# A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto's Letter to the Genevans and Calvin's Reply



## john_Mark (Dec 3, 2004)

Anyone read this? Opinions?

From this link: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=430566&amp;event=AFF

Introduction
I. 

In March 1539, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, bishop of Carpentras in southern France, addressed a letter to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva asking them to return to the 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 dialogue they embody is polemical, but withal their tone is elevated, and their arguments are substantial. Sadoleto´s letter and Calvin´s reply constitute one of the most interesting exchanges of Catholic-Protestant views during the Reformation era. Together they afford an excellent introduction to the great religious controversy of the sixteenth century. 

But these documents are not statements in vacuo of a Catholic and a Protestant position. They were drafted in the midst of the religious conflict that was then dividing Europe. They had their more specific occasion, which in turn had its particular historical background. And they reflect too the temperaments and personal histories of the men who wrote them. Sadoleto´s letter has an irenic approach, an emphasis on 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 disciplined and logical mind of the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion. 

The introduction will attempt to provide setting and orientation for reading the two letters. Their intrinsic themes are clearly developed, but the external facts concerning their appearance require a few supplementary words. It may also be useful to point out the relevance of their arguments to the Reformation controversy as a whole. Our presentation then will serve as an introduction to the religious issues raised by the Reformation as well as an account of an important episode in its history. Since the doctrinal issues themselves are historical in point of origin and impact, it is proper that we approach them historically and seek to understand their articulation in the actual context of events. 

II
When Jacopo Sadoleto wrote his letter to the Genevans in 1539, he was at the height of his long career and was one of the most eminent and responded members of the Sacred College of Cardinals. Born in Modena in 1477, he had attended the University of Ferrara, where his father was a professor of law. He came to Rome around 1499, continued his classical studies under the patronage of Cardinal Oliviero Caraffa, and rose to prominence in the Roman humanist circle. When Cardinal Giovanni de´ Medici became Pope Leo X in 1513, he appointed him a papal secretary, and with this office Sadoleto began his service in the Church. He was made bishop of Carpentras in 1517, but he remained in the Roman Curia throughout the pontificate of Leo X and first visited his diocese in 1523 during the short reign Adrian VI who did not continue his employ. He returned to Rome early in 1524 to serve the second Medici pope, Clement VII, as secretary, but he withdrew again to reside in Carpentras just prior to the terrible sack of Rome, by mutinous imperial troops in May, 1527. 

Carpentras, located in the papal Comtat Venaissin near Avignon, became for Sadoleto a haven from the burdens of an active life and the cares and anxieties of a troubled world. In this tranquil corner of the Provence, he devoted himself to the needs of his people and to the scholarly endeavors of a Christian humanist. Like Erasmus, whose friend he was, he hoped to serve the hard-pressed cause of piety and peace through the learned contributions his retirement would permit him to make. Conscious indeed of the ills and perils of his time, he saw his role at Carpentras as the defense of a good letters and Christian orthodoxy alike.


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