[708] This letter will be found in Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. p. 489.
[709] See above, vol. i. p. 228.
[710] Archives de Genève. Lettre de Pierre de la Baume aux syndics, du 24 janvier 1527.
[711] Registres du Conseil de décembre 1526, de janvier et avril 1527. Roset MS. bk. ii. ch. v. Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. pp. 264, 437, 439, 440. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. pp. 452-454. Mém. d'Archéologie, ii. p. 11. La Sœur de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme.
CHAPTER II.
THE GOSPEL AT GENEVA, AND THE SACK OF ROME.
(January to June 1527.)
THE bishop was about to have enemies more formidable than the duke and the League. The Reformation was approaching. There is a characteristic trait in the history of Geneva; the several surrounding countries were by turns to scatter the seeds of life in that city; in it was to be heard a concert of voices from France, Italy, and German Switzerland. It was the last of these that began.
=LAYMEN AND CLERGY.=
At the time when treason was expelled from the city in the person of Cartelier, the Gospel entered it in that of an honest Helvetian, one of the Bernese and Friburg deputies who went there in 1527 about the affairs of the alliance concluded in 1526. Friburg would not have permitted a heretic preacher to accompany the deputation; even Berne would not have desired it just yet; but one of the Bernese ambassadors, a pious layman, who was coming to give a valuable support to national independence, was to call the Genevese to spiritual liberty. The lay members of the Church occupied in the time of the apostles, as is well known, a marked station in the religious community;[712] but by degrees the dominion of the clergy had been substituted for evangelical liberty. One of the principal causes of this revolution was the inferiority of the laity; for many centuries ecclesiastics were the only educated men. But if this state of things should change, if the laity should attain to more knowledge and more energy than the clergy, a new revolution would be effected in an opposite direction. And this is really what happened in the sixteenth century. The christian layman who then arrived at Geneva was Thomas ab Hofen, a friend of Zwingle, whom we have already mentioned.[713] In the year 1524 he had declared at Berne in favour of the Reformation. The Zurich doctor, hearing of his departure for the shores of Lake Leman, was rejoiced, for the piercing eye of his faith had fancied it could perceive a ray of evangelical light breaking over those distant hills. He desired that the Genevans, now united to Switzerland, should find in her not only liberty but truth. 'Undoubtedly,' wrote Zwingle to the excellent Bernese, 'undoubtedly this mission may be of extraordinary advantage to the citizens of Geneva, who have been so recently received into alliance with the cantons.'[714]
Ab Hofen did not go to Geneva with the intention of reforming it; his mission was diplomatic; but he was one of that 'chosen generation' of whom St. Peter speaks—one of those christians who are always ready to 'show forth the praises of Him who has called them to his marvellous light.'[715] As he entered the city, he said to himself that he would do with earnestness whatever work God might set before him, as his Zurich friend had prayed him. Simple-minded, moderate, and sensitive, Ab Hofen placed the kingdom of heaven above the things of the earth; but he was subject to fits of melancholy, which occasionally made him faint-hearted. When he arrived at Geneva, he visited many citizens, attended the churches and the meetings of the people, and, having reflected upon everything, he thought to himself that there was much patriotism in the city, but unfortunately little christianity, and that religion was the weak side of Genevan emancipation. He was distressed, for he had expected better things. With a heart overflowing with sorrow he returned to his inn (17th of January, 1527), and feeling the necessity of unburdening himself on the bosom of a friend, he sat down and wrote to the great reformer of Zurich: 'The number of those who confess the doctrine of the Gospel must be increased.'[716] There were, therefore, at this time in Geneva christians who confessed salvation by Jesus Christ, and not by the ceremonies of the Church; but their number was not large.