Nicholas Cop

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Nicholas Cop was a newly appointed rector of the University of Paris when on November 1, 1533, he preached an evangelical sermon inspired in part by a student named John Calvin. The result was that both men had to flee Paris for their lives.

On November 1, All Saint's Day, the newly elected rector of the university of Paris, Nicholas Cop preached a sermon heavily influenced by the writings of Erasmus and Luther. He attacked the conservative theological faculty, and ended with the following words: "Blessed are the persecuted! Let us not be afraid of confessing the Gospel. Should we strive to please man rather than God? Should we fear those who can kill the body yet are powerless over the soul?" The outcry from the university and threat of a trial by the Parlement lead Cop to flee Paris for Basle.

In 1533, Nicholas Cop, an evangelically inclined doctor, became the University's rector. Emmanuel Stickelberger says Calvin pleaded with Cop to "give the pure Word a chance in your rectorial address." Cop believed the request audacious, but later relented. Cop and Calvin wrote the address together entitling it, "Christian Philosophy." Cop delivered the address on All Saints Day issuing a call to reform so strong that it shocked the hearers, many of whom were clergy and monks. So shocked were the "powers that be," that they forced both Cop and Calvin to leave France. Calvin ended up in Basel where, in 1536, he wrote his first very brief draft of the "Institutes."