Calvin and the Book: The Evolution of the Printed Word in Reformed Protestantism 9783666550881, 9783525550885

Citation preview

Refo500 Academic Studies Edited by Herman J. Selderhuis

In Co-operation with Günter Frank (Bretten), Bruce Gordon, (New Haven), Ute Lotz-Heumann (Tucson), Mathijs Lamberigts (Leuven), Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Bern), Tarald Rasmussen (Oslo), Johannes Schilling (Kiel), Günther Wassilowsky (Linz), Siegrid Westphal (Osnabrück), David M. Whitford (Trotwood).

Volume 25

Karen E. Spierling (ed.)

Calvin and the Book The Evolution of the Printed Word in Reformed Protestantism

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

For David Foxgrover, with deep gratitude for his dedicated service to the Calvin Studies Society

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISSN 2198-3089 ISBN 978-3-525-55088-5 You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de Ó 2015, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, 37073 Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch, Ochsenfurt Printed and bound by Hubert & Co GmbH & Co. KG, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, 37079 Göttingen Printed on non-aging paper.

Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Karen E. Spierling Introduction: Calvin, the Book, and Reformed Traditions . . . . . . . . .

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Andrew Pettegree Chapter One: Calvin and Luther as Men of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Margo Todd Chapter Two: Practicing the Books of Discipline: The Problem of Equality before the Law in Scottish Parish Consistories . . . . . . . . . .

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Jennifer Powell McNutt Chapter Three: Replacing Calvin? The Catechism of Calvin in Eighteenth-Century Geneva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Euan Cameron Chapter Four : Calvin the Historian: Biblical Antiquity and Scriptural Exegesis in the Quest for a Meaningful Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Bruce Gordon Chapter Five: Creating a Reformed Book of Knowledge: Immanuel Tremellius, Franciscus Junius, and Their Latin Bible, 1580 – 1590 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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William Dyrness Chapter Six: God’s Play : Calvin, Theatre, and the Rise of the Book . . . . 123

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Contents

Matthew Myer Boulton Chapter Seven: “Even More Deeply Moved”: Calvin on the Rhetorical, Formational Function of Scripture and Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 About the Authors Bibliography Index

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Acknowledgements

The essays in this volume began as papers presented at the 2013 Calvin Studies Colloquium, held at Princeton Seminary. As a result, many people have been involved in the development of this volume in a number of different ways. First, I would like to thank Dr. M. Craig Barnes, President of Princeton Seminary, and the staff of the Erdman Center for their warm and capable hosting of our 2013 meeting. Ward Holder, Amy Burnett, David Foxgrover, Jeannine Olson, Elsie McKee, and Don McKim contributed to the planning and success of the meeting as CSS board members. The colloquium participants helped to shape the final form of these chapters with their questions and lively discussion. At Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Herman Selderhuis (as Director of Refo500), Christoph Spill, and Elke Liebig shepherded this project through the publication process, and I am thankful for the opportunity they have provided to share our discussions with a wider audience. I am immensely grateful to our colloquium speakers and volume authors: Matt Boulton, Euan Cameron, Bill Dyrness, Jennifer McNutt, Andrew Pettegree, and Margo Todd. Bruce Gordon’s contribution to this volume came in response to the colloquium discussions, and I sincerely appreciate his spirit of generosity in sharing his work with us. The high caliber of all of these scholars’ contributions has been the key to the success of this project. Finally, my greatest debt is always to Scott, Madeleine, and Abby, for insisting that I keep things in perspective.

