Calvin's Institutes. 4.7.18: Rome's Imperial Lusts

Calvin’s Institutes, IV.7. 7.17-18: “Rome’s jurisdiction through relations with the usurpers Phocas and Pepin, and thereafter established to the injury of the church”

IV.4.7.18: The Decay of the Church until the Time of Bernard of Clairvaux”

Observations:

1. Calvin provides two quotes from Bernard of Clairveaux (1090-1153) that correctly illustrate the ambition, indiscipline and decadence of the church.

2. Bernard concerning corruptions: “Few pay attention to the mouth of the lawgiver; all, to his hands. And not without reason! For those hands do all the pope’s business. What thing is that, that those who say to you, `Well done, well done,’ are brought from the spoils of the churches? The life of the poor is sown in the streets of the rich; silver glitters in the mud; men rush to it from all sides; not the poorer man but the stronger carries it off, or perhaps he who runs more swiftly. Yet this morality—or rather, this mortality—comes not from you. Would that it might end in you! Amid these things you perform your pastoral duties, surrounded by much and costly array. If I dare say it, these are pastures of devils rather than of sheep. Of course, Peter made a a practice of this: Paul played at this! Your court is accustomed to receive goods rather than make men good. For evil men do not profit there; but good men fail there.”

3. Bernard concerning the unbridled covetousness of Rome in is lusts for power and imperious impulse at usurping jurisdictions: “I voice the murmur and common complaint of the churches. They cry out that they are mangled and dismembered. There are either none or few churches that do not lament or fear these cruel blows. You ask what blows? Abbots are pulled away from the bishops; bishops from their archbishops, etc. Strange, in deed, if this can be excused! By behaving in this way you prove that you have fullness of power, but not of righteousness. This you do because you can, but the question whether you also ought. You have been appointed to preserve for each his honor and rank, not to covet them.”[1]

4. Calvin’s summarization: “We accordingly see the character and prodigious extent of Rome’s profanation of all things sacred, and the dissolution o the whole church order in Bernard’s day. He complains that there converge upon Rome from the whole earth the ambitious, the greedy, the simoniacs, the sacrilegious, the keepers of concubines, the incestuous, and all such monsters, to obtain or retain churchly honors by apostolic authority; and the fraud, deception, and violence have prevailed.”

5. Calvin has cited two quotes from Bernard, although he notes that other quotes abound.

Correlations:

1. Hildebrandian developments before Bernard.

2. Papacy from Charlemagne to Hildedbrand.

Interpretation:

1. Calvin asserts that the Papacy grew through wicked and dirty hands; further, that Bernard correctly expounded the pride, ambition, and unrighteousness of the bishop of Rome. Godly theology and discipline were not to be had.

Application:

1. Search and destroy the "romanticism" with "Romishness," "anti-Confessionalism," and "Anti-Reformationism" amongst the AC/TRACTO's.

2. Expose the prinicples of sola stupida and sola getta alonga.

[1] Bernard, De consideratione I.iv.5; x.13; IV.ii .4,5; III.ii.6-12; III.iv.14.