There is no question that John Calvin was the most influential of the Reformed theologians of the sixteenth century. At the same time, he is probably the most distorted in contemporary portraits of his political teaching. As the popular telling goes, Calvin ruled the Republic of Geneva as theocrat in addition to believing in that wars fought in the name of God should be prosecuted without restraint.1 In reality, neither of these commonly-held beliefs are true. In truth, Calvin rejected theocracy, granting Genevan church leaders a limited spiritual jurisdiction to focus upon the moral conduct and doctrinal beliefs of the church members in Geneva. He also deliberately positioned himself in the medieval just war tradition as developed by Augustine of Hippo, which precludes the concept of holy war. 

Rejection of Theocracy 

Calvin repudiated a theocratic arrangement in which the clergy would have direct civil authority, the kind of arrangement that was found in the medieval ghettos Jews were forced into, in which the political executive was the rabbi and the constitution was composed of the Torah, the Talmud, and rabbinic commentaries.2 Calvin taught a doctrine of two spheres, separating church and state with respect to their distinct jurisdictions with different roles for ministers and magistrates. Pastors were called to wield the sword of the Spirit in the preaching of the Word of God.3 Princes were appointed to unleash the sword of justice in the punishment of domestic evil and in battle against hostile foreign powers.4 Calvin insisted that the best condition for citizens was to live in a republic and not a monarchy in order for the people to be under a civil authority which they themselves had chosen. “A system compounded of aristocracy and democracy, for excels all others,” he said in praise of the idea of a mixed regime.5 “In this especially consists the best condition of the people,” he contended, “when they can choose by common consent, their own shepherds.”6 

Puritan Holy War Practice 

There is no question that some of the Reformed moved in the direction of holy war. The Puritan armies in the English Civil War (1642 – 1651), for example, put holy war doctrine into practice. The Roundheads (supporters of parliament) at times prosecuted the war effort against the Cavaliers (monarchists) and their supporters with ruthless abandon, eliminating combatants and noncombatants in their engagements.7 After the massacre of Irish men, women, and children at Drogheda, Peter Sterry responded with a sermon dedicated to giving thanks to God for the glorious Parliamentary victory.8 

Calvin understood that holy war deviated from the restraints advocated by the proponents of justice in war. Holy war entailed, as he put it, “the indiscriminate and promiscuous slaughter, making no distinction of age or sex, but including alike women and children, the aged and the decrepit.”9 He denied that it was right “in the present day” to “slay all the ungodly” in a holy war campaign.10 He also spoke against the slaughter of prisoners of war, affirming that it entailed the defiance of God.11 He was probably opposing at this point the widespread practice in the Middle Ages of defeated infantry being massacred by victorious knights. 

Continuity with Augustine 

Calvin repudiated holy war doctrine, positioning himself in the mainstream of the just war tradition of the church. In his discussion of just war doctrine in the Institutes, he connected his teaching with Augustine of Hippo, referring to him two times by name.12 He also included the same three just war criteria that Augustine had developed—proper authority, just cause, and right intention. He asserted that the civil magistrate alone is authorized to declare and prosecute war: “Princes must be armed to defend by war the dominions entrusted to their safekeeping.”13 The prince may initiate war, but it must be on the basis of a just cause. Something must have already happened that justifies going to war. In such a case, the prince is armed in order that he may “execute public vengeance.” Examples would include disturbing “the common tranquility of all,” the raising of “seditious tumults,” and “vile misdeeds.”14 A just cause might well lead a prince to make war, but he had to do so with the right intention of seeking the peace of the community. In his biblical commentary on Deuteronomy, Calvin maintained that “wars must not be undertaken except that we may live in unmolested peace.”15 In other words, even if a nation is attacked first, it is not entitled to then wage a war of vengeance and conquest. 

Calvin went beyond Augustine in his justice of war discussion. He added a fourth constituent, stressing that war must be an option of last resort. Governments, he affirmed, ought not to go to war “unless they are driven to it by extreme necessity.” “Everything else ought to be tried before recourse is had to arms.”16 Calvin was probably referring here to a diplomatic solution to problems. That is what he preferred. “An ambassador,” he asserted, “ought to be favored because he tends to maintain peace among men, or to remove troubles which have already started.”17 

Resistance to Tyranny 

One of the most influential aspects of Calvin’s doctrine of war relates to his teaching on parliamentary resistance, warring by the popular magistrates as a response to a tyrannical monarch.18 Calvin appealed here to the existence of the populares magistratus, calling them “magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings.”19 The idea in the expression populares magistratus was that these individuals constituted a representative body that was appointed in an elective manner. Calvin left his readers with no ambiguity as to the kind of representative assembly that he had in mind. He alluded to the various European parliamentary bodies, referring to the “three estates,” which no doubt included the French Estates-General. Such parliamentary bodies had the duty to “withstand…the fierce licentiousness of kings…who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common people.” They had the responsibility to take up arms, if necessary, in behalf of the people for whom they had been “appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.”20 

Calvin’s teaching at this point had an influence at the time of the American Revolution. The magistrates of the people who had been sent to Philadelphia by the colonial governments formed a representative body in the Second Continental Congress for the express purpose of confronting the problem of British tyranny, the trampling down of legal rights. It was Calvin’s doctrine of resistance by a parliamentary body that provided theological and moral legitimacy among Reformed Christians for armed resistance to tyranny in the American Revolution. 

  1. René Paquin, “Calvin and Theocracy in Geneva: Church and World in Ordered Tasks,” Arc: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill 28 (2000): 92, properly observes that Geneva “was never submitted to the ruling power of any clergy after the Genevans solemnly adopted the Reformation in May 1536.”  ↩︎
  2. Leo Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom (Boston: Beacon, 1967), 8.  ↩︎
  3. Calvin forcefully asserted this position in the constitution that he wrote for the church in Geneva, the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, in The Register of the Company of Pastors in the Time of Calvin, trans. Philip E. Hughes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966).  ↩︎
  4. Dolf Britz, “Politics and Social Life,” in The Calvin Handbook, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 440-441, draws attention to Calvin’s acceptance of a two-kingdom doctrine.  ↩︎
  5. Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.20.8. All quotations from Calvin’s Institutes are from the translation by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960).    ↩︎
  6. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Prophet Micah, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 309-310. Robert M. Kingdon, “Church and State,” in The Calvin Handbook, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 356, notes that Calvin “came to prefer” government run by collectives—three city councils as in Geneva.  ↩︎
  7. It should be noted that the Cavaliers were also guilty of massacring noncombatants on occasion.  ↩︎
  8. Peter Sterry, The Coming Forth of Christ (London, 1650).  ↩︎
  9. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of Joshua, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 97. ↩︎
  10. Ibid., 268. ↩︎
  11. John Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 734. ↩︎
  12. Institutes IV.20.12.  ↩︎
  13. Institutes IV.20.11.  ↩︎
  14. Ibid. ↩︎
  15. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 52. ↩︎
  16. Institutes IV.20.12. ↩︎
  17. John Calvin, Sermons on 2 Samuel, trans. Douglas F. Kelly (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1992), 451. ↩︎
  18. Calvin’s discussion at this point occurs in the context of his reflections on the tyrant, the “savage prince,” in Institutes IV.20.29. ↩︎
  19. Institutes IV.20.31. Cf., Kingdon, “Church and State,” 360. ↩︎
  20. Institutes IV.20.31. Calvin’s position regarding armed parliamentary resistance to tyranny was nothing new. It was an old medieval idea that was implemented, for example, in the uprising led by Simon de Montfort in 1258 when he led the barons to victory over the royal army.  ↩︎
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