Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 7

The Catholic focus was in Italy—in the metropolis of the ancient world; the evangelical focus in Germany was transferred from Wittemberg to the middle of European nations—to the smallest of cities—to that whose history I have to relate.

When history treats of certain epochs, as for instance the reign of Charles V., there may be a certain disadvantage in the vastness of the stage on which the action passes; we may complain that the principal actor, however colossal, is necessarily dwarfed. This inconvenience will not be found in the narrative I have undertaken. If the empire of Charles V. was the largest theatre in modern history, Geneva was the smallest. In the one case we have a vast empire, in the other a microscopical republic. But the smallness of the theatre serves to bring out more prominently the greatness of the actions: only superficial minds turn with contempt from a sublime drama because the stage is narrow and the representation devoid of pomp. To study great things in small is one of the most useful exercises. What I have in view—and this is my apology—is not to describe a petty city of the Alps, for that would not be worth the labour; but to study in that city a history which is in the main a reflection of the history of Europe,—of its sufferings, its struggles, its aspirations, its political liberties, and its religious transformations. I will confess that my attachment to the land of my birth may have led me to examine our annals rather too closely, and narrate them at too great length. This attachment to my country which has cheered me in my task, may possibly expose me to reproach; but I hope it will rather be my justification. ‘This book,’ said Tacitus, at the beginning of one of his immortal works, ‘was dictated by affection: that must be its praise, or at least its excuse.’8 Shall we be forbidden to shelter ourselves humbly behind the lofty stature of the prince of history?

Modern liberties proceed from three different sources, from the union of three characters, three laws, three conquests—the Roman, the German, and the Christian. The combination of these three influences, which has made modern Europe, is found in a rather striking manner in the valley of the Leman. The three torrents from north, south, and east, whose union forms the great stream of civilisation, deposited in that valley which the Creator hollowed out between the Alps and the Jura that precious sediment whose component parts can easily be distinguished after so many ages.

First we come upon the Roman element in Geneva. This city was for a long while part of the empire; ‘it was the remotest town of the Allobroges,’ says Cæsar.9 About a league from Geneva there once stood an antique marble in honour of Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, who 122 years before Christ had triumphed over the people of this district;10 and the great Julius himself, who constructed immense works round the city, bequeathed his name to a number of Roman colonists, or clients at least. More remarkable traces—their municipal institutions—are found in most of the cities which the Romans occupied; we may be permitted to believe that Geneva was not without them.

In the fifth century the second element of modern liberties appeared with the Germans. The Burgundians—those Teutons of the Oder, the Vistula, and the Warta—being already converted to Christianity, poured their bands into the vast basin of the Rhone, and a spirit of independence, issuing from the distant forests of the north, breathed on the shores of the Leman lake. The Burgundian tribe, however, combined with the vigour of the other Germans a milder and more civilising temperament. King Gondebald built a palace at Geneva; an inscription placed fifteen feet above the gate of the castle, and which remains to this day, bears the words, Gundebadus rex clementissimus, &c.11 From this castle departed the king’s niece, the famous Clotilda, who, by marrying Clovis, converted to Christianity the founder of the French monarchy. If the Franks then received the Christian faith from Geneva, many of their descendants in the days of Calvin received the Reformation from the same place.

Clotilda’s uncle repaired the breaches in the city walls, and having assembled his ablest counsellors, drew up those Burgundian laws which defended small and great alike, and protected the life and honour of man against injury.12

The first kingdom founded by the Burgundians did not, however, last long. In 534 it fell into the hands of the Merovingian kings, and the history of Geneva was absorbed in that of France until 888, the epoch when the second kingdom of Burgundy rose out of the ruins of the majestic but ephemeral empire of Charlemagne.

But long before the invasion of the Burgundians in the fifth century, a portion of Europe, and Geneva in particular, had submitted to another conquest. In the second century Christianity had its representatives in almost every part of the Roman world. In the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and of Bishop Irenæus (177) some persecuted Christians of Lyons and Vienne, in Dauphiny, wishing to escape from the flames and the wild beasts to which Rome was flinging the children of God, and desirous of trying whether their pious activity could not bear fruit in some other soil, had ascended the formidable waters of the Rhone, and, coming to the foot of the Alps—refuge and refugees are of old date in this country—brought the gospel thither, as other refugees, coming also from Gaul, and also fleeing their persecutors, were fourteen centuries later to bring the Reformation. It seems they were only disciples, humble presbyters and evangelists, who in the second and third century first proclaimed the divine word on the shores of the Leman; we may therefore suppose that the Church was instituted in its simplest form. At least it was not until two centuries later, in 381, that Geneva had a bishop, Diogenes,13 and even this first bishop is disputed.14 Be that as it may, the gospel which the refugees brought into the valley lying between the Alps and the Jura, proclaimed, as it does everywhere, the equality of all men before God, and thus laid the foundations of its future liberties.

Thus were commingled in this region the generating elements of modern institutions. Cæsar, Gondebald, and an unknown missionary represent, so to speak, the three strata that form the Genevese soil.

Let us here sketch rapidly a few salient points of the ancient history of Geneva. The foundations upon which a building stands are certainly not the most interesting part, but they are perhaps the most necessary.