At the time of the Reformation there were individuals who claimed to be Protestants but hid their convictions by continuing to attend the mass and other Roman Catholic ceremonies. Afraid of persecution, these Protestants kept their faith secret and pretended in everything outward to be Roman Catholics. The Reformers refuted the views of these people, who were called “Nicodemites”, showing that continuing to attend the blasphemous and idolatrous mass could not leave them undefiled.
1All the remaining quotations in this article are from this treatise.
Reformed theologians all wrote against mass attendance and argued that merely to share the same space with a Roman Catholic idol or to be an observer at mass was to allow oneself to be polluted. Calvinists were forbidden from attending Roman Catholic marriages, baptisms and funerals. Early in the Reformation, in 1537, Calvin wrote a treatise called On Shunning the Unlawful Rites of the Ungodly.1 This treatise is the only work written against the Nicodemites not included in the volume of collected writings against them: Come Out from Among Them.
In this treatise, Calvin is responding to a request for advice as to how to live among rampant Romanism while maintaining “fidelity to the Lord pure and unpolluted”. From the very start, “the Mass, that head of all abominations” is singled out since it “takes the lead among all those species of iniquity. In it every imaginable kind of gross profanity is perpetrated”. He also goes to the heart of the question that faces those who are in such a situation. They must either pursue their own expediency and human favour by making “a pretence of indulging in idolatry” or seek God’s approbation by shunning these rites. Calvin says that there ought to be no dubiety or question on matters that are laid down so clearly in Scripture:
Whenever any semblance of good or convenience would withdraw believers one hair’s breadth from obedience to their heavenly Father, the first thought which ought to present itself for consideration is that everything, be it what it may, which has once obtained the sanction of a divine command, thereby becomes so sacred as not only to be beyond dispute, but also beyond deliberation. If we merely allow ourselves to deliberate in such circumstances, we overstep our proper limits; when this is done, we are on a downward path which quickly leads us farther astray.
In his Institutes (3.6-10) Calvin has a very practical section on the Christian life. In it he emphasises self-denial as one of the most basic principles of following Christ: “We are not our own: let not reason nor our will therefore sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. . . . Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for Him and die for Him. We are God’s: let His wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions” (3.7.1).
On Shunning the Unlawful Rites of the Ungodly likewise begins with the core principles that we are not our own and we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Christ. The first principle of discipleship is: “Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when He shall come in His own glory and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Lk 9:26).
“Let us remember then that this is the edict which our Saviour issues when we are first enrolled in His family, and that the perpetual edict promulgated for life to those who would belong to His kingdom is that, if they have embraced His doctrine with true heartfelt piety, they must manifest this piety by outward profession. And, indeed, how dishonest were it to be unwilling to make a confession before men of Him by whom they wish themselves to be acknowledged before angels? And how would they have the truth of God to remain effectual to them in heaven after they have denied it upon earth?
“There is no room, therefore, for anyone to indulge in crafty dissimulation, or to flatter himself with a false idea of piety, pretending that he cherishes it in his heart, though he completely overturns it by his outward behaviour.”
Scriptural testimony against attending idolatrous worship.
Calvin lays down the principle: “Whoever bestows any kind of veneration on an idol, be the persuasion of his own mind what it may, acknowledges it to be God”. Whatever may be the thoughts of the heart, if there is an outward action of participation in idolatry we are giving tacit consent and acknowledgement to the idolatrous beliefs of those with whom we gather. Calvin uses the example of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to obey the King’s command to worship an idol, to teach that “to perform any act of idolatry, in order to gain the favour of man, is more to be shunned than death in its most fearful form”. Their duty was clear when presented with “only two alternatives between which to choose – either to shake off the fear of God . . . or to despise men when brought into competition with God”.
Nicodemites wished to say that the body could be present at idolatrous worship without the soul being affected or guilty, since it was inwardly dissenting from such worship. Calvin maintains that the body is no less affected by such participation than in the sin of fornication and he applies Paul’s teaching to this effect. “Know ye not”, he asks, “that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid” (1 Cor 6:15). In the same way, can we take “the members of Christ” and “defile them by the worship of idols, or by impure superstitions?” “Let us remember that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; that we are not our own, but have been bought with a great price, and ought therefore to bear and glorify God in our body.” “Thus he [Paul] enjoins us not to keep at a remote distance from unbelievers in respect of space, but to stand far aloof from their polluted rites.”
Questions of conscience.
Calvin refers to the way in which Paul deals with matters of conscience in relation to participation in matters connected with idol worship. Those who felt they were able to participate, in the knowledge that there was no reality in these false gods, were only considering their own conscience and not that of others:
“What you openly do, as it may seem to be a participation in the worship of false gods, you do to the peril of many: for the rude and simple who are present at the spectacle, having not yet reached that prudence of yours, which understands that idols are nothing, on seeing you apparently communicating in their religious rites, what other idea can they form than just that you are worshippers of idols, and thus be emboldened to commit the sin which their own conscience condemns? . . . The impiety which is committed by the wicked in imitating you, seeing it is committed by your fault, must be charged to your account.” Therefore “it behoves every man who possesses a pure zeal for piety, not only to refrain his tongue from impious words, but keep every part of his body untainted by any sacrilegious rite”.
The abominations of the mass.
