In his Preface to his Commentaries on the Psalms Calvin tells us this of the period following his ‘sudden conversion’:

Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godli­ness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogeth­er leave off other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardour. I was quite surprised to find that before a year had elapsed, all who had any desire after purer doctrine were continually coming to me to learn, although I myself was as yet but a mere novice and a tyro.

It might be supposed that his precise words, ‘before a year had elapsed’, would make it possible to pin-point the date of his conversion. But, as already noted, the date cannot be determined with any certainty. It has been suggested that the traditional translation of subita as ‘sud­den’ may be misleading, for Calvin himself is known, in a different context, to have understood the Latin to mean ‘unexpected’.

There are other indications that his conversion may have been more a process than a sudden event. His later testimony to Cardinal Sadoleto would bear that interpretation: ‘Offended by the novelty, I lent an un­willing ear, and at first, I confess, strenuously and passionately resisted.’ Traditions record that before he left the study of law at Bourges, in 1530 or 1531, he was preaching in that region. In Asnieres, ‘his word sowed seeds that have never been stifled’. In Linières he preached in an old barn by the river, where one of his hearers reported, ‘He tells us something new.’

On leaving Bourges, Calvin was chiefly in Paris, at the College Fortet, as mentioned in the last chapter. In April 1532. he had printed his first book, at his own expense, a Commentary on Seneca’s Treatise on Clem­ency. He was then twenty-two. Some have concluded from the humanist, non-religious standpoint of this work that Calvin had not yet known conversion.

That judgment would appear to be a mistake; the book was only designed as a piece of university work. Yet no doubt when Calvin pre­pared the work he was not yet the evangelist he would become, and no doubt the statement, ‘All who had any desire after purer doctrine were continually coming to me to learn’, refers to the circle of friends that began to group round him once he settled in Paris. A frequent meeting place was probably the house of Etienne de la Forge, a noble merchant who was soon to suffer martyrdom. Tradition has it that Calvin gener­ally closed his exhortations to his friends with the words: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’

Evangelical belief was not, however, to remain spoken only in private homes. On the morning of All Saints’ Day, 1 November 1533, Paris was startled. On that day Calvin’s friend, Nicholas Cop, who had been appointed rector of the University, was to deliver an inaugural address. He asked Calvin to prepare it for him and Calvin consented. The text was Matthew 5:3, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ The address was a plea for the reformation of the Church on the basis of a pure gospel. It was a bold venture, for only recently Protestant ‘heretics’ had been committed to the flames in Paris. Yet now a manifesto of Protestantism was issued in its very citadel of learning. The University authorities were enraged. A price was put on Cop’s head and the prisons were filled with ‘Lutherans’ destined to the stake. Cop took refuge in flight. Calvin too fell under suspicion.

The story that he escaped out of his window by making a rope of his bed-sheets rests on the authority of one of his early biographers, Papire Masson.

Beza’s simpler version is more worthy of credence – Calvin was for­tunately not in his room when they came to take him. A police officer named Morin who was noted for his harshness and brutality raided the College Fortet and seized his books, papers and letters. We regret the loss of those letters – they might have filled some gaps in our knowledge of Calvin in those early days.

Queen Margaret of Navarre, the king’s sister, was well disposed to the Protestants and hastened to use her influence to stop the persecu­tion. She was in friendly relations with Calvin and esteemed him highly. He had evidently not gone far from the capital, and after Queen Mar­garet’s intervention he returned. Beza tells us that on his return he was ‘most honourably received’ by Queen Margaret. But his stay was brief. The atmosphere was too hot in the capital. He betook himself at the end of 1533 or beginning of 1534 to the safer air of Angoulême, in the south-west of France. There he found refuge with Louis du Tillet, canon of the cathedral, whom he had known at the University. He went by an assumed name, Charles d’Espeville. His host showed him kindness, Calvin tells us, ‘for the sake of letters’. Du Tillet prized the learning of his friend.

Calvin speaks mournfully of his ‘idleness’ at Angoulême. But he could not be idle. He was so assiduous at his work, says one of his biographers, that he spent whole nights without sleep and days without food. He wrote sermons and brief exhortations at the request of du Tillet.

