Posted on 06/26/2010 10:46:26 AM PDT by Natural Law
Do Protestants think Calvin was a modern prophet?
Ooooh boy. That's gonna leave a mark.
This might give some people a hint of the motivation and malice for making such information public if it were true. It also brings into question the honesty. I am not a follower of Calvin but I wonder if he, as a former Catholic, experienced any form of abuse from his own priests. It sounds par for the course to blame the victim, that part hasn't changed much. But we do know it "takes two to tango",so they say. I wonder who was his "partner" in this henious act since he was a teenager when it supposedly happened?
One lesson I remember from the nuns is, "Clean off your own doorstep before you try to clean off someone else's.".
They'll not have been doing it as long, as frequently or as energetically as their Catholic brethren, if so.
Your thread and posts are slanderous, crude fiction. The lie is so preposterous you capitalize it! lol.
It's a mark of Calvin's integrity that papists become so enraged by the mere mention of his name. They loathe everything he stood for -- Scriptural truth, Biblical inerrancy, the liberty of the Christian conscience, and the infallible leading of the Holy Spirit.
Calvin took no interest in his son who recedes into historical obscurity and is never heard from again.
Dying in infancy will do that.
Calvin married Idelette de Bure, "the excellent companion of his life." She died in 1549 and Calvin never ceased mourning her. Their only child Jacques, died shortly after he was born.
Here is a better picture of the great reformer and man of God, rather than the trash you've posted...
This is precious coming from someone who has repeated lies about the Catholic Church and Pope BXVI's life so many, many, times.
The truth is that Calvin was a vicious sodomite and like Luther's antisemitism, it affirms that God would not have chosen such a flawed vessel to bring what amounts to a new Gospel.
So, now we're down to the argument that, yeah we may have done it, but not as often as you.
Here's a guy, Jan David Joris, who so feared for his life under Calvin's police state, that he had to write his opposition to Calvin's practices/doctrines under the assumed name John of Bruges so that he wouldn't be persecuted.
3 year after the poor fellow had died and was buried, the Calvinists found out the true identity of John of Bruges. So they held a trial to convict him of heresy, exumed his corpse and punished him by burning.
There are some who doubt that the infant was even Calvin's. Without DNA testing I wouldn't conclude one way or the other.
Here's the full quote using his own words: “the excellent companion of his life,” a “precious help to him amid his manifold labours and frequent infirmities.”
Note that there's nothing about love, just that she was a good servant.
Calvin never ceased mourning her.
Apparently because he now had to pay someone to scrub his floors.
Of late, I’ve read quite a bit about Calvin and he comes off in many accounts as a narcissistic control freak. He may not have been, but that’s certainly the impression one gets.
That is a good summary. I think he was an opportunist who used scripture and the very real excesses of the Catholic Church for personal gain. Anyone who would sugggest that Calvin was another Paul bringing a new Good News or in any way the equal of Augustine or Aquinas is either being stupid or recreating Calvin's sins themselves.
The single charge was made 13 years after Calvin's death by a priest who returned to Roman Catholicism. I wonder who stood to gain by trying to destroy his reputation?
From HERE...
"Jerome Bolsec, an ex-Carmelite friar who embraced the reformed faith in Paris, settled in Geneva and served as a physician. He publicly attacked Calvin's doctrine of predestination, was banished from Geneva, and eventually returned to catholicism. His "revenge was to publish in 1577 a scurrilous biography of Calvin, accusing him among other things of sodomy, which continued to be an arsenal for anti-Calvinist polemics for the next two centuries" (Lindberg, 266).
From The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913):
"(Bolsec) published biographies of the two Genevan reformers, Calvin and Beza (1519-1605). These works are violent in tone, and find little favour with protestant writers. Their historical statements cannot always be relied on. They are "Histoire de la view, des moeurs . . . de Jean Calvin
Williston Walker, Yale historian, in his book, John Calvin (New York: Schocken Books, 1906; rep. 1969) writes about Bolsec:
"...The whole calumny would be unworthy of discussion had the accusation not been repeatedly renewed by a certain class of controversialists during the last century -- in one instance as recently as 1898."The more specific charge, to which reference is now made, was formulated thirteen years after Calvin's death, by Jerome Hermes Bolsec . . . that Calvin had been convicted of heinous moral turpitude . . . No evidence has ever been produced of the existence of such a document as Bolsec alleges. Jacques Desmay, the earnest Catholic writer who used his stay as Advent and Lenten preacher at Noyon in 1614 and 1615 to learn all he could of Calvin's life there by records and tradition, found nothing of it. An equally determined Roman historian of Noyon, Jacques Le Vasseur, in his Annales of 1633, expressly repudiated it; and careful modern Roman Catholic scholars, such as Kampschulte and Paulus, reject it as "unworthy of serious refutation" and write:
"A certain class of controversialists." lol. Sounds familiar.
From Protestant historian Philip Schaff:
That abominable slander about sodomy, which even Galiffe rejects, Audin and Spalding are not ashamed to repeat."Philibert Berthelier (or Bertelier, Bertellier), an unworthy son of the distinguished patriot who, in 1519, had been beheaded for his part in the war of independence, belonged to the most malignant enemies of Calvin. He had gone to Noyon, if we are to believe the assertion of Bolsec, to bring back scandalous reports concerning the early life of the Reformer, which the same Bolsec published thirteen years after Calvin’s death, but without any evidence.768 If the Libertines had been in possession of such information, they would have made use of it. Berthelier is characterized by Beza as "a man of the most consummate impudence" and "guilty of many iniquities." He was excommunicated by the Consistory in 1551 for abusing Calvin, for not going to church, and other offences, and for refusing to make any apology...
