Farel

Farel, GUILLAUME, one of the most active promoters of the Reformation in Switzerland, was born in 1489 at Gap, in Dauphiné. He studied at Paris, and was at first distinguished by his extravagant zeal for the practices of the Catholic Church; but, moved to the study of the Scriptures, he was converted to Protestantism, and, being by nature vehement even to indiscretion, he immediately commenced to proselytise. The chief scene of his labours was France and Switzerland. At Basel, in 1524, he opened his career of controversy and evangelisation by publicly sustaining thirty theses on the points in dispute between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. He subsequently preached at Strasburg, at Montbéliard, and at Neuchâtel. In 1532 he went to Geneva, but soon had to leave the city. He returned in 1533, was again compelled to withdraw, but once more entered it in 1534; and in 1535 the town-council of Geneva formally proclaimed the Reformation. Farel, however, was a missionary, not a legislator, and the organisation of the Genevan Church passed into the hands of Calvin (q.v.). The severity of the new ecclesiastical discipline produced a reaction, and in 1538 the two Reformers were expelled from the city. Farel took up his residence at Neuchâtel. In 1557, along with Beza, he was sent to the Protestant princes of Germany, to implore their aid for the Waldenses, and on his return sought a new sphere of evangelistic labour in the Jura Mountains. When trembling upon three-score-and-ten, he married a young wife. In 1560 he proceeded to his native Dauphiné, and passed several months preaching against Catholicism; and in November 1561 he was thrown into prison for a time. He died at Neuchâtel on the 13th September 1565. His works were mainly polemical. See the German work by Kirchhofer (Zur. 1833); two French works by E. Schmidt (1834 and 1860); and a Life in French by Goguel (1873).