in Picardy, even among the dignitaries of the clergy. Early attached to their young fellow-townsman, these men had received him with joy; they had found him more advanced in piety and learning, and had observed nothing in him opposed to their opinions. They thought that he might become one of the pillars of the Church. The circumstance that he had studied the law did not check them; it rendered him, in their eyes, fitter still to maintain the interests of the faith ... and of the clergy. Far from repelling him, his former patrons endeavoured to bind him still closer to them. That noble friend of his boyhood, Claude de Hangest of Momor, now abbot of St. Eloy, offered to give him the living of Pont L'Evêque in exchange for that of St. Martin of Marteville. Calvin, seeing in this offer the opportunity of preaching in the very place where his ancestors had lived, accepted; and then resigned, in favour of his brother Anthony, the chapel of La Gésine, of which he had been titulary for eight years. The act is dated the 30th of April, 1529.126

The same persons who presided over these several changes encouraged Calvin to preach. When a young man who has gone through his studies for the ministry of the Word returns to his native place, every one is anxious to hear him. Curiosity was still more keenly aroused in Calvin's case, for his reputation had preceded him, and some little charge of heresy, put forward from time to time, served but to increase the general eagerness. Everybody wanted to hear the son of the episcopal secretary, the cooper's grandson. The men and women who knew him hastened to the church; people even came from Noyon. The holy place was soon filled. At last a young man, of middle height, with thin pale face, whose eyes indicated firm conviction and lively zeal, went up into the pulpit and explained the Holy Scriptures to his fellow-townsmen.127 The effects of Calvin's preaching were various. Many persons rejoiced to hear, at last, a living word beneath that roof which had reechoed with so much vain and useless babbling. Of this number were, no doubt, certain notable men who were seen pressing round the preacher: Laurent of Normandy, who enjoyed great consideration in that district; Christopher Lefèvre, Lancelot of Montigny, Jacques Bernardy, Corneille de Villette, Nicholas Néret, Labbé surnamed Balafré, Claude Dupré, and Nicholas Picot, Anthony Calvin's brother-in-law. All were afterwards accused of having embraced the new doctrine, and were condemned by the parliament of Paris to be drawn on hurdles and burnt in the great square of Noyon; but they had already quitted the kingdom.128

The words of the young speaker did not merely communicate fresh knowledge—they worked a transformation of the heart and life. But there were men present quite ready to receive certain evangelical ideas, who yet did not mean to change either their life or their heart. The same word thus produced faith in some and opposition in others: it divided the light from the darkness.129 Certain bigots and priests, in particular, inveighed against the preaching of that serious-looking, earnest young man, and exclaimed: 'They are setting wolves to guard the sheep!'130

=DECIDES ON GOING TO PARIS.=

Calvin stayed only two or three months at Noyon. Perhaps a growing opposition forced him to depart. He desired also to continue his Greek studies; but instead of returning to Orleans or Bourges, he resolved to go to Paris. The moment was favourable. Classical studies were at that time making great progress in the capital. Francis I., at the request of Budæus and Du Bellay, had just founded (1529) several professorships for teaching Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It was a complete revolution, and Paris was full of animation when Calvin arrived. The fantastical framework which the scholastics, theologians, jurists, and philosophers had erected during the middle ages, fell to the ground in the midst of jeering and laughter, and the modern learning arose amid the unanimous applause of the rising generation. Pierre Danès, a pupil of Budæus and Lascaris, and afterwards a bishop, taught Greek;131 Francis Vatable introduced young scholars to the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, although he failed himself to find the counsel of God therein;132 other illustrious professors completed this precious course of instruction. Paris was a centre whence light emanated; and this was the reason which induced Calvin to forsake Noyon, Bourges, and even Orleans, and hasten his steps thither.

The journey was a painful one; Calvin (whether on horseback or on foot is unknown) arrived in Paris about the end of June, quite worn out with fatigue. 'It is impossible,' he said next morning, 'for me to go out of doors;'133 indeed, he did not leave his room for four days. But the news of his arrival soon spread; his friends and admirers hastened to his inn, and during these four days his room was never empty.134 All the agitation of the schools seemed to be transported thither.

