ohn McNeill, Ph.D.: "History and Character of Calvinism:" Ch.6-Young Cal...
1.
Young
Calvin, 93-106. On our view, about 99% of the views of Calvin expressed these
days are just plain ignorant. Been reading him since age 18. Calvin was a
serious minded, well-adjusted, well-educated scholar, mature when young. A new
story: a rumor was heard that Calvin had passed in 1551 and the Cathedral of
Noyon had a processional celebration of the death—um, 13 years too soon. A
brief discussion of the family ancestry is offered on the Noyon family.
Stipendiary benefices supported the young Calvin at the University of Paris as
an entrant in 1523 at age 14. Paris was hearing of the Luther-problem and Latin
works were there. Francis 1 had a united nation and royal prerogatives with a
tame Parlement—bishoprics were handed out by Francis in accord with the
Pragmatic Solution—this creates preferment-seekers, then, like now. Calvin was
trained with sons of the aristocracy and there were long-lasting connections,
contrary to the popular nonsense that Calvin was an anti-social creature. The
fiction of him being called the “accusative case” was a 1633 fiction of a
libeler; to the contrary, men wept openly when Calvin passed in 1564. Men be
hating God’s absolute majesty and sovereignty, then, like now. Faber
Stapulensis is laying the groundwork for humanism we are told. Calvin went to Orleans
to study law and “was now wholly immersed in legal studies (101). Calvin enjoyed
the company of notables: Alciati, Wolman, Etoile, Bude, Danes, Vatable, and Duchemin.
But, Calvin’s passion was not law but “languages, literatures, and cultures of antiquity
(102). Calvin received the doctorate in law at Orleans by Jan. 1532. He was working
on his commentary on “Lucius Anneas Seneca’s Two Books of Clemency published
in Paris, 4 Apr 1532, a plea for clemency and moderation in rulers. Prof. McNeill
sees it as an “ambitious contribution to political ethics” (102). Religion, thus
far, appears to not have been significant or central, yet, by this time there had
been the Augsburg Diet of 1530, the formation of the Schmalkald League of Protestants,
the Swiss Civil War, the deaths of Zwingli and Oecolamadius, and Francis 1’s support
of Protestants against the Pope and Emperor while oppressing Protestants in France.
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