Nicolas Antoine - Protestant Pastor, Although A Jew

Protestant Pastor, Although A Jew

Antoine, desiring to marry, sought another appointment. A new Protestant parish had just been formed at Divonne, a little village of the district of Gex, which had belonged to France since 1602, but was now under the religious jurisdiction of Geneva; and there Antoine obtained the position of pastor.

Once installed, he sought to pacify his conscience. Revealing his inmost convictions to no one, he secretly observed a thoroughly Jewish mode of life, saying his prayers in Hebrew and observing all the Mosaic rites. In his public services he pronounced the name of Jesus as seldom as possible. He was never known to read the apostolic confession audibly. In the communion service, instead of the words "This is my body, this is my blood," he was once heard to say, "Your Savior remembers you." His sermons, the texts for which were taken exclusively from Isaiah and the other prophets, became celebrated far and wide; yet they lacked any peculiarly Christian characteristics. The peasants of Divonne were perfectly satisfied with their pastor, who was eloquent in the extreme and full of kindness toward them; they were not shocked by the vague form of his sermons. But the lord of the adjoining manor was outraged. One Sunday, Antoine preached on the second Psalm, which, according to orthodox Christian theology, announces the coming of the son of God. Antoine, on the contrary, permitted himself to declare that God had no son and that there was but the one God. This was too much for the lord; he remonstrated loudly with the heretical pastor and threatened to denounce him to the synod.

Antoine fell into gloomy despair; a nervous attack deprived him of his reason. To several colleagues from Geneva who had come to see him he began to chant the seventy-fourth Psalm; then he suddenly stopped, and, exclaiming that he was a Jew, blasphemed Christianity. His condition was recognized at once, and he was put to bed; but he escaped his watchers, passed the night wandering through the country, and was found the next morning in Geneva in a most pitiable condition, kneeling in the streets and calling loudly upon the god of Israel. He was placed in an asylum for the insane Feb. 11, 1632. Medical treatment accomplished but little for him. His clerical colleagues did all they could to induce him to change his religion; but he never ceased to proclaim that he was a Jew and desired to remain a Jew.