=CALVIN'S VISITORS.=

They talked of Budæus, Vatable, and Danès, of Greek and Hebrew, and of the sun of learning then shining over the old Lutetia.... Calvin listened and learnt the state of men's minds. One of the first who hurried to him was Coiffard, his fellow-collegian at Orleans, who brought his father with him. People contended for the student of Noyon, who had already become celebrated. 'Come and stay with us,' said the young Parisian; and when Calvin declined, 'I entreat you,' said Coiffard in the most affectionate manner, 'to grant me this favour.'135 The father also insisted, for the worthy citizen knew what a steady friend his rather frivolous son would find in the Picardin student. 'There is nothing in the world I desire so much,' he said, 'as to see you associate with my son.'136 —'Come, do come,' urged the son, 'and be my companion.' Calvin was touched by this affection; but he feared the interruptions of the family, its distance from college, and he had but one object—study. 'I would accept your offer with both hands,' he said, 'but that I intend to follow Danès' Greek course, and his school is too far from your house.'137 The father and son went away greatly disappointed.

Not long after this, a more important personage entered the room. It was Nicholas Cop, professor at St. Barbe, whose father, a native of Basle, had just been appointed physician to the king. Both father and son were strongly suspected of belonging to the 'new opinions;' but at that time Francis cared little about them. The elder Cop had translated Galen and Hippocrates, and the king had confided to him the care of his health. A strict friendship erelong united Calvin and the son. The latter, although a professor in the university, listened to the student of Noyon as a disciple listens to his master; it is one of those marks of Calvin's superiority, which every one recognised instantly. He showed his friend 'how Christ discharges the office of physician, since he is sent by the Father to quicken the dead.'

The conversations which these two young men then held together resulted in after years in an event which exercised a certain influence over the destiny of the reformer and of the Reform itself.

=VISIT TO A CONVENT.=

An object of less importance occupied them now: it was Calvin's first business in Paris, and the account he gives of it throws a new light on the future legislator. The custom of shutting up in convents the young persons who had any tendency towards the Gospel had already begun. 'Our friend Daniel, the advocate,' said Calvin to Cop, 'has a sister in a nunnery at Paris; she is about to take the veil, and Daniel wishes to know if it is with her full consent.'—'I will accompany you,' said the professor, and on the following Sunday, Calvin having recovered from his fatigue, the two friends set out for the convent. The future reformer, who was already opposed to monastic vows, especially when taken under constraint, cleverly devised a plan for learning whether any restriction was placed upon the young lady's liberty. 'Converse with the abbess,' he said to Cop, as they were going to the nunnery, 'and contrive that I may be able to talk privately with our friend's sister.' The abbess, followed by the girl, entered the parlour. 'We have granted her,' said the former, 'the privilege of taking the solemn vows.'138 According to his instructions Cop began to talk with the superior on different subjects which had no connection with the matter in hand. During this time, Calvin, who believed he saw a victim before him, took advantage of the opportunity, and said to Daniel's sister: 'Are you taking this yoke upon you willingly, or is it placed on your neck by force?139 Do not fear to trust me with the thoughts that disturb you.' The girl looked at Calvin with a thoughtless air, and answered him with much volubility: 'The veil is what I most desire, and the day when I shall make my vow can never come too soon.' The future reformer was astonished: he had before him a giddy young person, who had been led to believe that she would find great amusement in the cloister. 'Every time she spoke of her vows,' said Calvin, 'you might have fancied she was playing with her doll.'140 He desired, however, to address one serious word to her: 'Mademoiselle,' he said to her, 'I beg of you not to trust too much to your own strength: I conjure you to promise nothing as if you could accomplish it yourself. Lean rather on the strength of God, in whom we live and have our being.'141 Perhaps Calvin thought that by speaking so seriously to the young girl, she would renounce her rash undertaking; but he was mistaken.

