INTRODUCTION
The year 1539 was a time of agony to the city council of Geneva. It was precisely in that moment, when the city was deprived of her best ministers and of her most brilliant theologian, John Calvin, that Cardinal Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras, sent a letter to the citizens and Council of Geneva “challenging them to restore obedience to the bishop of Rome.”
Almost one year before the letter arrived in Geneva, 1538, the city council had asked her faithful reformed pastors, including Calvin and Farel, to leave the city because of nonconformity to the cultic practices of the city of Bern (defender of Geneva). Estep identifies these practices: “baptisms were to be performed at stone fonts; unleavened bread was to be used in observing the Lord’s Supper, and four special days in Christian year were to be observed – Christmas, Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost.” Reluctance to adopt the modifications and critical comments about the authorities of the city made the council speedily decide for expulsion. Calvin and Farel went to Bern to question that city about such happenings and to persuade the Bernese to review their practices and rules. The Bernese repented and tried the restoration of Calvin, Farel and others back to Geneva but without success. Some suggest that the problem was far beyond liturgical practices, and that it in fact was related to Calvin’s application of discipline in the city.
With the promoters and maintainers of Protestantism far from Geneva, those in the city still in love with the Catholic Church and the pope, informed the former bishop of that city, Pierre de la Baume, of the latest news, hoping that this would bring him back. Merle d’Aubigne explains that la Baume contacted the pope, who made him cardinal and called the bishops of Besancon, Lausanne, Vienne, Turin Langres and Carpentras to meet with la Baume at Lyons along with the bishop of that city. This meeting produced the idea of sending to Geneva a letter calling the city to repentance, persuading it to return the Roman church and, as a natural consequence, to accept la Baume back to his lost position.
Cardinal Sadolet was the one chosen to compose and send the letter. He was no common man. He “was one of the secretaries of Pope Leo X., bishop of Capentras in Dauphiny since 1517, secretary of Clement VII in 1523, a cardinal since 1536. He was frequently employed in diplomatic peace negotiations between the pope, the king of France, and the emperor of Germany. He had a high reputation as a scholar, a poet, and a gentleman of irreproachable character and devout piety.” Added to this exalting description was the fact that he already had experience in writing such kind of letters for “once in 1537 he wrote to Philipp Melanchthon in Wittenberg, and again in 1538 to Jean Sturm in Strasbourg.”
On March 26, 1539, the messenger Jean Durand, of Carpentras, arrived in Geneva with Sadolet’s letter. The council received the letter and promised to respond. Although the main reformers were not in the city anymore, there was no intention in the members of the council to return to Rome. They quickly sought someone who could ably respond the letter, but there was no one in the city. They asked their protector city, Bern, to take the task but no one there were apt to the task also. The Geneva city council, then, had to humble itself and ask the support of Calvin.
Calvin, after the expulsion from the city, found opportunity to minister to a large French congregation at Strasbourg with its more than five hundred members. There, “he preached or lectured twice on Sunday, and also once on every other day of the week.” In August of 1539, Simon Sulzer, a minister of Bern, arrived at Strasbourg with a copy of Sadolet’s letter and a request of the council of Geneva to write a response to it. He wrote the response in six days and it was twice the size of the cardinal’s letter.
Two main reasons can be concluded for Calvin ready acceptance to write the response. First, Sadolet made serious moral accusations about the former reformers of Geneva. Certainly Calvin felt the duty of responding to such atrocious content, to restore his honor and that of those who served with him in that city. Schaff favored this point when he affirmed “though not mentioned by name, he was indirectly assailed by the cardinal as the chief among those who had been denounced as misleader and disturber of the peace of Geneva. He therefore felt in his duty to take up the pen in defense of the Reformation.”
Secondly, Calvin was trying to preserve his own labors in Geneva as a reformer and also the protestant movement in the city. He perceived that to keep silent before that document would mean Geneva’s return to the Roman Catholic faith. Therefore, “apprehending the evil which the letter might bring on Geneva, ‘forgetting all the wrongs that he had received,’ and yielding to the entreaties of his Strasburg friend, he undertook the task” of responding the letter.