From "The Life of Calvin" by Theodore Beza...
The great Dr. Moulin observes, that not one of Calvin’s innumerable enemies ever carped at the purity of his life, but this profligate physician, whom Calvin had procured to be banished from Geneva, for his wickedness and impieties. The reproach of such a man, says Middleton, was an honor to Calvin, and especially upon such an account, for as Milton truly says, “Of some to be dispraised, is no small praise.” The calumnies of Bolsec, however, were reiterated by other enemies, and are sometimes, even in this age, raked from the filth where truth has long since consigned them. “One of the greatest uses,” says Middleton, “which may be drawn from reading, is to learn the weaknesses of the heart of man, and the ill effects of prejudices in points of religion. No less a person than the great cardinal Richelieu, has produced all accusation against Calvin, on the credit of Bertelier, than which none was ever worse contrived, and worse proved; though it has been adopted, and conveyed from book to book. Bertelier pretended, that the republic of Geneva had sent him to Noyon, with orders to make an exact inquiry there into Calvin’s life and character; and that he found Calvin had been convicted of sodomy; but that, at the bishop’s request, the punishment of fire was commuted into that of being branded with the Flower-de-luce. He boasted to have an act, signed by a notary, which certified the truth of the process and condemnation. Bolsec affirms, that he had seen this act; and this is the ground of that horrid accusation. Neither Bertelier, nor Bolsec, are to be credited. If Bertelier’s act had not been suppositious, there would have been at Noyon, authentic and public testimonies of the trial and punishment in question; and they would have been published as soon as the Romish religion began to suffer by Calvin’s means. Bertelier had no party against him in Geneva more inexorable than Calvin, who held him in abhorrence, on account of his vices. Bertelier was accused of sedition and conspiracy against the state and church: but he ran away, and, not appearing to answer for himself, was condemned, as being attainted and convicted of those crimes, to lose his head, by a sentence pronounced against him, the sixth of August, 1555. No envoy or deputy was ever sent from Geneva on public business, who was not in a higher station than that of Bertelier; besides, there were some considerable persons at Noyon, who retired to Geneva, as well as Calvin: by whose means it was very easy to receive all the information which could have been desired, without going farther. If what Bertelier said was true, he would have had his paper when he fled from Geneva: but it is plain he had not the commission he boasted of, after that time. But can any one believe, that, before the year 1555, when those who were called heretics durst not show themselves for fear of being burnt, a deputy from Geneva should go boldly to Noyon, to inform himself of Calvin’s life? Who will believeth that if Betrelier had an authentic act of Calvin’s infamy in 1554, he would have kept it so close, that the public should have no knowledge of it before 1557? Was it not a piece which the clergy of France would have bought for its weight in gold? ‘But why (says Bayle), do I lose time in confuting such a ridiculous romance? Nothing surprises me more than to see so great a person as cardinal de Richelieu, depend on this piece of Bertelier; and allege as his principal reason that the republic of Geneva did not undertake to show the falsehood of this piece.’ The truth is, this cardinal made all imaginable inquiry into the pretended proceedings against Calvin at Noyon, and that he discovered nothing; yet he maintained the affirmative on the credit of Jerom Bolsec, whose testimony is of no weight in things which are laid to Calvin’s charge. Bolsec would have been altogether buried in oblivion, if he had not been taken notice of by the monks and missionaries for writing some satirical books against the Reformation. He was convicted of sedition and Pelagianism at Geneva, in 1551, and banished the territory of the republic. He was also banished from Bern: after which he went to France, where he assisted in persecuting the Protestants, and even prostituted his wife to the canons of Autun. He was an infamous man, who forsook his order, had been banished thrice, and changed his religion four times; and who, after having aspersed the dead and the living, died in despair. Varillas thought Bolsec a discredited author: Maimbourg rejected the infamy that was thrown upon Calvin: and Florimond de Remond owns, they have defamed him horribly. Papyrius Masso spoke very ill of Calvin, but would not venture to mention the story of the Flower-de-luce: and he called those, mean wretched scribblers, who reproached that minister with lewdness. It is not strange that cardinal de Richelieu, in one of the best books of controversy that has been published on the part of the church of Rome, should be less scrupulous and nice than Remond, Masso, and Romuald; and that he should give out, as a true matter of fact, the story of Bolsec, which began then to be laid aside by the missionaries? Richelieu intended to have reconciled both religions in France, but was prevented by death; and there was not one story which people did not believe, when it defamed him or cardinal Mazari. After (Bolsec) had been banished from Geneva, through the influence of Calvin and Farel, for sedition and Pelagianism, he wrote a life of Calvin, with a view to destroy the reputation of that great and good man.
So continue to spread a lie that was born out of the counter-Reformation. Your own Roman Catholic apologists deny it and call is a lie, giving proof to Calvin's supposition that regardless of the idolatry Rome preaches, there are still sheep among her. God willing, they will be led to greener pastures.
And Desdemona, every biography of Calvin states he and his wife, Idelette, had a son who died in infancy. Seems a rather base thing to ridicule.
Which means he was right and had to be formally destroyed. The only reason Calvin had to have a secret police was because he had so many secrets to protect.
I am aware that people make up falsehoods to defame innocent people. I have no idea what's true and what's not, but the accounts of a lot outside of sexuality makes that charge at least plausible.
It kind of beats burning them before their dead, like the cronies in the Catholic church did to heretics.
It's that glass house thing.
It kind of beats burning them before they're dead, like the cronies in the Catholic church did to heretics.
It's that glass house thing.
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