He returned to his inn, and two days after (the 25th of June) he wrote to Daniel an account of his visit to the convent. Having finished, he was beginning another letter to a canon of Orleans,142 when one of his friends arrived, who had come to take him for a ride. We might suppress this incident as being of no importance; but it is perhaps also an unexpected feature in Calvin's habits. He is generally represented as absorbed in his books or reprimanding the disorderly. And yet he was no stranger to the decent relaxations of life: he could ride on horseback and took pleasure in the exercise. He accepted his friend Viermey's offer. 'I shall finish the letter on my return,' he said,143 and the two students set off on their excursion in the neighbourhood of Paris. A few days later Calvin hired a room in the college of Fortret, where he was near the professors, and resumed his study of languages, law, and philosophy.144 He desired to learn. Having received the knowledge of divine things, he wished to acquire a true understanding of the world.

But erelong the summons from on high sounded louder than ever in his heart. When he was in his room, surrounded by his law books, the voice of his conscience cried to him that he ought to study the Bible. When he went out, all his friends who felt a love for pure religion begged of him to devote himself to the Gospel.145 Calvin was one of those fortresses that are not to be taken at the first assault. As he looked upon the books scattered about his study, he could not make up his mind to forsake them. But whenever in the course of his life God spoke clearly to him, he repressed his fondest desires. Thus urged from within and from without, he yielded at last. 'I renounce all other sciences,' he said, 'and give myself up entirely to theology and to God.'146 This news spread among the secret assemblies of the faithful, and all were filled with great satisfaction.

A mighty movement had taken place in Calvin's soul; but it must be understood that there was no plan laid down in his mind. He had no ambition, no art, no rôle; but he did with a strong will whatever God set before him. The time he now spent in Paris was his apprenticeship. Having given himself to God, he set to work with the decision of an energetic character and the firmness of a persevering mind. He studied theology with enthusiasm. 'The science of God is the mistress-science,' he said; 'the others are only her servants.' He gave consistency to that little chosen band who, in the midst of the crowd of scholars, turned lovingly towards the Holy Scriptures. He excited young and noble minds; he studied with them and endeavoured to explain their difficulties.

=SPEAKS AT SECRET MEETINGS.=

He did more. Berquin's death had struck all his friends with terror. 'If they have burnt this green wood,' said some, 'they will not spare the dry.' Calvin, not permitting himself to be checked by these alarms, began to explore that city which had become so dangerous. He joined the secret assemblies which met under the shadow of night in remote quarters,147 where he explained the Scriptures with a clearness and energy of which none had ever heard the like. These meetings were held more particularly on the left bank of the Seine, in that part of the city which the catholics afterwards termed Little Geneva, and which, on the other hand, is now the seat of Parisian catholicism. One day the evangelicals would repair mysteriously to a house on the property of the abbey of St. Germain des Prés; another day they would meet in the precincts of the university, the quartier latin of our times. In the room would be a few wooden benches, on which the poor people, a few students, and sometimes one or two men of learning, took their seats. They loved that simple-hearted young man, who so effectually introduced into their minds and hearts the truths he found in the Scriptures. 'The Word of Christ is always a fire,' they said; 'but when he explains it, this fire shines out with unusual brilliancy.'

Young men formed themselves on his model; but there were many who rushed into controversy, instead of seeking edification as Calvin did. In the university quarter the pupils of Daniel and Vatable might be seen, with the Hebrew or Greek Testaments in their hands, disputing with everybody. 'It is thus in the Hebrew text,' they said; 'and the Greek text reads so and so.' Calvin did not, however, disdain polemics; following the natural bent of his mind, he attacked error and reprimanded the guilty. Some who were astonished at his language asked: 'Is not this the curé of Pont l'Evêque, the friend of Monseigneur de St. Eloy?' But, not allowing himself to be checked by these words, he confounded alike the superstitious papists and the incredulous innovators. 'He was wholly given up to divinity and to God, to the great delight of all believers.'148