SADOLET’S ARGUMENTS AND THE SOUNDNESS OF HIS POSITIONS
Sadolet’s letter to the people and senate of Geneva is not a strong theological document. It is certainly very well written; full of expressions that resemble the Pauline letters to the early churches; filled with flattering words about the people (expressing great love toward the Genevese) and about the city (about its arquitecture, form of government, and social services performed there).
The main argument of the letter is the salvation of the readers’ souls. It is the main proposition which Sadolet used to develop his accusations against the reformers and to present Roman Catholic theology in a popular level. The readers’s place in haven was jeopardized since they had embraced the Protestant heresy and, being a good shepherd, Sadolet felt compelled to address this obnoxious threat. Right in the beginning of the letter he stated:
And that we may begin with that we deem most seasonable, I presume, dearest brethren, that both you and I, and all else beside who have put their faith and hope in Christ, do, and have done so, for this one reason, viz., that they may obtain salvation for themselves and their souls – not a salvation which is mortal, and will quickly perish, but one which is ever during and immortal, which is truly attainable only in heaven, and by no means on earth.
And in the middle of the letter, in its most persuasive moment:
The point in dispute is, Whether is it more expedient for your salvation, and whether you think you will do that what is more pleasing to God, by believing and following what the Catholic Church throughout the whole world, now for more than fifteen hundred years, or (if we require clear and certain recorded notice of the facts) for more than thirteen hundred years, approves with general consent; or innovations introduced within these twenty-five years, by crafty, or, as they think themselves, acute men; but men certainly who are not themselves the Catholic Church?
While explaining the importance of salvation and the peril of losing it, he did not spare negative words and expressions to unmask, in his opinion, the false teachers.
For, after It was brought to my ears that certain crafty men, enemies of Christian unity and peace, had in like manner, as they had previously done in some towns and villages of the brave Helvetii, cast among you, and in your city, the wicked seeds of discord, had turned the faithful people of Christ aside from the way of their fathers and ancestors, and from the perpetual sentiments of the Catholic Church, and filled all places with strife and sedition.
Another element in the letter demonstrates Sadolet’s rhetorical genius. As a practical illustration of the salvation of the soul he had been developing, the cardinal created an imaginary scene in which two different souls (one who kept himself faithful to the Church of Rome and other who had been an author of the Protestant dissension) were “placed before the dread tribunal of the Sovereign Judge” praying. The prayer of the faithful Catholic refers to obedience to the authority of the Church rooted in the tradition of the Fathers, even when witnessing the many errors practiced by her. On the other hand, the prayer of the reformer, as described by Sadolet, functioned as well as new accusations. Not satisfied with charging the Protestant leaders with innovation and schism, he depicted the reformer confessing other horrendous sins such as envy for the wealth of the clergy and anger because of the lack of intellectual recognition. These sins, declares the reformer in Sadolet’s illustration, were the incentive and the motive why he rebelled against the church, used the knowledge acquired in her schools to rob innocent sheep from its pasture, induced laymen to question the authority of the church and took advantage of the deceived people to became rich. In addition to all this terrible things the reformer is also a liar (even before the holy judgment) for Sadolet’s affirms that during his prayer the rebel “kept back much concerning his ambition, avarice, love of popular applause, inward fraud and malice, of which he is perfectly conscious and which will appear inscribed in his forehead.”
Sadolet did not employ strong theological arguments and biblical exegesis to combat the Protestant heresy. There are very few citations from the Bible throughout the letter, and the few of them which appear in the text are undocumented. It is impossible to check if Sadolet was quoting the Scriptures faithfully or not. On the other hand he made some statements concerning the Scriptures and the work of Christ that would resemble those of the reformers. Merle d’Aubigne affirmed that in such moments Sadolet was almost making an “evangelical profession” and he explained that the cardinal “belonged, as is known, to a small body of men feebly inclined towards the Gospel, who were at that time supported by the papacy in the hope that they would be the means of bringing back the Protestants.” But even holding such admirable positions, he was always quick to defend the erroneous positions of the Catholic Church concerning the Eucharist (transubstantiation) and the worship of the body of Christ in it; the practice of auricular confession and prayers for the dead; and the mediation of the saints.
