Christopher Goodman

Christopher Goodman BD (1520–1603) was an English reforming clergyman and writer. He was a Marian exile, who left England to escape persecution during the counter-reformation in the reign of Queen Mary I of England. He was the author of a work on limits to obedience to rulers, and a contributor to the Geneva Bible. He was a friend of John Knox, and on Mary's death went to Scotland, later returning to England where he failed to conform.

He was probably born (1520) in Chester. When about eighteen he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating as B.A. 4 Feb. 1541, and M.A. 13 June 1544. In 1547 he became a senior student at Christ Church, Oxford, and was proctor in 1549. He proceeded B.D. in 1551, and is said to have become Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity about 1548. At Oxford Goodman made friends with Bartlet Green.

Goodman left England in 1554, and on 23 November his name appears among the signatures to a letter from the exiles at Strasburg. He afterwards joined the schism among the reformers at Frankfurt, and withdrew with William Whittingham and other exiles to Geneva; they jointly wrote a letter to the Frankfort congregation to defend their departure.

The congregation at Geneva chose John Knox and Goodman in September 1555 for their pastors, and the two formed a lifelong friendship. During his exile Goodman took part in Miles Coverdale's translation of the Bible, and helped Knox in the "book of common order".

Both he and Knox wrote some acrimonious tracts. The most famous by Goodman was entitled How superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects, and wherein they may lawfully be by God's word disobeyed and resisted . . . Geneva, 1558. The book, in favor of Wyatt's rebellion, bitterly attacked Mary I of England and the government of women in general, which afterwards drew down Elizabeth's displeasure upon the author. Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet was published in the same year, and the tracts were secretly circulated in England. Their violence was generally disapproved, even by their own party. Goodman also published while abroad a Commentary upon Amos, in which he likens Mary to Proserpine, queen of Hades. On Elizabeth's accession, he returned briefly and somewhat furtively to London.

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