John Calvin
From ancient Egypt to the Christian Church ruling over the majority of Europe theocratic governments had one great ideal in common: political ideologies were not just from the church, they were the church. John Calvin had his own, unique version of a theocracy, which he outlined in his novel The Institutes on Christian Piety. Calvin had a great distaste of the Catholic papacy so he made the Protestant theocracy by separating civil government from spiritual government. His ideas of reformation were different from any others ideas, even Luther's. Calvin's ideas were used in the Genevan reformation and they were evident throughout Europe and even noticeable in the early colonies of New England. John Calvin was born in France in July 1509 (Walker 26). He was very liberally educated throughout his youth. He was sent to the University of Paris at the age of fourteen to study Theology (Walker 29). Eventually his specialty would change to Law because his father viewed it as "the surest way to wealth and honors" (Walker 44). So John studied Law until his father died and then he switched back to Theology and he eventually received his degree in this. While he was in Paris John was introduced to the writings of M
This happened in the Catholic Church and this was one of his many complaints. He believed that the bread feed the people so then Christ would feed the souls of the people who received the Supper. This is shown because Goodman Brown can't sympathize and so he separates himself from the community because he sees everyone as heathens. This brings us to the Puritans in New England at this time. Therefore they worked hard during the day so they could live "good" the rest of the time. He thought that there was no need for seven because it brought things that weren't taught in the Bible into the religion. This is also called the Puritan Work ethic. Calvin described the Lord's Supper as "a spiritual banquet, in which Christ testifies himself to be the bread of life, to feed our souls for a true and blessed immorality" (Calvin 641). Another of Calvin's problems with the Catholic Church was the seven sacraments. Although he did believe in baptism washing away our sins, his view differed from that of the Catholic Church because they believed that baptism gave them the purity of Adam before the fall by ridding one of original sin (Battles 108). He believed that the purity offered in baptism washed away all of our sins and in doing so we were purified for life. He did this but although he allowed the Church to be associated with the government, it did not actually become part of the government. He went about this reformation by using the basis of his ideas from his now completed novel The Institutes on Christian Piety (Walker 228). He wandered around Europe until he found himself in Geneva where he would work for reform of the Genevan Church (Walker 182).
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Acceptance Essays