The cardinal’s confidence in affirming all these beliefs as correct and above reproach seems to be due to his own belief in the supreme authority of the Church. In his mind, it is impossible for her to do anything wrong, and even if it were possible, those following her instruction would not be accounted as guilty because of the intention of their hearts. Concerning this thought, Sadolet presented no scriptural proof.
Is it not certain, that he who followed the Catholic Church will not be judged guilty of any error in this respect? First, Because the Church errs not, and even cannot err, since the Holy Spirit constantly guides her public and universal decrees and Councils. Secondly, Even if she did err, or could have erred, (this, however, it is impious to say or believe,) no such error would be condemned in him who should, with a mind sincere and humble towards God, have followed the faith and authority of his ancestors.
Also worthy of notice is Sadolet’s explanation of what was for him (and for the Church of Rome) justification by faith. Although the cardinal repeatedly affirmed in the letter that his intention was not to make a theological debate, he dedicated significant part of the text to defend Catholic position and to attack the Reformed view. He affirmed that salvation is “by faith alone in God and in Jesus Christ” but he speedily definee faith as a mixture of credulity and obedience and concluded that one can be saved only by belief added to acts of love towards God.
For faith is a term of full and ample signification, and not only includes in it credulity and confidence, but also the hope and desire of obeying God, together with love, the head and mistress of all the virtues, as has been most clearly manifested to us in Christ, in which love the Holy Spirit, so also without love, nought of ours is pleasing and acceptable to God. When we say, then, that we can be saved by faith alone in God and Jesus Christ, we hold that in this very faith love is essentially comprehended as the chief and primary cause of our salvation.
In such affirmation, Sadolet clearly set forth the soteriological difference brought by the reformers who preached, according to the Scriptures, that salvation is by faith alone, and that love for God and good works are necessary consequences of an already saved heart.
CALVIN’S ARGUMENTS AND SOUNDNESS OF HIS POSITIONS
The very first thing one can perceive in Calvin’s letter is his politeness and respect toward Sadolet. He gave the cardinal the tribute he deserved for his learning and for the eloquence and wit of the letter. This balanced behavior of the reformer was very important to the acceptance of the letter by the common people.
Calvin used some paragraphs to describe the reasons why he was responding to Sadolet. He explained that his intention was not to dispute in vain polemics and that, in fact, he was very reluctant in offering the cardinal opposition and did so “only under an imperative sense of duty.” In Calvin’s own words: “Every person now sees that the stronguest obligations of duty – obligations which I cannot evade – constrain me to meet your accusation, if I would not with manifest perfidy desert and betray a cause with which the Lord has entrusted me.”
A rhetorical observation on Calvin’s style worthy of observation is his intelligent use of irony and of his abilities as a lawyer. With much cleverness, the reformer was able to express the harshest ideas with softness and humor.
How heartless, I ask, would it be to wink in idleness, and, as it were, vacillating at the destruction of one whose life you are bound vigilantly to guard and preserve? But more on this point were superfluous, since you yourself relieve me of all difficulty. For if neighborhood, and that not very near, has weighed so much with you, that while wishing to profess your love towards the Genevese, you hesitate not so bitterly to assail me and my fame, it will, undoubtedly, by the law of humanity, be conceded to me, while desiring to consult for the public good of a city entrusted to me by a far stronger obligation than that of neighborhood, to oppose your counsels and endeavors, which I cannot doubt then to its destruction.
