There are many versions of John Calvin. There is Calvin the humourless, zealous reformer, with a fiery disposition. There is Calvin the father of modernity; Calvin the inventor of capitalism and ergo rampant consumerism; Calvin the militant; even Calvin the dictator of Geneva, hounding Michael Servetus all the way to a fiery death at the stake. As with all famous men, there is a thick encrustation of legend upon an otherwise ordinary life. Needless to say, all these versions of John Calvin are easily refuted when we begin to look closely at this extraordinary man.
When we scrape away the mythology and see Calvin for what he really was, something unexpected emerges. Instead of a zealot, we find a profound humanist. Instead of a humourless man, we discover a man who relishes a good glass of wine, good company and laughter. Instead of a capitalist, we meet someone deeply committed to understanding the moral underpinning of economics. Instead of an ardent warmonger, eager to destroy his enemies, we encounter a man of peace. Instead of a dictator holding the city of Geneva in a tight fist, we encounter a preacher often and usually ignored by the city government. And as for Michael Servetus, we uncover a Calvin angrily disagreeing with him, but agonizing when he cannot save him from death at the stake.
Publically, Calvin had achieved fame in his time through his writing, which was fundamentally theological in nature and sought to outline the human response to God’s love. On a more mundane level, Calvin is considered the inventor of modern French prose because he was the first one to write extensively in that language. His French is clean, precise, economical, and it is much admired in France to this day.
And then there is the private individual. Calvin the man reveals himself slowly, almost reluctantly, in his letters. He was a prodigious writer and this is reflected in the number of letters he wrote in his lifetime—well over 8,000. Many of them, however, have not survived. So far, we only have 3,200 of them. Perhaps more will be found in the archives of Europe over the years; one letter here and another there. It is slow, meticulous work. And it is only now that all the extant letters are being systematically studied and published in Switzerland by the Librairie Droz.
Over the past few years, I have been endeavoring to translate the letters of John Calvin. Like all such attempts, it is protracted and painstaking work. These letters are written in Latin (a very beautiful, elegant Latin, harking back to the style of Cicero) and French—Middle French, to be precise, which is rather different from modern French. Calvin’s usage of both these languages points to a very graceful facility.
Translation is all about intimacy. Reading is appreciative. Analysis is descriptive. But to translate means entering the very mind and soul of the original author and becoming that author in another language. Translation follows, or mirrors, the very process of writing—literally, word by word. And it’s all about an afterlife because a book comes to exist in a language for which it was not really written, and it speaks to people who cannot know the original. This is why “translation” (the word derives from the Latin term meaning, “to carry over”) is often used as a metaphor for salvation, for each work has an essential quality (a soul) that can be made to live in another realm (language). A book may lie forgotten or dead in the original language, and suddenly it is translated and is reborn; that is, it comes to be read again.
These letters need an afterlife; they need to be better known, more widely read, which is why I am translating them. They are an invitation to us to enter his world, a world of 500 years ago. And what we find are captivating details. For example, there is reference in one of Calvin’s letters to an event known as the “Amboise affair.” It is a letter written in 1561 to Gaspard de Coligny, the French admiral (and also a Protestant). With this one reference we are suddenly caught up, along with Calvin, in high Renaissance intrigue.
The scene is quickly set. The year is 1560. France is ruled by a 15-year-old king named Francis II, who is married to the 17-year-old Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary’s maternal uncles, the Guises, use the young royal couple as pawns to further their own power. Prominent French Protestants, most of them members of the nobility, wanted to win greater freedom for their co-religionists through the use of violence. They were led by Jean du Barry, lord of la Renaudie. Their plan was simple and bold: Abduct the young king and his wife and imprison the Guises. In previous months, the conspirators had been going throughout Europe trying to win support. One among them came to Geneva to win Calvin’s support for the plot. As is obvious, word of the plan got back to the Guises.
On March 17, 1560, the young king and his wife were in residence at the ancient chateau of Amboise, which rises up from the Loire River. The conspirators gathered their forces and attacked the chateau. But the Guises were ready for them and it did not take the royal forces long to win the day. Jean du Barry was killed; his body was dismembered and hung from the walls of the chateau. A bloodbath followed. Anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 Protestants were executed and all their bodies were hung from the walls of the chateau.
