The Persistence of “Superstition and Idolatry” among Rural French Calvinists

Abstract

Within their considerable rhetorical arsenal, perhaps the favorite accusations that sixteenth-century Calvinist Reformers lodged against the medieval church and the pious conduct of its followers were those of “superstition and idolatry.” Prominent leaders such as John Calvin and Theodore Beza, erudite theologians and celebrated preachers, local pastors and village elders alike stood ever ready to apply the designations to a variety of religious convictions and habits that they considered the incorrect belief and inappropriate behavior of the uninformed and vulgar. This Calvinist campaign against the superstitious and idolatrous went well beyond an attack on such unscriptural matters as belief in purgatory, veneration of images and relics, or invocation of the saints. It also manifested a deeply felt animosity toward papal Christianity—a hostility often expressed in dramatic and powerful language. One particularly intense example comes from the southern French town of Marsillargues during the early seventeenth century. When two men, who had converted to Calvinism, reverted to their earlier Catholicism several months later, the local Reformed church condemned them for having returned to their “vomit” and “slime.”