Calvin’s first step in the letter was to defend his honor and that of his companions. He answered with much humility and modesty the accusations of seeking for applause, fame, recognition and richness. He did so by explaining his former education and the certain privileges he would have had if he had chose to stay with the Catholic Church. He mentioned Farel and the “distinguished family” he came from, demonstrating that his friend had no financial need whatsoever. He described to Sadolet the great difference between the wealth of the Reformers and that of the Catholic clergy. He explained to the cardinal that, among other warnings and instructions concerning pastoral reward in the reformed churches, it was the Reformers who defended that “as much should be distributed to ministers as might suffice for a frugality befitting their order, not superabound for luxury, and that the rest should be dispensed according to the practice of the ancient Church.” Finally, he says, if what they were truly looking for fame, glory and money, they (Calvin and the other reformers) would have never engaged in the Protestant movement: “But not to go over a long catalogue, this I say, that of those who first engaged in this cause, there was none who with you might not have been in better place and fortune than require on such ground to look out to some new plan of life.”
In the sequel, Calvin answered the allegations of schism. He did so using Sadolet’s strategy of scaring the Genevese concerning the salvation of their souls and the assertion that it could only be found in the Catholic Church. “When you uttered this voluntary confession, you laid the foundation of my defence”, wrote the reformer. He corrected the cardinal’s definition of “church” and attacked the notion of Church authority rooted only in the Spirit of Christ and not in the Word of the Lord. Calvin dismantled this idea by citing the words of the apostle Paul, and he said “that the Church is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.” He used the church fathers, in this occasion Chrysostom, affirming he warned the church against this kind of dichotomy and instructed the church “to reject all who, under the pretence of the Spirit, lead us away from the simple doctrine of the Gospel.” Calvin’s final strike on this issue of the Spirit was his comparison between the Pope and the Anabaptists. “For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency certainly is to sink and bury the Word of God, that they may make room to their own falsehoods.” Also noteworthy is Calvin’s own definition of a true Church.
Now, if you can bear to receive a truer definition of the Church than your own, say, in future, that is the society of all the saints, a society which, spread over the whole world, and existing in all ages, yet bound together by the one doctrine, and the one Spirit of Christ, cultivates and observes unity of faith and brotherly concord. With this Church we deny that we have any disagreement. Nay, rather, as we revere her as our mother, so we desire to remain in her bosom.
Calvin next step was to respond to the accusation of novelty. He reminded Sadolet of the cardinal’s own affirmation concerning the antiquity of the church (1500 years) just to prove that the Reformed churches “agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours.” He challenged the cardinal to contemplate the Church as it was during the time of the great ancient Fathers and to compare it to the current state of Rome. The undeniable conclusion, according to Calvin, is that the Roman Church is just “the ruins of that Church, as now surviving among yourselves.” Now, in what do the Reformed Churches resemble and imitate the ancient Fathers? Calvin identified four different areas: doctrine, discipline, sacraments and ceremonies.
Concerning doctrine, he affirmed that the Protestant Churches follow the oracles of God and these not only clearly expressed in the Scriptures but also “embodied in the writings of the holy Fathers and approved by ancient Councils.” But about the Catholic Church he pointed out: “The truth of Prophetical and Evangelical doctrine, on which the church ought to be founded, has not only in a great measure perished in your Church, but is violently driven away by fire and sword.”
On the issue of discipline, Calvin first remarked about its total absence among Catholics, and he attributed to it the terrible state of that church. Then, he remarked with all fairness and honesty that, in the Reformed Churches, it is “not such as the ancient Church professed”, but he quickly added: “with what fairness is a charge of subverting discipline brought against us by those who themselves have utterly abolished it, and in our attempts to re-instate it in its rights have hitherto opposed us?”
Concerning the sacraments, the reformer declared he was only trying to bring them back to their former pure state, and of the ceremonies, which abounded in Catholic circles, he stated “we have in a great measure abolished…still we have retained those which seemed sufficient for the circumstances of the times.”