=HE CIRCULATES INFORMATION.=

It was already possible to distinguish in him, in some features at least, the character of chief of the Reform. As he possessed great facility of correspondence, he kept himself informed, and others also, of all that was passing in the christian world. He made about this time a collection of papers and documents relating to the most recent facts of the Reformation, and sent them to Duchemin, but not for him to keep.149 'I send them to you on this condition,' wrote Calvin, 'that, in accordance with your good faith and duty, they may pass through your hands to our friends.'150 To this packet he added an epitome,151 some commentaries, and a collection of notes made probably by Roussel during his residence at Strasburg. He purposed adding an appendix:152'But I had no time,' he said.153 Calvin desired that all the friends of the Gospel should profit by the light which he himself possessed. He brought the new ideas and new writings into circulation. A close student, an indefatigable evangelist, this young man of twenty was, by his far-seeing glance, almost a reformer.

He did not confine his labours to Paris, Orleans, Bourges, or Noyon: the city of Meaux occupied his attention. Meaux, which had welcomed Lefèvre and Farel, which had heard Leclerc, the first martyr, still possessed Briçonnet. This former protector of the evangelicals would indeed no longer see them, and appeared absorbed in the honours and seductions of the prelacy. But some men thought that at the bottom of his heart he still loved the Gospel. What a triumph if the grace of God should once more blossom in his soul! Daniel had friends at Meaux; Calvin begged of him to open the door (or, to use his own expression, the window) of this city for him. In the number of these friends was a certain Mæcenas. The young doctor, writing from Meaux, gives a portrait of this individual which exactly fits the bishop. He does not name Briçonnet; but as he often suppresses names, or employs either initials or pseudonyms, we might almost say that the name was not necessary here. Daniel accordingly wrote to Mæcenas, who returned a very cold answer.154 'I cannot walk with those people,' he said; 'I cannot conform my manners to theirs.'155 Daniel insisted; but it was all of no use: the timid Mæcenas would on no account have anything to do with Calvin. Briçonnet, we learn, was surrounded by friends who were continually repeating to him: 'A bishop ought to have no commerce with persons suspected of innovation.'156 Calvin, animated by the noblest ambition, that of bringing back to God a soul that was going astray, finding himself denied every time he knocked at the gate of this great personage, at last gave up his generous enterprise, and, shaking the dust from his feet, he said with severity: 'Since he will not be with us, let him take pleasure in himself, and with a heart full, or rather inflated by his own importance, let him pamper his ambition.'157

=CALVIN'S MISSIONARY ZEAL.=

Calvin did not, however, fail completely at Meaux: 'You have given me prompt and effectual aid,' he wrote to Daniel; 'you have opened me a window, and have thus given me the privilege of being in future an indiscreet petitioner.'158 He took advantage of this opening to propagate the Gospel. 'I will do it,' he said, 'without imprudence or precipitation.' And, calling to mind that 'the doctrine of Christ is like old wine, which has ceased working, but which nevertheless gives nourishment to the body,'159 he busied himself in filling vessels with this precious drink: 'I will take care,' he wrote to Daniel, 'that the inside shall be well filled with wine.'160 He ended his letter by saying: 'I want the Odyssey of Homer which I lent Sucquet: pray tell him so.'161 Luther took Plautus and Terence into the convent with him; Calvin asked for Homer.

He soon returned to Paris, which opened a wider field of labour to him. On the 15th of January, 1530, he wrote Daniel a letter which he dated from the Acropolis, as if Paris were to him the citadel of catholicism or the Parthenon of France.162 He was always trying to save some lost sheep, and such a desire filled his mind on the 15th of January. On that day he expected two friends to dinner. One of them, Robert Daniel, brother to the advocate of Orleans, an enthusiastic young man, was burning with desire to see the world. Calvin, who had already done all in his power to win him over, flattered himself that he would succeed that day; but the giddy young fellow, suspecting perhaps what awaited him, did not come. Calvin sent a messenger to Robert's lodging. 'He has decamped,' said the landlord; 'he has left for Italy.' At Meaux Calvin had desired to win over a great personage; at Paris he had hoped to win over a young adventurer: in both cases he failed. 'Alas!' he said, 'I am but a dry and useless log!' And once more he sought fresh strength in Christ.