Calvin’s letter is likely hastily written sometime at the end of April or early May of 1561. Hastily because it is undated, which is unusual for Calvin. Gaspard de Coligny was the highest-ranking Protestant in the royal court, and he had not been part of the conspiracy. Coligny wanted Calvin’s assurance that he had not sanctioned the rebellion. And Calvin, too, was anxious to make sure his name was not used in the justification of this uprising; something that likely had already happened. “J’auroy la bouche ouverte pour monstrer qu’on me faict grand tort en me chargeant de telles calomnies.” (“I will open my mouth to show that those that charge me with such slanders do me great wrong.”) And he is writing to show that he is not dissembling and trying to backpedal. “Tant y a que mon intention n’a pas esté de nager entre deux eaux.” (“For it is not my intention to swim between two waters.”) Calvin’s letters are filled with such colourful expressions.
Calvin states that he was indeed contacted by the conspirators, but that he refused to give his support and tried to dissuade them. But they were too far gone in their plans to listen to his advice. Calvin characterized du Barry and his fellow conspirators as, “chevaliers errans, ou de la Table ronde” (“knights errant or knights of the Round Table”). He describes them as being “ensorceléz” (“under some spell”) and their enterprise he calls “un jeu de petis enfants” (“a game of little children”). And when they persist, he asks a devastating question, “Avez-vous si mal profité en l’escole de Dieu, que de mal faire au plaisir des hommes?” (“Have you learned so badly in the school of God as to do evil for the pleasure of men?”) Calvin is afraid that such rash action will quickly get out of hand and make matters worse for all Protestants in France. And then he makes a very pertinent point: It is often the innocent who must pay the consequences of rash acts. He uses a very interesting proverbial expression to convey this idea: “Car il estoit bien à presume que plusieurs innocents eussent porté la paste au four de ce qu’ils ne pouvoient mais.” (“Because we can well presume that many innocent people will have to carry the dough to the oven for those who won’t carry it themselves.”) It is because of expressions such as this that Calvin is so highly regarded in France; he uses and therefore preserves sayings and adages that have long vanished, but which are so very adequate for what he wants to communicate.
Near the end of the letter, he explains that he is writing to Coligny for two reasons. First, to set the record straight as to his own involvement, or moral support, of the conspiracy; and second, to find a way to prevent fallout from these unfortunate events. To back up his words, he informs Coligny that he stated his opposition to Monsieur Coignet, the king’s ambassador, and that he preached against it from the pulpit, to which his congregation is a witness. He has always sought, “bien at repos public du païs de France, et à la sureté de l’estat du roy” (“the welfare and peace of the people of France and the security of the king”).
There is also in this letter a forecast of things to come as a direct result of actions such as this rebellion. It takes the form of a dire warning: “S’il s’espandoit une seule goutte de sang, les rivières en decoulleroyent par toute l”Europe.” (“If a single drop of blood is spilled, the rivers will overflow in all of Europe.”) Violence begets violence. Calvin knows this very well, which is why he opposed the Amboise plot. And this rebellion, in fact, became the catalyst in the bloody years that followed, namely, the Wars of Religion in which Roman Catholics fought Protestants for over 30 long years.
King Francis II died only after eight months on the throne, on December 5, 1560. Mary, no longer the queen of France, and just 19 years of age, returned to Scotland in August of 1561. From there she would try to become the queen of England, struggle with John Knox, and finally be executed by Elizabeth I in 1587.
Translating letters such as this one provides us a glimpse of the world in which Calvin lived, a world in which to be a Protestant was an act of the greatest courage; a world in which the ideas of Calvin had firmly taken hold, and these ideas were affecting the deepest social and spiritual transformations; and a world in which the idea of tolerance was being slowly forged.
Translating Calvin’s letters provides such immediate confrontation with history and ideas that a world long vanished becomes suddenly revealed, and therefore comprehensible. By undertaking a fresh version of these letters in English, it is my wish and hope that they will reveal a man of the deepest faith and the keenest mind. A lesson that we are certainly in need of learning, since we are constantly trying to come to understand clearly and precisely the profound relationship between faith and reason. The two, these letters show us, are not separate; and perhaps our insistence on separating them has led us into uncharted waters that we cannot navigate.