The statements of faith which he drew up here for the instruction of new converts were afterwards, we believe, to form the basis of his great work The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Far from being idle, ‘Angouléme was the forge of the new Vulcan’. In his discussions with du Tillet and a few other friends he would sometimes say, ‘Let us find the truth.’ The truth was not merely to be sought; it was pos­sible to find it! After this visit to Angoulême, he went farther south to Nérac to see the good old man Lefèvre who was sheltering there under the protection of the Queen of Navarre. The old man met the youth with delight and prophesied of him that he would be an instrument in restoring the kingdom of God in France. When the Queen of Navarre about this time showed favour to some mystics whose teaching Calvin esteemed dangerous, he refuted their errors. The Queen was displeased. In defence he said: ‘A dog barks if he sees someone attacking his mas­ter; I would be very cowardly if I saw the truth of God assailed and remained silent.’

In May 1534, Calvin went to Noyon to resign his clerical appoint­ments. He was now twenty-five years old and so had reached the age when, according to the law of the Church, he must either enter into ‘holy orders’ or resign his benefices. He took the latter course. This step was determined by his age and was the result of convictions formed years before. At Noyon he was put in prison for ‘a tumult made in a church’. The authorities were, no doubt, glad of a pretext for laying hold of so dangerous a ‘heretic’. He was released after some days; then rearrested and imprisoned for a few more days.¹

He made a brief visit to Paris, and then returned to Angoulême, but not to stay. He had decided to leave France that he might live ‘more peaceably and according to his conscience’. He and du Tillet set out together and first of all proceeded north to Poitiers. Here he met with a select group of friends in private conferences and meetings for wor­ship.

He prayed that the Spirit would descend on the little flock which gathered to hear his expositions of the Scriptures. He celebrated the Lord’s Supper with apostolic simplicity, divesting it of the popish ceremonies which had gathered round it. On one occasion Charles de Sage disputed with him about ‘the sacrifice of the mass’. Calvin had his Bible before him and indicating it he exclaimed: ‘That is my mass!’ Then he bared his head, throwing his cap on the table, and lifted his eyes to heaven with the cry: ‘Lord, if on the day of judgment you re­buke me because I have not been at Mass, but have forsaken it, I shall answer, “Lord, you have not commanded it. Here is your law. Here is the Scripture which is the rule you have given me, and in it I find no other sacrifice than that which is offered on the cross.”’ For safety the little group met in a cave outside the city.

His host at Poitiers advised him to go; his presence had become known to the authorities.

So he went north-east to Orleans, which is within easy reach of Paris. Here, in 1534, he wrote his first religious publication. It was entitled Psychopannychia. In the preface he tells us that he had been urged for some time to this task by some good people of note. In this book he corrects the ‘silly’ notions of those who maintain that the souls of the departed sleep till the last judgment. It is evident that this youth of twenty-five was now esteemed a leader of the church.

With du Tillet he went away westward to Strasbourg. Near Metz they fell into an awkward plight through the villainy of one of their two servants who made off with one of their horses and all their money. For­tunately the other servant had ten crowns in his pocket which sufficed till they reached Strasbourg.

From Strasbourg they went without delay to Basel, which was a self-governing city where sympathy for the Reformation was strong. In this city he would no doubt be re-united with his friend, Nicholas Cop, whom he had not seen since the famous episode in Paris on All Saints’ Day, 1533.

He lodged with an honourable matron, Catherine Klein. Over thirty years later the venerable lady still spoke of him often and with en­thusiasm – she was still under the marvellous spell of the godly and gifted Reformer. ‘Here’, she would say, ‘he wrote and elaborated in the watches of the night The Institutes of the Christian Religion.’ Those night-watches were ‘memorable and heavenly’. They were to mean more than tongue could tell to countless thousands then and since. It was no mere academic task to which this author set himself. The Institutes was written in defence of his brothers in France who were being burnt as heretics and slandered as revolutionaries. They were no heretics and no revolutionaries.

Here was the manifesto and confession of their faith – addressed to no less a personage than the king of France himself – in words that were eloquent and argument that was incomparable. What was begun at Angoulême in 1534 was fashioned at Basel in 1535 to meet a crying need.