[898] Olivétan. Introduction to his French translation of the Bible. Fol. Neuchatel, 1535.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PARDON OF ROME AND THE PARDON OF HEAVEN.
(June and July 1532.)
OLIVÉTAN'S teaching had not been fruitless. There occurred erelong an evangelical manifestation in Geneva, which was an important step, and the first public act of Reform. Calvin's cousin may have been the instrument, though Clement VII. was the proximate cause.
=THE JUBILEE.=
The pope was preparing at that time to publish, not a local pardon like that of St. Claire, but a universal jubilee. It was the general topic of conversation in many places, and some told how it had originated. 'On the eve of the new year, 1300,' said a scholar, jeeringly, 'a report spread suddenly through Rome (no one knew from whence it came) that a plenary indulgence would be granted to all who should go next morning to St. Peter's. A great crowd of Romans and foreigners hurried there, and in the midst of the multitude was an aged man who, stooping and leaning on his staff, wished also to take part in the festival. He was a hundred and seven years old, people said. He was conducted to the pope, the proud and daring Boniface VIII. The old man told him how, a century before, an indulgence of a hundred years had been granted on account of the jubilee; he remembered it well, he said. Boniface, taking advantage of the declaration of this man, whose mind was weakened by age, decreed that there should be a plenary indulgence every hundred years.'[899] The great gains which were made out of it, led to the jubilee being appointed to be held successively every fifty years, thirty-three years, and twenty-five years. But the jubilee of the twenty-fifth year did not always hinder that of the thirty-third.[900]
At Geneva people were already beginning to talk much about the coming jubilee. Olivétan and his friends were scandalised at it. The heart of this just and upright man was distressed at seeing the pardon of God set aside in favour of a festival of human invention, in which, in order to obtain remission of sins, it was necessary to frequent the churches during a fixed number of days, and perform certain works, and whose surest effect was a large increase to the revenues of the pope. The schoolmaster maintained that if any one sought to find repose of conscience in such inventions, he would waste his time; his heart would be lulled to sleep in forgetfulness of God, or be full of fear and trembling until it had found repose in Jesus Christ. 'Christ alone is our peace,' he said, 'and alone gives our conscience the assurance that God is appeased and reconciled with it.'
Men's minds were soon in a great ferment in Geneva. People met and talked about it in the streets, and everywhere began to murmur. 'A fine tariff is the pope's!' said the more decided of the huguenots. 'Do you want an indulgence for a false oath? Pay 29 livres 5 sols. Do you want an indulgence for murder? A man's life is cheaper; a murder will only cost you 15 livres 2 sols 6 deniers.' They added, 'that the pretended treasury of indulgences, from which the pope took the wares he sold to every comer, was an invention of the devil.'
=ENCROACHMENTS OF THE CLERGY.=
It was thus that the christians, whom preceding ages had kept down, began to reappear in the Church. The lay spirit was manifested in Geneva. Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, one of the most determined huguenots, had frequent conversations with other good Lutherans, all of whom complained of the domineering spirit of the clergy, who had monopolised everything. Such complaints were, however, universal throughout christendom. In the earliest times, said the people, the priests began by confiscating the rights of the laity; and erelong these shepherds had nothing but silly sheep under their crooks.... But while the priests were engrossed in this work, another was going on behind their backs which they did not observe. The bishops did to the priests what the priests had done to the laity; and when the inferior functionaries of the Church had succeeded in catching the flocks in their trap, they found in their turn that they had fallen into the bishops' pitfall. At the Council of Cologne (A.D. 346) there were ten priests, presbyters, or elders, in addition to the fourteen bishops; but that was the last time. At the Councils of Poitiers, Vaison, Paris, and Valence (all held in the latter half of the fourth century), none but bishops were present. Subsequently, indeed, a delegated priest was found in three councils; but at last this single priest was politely dismissed. While the bishops were busied with this conquest, another was going on; and they had no sooner confiscated the rights of the priests (as the priests had confiscated those of the laity), than they found their own confiscated by the pope. All rights had come to an end. Flocks, priests, bishops—all had lost their liberty. The pope was the Church. One monster had swallowed the other, to be swallowed in its turn. Nothing is more sad, nothing more disastrous, than this tragic history. Quod des devorat.[901] The Romish hierarchy devours everything that is given to it. The Reformation was to restore that christian society which the clerical society had put out of sight.