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.