Was it Calvin who saved the Waldensians?

Was it Calvin who saved the Waldensians from extinction?

I have too meager a knowledge of the Reformation during Calvin's second Geneve experience to say, but that was the impression I got.

Can anybody supply me with more - or perhaps better - information in this regard?

Appreciated!
Gerhard Ebersoehn

 

GE:

One thing for sure is that it was not too late. Another thing for sure is that Calvin did have at least talks with some Waldensians. certain too is that some fled the inquisitions to Geneve. Or the books I read are wrong, or in the last analysis, I read them wrong. But I don't think I have.

 

Eliyahoo:

"He was a Pope of Geneve and under his reign 58 were sentenced to death. Some of them were true believers who refused the Infant Baptism telling Calvin that only the person who can confess the faith can be baptized, then Calvin ordered her to be burnt."

GE:

It's not true. You are misled and have't read the other side -- where 'other sides' exist, e.g. in the case of Servetus.

Calvin On Trial!​

Within the space of a few lines Professor Samuele Bacchiocchi "as Church historian" in his Endtime-Issues, puts Calvin to the stand and finds him guilty of "the fires kindled by the atrocity of that execution (of Servetus)", the "greenwood and sulphur to better re-enact the destructive smoke and fire of hell", "still burning and casting their lurid sparks into the religious intolerance of Calvin".
Judges Bacchiocchi, "Calvin stands out among the Reformers as the most embarrassing example of religious intolerance. The role that Calvin played in the trial, condemnation, and execution of Servetus – a brilliant scientist of the time who espoused a unitarian view of God – has tarnished Calvin’s image to this very day."
"Servetus was caught by the Geneva police one night while he was travelling through the city in a disguised way on his way to Italy to practice medicine. Because Servetus refused to renounce his unitarian view of God and to accept the trinatarian view, he was burned to death at Champel on the 27th of October, 1553 … Calvin was primarily responsible for this execution, because he presided over the whole trial."
"It is hard for me to believe that a man like Calvin who wanted to make Geneva a haven for the religious oppressed, could be so intolerant toward a renowned scientist who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, to have him executed in a most cruel way." (The culprit is made the hero!)
Bacchiocchi’s allegations are not only unfair – they are horribly incorrect and slanderous – and certainly unforgivable for the summa cum lauda and medalled "Church historian" with “sixteen books authored” by him.
"Calvin … wanted to make Geneva a haven for the religious oppressed", says Bacchiocchi as though Calvin’s was mere Pharisaic boasting contradicted by "the cold heartlessness in which (he as a "church leader") suppressed dissenters". "Calvin stands out among the Reformers as the most embarrassing example of religious intolerance."
But Calvin remained the true friend of Melancheton, and translated his Loci Theologici despite the fact that Melancheton "on more than one point, disagreed with Calvin’s own thought. …(Calvin) even … wrote a eulogistic preface. … With openness of spirit he combined patience."
"A very big part of (Calvin’s) time and his warmest love was extended to the imprisoned and to the companions in the faith who were threatened with death" (Kolfhaus, Die Seelsorge Johannes Calvins, p. 88) "Calvin was a pastor and councelor for martyrs! This is one light in which he is too little known. However, perhaps this facet of his career reveals the genuine depth of his life and is the clearest illustration of his piety." (Benoit, Calvin, p. 61) "It is in his attitude toward captives and martyrs that the Reformer shows the full measure of his humanness." (R. Stauffer, The Humanness of John Calvin, p. 90)
So, Servetus wasn’t the poor "dissenter", victim of Calvin’s "cold heartlessness".
"American politicians, including President Bush, have been misled to believe that Islam is (a) tolerant and peaceful religion", writes Bacchiocchi. Now the Councils of the City-States of the time in which the Servetus case played off, including Calvin, were wiser, and were not misled like the "American politicians"! The Councils (Governments of State) clearly perceived the dangers of monotheistic enthusiasm. Servetus’ crime was contravention of State Law and sowing the seed of enmity against the State and law and order. The Church (Not only Calvin) judged the fanaticism of Servetus a heresy, the heresy of denying the divinity of Christ and sowing the seed of enmity against the Faith, its People and its Lord. In countries Protestant and Roman Catholic this crime, for this reason, was punished by death.
The law by which Servetus was condemned had been made long before his own life time. It came onto the statute books some indeterminable but short time after the Islamic invasions of Western Europe. It was meant to prevent the very evil which civilisation today experiences – the scourge of Islamic "terrorism"!
Servetus wasn’t simply another doubter. He was the "brilliant / renowned scientist" (Bacchiocchi), "and also a theologian of considerable ability" (Johnson) – the most active propagator of his enthusiasm that carried within it the danger of subverting State and Church. So Servetus was tried, found guilty, condemned to death, and imprisoned. (One Mohammed and his Muslims had been enough.) It happened in Vienne, by court of law. Calvin had nothing to do with any of the proceedings.
Servetus escaped prison in Vienne and headed for Italy – not "to practice medicine" as Bacchiocchi alleges, but – to hide from the law, and where he certainly planned to further his own religious cause by whatever underground means. On route to Italy in Geneva Servetus went to church, not to worship, but to get by unnoticed. Unfortunately for him he was recognised. Two men reported his presence in the city to Calvin. The Councils were alerted. Servetus was arrested the same day.

