Protestantism Spreads and Divides

Other Protestant reformers soon challenged Luther’s doctrines even while applauding his break from the Catholic church. In 1520, just three years after Luther’s initial rupture with Rome, the chief preacher of Zurich, Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), openly declared himself a reformer. Like Luther, Zwingli attacked corruption in the Catholic church hierarchy, and he also questioned fasting and clerical celibacy. Zwingli disagreed with Luther on the question of the Eucharist, the central Christian sacrament that Christians partook of in communion. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation held that when the priest consecrated them, the bread and wine of communion actually turned into the body and blood of Christ. Luther insisted that the bread and wine did not change their nature: they were simultaneously bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. Zwingli, however, viewed the Eucharistic bread and wine as symbols of Christ’s union with believers, not the real blood and body of Christ. This issue aroused such strong feelings because it concerned the role of the priest and the church in shaping the relationship between God and the believer.

In 1529, troubled by these differences and other disagreements, Protestant princes and magistrates assembled the major reformers in the Colloquy of Marburg, in central Germany. After several days of intense discussions, the reformers managed to resolve some differences over doctrine, but Luther and Zwingli failed to agree on the meaning of the Eucharist. The issue of the Eucharist would soon divide Lutherans and Calvinists as well.

The Progress of the Reformation

Under the leadership of John Calvin (1509–1564), another wave of reform challenged Catholic authority. Born in Picardy, in northern France, Calvin studied in Paris and Orléans, where he took a law degree. Experiencing a crisis of faith, like Luther, Calvin sought salvation through intense theological study. Gradually, he, too, came to question fundamental Catholic teachings.

On Sunday, October 18, 1534, Parisians found church doors posted with crude broadsheets denouncing the Catholic Mass. Smuggled into France from the Protestant and French-speaking parts of Switzerland, the broadsheets provoked a wave of royal repression in the capital. In response to this so-called Affair of the Placards, the government arrested hundreds of French Protestants, executed some of them, and forced many more, including Calvin, to flee abroad.

Calvin made his way to Geneva, the French-speaking Swiss city-state where he would find his life’s work. Genevans had renounced their allegiance to the Catholic bishop, and local supporters of reform begged Calvin to stay and labor there. Although it took some time for Calvin to solidify his position in the city, his supporters eventually triumphed and he remained in Geneva until his death in 1564.

Under Calvin’s leadership, Geneva became a Christian republic on the model set out in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published in 1536. No reformer prior to Calvin had expounded on the doctrines, organization, history, and practices of Christianity in such a systematic, logical, and coherent manner. Calvin followed Luther’s doctrine of salvation to its ultimate logical conclusion: if God is almighty and humans cannot earn their salvation by good works, then no Christian can be certain of salvation. Developing the doctrine of predestination, Calvin argued that God had ordained every man, woman, and child to salvation or damnation—even before the creation of the world. Thus, in Calvin’s theology, God saved only the “elect” (a small group).

Predestination could terrify, but it could also embolden. For Calvinists, a righteous life might be a sign that a person had been chosen for salvation. Thus, Calvinist doctrine demanded rigorous discipline. Fusing church and society into what followers named the Reformed church, Geneva became a theocratic city-state dominated by Calvin and the elders of the Reformed church. Its people were rigorously monitored; detractors said that they were bullied. From its base in Geneva, the Calvinist movement spread to France, the Low Countries, England, Scotland, the German states, Poland, Hungary, and eventually New England. (See “Document 14.2: Ordinances for Calvinist Churches.”)

In Geneva, Calvin tolerated no dissent. While passing through the city in 1553, the Spanish physician Michael Servetus was arrested because he had published books attacking Calvin and questioning the doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that there are three persons in one God—the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Upon Calvin’s advice, the authorities executed Servetus. Calvin was not alone in persecuting dissenters. Each religious group believed that its doctrine was absolutely true and grounded in the Bible and that therefore violence in its defense was not only justified but required. Catholic and Protestant polemicists alike castigated their critics in the harshest terms, but they often saved their cruelest words for the Jews. Calvin, for example, called the Jews “profane, unholy, sacrilegious dogs,” but Luther went even further and advocated burning down their houses and their synagogues. Religious toleration was still far in the future.