Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)
2017 / 2. szám - MISCELLANEOUS-SONSTIGES - Homoki Gyula: Where to look in suffering? A fictional round-table discussion with
Gyula Homoki need false friends (kinds like Zophar, Eliphaz, and Bildad) who come only to say their own convictions and make us feel even worse. We need words that are truly spoken and legitimate. And there is only one way that it can happen: if someone has experienced the same affliction as we do. Experience of hardships gives authority to the words of comfort. Therefore, in this short essay, I chose to present two extraordinary people of the past who knew suffering from firsthand experiences, thus their losses and troubles together with the biblical ideas they present give authority to their thoughts and words. I am trying to create a fictional round-table discussion where two great men come and say comforting words of direction to the all-time Jobs and can serve with an answer to the question: Where to look in suffering? Two men of sorrows It is not my intention to present their whole biography here, I would rather draw the attention to those certain happenings in their lives which make this authorization legitimate. John Calvin (1509, Noyon — 1564, Geneva), after getting associated with a Protestant speech delivered by the new rector of the University of Paris, Nicholas Cop, had to flee the city since King Francis I started a general persecution of the followers of the new faith.4 The French refugee started to study in Basel, Switzerland, and by the end of the summer, he had finished the first edition of his masterpiece Institutes. The main reason for writing the book, as it becomes clear from the preface, is to inform the persecutor king about the new faith and prove that the French evangelicals were not heretics, but followers of the true faith.5 After he had to leave Geneva, he found rest in Strasbourg. He married Idolette de Bure, but, unfortunately, their firstborn son Jacques died two weeks after he was born; later they got two more children, but they died again soon after their births. In 1549, Calvin had lost Idolette as well who most probably died of tuberculosis. His health didn’t serve him well either, the weakness of his stomach, the constant migraines, and the huge kidney stones made his life sometimes unbearable. In addition to all these miseries, he had to face the many threats and enemies he had in the city of Geneva every day.6 The loss of his children and wife, the unbearable pain and health-condition, the enemies all around him make his words genuine on suffering. The contemporary fellow-Reformer of Calvin, the Dutch Jean Taffin (1529, Doornik - 1602, Amsterdam) is one of the most applicable figures of the refugee pastors who had to flee several times in his life from the Catholic avengement. Taffin, after converting to the Calvinist faith in 1557, became one of the leaders of the 4 Anthony N. S. Lane: A Reader's Guide to Calvin's Institutes, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 2009,11. 5 John Piper: John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God, Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, 2009, 30. 6 Piper: John Calvin, 41. 136 Sárospataki Füzetek 21, 2017 - 2
