Zweig vs. Calvin
Christianity, the religion that has shaped Western civilization for two millennia, suffered a severe setback a little over five hundred years ago with the Protestant Reformation. In many places, the Reformation was seen as a liberating moment and an affirmation of the value of human conscience, although in others it met with violent reactions. But the Reformation has many shadowy areas, and one of the darkest was the theocratic regime imposed by Calvin in the city of Geneva, brilliantly recounted by Stefan Zweig in his book Castellio vs. Calvin (The Second Periphery, 2025).
The story began in 1536, when Calvin arrived by chance in the Swiss city and was invited to stay by Guillaume Farel, the great introducer of Protestantism in Switzerland. Calvin was a brilliant and charismatic preacher and his proposals were enthusiastically received by the Genevans, but soon his intransigence on certain issues caused the city council to lose patience with him and expel him from Geneva in 1538. Catholicism tried to regain its space, which aroused the suspicions of the council. Faced with this, and despite the fact that they now know firsthand his despotic nature, the council asks Calvin to return to the city. The preacher had himself prayed for, but in the end, in 1541, he returned to Geneva, where he eventually established a theocratic regime that Zweig describes in detail and which today is surely on par with the Afghan Taliban, with all kinds of rules of conduct and restrictions, going so far as to prohibit even the Christmas and Easter holidays. Through torture and executions, the juniper lords eventually came to understand that Calvin's god was not a god to be celebrated, but a god to be feared.
What most surprises Zweig, however, is not so much the cruelty of the figure, but the fact that a prosperous and cultured city like Geneva agreed to submit to the dictatorship of this fanatic, even selflessly. The city's problems could have been solved in many ways without resorting to Calvin, whom they already know well. Zweig's interest in this fact is better understood if we consider that the book was published in 1936, at the height of fascism. What Zweig shows us is a pattern that is repeated four centuries later and, as the current reader can sense, we cannot rule out its recurrence.
When they present themselves, tyrants do not warn of their barbaric and murderous nature. On the contrary, they tend to present themselves as leaders of integrity and high morals. They are brave and speak clearly, they confront people's real problems and promise what they want to feel: that they have a solution and are not afraid to apply it. That is why they are received with enthusiasm by a people convinced they are willing to make sacrifices to achieve a better society. But that society never arrives.
Over time, the Junipers came to understand: there was always one more step to take, demanding more sacrifices and having to fight anyone who questioned the set course. Only when dissent grows sufficiently and moral conscience is revitalized, is it possible to organize a resistance that can bring down the despot, but then, as the Junipers found out, the price to pay, in blood and pain, is very high.