Calvin responded to all other statements of the cardinal concerning doctrinal issues also. On the Lord’s Supper he affirmed the refusal of the Reformed theologians to circumscribe Christ’s divine power and his essence to the limits of any corporal nature (as taught in the doctrine of transubstantiation), and he claimed his thought not be a novelty at all “since it was always held by the Chuch as an acknowledged point.” The doctrine of auricular confession he blamed on Pope Innocent III and called it as a “nefarious thing”. On the other hand he responded to it emphasizing the simplicity of the Reformed theology: “it was neither commanded by Christ, nor practiced by the ancient Church.” On the intercession of the saints he explained that all that they do now is to “continually pray for the completion of Christ’s kingdom” and that the practice by the Catholics brought only “superstitions which had risen to such a height, that the intercession of Christ was utterly erased from men’s thoughts.” Concerning the doctrines of purgatory and prayer for the dead, Calvin did not spare words to express his disapproval of them and to reveal their true use as a tool of avarice “in order to milk men of every class.”. He admitted about the latter that it was, seldom, practiced by the ancient churches. Not in the way the contemporary clergy was doing, but only as a demonstration of affection for the deceased.
Calvin’s most elaborate answer to Sadolet is on the doctrine of justification by faith. He first emphasized the importance of the doctrine: “wherever the knowledge of it is take away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.” He then directed Sadolet to examine man himself and, referring to Rom. 4:7, he concluded: “For Scripture everywhere cries aloud, that all are lost; and every man’s own conscience bitterly accuses him.” He, then, pointed the cardinal to Christ, to his righteousness and obedience which are the only thing which can “wipe off our transgressions” and he concluded: “We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father, by no merit of his own, by no value of works, but by gratuitous mercy.” On the role of good works in the life of a Christian, Calvin said: “We deny that good works have any share in justification, but we claim full authority for them in the lives of the righteous.” Craig Carpenter explains that Calvin’s position destroys the Roman dichotomy between Christ and his regenerative Spirit:
This passage articulates several significant points. For Calvin, but not for Rome, the presence of Christ cannot be separated from his Spirit. Because Rome gives the Spirit an assisting role in the regeneration/sanctification of the believer, which must occur prior to, and as a condition of, justification, the believer possesses the Holy Spirit and his benefits but may not possess Christ and his benefits. Trent, we have seen, agrees that “he who has obtained justification possesses Christ,” the first premise in Calvin’s argument. They balk, however, at the second premise, viz., that Christ and his righteousness are present where his indwelling and regenerating Spirit is. No point is more basic in Calvin’s conception of salvation than this.
The end of Calvin’s reply is marked by his own illustration of the two prayers in the holy day of judgment. The first one is the prayer of a reformer in which, as affirmed Merle d’Aubigne, “Calvin narrates his own conversion.” The second prayer is that of those who followed the reformers. It affirmed the necessity of believing in the pure truth of the Gospel and the crucial condition of the believer’s clean conscience before God, knowing by the due use of reason that what he believed is, in fact, the truth. Against Sadolet’s affirmation that, even believing in what is wrong, a Christian could appear before God without guilt, he stated in the prayer:
They told me, moreover, as a means of picking my conscience, that I could not safely connive at these things as if they concerned me not; that so far art thou from patronizing any voluntary error, that even he who is led astray by mere ignorance dos not err with impunity. This they proved by the testimony of thy Son, (Matth. xv.14) ‘If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch’.”
The soundness of Calvin’s arguments is evident: Scripture and Church history support them. By his great acquaintance with the Fathers he was always able to point back and to show the discrepancies between the church of his time and the ancient church. As Schaff explained: “he answers his assertions with facts and arguments. He destroys, like a cobweb, his beautiful picture of an ideal Catholicism by a description of the actual papacy of those days, with its abuses and corruptions, which were the real cause of the Reformation.” Through the knowledge of Scripture associated with the humanist method of scholarship, Calvin was able to achieve a hermeneutical practice which resounded that of the Fathers. As Calvin himself wrote to Sadolet: “Indeed, in attacking, breaking down and destroying your kingdom, we armed not only with the energy of the Divine Word, but with the aid of the holy Fathers also.”
EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT
The first consequence which Calvin’s response to Sadolet brought was the invitation to return to Geneva. It came on September 21, 1540, but was initially rejected by the reformed. Once again persuaded by Farel, “he agreed to return for a trial period of only six months – but providence ruled otherwise.” Calvin would return to Geneva and live there until his death and the city itself would remain faithful to the cause of the Reformation.
In the Protestant world, the letter caused great joy. Merle d’Aubigne affirmed: “Luther greatly rejoiced in it, and soon after its publication sent a ‘respectful’ greeting to Calvin…He expressed his joy that God raised up men like Calvin, and, far from looking on him as an antagonist, he saw in him a doctor who would continue what he had himself begun against Antichrist, and with God’s help would complete it.”
In recent years, George H. Tavard tried to trace the starting point of Calvin’s theology. Richard Muller wrote an essay-review of the book which sought to respond Tavard’s conclusion. Muller affirms Tavard to be an ecumenical theologian with strong bias toward Roman Catholicism and with serious problems in his method of historical analysis: “ When in Travard’s company, we are not, in short, in the presence of even a reasonably objective historiography. The purpose is apologetic and, albeit ecumenical in its declared intent, militantly Romanist in its fundamental intentions.”
Travard’s proposition is that, through the analysis of Calvin’s Psychopannychia and other early documents it is possible to identify Calvin’s moment of conversion and the rise of his interest in theology. Travard’s conclusion, according to Muller, is this:
From this alternative understanding of Psychopannychia and an examination of the first three and half chapters of the 1536 Institutes, Tavard proceeds to argue two distinct stages in Calvin’s conversion, first, a conversion in 1533 or 1534 to reformist sympathies in accord with “the old church and the medieval papacy” and second, a further conversion as late as 1535 to the more radical, antipapal Reform, involving a break with the Roman church.
According to Tavard’s theory, the Calvin of 1533 or 1534 embraced the patristic roots and also much of the Roman faith, including acceptance to the papacy, but the Calvin of 1535, the radical Calvin rejected both tradition and Catholicism and, thus, became an innovator. Muller explains that Travard’s problem resides in the inappropriate association between tradition (theology of the early Father) and Catholicism in the time of Reformation. In that historical period, Catholics, not Protestants, were the innovators.
Muller finds support for his claims in Calvin’s reply to Sadolet particularly when Calvin provided a definition of Church to the cardinal. In it he affirmed the return of the Reformed churches to the patristic roots, and he portraied the Roman pontiff in direct antagonism with the Fathers. In order to Tavard’s theory of double conversion be correct, this couldn’t be so! Muller explains, “the exchange with the humanist bishop of Carpentras, Jacopo Sadoleto, is of exceptional importance here inasmuch as it clearly contains all of the elements what Tavard identified as Calvin’s early but also entirely Catholic leanings...as Calvin’s response to Sadoleto indicates, Calvin did not associate catholicity or, indeed, the ‘faith and obedience of church’ with what he identified as the ‘yoke.’ the ‘power’ or the ‘tyranny of the Roman pontiff’.”
CONCLUSION
Calvin’s response to Sadolet continues to be as a memorial to the fight for Reform. It keeps resounding the great principles of historical Protestantism of Sola Sciptura and Sola-Fide and shows the great importance of the Church, and for the people of God scattered in the whole world the importance of apologetic endeavors. Calvin is a example to be followed in his writing strategy, in his use of Scripture, in his clear a straight style, in his passion for the kingdom of God and for his people.
On the other hand, Sadolet also teaches something. Despite his non biblical defense of Catholicism and attacks to the Reformation he made in his letter, there is a tiny part of it which still remains a valid criticism of Protestants. He said, “for already, since these men began, how many sects have torn the Church? Sects not agreeing with them, and yet disagreeing with each other – a manifest indication of falsehood, as all doctrines declares. Truth is always one, while falsehood is varied and multiform; that which is straight is simple, that which is crooked has many turns.” May the theologians of our days be aware of such criticism and may they seek union, even when they disagree on non-essential matters.
