0:00

Hi, this is Nathan W. Bingham, host

0:02

of Renewing Your Mind, and I want

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to invite you to join us in

0:07

Orlando for our Ligonier National Conference. Beginning

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May 23, Christians from around the world

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will gather to hear biblical teaching and

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enjoy fellowship together. This year's theme is

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The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

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Over three days, we'll focus on

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the person and work of Jesus

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Christ. To learn more and register,

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visit ligonier.org/2024. Welcome

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back to another episode of 5 Minutes in

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Church History. On this episode, we're going to

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look at Calvin at college. We

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think of the Reformers and we see them

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in their portraits as accomplished great men near

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the end of their lives, and that's mostly

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how we think of them. But we

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need to realize that there was a

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time when John Calvin was not John

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Calvin. He was just a young kid

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making his way to college. Calvin

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was born in 1509 in Noyon, and in 1523, and

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if you do the math, he's 12 years old going

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on 13. He travels

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about 110 kilometers to the south and

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slightly to the west, to the big

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city of Paris, and he enrolls at

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the College des Montégues. The

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college dates back to 1314. It

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was one of the earliest colleges of the

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University of Paris, and that

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university is one of the oldest

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of the European universities. In

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1200, it was chartered by the King of

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France, but its roots go back to

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1045 when the University of

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Paris, the Sorbonne, as it is known,

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first started as a cathedral

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school. Well, back

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to the College des Montégues.

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In the 1480s and 1490s, it

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emerged as one of the top theological

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colleges of the University of Paris. Noel

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Bader was the principal or the president. of

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the college from 1504 to 1514. Under him,

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the college became entrenched in Roman

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Catholic Orthodoxy in

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the face of the rising French

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humanists and Beta was bent on

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reacting and responding to the humanists.

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One of the cries of the humanists was, add

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fontes to go back to the fount,

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back to the source. That

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would include going past Latin and

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going back to studying these

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classic philosophical texts or the

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Bible in the Greek language. Beta

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actually called the Greek language

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the language of all heresies.

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Now, there's a slight irony here because

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just before Beta became the president,

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there was a student, a famous

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student at Montague by the name

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of Erasmus of Rotterdam. He

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of course would go on to publish

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the Greek New Testament in 1516. While

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Erasmus was at Montague, he wasn't

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very impressed. His recollection

3:03

of the college was that it had

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stale eggs and stale

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divinity. Well, after

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Beta, that one who called the Greek

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language the language of all heresies, the

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new principal or the new president

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was an even more stern figure,

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Pierre Tempta. This was the president

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during Calvin's tenure as a student.

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Tempta brought John Mayer onto the

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faculty. Mayer was a

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master of Lombard sentences, that

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classic medieval text of Roman

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Catholic theology. He followed

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the philosophy of Occam, that is

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of the famous Occam's razor, and

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he was also a biblical commentator. Throughout

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Calvin's years, Mayer worked

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on a commentary on the four

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Gospels with a singular view in

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mind. He wanted to

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refute the big three heretics, Wycliffe,

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Huss, and Martin Luther.

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Calvin was at Montague from

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From 1523 to 1528, he received a BA and an MA.

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After his time at Montegue, he would go on

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to the University of Orleans for Graduate Studies and

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Law. But as a

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college student at Montegue, he would

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have read Augustine and the Church Fathers.

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He would have studied Aristotle. It was back in the

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1250s, actually, that Albert the Great

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was at University of Paris and

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he brought Aristotle front and center

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to the curriculum. He would

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have studied William of Ockham. He would have

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been exposed to Luther's ideas, but

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by way of the faculty attempting to

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refute them, Calvin would

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not follow in the footsteps of the

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leadership of the College of Montegue. He

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would actually embrace the new French humanism.

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But during his time as a

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college student, he was not converted.

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It would be another decade. It

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would be 1534 when Calvin was

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converted. And as Augustine

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says in his Confessions, speaking of

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his circuitous route

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to conversion, he

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speaks to God and says directly, you use

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all whether we know it or not. And

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so God used all

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in Calvin's time as a college

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student at Montegue as he would

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become John Calvin, the reformer we

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all know. Well, that's Calvin at College,

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and I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for joining us

5:23

for five minutes in Church History.