 

Was Calvin to tell the reporters, Be quiet, let the man go? Then Calvin would have been branded the great Judas of Protestantism instead of the great persecutor of "dissenters"!
Like democracy today, the Christian religion at the time formed the basis for criminal law and civil government. Vienne already had Servetus executed symbolically. His effigy, a straw puppet, was burned. Because apprehended in Geneva, Servetus now was the responsibility of that leading Roman Catholic City-State. The ecclesiastical tribune of Vienne nevertheless requested that Servetus should be sent back, but Geneva’s Councils felt obliged to try Servetus themselves. Servetus was to be removed from society … by death.
"The trial, which therefor took place in Geneva, was a lengthy one. Sometimes, by order of the Council, the evidence for prosecution and defence was in writing … Sometimes there was a face-to-face confrontation, with wordy battles. Servetus was very abusive. He did not expect to be sentenced to death, and felt very sure of himself. Seeing that the Libertines – loose living men – had once more gained power in Geneva, and were plotting Calvin’s downfall, the Spaniard was counting on their help. However, the Little Council decided to ask advice of Bern, Zurich, Basle, and Schaffhausen, and when the replies came in, it was seen that each of the four Swiss cities denounced Servetus as a heretic and blasphemer, harmful to the Church. … Michael Servetus was found guilty, and was sentenced to death by burning. Calvin implored the Council to substitute death by axe, as being swifter and more merciful, but his request was brushed aside, and the condemned man was burned at the stake, on the hill called Champel on October 27th, 1553.
If Servetus had been put to death at Rome or Vienna, most probably the sad event would have been forgotten within a comparatively short time. That a man should be put to death in the Protestant city of Geneva, came as a shock, and called forth a storm of criticism and controversy. Time itself has not removed the stain which this left on Calvin’s reputation. But Calvin lived in an age when heresy was everywhere regarded as a crime to be punished by the State, and in the matter of Servetus, the Government of Geneva, and Calvin himself, acted according to the laws of that age. In the standard civil law-book, it stated clearly that for the crime of denying the Trinity, the penalty was death." (E.M. Johnson, The Man of Geneva, BTT 1977 Chapter 11.)
Bacchiocchi the Church historian doesn’t know these things? He says nothing of the fact that six Governments found Servetus guilty of a crime punishable by death? He mentions not Calvin’s plea for a more humane method of execution but makes him the sole sadist of the occasion? Bacchiocchi the Church historian doesn’t know the Council employed Calvin – that he was responsible to the Council in the trial of Servetus in his capacity of state-lawyer? Bacchiocchi the Church historian didn’t know Calvin had to provide laws on every imaginable aspect of life, like building and sanitary regulations … approved or rejected by the Government of the day? (Which incidentally, at the time was in the hands of the Libertines and not in the hands of Calvin or the Church) Bacchiocchi doesn’t know? I don’t think so. I think Bacchiocchi the Professor knows very well but loves to be the cruel executioner of Calvin the Calvinist for his "roots" and "teachings" – the doctrines of free grace and God’s sovereignty and predestination.
So far for Bacchiocchi "as Church historian".
Says Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditations, A Collection by Otto Dudzus, from an Afrikaans translation of the German by Leo van der Westhuizen, Tafelberg Uitgewers, ISBN 0 624 01238 7, p. 65/66, The Hazardous Undertaking of Responsible Act, "Responsible man acts … in the gloaming of the relativity that extends the historic situation over good and bad; it happens in the midst of innumerable perspectives that surround every given. It should not by the act simply be distinguished between right and wrong, good and bad, but between justice and justice, between injustice and injustice. Justice struggles with justice, Aischulos said. Precisely therein responsibility is a free enterprise – no law justifies it, no valid self-justification, no ready-made finality. The good as responsibility happens without knowing about the good, in the surrendering of the inevitable yet free deed to God who sees the heart, weighs the deed and guides history. Herein opens to us the deep secret of history. This man who in the freedom of his very own responsibility acts, sees his act flowing into the dispensation of God. Free act eventually sees itself as act of God, free decision sees itself as divine guidance, option as divine necessity. In the free surrendering of the knowledge about the own good and justice, occurs the good of God. Only in this last perspective is it possible to speak of the good in the historic act."

