A Reformation Debate

In March, 1539, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras in South France, addressed a letter to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva, asking them to return to the Roman Catholic faith. The following August, John Calvin replied to Sadoleto, defending the adoption of the Protestant reforms. Both letters are lucid and eloquent statements of their respective positions. The dialogues they embody is polemical, but in addition their tone is elevated, and their arguments are substantial. Sadoleto's letter and Calvin's reply constitute one of the most interesting exchanges of the Roman Catholic/Protestant views during the Reformation era. Together they afford an excellent introduction to the great religious controversy of the sixteenth century.

These statements are not in vacuo of a Roman Catholic and Protestant position. They were drafted in the midst of the religious conflict that was then dividing Europe. And they reflect too the temperaments and personal histories of men who wrote them. Sadoleto's letter has an irenic approach, an emphasis on the unity and peace of the Church, highly characteristic of the Christian Humanism he represented. Calvin's reply is in part a personal defense, an apologia pro vita sua, that records his own religious experience. And its taut, comprehensive argument is characteristic of the discipline and logical mind of the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion.