CALVIN RECEIVES A COPY OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO.’

Frelon, the publisher of Lyons, whom we already know as the medium of communication between Villeneuve and Calvin in their correspondence, was probably by this time in the secret of the Spaniard. The friend of Calvin as well as intimate with Villeneuve, had he not already been confided in by the subject of our study, he must have been informed by Calvin who Michel Villeneuve really was. The correspondence had long ceased, but the intercourse between the Bookseller and the Reformer continued, and the ‘monthly parcel’ was still the vehicle for new books and literary gossip between Lyons and Geneva. By Frelon’s February dispatch of the year 1553, we therefore conclude that there went a copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ hot from the press, specially addressed to Monsieur Jehann Calvin, Minister of Geneva. That it was accompanied by a letter from Frelon we may also presume, giving in all innocency and confidence—little recking what use would be made of the information—those particulars connected with the printing of the work which Frelon must have had from Villeneuve, and which Calvin by and by imparted to the authorities of Lyons and Vienne.

Frelon may be supposed not yet to have read the ‘Christianismi Restitutio;’ but aware of Villeneuve’s appreciation of the Church of Rome, and trusting to the author’s own account of his work as especially hostile to the papacy, he may have thought that it would not be otherwise than well received by Calvin. It is only with Frelon as go-between that we can account for the book having reached Calvin at the early date it did, and for the particular information he possessed concerning Arnoullet as the printer, and the precautions that had been taken to keep the world ignorant of what had been done. That there was no intention of betraying trust on Frelon’s part, we need not doubt; and still less, as we believe, need we question the fact that it was not only with the author’s consent, but by his express desire, that the first copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ sent abroad went to the Reformer.

Servetus himself could at this time have had as little idea, as Frelon, of the deadly hate with which Calvin was animated towards him. They had corresponded and differed, had quarrelled and called each other opprobrious names; but controversialists did so habitually, when they got heated; and the epithets then so freely bandied about were scarcely seriously meant, and hardly ever seriously taken: they were but the seasoning to the matter, nothing more. Servetus was in truth far too vain, and at the same time too much under the spell of Calvin, to leave him of all men else in ignorance of the important work of which he had just been happily delivered. With the earliest opportunity therefore that occurred, and before the book had been seen by another, as we believe, he sent a copy to Calvin, meaning it doubtless as a compliment—a return perhaps for the copy of the ‘Institutiones Religionis ChristianÆ’ we credit him with having received from its author.

It is not difficult to imagine the alarm that must at once have taken possession of Calvin’s mind when he saw the errors, the heresies, the blasphemies, as he regarded them, which in bygone years he had vainly sought to combat, now confided to the printed page and ready to be thrown broadcast on the world. And more than this: if his ire had been already roused by the strictly confidential correspondence to the extent of leading him to threaten the life of the writer, did occasion offer, what additional anger must now have entered into his heart, when, besides the offensive heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to task, publicly schooled, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines not only controverted, but proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them even as barring the gates of heaven against all who adopted them! What, too, on second thoughts, may have been his exultation when, in perusing the book, he found his enemy committing himself so egregiously in abusing the Papacy, and supplying evidence that would convict him at once of blasphemy against God and the Church, and, in sending him to the stake—as he foresaw it must in a Roman Catholic country—would rid the world at once of an agent of Satan, and a personal enemy!