=BEDA ATTACKS THE PROFESSORS.=

Meanwhile the Sorbonne, proud of the victory it had gained in bringing Berquin to the stake, decided to pursue its triumphs. The war was about to begin again. It was Beda who renewed the combat—that Beda of whom Erasmus said: 'There are three thousand priests in that man alone!' He did not attack Calvin, disdaining, or rather ignoring him. He aimed at higher game, and having triumphed over one of the king's gentlemen, he attacked the doctors whom Francis had invited to Paris for the propagation of learning. Danès, Vatable, and others having been cited before the parliament, the fiery syndic rose and said: 'The king's doctors neglect Aristotle, and study the Holy Scriptures only.... If people continue to occupy themselves with Greek and Hebrew, it is all over with faith. These folks desire to explain the Bible, and they are not even theologians!... The Greek and Hebrew books of the Holy Scriptures come mostly from Germany, where they may have been altered. Many of the persons who print Hebrew books are Jews.... It is not, therefore, a sufficient argument to say: It is so and so in the Hebrew.163 These doctors ought to be forbidden to interfere with Holy Scripture in their courses; or at least they should be ordered first to undergo an examination at the university.' The king's professors did not hold back in the cause of knowledge. They boldly assumed the offensive. 'If the university of Paris is now in small esteem among foreign nations,' they said to the parliament, 'it is because instead of applying themselves to the study of the Holy Gospels and of the ancient fathers—Cyprian, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin—its theologians substitute for this true knowledge a science teaching nothing but craft and sophistry. It is not thus that God wills to enlighten his people. We must study sacred literature, and drink freely of all the treasures of the human mind.'164 Beda had gone too far. At court, and even in parliament, numerous voices were raised in behalf of learning and learned men. Parliament dismissed the charges of the syndic of the Sorbonne.

The exasperated Beda now employed all his eloquence to get the professors condemned by the Sorbonne. 'The new doctors,' he exclaimed, 'horrible to say! pretend that Holy Scripture cannot be understood without Greek, Hebrew, and other such languages.' On the 30th of April, 1530, the Sorbonne did actually condemn as rash and scandalous the proposition of the professors which Beda had denounced.165

=SMALL BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT WORK.=

Calvin anxiously observed in all its phases this struggle between his teachers and the doctors of the Sorbonne. All the students were on the watch, as was Calvin also in his college; and when the decision of the parliament became known there, it was received with loud acclamations. While the Sorbonne placed itself on the side of tradition, Calvin placed himself still more decidedly on the side of Scripture. He thought that as the oral teaching of the apostles had ceased, their written teaching had become its indispensable substitute. The writings of Matthew and John, of Peter and Paul, were, in his opinion, the living word of these great doctors, their teaching for those ages which could neither see nor hear them. It appeared to Calvin as impossible to reform the Church without the writings of the apostles, as it would have been to form it in the first century without their preaching. He saw clearly that if the Church was to be renewed, it must be done by faith and by Scripture—a twofold principle which at bottom is but one.

But the hour had not yet come when Calvin was to proclaim these great truths with the authority of a reformer. A modest and devout man, he was now performing a more humble work in the remotest streets and loneliest houses of the capital. One would have taken him for the most insignificant of men, and yet he was already a conqueror. The light of Scripture, with which his mind was saturated, was one day to shine like the lightning from east to west; and no man since St. Paul was to hold the Gospel torch so high and with so firm a hand. When that student, so thin, pale, and obscure, in appearance so mean, in manner so timid, passed down the street of St. Jacques or of the Sorbonne; when he crept silently past the houses, and slipped unobserved into one of them, bearing with him the Word of life, there was not even an old woman that noticed him. And yet the time was to come when Francis I., with his policy, conquests, priests, court, and festivities, would only call up frivolous or disgusting recollections; while the work which this poor scholar was by God's grace then beginning, would increase day by day for the salvation of souls and prosperity of nations, and would advance calmly but surely to the conquest of the world.