Calvin goes on to show that the Scriptures “anathematise papistical ceremonies not less than any other kind of idol abominations . . . there never was displayed in Gentile superstitions sacrilege more execrable, more grievously subversive of true piety, or more insulting to it than some of those things that are now everywhere seen within the domain of the Pope”. He refers to the extreme reverence given to the mass and yet “notwithstanding the abominations with which the mass teems, you meet with very few who venture to absent themselves”. They comply out of fear, lukewarmness, or failure to discern the truth.
In highlighting briefly the abominations of the mass, Calvin asserts that “every believer should be aware that the mere name of sacrifice (as the priests of the mass understand it) both utterly abolishes the cross of Christ, and overturns His sacred Supper which He consecrated as a memorial of His death. For both, as we know, is the death of Christ utterly despoiled of its glory, unless it is held to be the one only and eternal sacrifice; and if any other sacrifice still remains, the Supper of Christ falls at once, and is completely torn up by the roots”.
The point that Calvin emphasises most strongly, however, is “the abominable idolatry” of the mass. This takes place “when bread is pretended to assume Divinity, and raised aloft as God, and worshipped by all present! . . . A little bit of bread, I say, is displayed, adored, and invoked. In short, it is believed to be God.”
What attendance at the mass involves.
Calvin describes someone attending the mass and shows how they cannot disassociate themselves from its idolatry. He gives us a sketch of the scene of which they must be spectators. They behold an altar and a sacrificing priest, a pretended “mediator” who is supposed to be able to call Christ down from heaven in order to be “sacrificed”. The “idol” wafer is worshipped, and “is this idol in any respect different from that which the Second Commandment of the law forbids us to worship?”
“In the mass Christ is traduced, His death is mocked, an execrable idol is substituted for God – shall we hesitate, then, to call it the table of demons? Or shall we not rather, in order justly to designate its monstrous impiety, try, if possible, to devise some new term still more expressive of detestation? Indeed, I exceedingly wonder how men, not utterly blind, can hesitate for a moment to apply the name, ‘Table of Demons’, to the mass, seeing they plainly behold in the erection and the arrangement of it the tricks, engines, and troops of devils all combined.”
In the countries of Europe where Romanism was ascendant it was impossible to avoid walking past idol shrines and inadvertently witnessing superstitious rites, just as visitors to Romanist districts in our own day find themselves confronted by similar displays of idolatry. Calvin is not saying that we can never enter buildings given over to this idolatry or that we have sinned if we have looked upon these idols. We are, however, “utterly to abstain from all fellowship with any form of sacrilege, meaning by fellowship not mere proximity of place . . . but inward consent, and some kind of outward manifestation indicative of consent”. We are not to join ourselves in the congregation of those that engage in such idolatrous rites, as this implies that we are consenting. Someone is only free from being defiled by these abominations if he “is abstinent to such a degree, that he contracts no guilt or stain either by look, access, or vicinity”.
Conclusion.
Many believe it to be a matter of very little moment as to whether or not someone attends mass or not. Their instinct is that it is certainly something to be left to individual liberty and conscience, as a grey area, or at worst a minor fault. It is certainly not a minor fault but, even if it were a small matter amongst the other commandments of God, we should not be indifferent to it.
Calvin says that “every one among the precepts of God, how small soever the matter as to which it prescribes, ought to be sacred to us: for when negligence in regard to the minutest matter (the observance of which the Lord has enjoined by His law) finds its way into the minds of men, contempt of the whole law and its righteousness gradually creeps in and follows.”
The Nicodemites that Calvin addressed likewise wished to minimise the significance of their actions. Calvin draws upon Paul’s arguments against any participation in the acts of idolatry to show that in such an action “the Lord is defied, sin is committed against Christ, the table of devils is partaken of, and the table of Christ is repudiated”. It cannot be “deemed a light and venial fault”; indeed if “these are light offences, entitled to an easy pardon, where shall words be found weighty enough to describe flagrant . . . crimes?”
This is “an act by which the glory of God was exposed to the derision of idolaters, and the consciences of weak brethren were unhinged, because they supposed they had, and gloried in having, a Christian man as an associate in the worship of an image, and were emboldened by his example to do the same, although with a wavering and undecided conscience”. Calvin summarises in one plain but pithy sentence what this act entails: “They assemble at mass, which they see provided with a long and varied apparatus of sacrilege, and they assemble with a multitude known to entertain a pernicious veneration for the mass”. This is nothing other than association with idolatry.
As in our own day, one of the reasons brought against avoiding attendance at mass – for instance, as in connection with a wedding or a funeral – is that it will cause offence to friends, colleagues or family if we are not present. Generally this is a specious argument as many are willing to accept that it is contrary to the profession of a genuine Protestant to be present and are respectful of their conscience in the matter. Avoiding offence given to such people by attending mass actually creates offence to God and to Christ and also to other believers who are stumbled by such an example.
“What else do those men do when they endeavour, by a show of respect for the mass, not to offend [that is, stumble] those altogether untaught, or those not yet fully confirmed? They indeed avert offence from themselves, but they entice others, by their example, to offend God.”
In his last urgent appeal to those who are deliberating whether or not it is lawful for them to attend the mass, Calvin sums up the fearful consequences of attending the idolatrous mass. His urgent entreaty is “that you may not pollute the holy religion of God by horrible sacrilege; that you may not profane your body, which He has dedicated as a temple to Himself, by foul abominations; that you may not inscribe your name on execrable blasphemies”.