Thursday, February 03, 2022

 

The Consistory

Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019), pp. 330-331, with note on p. 562:
It was precisely because he [John Calvin] knew that many would spurn the gifts of the Spirit that he laboured so hard, not just to gather together a community of the elect, but to bring it into harmony with God's plans. Four offices existed to uphold it. There were ministers to preach the word of God; teachers to instruct the young; deacons to meet the needs of the unfortunate. Then, watchdogs elected to stand guard over the morals of the laity, there were the 'elders': the presbyters. Meeting every Thursday, it was they and the city's ministers who provided the church with its court: the 'Consistory'. Fail to attend a service on Sunday, or transgress the Ten Commandments, or break the laws devised by Calvin to define the doctrines of the Church, and a summons was bound to come—no matter the rank of the offender. Every year, almost one in fifteen Genevans would end up making an appearance before it.31 For those in the city who hated Calvin, who rejected his theology, who resented the endless lectures and harangues from the pulpit, it was this that constituted the worst intrusion: the dread that the eyes of the Consistory were always on them, watching, marking, judging.

31. The figure—'somewhere in the range of 7 per cent of the population each year'—is quoted by [Bruce] Gordon, Calvin, p. 295.
Mutatis mutandis, we have our own modern Consistory, watching, marking, judging.



<< Home
Newer›  ‹Older

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?