But one day he was told of enormous and degrading sophisms. These teachers said to their followers: 'God has not placed in man a soul different from that of the beast. The soul is not a substance; it is only a quality of life, which proceeds from the throbbing of the arteries or the motion of the lungs. It cannot exist without the body, and perishes with it, until man rises again whole.'[29] Calvin was thunderstruck. To be a man and to rank yourself among beasts, seemed to him foolish and impious. 'O God!' he exclaimed, 'the conflagration has increased, and thrown out flakes which, spreading far and wide, have turned to burning torches.... O Lord, extinguish them, we pray thee, by that saving rain which thou reservest for thy Church!'[30]
It was this gross materialism which absorbed Calvin's attention at Angoulême. He saw the evil which these teachers might do the Reform, and shuddered at the thought of the dangers which threatened the simple. 'Poor reeds tossed by every wind,' he exclaimed, 'whom the slightest breath shakes and bends, what will become of you?'... Then addressing the materialists he said: 'When the Lord says that the wicked kill the body but cannot kill the soul, does he not mean that the soul survives after death?[31] Know you not that, according to Scripture, the souls of the saints stand before the throne of God, and that white robes were given unto every one of them?'[32] Then resorting to irony, he continued: 'Sleepy souls, what, I pray, do you understand by these white robes? Do you take them for pillows on which the souls recline that are condemned to die?'[33] This mode of arguing was not rare in the sixteenth century. Calvin, agitated by these errors, took up his pen, and committed to paper the reflections which he published shortly after.
Calvin loved to repose from these struggles on the bosom of friendship. In the society of Du Tillet at Angoulême he found once more the charms which that of Duchemin had procured for him at Orleans. All his life he sought that noble intercourse, those offices, those kindnesses which friendship procures.[34] Even when deep in study, he loved to see the library door open, a well-known face appear, and a friend sit down by his side. Their conversations had an inexpressible sweetness for him. 'We have no need,' said the young canon, 'of those secrets which Pythagoras employed to produce an indissoluble friendship between his disciples. God has planted a mysterious seed between our souls, and that seed cannot die.'[35]
[8] 'Adimere libertatem religionis, interdicere optionem divinitatis,' &c. Tertullianus, Apol. cap. xxiv.
[9] Athanasius, Hist. Arian. § 3.
[10] 'Quis autem optabilior ad te nuncius adferri poterat, aut nos ipsi quod felicius optare poteramus principium pontificatus tui, quam ut primis illis mensibus tetram illam caliginem, quasi exorto sole, discussam cerneremus?'—Mureti Orat. xxii.
[11] 'Cum promitterem mihi omnia tranquilla, aderat foribus quod minime sperabam.'—Letter to Francis Daniel.
[12] Calvin, Harmonie Evangélique.
[13] Calvin, Lettres Françaises, published by Jules Bonnet, i. p. 349.
[14] 'In agrum Santonicum demigrans.'—Beza, Vita Calvini.