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The Democratic Element in Calvin's Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John T. McNeill
John T. McNeill
Affiliation:
Union Theological Seminary, New York
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Extract

Calvin's political interests had a beginning in his humanistic studies, before his conversion, or commitment to Protestantism. His Commentary on Seneca's De Clementia appeared April 4, 1532. The date of his conversion is much disputed, but there is fairly good evidence for placing it almost exactly two years later, about the time of his visit to Lefèvre in April, 1534. His own statements here must be given more weight than those made by Beza after Calvin's death. If, as is probable, he was inwardly half convinced of the Protestant position in 1532, he was, nonetheless, still clinging tenaciously—in his own words “obstinately devoted (adonné)”—to the papacy and had apparently not definitely discarded any of his traditional assumptions with respect to religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1949 , pp. 153 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1949

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References

1 Cf. Breen, Quirinus, John Calvin: a Study in French Humanism (Grand Rapids, 1931), 40–55.Google Scholar

2 In an extended study of Badé's treatise, M. Triwunatz holds that it was written before that of Erasmus appeared. According to Budé, the king has no right to do what is dishonorable, or to abrograte a law that expresses the divine justice. Even if kings were free from all obligations, they ought, in their own interests, to subject themselves to the laws of their states. Guillaume Budés De l'institution du prince (Erlangen and Leipzig, 1903), 44Google Scholar; 54ff. Cf. Delaruelle, L., Guillaume Budé, les origines, les debuts, les idées maitresses (Paris, 1907)Google ScholarCalvin, , Opera, V, 23, 67Google Scholar. On Budé see also Breen, , John Calvin, 113ff.Google Scholar, and McNeill, J. T., Christian Hope for World Society (Chicago, 1937), 90ff.Google Scholar. On the relation of the law and the prince, Erasmus, , in Institutio principis Christiani (1516)Google Scholar, ch. vi, has a statement more in accord with Calvin's later teaching: “A state is happy when all the citizens obey the prince, the prince obeys the laws, and the laws are just and honorable and conducive to the public welfare.”

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15 Cf. Augsburg Confession, 18: “some liberty to work a civil righteousness.”

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29 J. H. Allen discusses the question whether Calvin here intends to say that Darius by rising up against God ipso facto abrogated his power. Politicai Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1928), 57.Google Scholar

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40 Cf. Doumergue, E., Jean Calvin, les hommes et les choses de son temps, V (1917), 442f.Google Scholar; VII (1927), 167ff. The magistrates were following in this mutual admonition, the practice Calvin had established for the ministers. Mackinnon, James remarks that it was “a unique attempt to apply the Christian spirit to the art of politics”— Calvin and the Reformation, (London, 1936), 163Google Scholar. This is of course exactly what Calvin advocates on the whole political front. But the “Grabeau,” as this meeting of the Council for correction of its members was called, is a remarkable application of the principle of correptio fraterna (or mutua); which is scriptural (Cf. 2 Thess. 3:15) and often asserted by the Church Fathers. The “chapter of culps” in monasticism is its best medieval institutional expression. By Luther, Bucer, and other Reformers it was associated with the doctrine of the mutual priesthood of all Christians, along with its counterpart, aedificatio mutua (Rom. 14:19; I Thess. 5:11).

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