Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 23:1 (Nov 1960)
Article: Calvin’s View of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds
Author: Stephen M. Reynolds

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WTJ 23:1 (Nov 60) p. 33

Calvin’s View of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds

Stephen M. Reynolds

What was Calvin’s attitude toward the Athanasian Creed in 1537? Williston Walker quotes him as saying, “‘We swear in the faith of the one God, not of Athanasius, whose creed no true church would ever have approved’“.1 Harry Emerson Fosdick gives the same quotation citing Walker as his source.2 Yet in 1559 the Gallican Confession, of which Calvin prepared the first draft, was published,3 and Article V of this confession ends with the words: “nous avouons les trois symboles: savoir: des ApÔtres, de NicÉe, et d’Athanase, parce qu’ils sont conformes à la parole de Dieu” (we confess the three creeds, to wit: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, because they are in accordance with the Word of God).4

It is certain that there is a problem in these discrepant statements. The suggestion may be made that Calvin’s mind was completely changed with regard to the Athanasian Creed, but this is unlikely as it is well known that he never wavered from the doctrinal positions he set forth as a young man in the Institutes of the Christian Religion. It may be suggested that Chandieu5 or the Synod of Paris added the statement about the Athanasian Creed in the Gallican Confession without Calvin’s assent or approval. This too is improbable, for Calvin would have protested had his view been that which is attributed by Walker and Fosdick.

The solution of the problem appears to be in the original statement of what Calvin said which Walker has mistranslated. The source given

WTJ 23:1 (Nov 60) p. 34

by Walker for this statement is a letter quoted in A.-L. Herminjard, Correspondance des rÉformateurs dans les pays de langue franÇaise, IV, 183–186. This letter was written about the 20th of February, 1537 by the pastors of Geneva to the pastors of Berne to explain the nature of a controversy that had arisen between the former and Pierre Caroli, one of the pastors at Lausanne. During the absence of Pierre Viret, also a pastor at Lausanne, Caroli had preached that Christians should pray for the dead to hasten their resurrection. The pastors of Geneva sent Viret back to Lausanne to combat this dangerous doctrine, but instead of listening to his remonstrances Caroli accused Viret of being tainted with Arianism. The pastors of Geneva charged Calvin with the task of trying to make Caroli listen to reason, and in the course of this attempt Calvin read the passage i...

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