The synod, having heard both parties and maturely considered the matter, acknowledged the confession of the Genevese ministers to be good and orthodox; and they condemned Caroli, and declared him henceforth unworthy to fulfil the functions of the ministry. ‘We have, by our refutation,’ said Calvin, ‘exhausted all that bag of Caroli’s;[522] with regard to ourselves there now remains not the slightest suspicion.’ Caroli appealed from the sentence of the synod to the lords of Berne. Who was right? Who was wrong? Calvin or Caroli? Judgments have differed on the point. Some have said, ‘The denunciation by Caroli was not altogether unfounded; it is no wonder that he declared himself dissatisfied and maintained his charge.’ Others have added that Calvin fell on his adversary with a violence which made the assembly tremble, and which afforded the first instance of that fearful anger with which so often afterwards he struck down those who were against him.[523] This is not our opinion. As to his expressions, Calvin’s defence is not so terrible, so passionate, if we call to mind the sort of man with whom he had to deal; and as for the hardest words of the reformer, they are, as we have seen, two which he adopted from the Saviour himself. As to the substance of the defence, he would not bring forward, as Roman Catholics do, human authorities; he preferred to hold fast to the Word of God. That is his chief glory, and therein does he show himself a genuine reformer, as Luther did. His adversary was an immoral character, and the Reformation would make no covenant with immorality. Who would blame him for that? Calvin could not consent that a dissolute man, whose hand was stained with the blood of the saints, should pass for an Athanasius, one of the noblest of the ancient doctors of the Church. He was, above all, profoundly afflicted by the thought that the blow struck by that man was shaking the foundations of the spiritual building which was being erected to the glory of God.
These debates made a great noise in other lands. All kinds of rumors were current at a distance, and evil reports were circulated about the Genevese reformers. People were asking one another what this contest between Caroli and Calvin was about, and they waited impatiently for the issue of it. French vivacity had been offensive to some theologians of German Switzerland. Megander himself complained to Bullinger of the annoyance which those turbulent Frenchmen had caused him.[524] People, however, were as easily agitated in German Switzerland, and even in the land of Luther. Some Catholics began to attach importance to these struggles, and to take advantage of them. Letters were exchanged on the subject. Bucer and Capito wrote from Strasburg, the former to Melanchthon, the latter to Farel; and Myconius wrote from Basel to the assembly itself. This must needs invest with more solemnity the judgment on the appeal which was about to be heard at Berne.
‘On May 24, Guillaume Farel requested of the council of Geneva to send to that city Master Cauvin (Calvin) for any battle (journée) there was to be, to take part in the disputation. Upon which it was resolved that he should go.’[525] Berne had shown a certain favor towards Caroli. It might therefore be feared that the judgment pronounced at Lausanne would not be confirmed. We cannot tell what the sentence would have been if it had been pronounced by the state authorities. But the council, finding that it was a question of doctrine, had convoked at Berne the synod of the Bernese Church for the end of May. The debate was opened in the presence of the great council, which doubtless took part so far in the cause. The would-be Athanasius supported his charge with confidence and a haughty spirit, assuming to play in the sixteenth century the part which the great bishop of Alexandria had played in the fourth. Calvin completely justified both himself and his colleagues. Consequently the reformer was once more entirely acquitted, and declared free not only from all fault but also from all suspicion. As for Caroli, he was pronounced a slanderer, and as such condemned.
CONDEMNATION OF CAROLI.
When that was over, the lords of Berne inquired of Calvin, Farel, and Viret whether Caroli was, so far as they knew, guilty in any respect, either in his private life or especially in his ministry. As soon as he heard these words, the doctor of the Sorbonne, seeing that his own turn was come, was terror-struck, and vehemently opposed the inquiry. ‘Those whom I have just accused of great crimes,’ said he, ‘cannot be allowed to bring formal charges against me.’ ‘You have indeed accused them,’ replied the Bernese, ‘and without being able to substantiate your charges. Why then should they not be allowed to accuse you?’ And the doctors were enjoined to communicate anything they knew with regard to him. Thereupon this man, who had no heart, no moral sentiment, was disconcerted; and as he dreaded above all the revelations of his adversaries, he fancied that the best way to avert them was to accuse himself. He began therefore to confess the faults with which he knew that Farel and his friends were well acquainted—the debaucheries to which he had addicted himself in France, the meanness with which he had dissembled his sentiments in matters of religion, and the cruel perfidy which had prompted him to deliver to death two young Christians whose way of thinking he himself approved. It was a strange sight! Here was a singular penitent, without repentance and without scruple, assuming a contrite air and confessing his faults solely because he hoped in that way to secure exemption from punishment. ‘A devil’s penitent!’ said Tertullian in such cases.
Farel had let him speak; nevertheless he did not think that he was thereby discharged from the injunction which had been given him. He was acquainted with certain traits of Caroli’s life which might give the lords of Berne the intelligence of which they were in need. He narrated the shameful licentiousness of the man, who had lived at Paris with women of the vilest reputation, and had actually been accused of keeping five or six at a time. He showed how two young men, carried away by their zeal against images, had taken it into their heads to hang some of them; and how that same Caroli, who at that time professed that the worship of images diverts men from the knowledge of the true God, had caused these youths to be kept in the prison into which they had been cast until two judges arrived, who had them delivered over to the executioners. Viret related the discussion which he had held with Caroli on the subject of prayers for the dead; and, at the request of the Bernese, reported various details of his conduct, among others his drunkenness, which had more than once exposed him to the derision of the public.
BERNE PROMOTES THE REFORMATION.
In consequence of these debates, Caroli was deprived of his functions by the synod. The great council of Berne confirmed this sentence; pronounced Farel, Calvin, and Viret innocent of the charges brought against them; condemned Caroli to banishment as guilty of slander and other excesses; and remitted the cause to the consistory to be formally terminated. As the presumptuous doctor was unwilling to submit to that authority, the parties were summoned before the civil magistrates (avoyers) and the councils. Calvin, Farel, and Viret accordingly presented themselves, June 6, but Caroli did not appear. An usher, sent by the lords of Berne to seek him, brought word that he had disappeared.[526] He had in fact fled early in the morning, and had taken the road to Soleure. From that place he withdrew into France, to the cardinal of Tournon, the great enemy of the Reformation. The latter obtained absolution for Caroli from the pope. The wretched man had hoped that, by returning into the Roman Church, he should get a good benefice; but he found that he was held in equal contempt by Catholics and Protestants. To close the affair, it was agreed to approve the terms Trinity, substance, and persons (Calvin himself had made use of them); but at the same time that if any pious man declined to employ them, ‘he should not be cast out of the Church, nor should be looked on as one who thought wrongly as to the faith.’[527]
This episode in Calvin’s life shows us not only his firm attachment to the truth, which everyone acknowledges, but likewise a spirit of freedom which is ordinarily denied to him. It is clear that with him the Word of God stood before all, and that the faith, the life, and essence of Christianity had more value in his eyes than mere traditional terms, which are not to be found in the Scriptures.