 

Who would not allow the truth of this Meditation in the case of Calvin versus Servetus?
Now for Bacchiocchi as Church theologian …
He argues that "monotheistic religions tend to be more intolerant"; that the "problem" of "intolerance" is the reason of "terrorism" – the killing of the innocent and defenceless. "Which means", says Bacchiocchi, that the "problem (of terrorism) cannot be resolved without first striking at its roots by exposing the immorality, shamefulness, and senselessness of its teachings".
Bacchiocchi blames Islam’s "intolerance" on its "monotheistic nature" and "monotheistic view of God" – which, Bacchiocchi says, is also the "nature" of Christianity and its "view of God". According to Bacchiocchi the "nature" of its "religion" and "view of God" is the reason also for the "intolerance" of Christianity! By final analysis then, Christianity’s "monotheistic nature" should bear the blame for Calvin’s "intolerance". But Servetus’ "unitarian view of God" made of him a martyr!
"Monotheistic religions" – i.e., all of them –teach "that there is only one true God". "Christians … accept … people of all religions … Moslem, Jews, Buddists, Hindus, as children of the same God, equally important in His sight." For Bacchiocchi, only "religions" are different – the "God", is "the same". "There is only one true God, which for Moslems is Allah". Muslims have the "right" to so believe, says he.
Now Christianity is neither "monotheistic" nor "unitarian"; it is "trinitarian". Christianity doesn’t believe in any "theism" or "deism"; it believes "in God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit". If the confession of Christianity is not of a Faith in Jesus Christ for being God, and in God for being Jesus Christ, it isn’t Christian; it isn’t Faith! Not the concepts or conceptionalisations of these two "gods", God and Allah, are comparable – how much less their beings. Christianity for this reason is the natural enemy of Islam. Hate in fact – hate for the Christian Faith and the God of the Christian Faith – gendered Islam.
Jesus – nobody or nothing else, least of all Bacchiocchi’s Seventh-Day Adventist "worldwide educational program … exposing the immorality of religious intolerance and promoting the right of all people", is the answer to the threat of Islam and its pietism. Many programs such as Bacchiocchi’s have been going on for centuries – in fact for as long as Christianity has existed and invariably have resulted in "accepting Moslem, Jews, Buddists, Hindus, and people of all religions, as children of the same God, equally important in His sight."
‘Programs’ like this equate not the "children", but the many gods. How could the Christian ever "practice" a "Fatherhood of God" that is brought down to the level of "the brotherhood of man"? "We", Christians, have already denied and surrendered Christian Faith and our duty when "we accept people of all religions as children of God". Because the truth is "people of all religions" are not the children of God, but of different faiths, of different gods and of different destiny. Therefore, o Christian, "Throw out the Lifeline" the Good News of Jesus Christ – there are many drowning and "few are chosen"!
Either Christian Faith is believed for its Judgement, its Offence and Stumbling Block and Odour unto Death or Odour unto Life or not at all! No "worldwide educational program … exposing the immorality of religious intolerance and promoting the right of all people" could substitute the "power of God which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead" – the "Name far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named". Indeed, "there is no other Name given under men under the sun" through Whom man shall be saved, or, be lost!
I recently attended a Bible Study where the issue was raised whether a sincere and devoted Moslem could be saved without Jesus Christ – whether only believers in Jesus Christ will be saved. I am sorry to report the whole (and large) congregation sat there dumb! Then to kill the uneasy silence one "experienced" was asked to say something. He must at least ten times have explained how difficult it is to explain the difficulty; also that there is no clear cut Scripture to tell; that one man’s devotion is as deserving as another’s, etc. Nobody in that church dared to answer the challenge of their Faith.
There is no salvation in monotheism or with the Allah of Islam. Islam has no respect for life because it has no respect for Jesus Christ the Source of life – "the only true God and Saviour" of His own and favoured Elect!

 

GE:

You have it the wrong way round, Eliyahu. Calvin did not burn Servetus. Calvin had no right to execute him!
And Servetus did not 'plea' Calvin to save him - it was Calvin who pleaded with the Council to save Servetus, but the Council would not accept! Calvin did not have the authority to release or execute Servetus or any of the 'victims'.
Calvin did NOT choose to kill Servetus just because he opposed his faith. I have explained it in my previous post. And so is there an answer to every of Calvin's enemies' favourite - and false - accusations.
Calvin was a man of God, and the day of judgement shall confirm what his works and life already have proven.

 

Eliyahu:

"I have a book written by Calvin translated into English, "Institutes of Christian Religion" which is so famous among Presbyterians.
The book contains a lot of theory which is unbiblical very much.
Have you ever read it? I am not misled by anything else than his own book."

GE:

Yes, I have it, in English and in superb translation into Afrikaans (from the Latin). I treasure the book as a manifesto of the Reformation above any rival to the title. Yet I also have my disagreements with Calvin's Constitutions. It gives me no reason or right to judge Calvin though.
of some parts (obviously) of the oevre I have made thorough study. What struck me most in it is Calvin's honesty.

 

hear me! Calvin's constitutions! Pardon, 'Institutes' of course!

 

correction to yet another mistake of mine, please:

"who pleaded with the Council to save Servetus". Calvin pleaded for a more humane way of exection. He went with the Council as far as the death sentence was concerned.

 

All this about Calvin's character or misdeeds haven't brought any facts to light concerning my original request to more information. It seems nobody has any, or my conjecture is wrong. But for wrong I shall only accept it when proven so.

 

GE:

You have said it in true Christian spirit!
But it raises the question to me, is it in every case a sin to tkae the life of the wicked?
If . . . the Roman Catholic Church did its duty properly and killed Mohammed, would we have had the terror and blaspheming of Islam today? Would it be necessary to kill many through warfare?