124 Calvini Opusc.

125 'Unico omnium patri suum jus integrum maneat.'—Calvin in Matthæum.

126 Desmay, Vie de Calvin, pp. 40-42. Drelincourt, Défense de Calvin, pp. 167, 168.

127 'Quo loco constat Calvinum ... ad populum conciones habuisse.'—Bezæ Vita Calvini.

128 Archives Générales, x. 8946. France Protestante, article Normandie.

129 Genesis i. 5.

130 Desmay, Vie de Calvin, p. 41. Drelincourt, Défense de Calvin, p. 168.

131 Crévier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, v. p. 245.

132 'Quo alios introduxisti, nusquam ipse ingressus.'—Bezæ Icones.

133 'Lassus de itinere pedem extrahere domo non potui.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

134 'Proximos quatuor dies, cum me ægre adhuc sustinerem.'—Ibid.

135 'Multis precibus, iisque non frigidis, sæpe institit.'—Ibid.

136 'Nihil magis appetere quam me adjungi filio.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

137 'Nihil unquam magis ambabus ulnis complexus sum, quam hanc amici voluntatem.'—Ibid.

138 'Eam obtinuisse ex solenni more voti nuncupandi potestatem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

139 'Num jugum illud molliter exciperet? num fracta potius quam inflexa cervix?'—Ibid.

140 'Diceres eam ludere cum puppis, quoties audivit voti nomen.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

141 'Omnia reponeret in Dei virtute in quo sumus et vivimus.'—Ibid.

142 'Habeo litteras inchoatas ad canonicum.'—Ibid.

143 'Viermæus cum quo equum ascendo.'—Calvinus Danieli, Berne MSS.

144 'In collegio Forterestano domicilium habuit.'—Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, ii. p. 246.

145 Theodore Beza, Vie de Calvin, in French text, p. 12. 'Omnibus purioris religionis studiosis.'—Ibid. Latin text.

146 'Ab eo tempore sese Calvinus, abjectis reliquis studiis, Deo totum consecravit.'—Ibid.

147 'Qui tunc Lutetiæ occultos cœtus habebant.'—Bezæ Vita Calvini.

148 Beza, Vie de Calvin, French text, p. 12. 'Summa piorum omnium voluptate.'—Ibid. Latin text.

149 'Mitto ad te rerum novarum collectanea.'—Calvinus Chemino, Berne MSS.

150 'Hac tamen lege, ut pro tua fide officioque per manus tuas ad amicos transeant.'—Ibid.

151 'Mitto Epitomem alteram G. nostri.'—Ibid.

152 'Cui velut appendicem assuere decreveram.'—Ibid.

153 'Nisi me tempus defecisset.'—Ibid.

154 'Supinum illum Mæcenatem.'—Calvinus Danieli Aureliano, Idibus Septembris 1529. Geneva MSS. Calvin borrows this expression from Juvenal, i. 65: 'Multum referens de Mæcenate supino.'

155 'Non potest mores suos nobis accommodare.'—Ibid.

156 Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme, liv. ii.

157 'Sit assentator suus, et pleno, seu verius turgido pectore, foveat ambitionem.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS.

158 'Apertam esse fenestram, ne post hæc simus verecundi petitores.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS. An expression imitated from Suetonius, lib. xxviii.

159 Calvin, in Lucam, ch. v. 39.

160 'Interim tamen penum vino instruendum curabo.'—Calvinus Danieli, Geneva MSS. This passage presents some difficulty. 'Penus' in Persius means a safe where meat is kept; in Festus and Lampridius, the sanctuary of the temple.

161 'Odysseam Homeri quam Sucqueto commodaveram, finges a me desiderari.'—Ibid.

162 Calvin's Letters, i. p. 30. Philadelphia, edit. J. Bonnet.

163 'Ita habent Hebræa.'—Actes du Parlement.

164 Crévier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, v. p. 249.

165 'Hæc propositio temeraria est et scandalosa.'—D'Argentré, Collectio Judiciorum de novis Erroribus, ii. p. 78.

History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

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