Calvin spoke in tongues...

[JFDU]

...according to this.

The "reliable" source is attributed to De Vitam Iohannes Cauvin, Calvin’s biography published posthumously by Theodore Beza.

Has this hit anyone’s radar before? Was Calvin the first charismatic “Calvinist” ? :)

 

[E. A. Johnston]

Thanks for sharing the link. I have no way of coming to a clear conviction on so little information. However, I would have no issue with it since I pray in tongues all the time. 

[JFDU]

You’re game admitting this in Cessationville Elizabeth! Has anyone de-friended you yet? LOL

 

Yes, little information indeed hence my question if anyone has heard about it before.

[Char]

A) there has never been a lack of enthusiasts on the site, some of whom are very vocal about their views so it's not like they're easy to miss.

B) Yeah we've discussed this somewhere, and consensus was same as always: we can't exegete experience.

C) The answer to the last question is no.

[Marv]

I have to agree with Char that Calvin was absolutely not the first Charismatic Calvinistic. The apostle Paul came before him with both the doctrines of grace and the practice of tongues. But the first, who knows?

 

I also have to agree with Char (which is not short for Charismatic) that we don't derive doctrine from our expereiences, though in that exegete means to explain, we humans do exegete experience on a daily basis, a process called science. But be that as it may, by the grace of God, we have something better to exegete, namely Scripture. Doing so faithfully in the sacred text would render an assertion that this godly and devoted servant of Christ spoke in tongues while praying totally unsurprising.

 

That is to say, if this claim turns out to be factual. I wish I know where in the text of Beza's Calvin bio this referece is supposed to be. I only have had recourse to a translation by Henry Beveridge. I did find one section on Calvin's fervent prayers in his final days, and this would presumably be the place to find it. I couldn't find it exactly, though there was some context suggesive that it might be there in the original. Sorry to suggest that a translator might smooth over something like that, but things like that do happen. And if ever one were tempted to do so...

 

The passage I have available reads:

 

Calvin spent the remainder of his days, until death, in almost constant prayer. His

voice indeed was interrupted by the difficulty of respiration; but his eyes, which

retained their brilliancy to the last, uplifted to heaven, and his serene countenance,

were certain proofs of the fervour of his devotion, and of his trust and confidence in

God. He often in his prayers repeated the words of David, “Lord, I opened not my

mouth, because thou didst it;” and at times those of Hezekiah, “I did mourn like a

dove.”

 

So I'd like to see the document where this can be found before other comment on it.

 

Except, odd little bit in the linked blog post. Reportedly Calvin identified this unknown tongue as "Hebraic in character," though Calvin knew Hebrew and this was said to be "lingua non nota et cognota." And then reference to a barbaric language, such as "that spoken by the Canaanites." I'm not sure whether this was supposed to be the Black Speech of Mordor (obligatory LOTR reference for Char), but the fact of the matter is Canaanite, AKA Phoenician is as close to Hebrew as any language we know, as I understand it. Nearly identical in fact.

 

Ther said:

A) there has never been a lack of enthusiasts on the site, some of whom are very vocal about their views so it's not like they're easy to miss.

B) Yeah we've discussed this somewhere, and consensus was same as always: we can't exegete experience.

C) The answer to the last question is no.

[E. A. Johnston]

I am unawre of anyone defriending me. Lol. If they did, I would just pray for them . . . in tongues!

JFDU said:

You’re game admitting this in Cessationville Elizabeth! Has anyone de-friended you yet? LOL

 

Yes, little information indeed hence my question if anyone has heard about it before.

[Marv]

Shouldn't that be "mihi" instead of "mini"?

[Char]

You know what was meant on all counts Marv. But thanks for re-enforcing the reason for my policies.

[Marv]

If this is an error, one possible source of it is this bit which appears in an appendix to Beza's Life of Calvin.

 

Letter XVII (p. 300 of this edidition) from Calvin to Thomas Cranmer:

 

"...another evil, not much lighter, is that idle fellows are fed upon the public income of the church that they may chant their vespers in an unknown tongue. I say nothing more, as it is more than absurd that you should be an approver of these reproaches which are in open opposition to the legitimate order of the church."

 

I don't think he is talking about glossolalia here but about Roman style mass being performed in Latin, as the page before he advises Cranmer that the English purify and settle the nature of their rites as they think best (as opposed, I take it, to Rome), and he complains about "confusion" and "superstition" and :

 

"Indeed I hear that of the corruptions of popery such a mass remains, as not only to obscure, but almost destroy the pure and genuine worship of God." (299)

 

Now that I type that it sounds less that he is referring to "mass" as in the RCC liturgy, but rather a large quantity. I don't know. But I wonder what the underlying Latin about chanting vespers in an unknown tongue is. It strikes me as possible that an ill-informed reader might have scanned down and recorded some words here and understood them to go with the paragraph about Calvin's fervent prayers in the bio itself.

 

Every internet reference I can find goes back to this same 1975 Gordon-Conwell article by this Quent Warford, who indicates that his Latin is not strong.

 

[Marv]

In continuing to run down this nearly useless thing...

 

Note the date of the original article in this thing called "the Paper" purportedly a student publication at Gordon-Conwell.... the date is March 24, 1975.

 

Supposing the thing not to be a daily, the timing may well indicate an April Fool's prank.

[Marv]

Char is an enthusiastic cessationist...

 

confusing...

Char said:

A) there has never been a lack of enthusiasts on the site, some of whom are very vocal about their views so it's not like they're easy to miss.

B) Yeah we've discussed this somewhere, and consensus was same as always: we can't exegete experience.

C) The answer to the last question is no.

[Alex Guggenheim]

Paul would not be a charismatic since to it requires someone to believe gifts still operate which were temporary in scope and Paul explicitly understood this. But such claims about Paul and Calvin reveal the desperation of charismatics. Besides when Paul did exercise the apostolic sign gifts they functioned for real unlike the sad gobble-de-speak of alleged angelic/prayer languages and healing circuses charismatics are reduced to seeing they cannot really speak in a human language they had not previously spoken or learned and or actually exercise a healing gift which genuinely heals someone (strange they cannot find their way to burn centers lol).

But suppose Calvin did believe the theological fantasy. That just make him once again in error.

[Marv]

More dead horse abuse...

 

Apologies for references to Gordon-Conwell. That seems indeed to be where this 1975 article comes from, but it reports a purported event at The Episcopal Divinity School (Cambridge MA), and it references BTI (Boston Theological Institute) which includes both EDS and GCTS.