Tried With Fire

There wasn't room in my post on John Calvin's younger years for this interesting tidbit. The following would have been the typical schedule for a student at the  College de Montaigu where Calvin was enrolled in 1521/1522. 4:00 am  - Morning office, lecture. 6:00 am - Mass, breakfast. 8:00 - 10:00 am - The grande class e and discussion. 11:00 am - Dinner with readings from the Bible or the life of a saint followed by prayers and college notices. 12:00 pm - Questions on the morning lesson. 1:00 - 2:00 pm - Rest period with public reading. (Was the missing hour perhaps free time?) 3:00 - 5:00 pm - Afternoon class.  ? - Vespers and questions on the afternoon class.  ? - Supper with more readings. 8:00 or 9:00 pm - Bedtime depending on the season. Earlier time was during the winter. When did the students study? During free time? Given that Gutenberg's press was invented in 1440, were books used at all or was it mostly lecture and discussion? Did they have...

I was hanging out at a local university yesterday afternoon and couldn't help but contrast my surroundings with what I had been just reading about John Calvin's college days. The following is an excerpt from his biography by T.H.L. Parker. Colleges in Medieval times were very different than they are today to say the least. They were male-only institutions. The entrance age was much younger; Calvin was 11 or 12 years old when he began his studies. The living conditions were a tad rougher too. Here's a taste of what the meal plan was like at the Montaigu College, University of Paris: A perpetual fast was kept. In the sense that food was scanty and coarse. For the main meal, the boys were given as much bread as they wanted with one-thirtieth of a pound of butter or some bottled fruit. The meat course seems always to have consisted of part of a herring or an egg and some vegetables. Theology students were in the enviable position of getting a whole herring or two eggs as we...

In our day, we think we have the right to formulate our own opinions of God from whatever source we choose. Calvin would disagree. Men's conceptions of God are formed, not according to the representations He gives of Himself, but by the inventions of their own presumptuous imaginations ... They worship not God, but a figment of their own brains in His stead. And from his biographer: The basis of Calvin's theology, therefore, is the belief that through the Bible alone can God be known in His wholeness as the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of the world. He is not so discernible in any other place - in the creation, or in man's conscience, or in the course of history and experience.  And since, if we are to know God, we must go to the place where He is to be found, it is to the Scriptures that we must go, and there we shall find Him as He is. If a man asks us to meet him in Piccadilly Circus, it is there (if he will and can keep his word) that we shall find him, and not in Trafal...