2
November 1533 A.D. Lowered
Over a Wall, Calvin Fled Paris
Never heard this one before.
Severance, Diana. “Lowered Over a Wall, Calvin Fled
Paris.” Christianity.com. Jul
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/lowered-over-a-wall-calvin-fled-paris-11629955.html. Accessed 6 Jun 2014.
When the apostle Paul escaped Damascus by being
lowered over the wall in a basket it was not the last time a Christian
evangelist would dramatically flee from persecution. On this
day, November 2, in 1533, John Calvin made a similar thrilling escape
from Paris.
A devout Catholic, Calvin
studied law at the Universities of Orleans and Paris. He was a brilliant
student, and with the Protestant Reformation in the air, he began reading
Martin Luther and became a leader of the Reformation in France, at the risk of
arrest, imprisonment, or even death.
In 1532 Calvin wrote that
"Only one ...salvation is left open for
our souls, and that is the mercy of God in Christ. We are saved by grace... not
by our works." Calvin became a leader of the evangelical party in Paris,
often encouraging his followers with the words of Paul: "If God is for us,
who can be against us?"
In 1533 the newly elected head
of Paris University, Nicholas Cop apparently asked Calvin to collaborate on an
inauguration address. The speech called for the church to return to New
Testament ideals. It accused traditional theologians of being nothing but a set
of sophists. "They teach nothing of faith, nothing of the love of God,
nothing of the remission of grace, nothing of justification, or if they do so,
they pervert and undermine it all by their laws and sophistries. I beg of you,
who are here present, not to tolerate any longer these heresies and
abuses."
The king and church authorities
were furious. With the police hot on their heels, Cop and Calvin fled for their
lives. Calvin lowered himself from a window on bedsheets tied together, and
escaped Paris dressed as a farmer with a hoe on his shoulder. Taking the alias
Martianus Lucianius, he reached safety in tolerant Basel. For three more years
he wandered as a fugitive evangelist under such assumed names. Finally he
settled in Geneva, Switzerland where he became one of the best-known leaders of
the Reformation.
Bibliography:
2. Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin; a sixteenth-century portrait.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
3. Stevenson, Richard Taylor. John Calvin: the statesman. Cincinnati:
Jennings and Graham, 1907.
Last updated July,
2007.
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