French Calvinism and Judaism

Abstract

Calvin's language against the Jews, as that of the other Reformers, is invariably harsh. Nevertheless, some of his doctrines—the quasi equal status of the two Testaments in matters of faith, but also Original Sin which transformed all human beings, the Jews among them, into sinners—make room for new attitudes: Jews are bad, corrupt and stupid, but Catholics are even worse. Calvin believes that there are still some elected among the Jews. With Beza, this legacy then deepens. Despite variations (millenarianism and irenism, the continually worsening status of the Huguenots), changed attitudes towards the Jews survive in the 17th century, and in the Refuge are reinforced by direct contact with Jews and new conceptions of Jewish history, which in Bayle and Basnage becomes normal human history. Persecutions are not divine punishment, but human evil, and parallelisms between Jewish and Huguenot history become evident. In France's ‘Desert’ clandestine and persecuted Huguenots identify themselves with the captive and persecuted Jews and Jerusalem under siege.