Karen E. Spierling

Introduction: Calvin, the Book, and Reformed Traditions

“Calvin and the Book” is a deceptively simple title for a deeply complex topic. For many scholars of John Calvin and Reformed traditions, “the book” may, first and foremost, refer to the Bible – thus, is this to be a volume focused on Calvin’s scriptural exegesis, commentaries, and sermons? Or perhaps on the influence of his biblical interpretations on later times and place? On the other hand, in the context of John Calvin, one may think of “the book” most crucially as his Institutes, evoking questions regarding Calvin’s ideas about the correct structure and discipline of the Christian church, how the Institutes transmitted his ideas to emerging Reformed congregations beyond Geneva, or perhaps even how the ideas in the Institutes were adapted and re-formed by followers of Calvin in other times and places. In addition, scholars of the Reformation or early modern Europe more generally may think first of “the book” as printed texts generally, bringing to mind topics such as Calvin’s connections with his printers, or the importance of the printing trade in spreading Calvin’s teachings. Clearly, the topic of “Calvin and the Book” casts a wide net across a variety of disciplines and historical time periods. The papers collected in this volume, initially presented at the Spring 2013 meeting of the Calvin Studies Society at Princeton Seminary, explore a variety of the issues indicated by this terse phrase. Taken all together, as different voices in a lively conversation, these essays highlight the themes of the interactive relationships between people and books and the potentially malleable nature of ideas that appear fixed in print – two important dynamics that are all too easily overlooked in studies of Calvin, his ideas, and his ongoing influence on Reformed traditions. While scholarly scrutiny of Calvin’s scriptural exegesis and his Institutes began during his lifetime, as part of sixteenth-century discussions and debates, studies of early modern books as material objects and of the printing industry that produced them are considerably more recent developments. The history of the book has blossomed as a field of study, especially in the past four decades, as the painstaking compiling of detailed bibliographies has allowed scholars to map the contours of the early modern European printing industry and book

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distribution process. This work has, in turn, begun to improve our understandings of how Reformation-era ideas spread through Europe – and were transformed in the process.1 These recent decades of work on the history of the book and printing have called attention to the importance of examining the interplay among printed objects, ideas, and contexts. Clearly, the material object of a book is fixed, at least insofar as the placement of the original text on the pages. This permanence of the printed text on the page gives the impression that the ideas themselves are fixed and unchanging – as if the author would always, at any place and time, articulate those same exact ideas in precisely the same words. And yet, how people interact with both a physical book and the ideas it presents changes across time and place, from person to person, and even within the mind of an individual author or reader. These seemingly abstract questions of the fixed and mutable characteristics of printed books take on particularly concrete significance in the context of the religious debates and shifts of the sixteenth-century Reformation. From the start of the Protestant reform movement, participants recognized the crucial role of printing in the spread of reformers’ teachings, and later scholars also perceived the critical role of printed texts and Scripture in the development and articulation of those teachings.2 But only relatively recently have scholars begun to delve more deeply into the myriad possible ways to examine the relationships among authors, texts, and readers, in addition to the roles that printers played within these relationships. With this complexity in mind, rather than focusing on a singular book or particular disciplinary approach, the following chapters represent an impressive breadth of thinking on the broad topic of “Calvin and the Book”. Considered together, they advance a multi-faceted discussion and open 1 Significant contributions related to Reformed books and printing include, for example: JeanFranÅois Gilmont, John Calvin and the Printed Book, trans. Karin Maag, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies 2 (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2005). Id., ed., The Reformation and the Book, trans. Karin Maag (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998; orig. 1990). Id., “Protestant Reformations and Reading” in: Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, ed., A History of Reading in the West, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999; orig. 1995), pp. 213 – 237. Andrew Pettegree, The French Book and the European Book World (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007). Francis Higman, Piety and the People: Religious Printing in French, 1511 – 1551 (Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press, 1996). Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of Foxe’s“Book of Martyrs” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). For a thought-provoking discussion on developments and paths forward, see: Philip Benedict, “Propaganda, Print, and Persuasion in the French Reformation: A Review Article,” BibliothÀque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 69:2 (2007), pp. 447 – 472. 2 As Andrew Pettegree has remarked, “The connection between the book and the Reformation seems so obvious that it needs little extra comment.” Andrew Pettegree and Matthew Hall, “The Reformation and the Book: A Reconsideration,” The Historical Journal 47:4 (2004), pp. 785 – 808, here at p. 785. (But note that he makes this comment to start off a discussion about what else there is still to know on the topic.)

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useful avenues for thinking about the interplay between theology, printed texts, and Reformed practices over time. We begin with Andrew Pettegree, whose discussion emanates from his work on the St Andrews French Book Project and the Universal Short Title Catalogue. In this paper, Pettegree compares Martin Luther and John Calvin as “book professionals”, arguing that one key to their success as reformers was their mastery of the printing trade as an industrial process. Both men were highly aware of the importance of establishing relationships with printers and distinguishing which printers could handle which types of texts. Pettegree describes Luther’s striking success in branding himself, as illustrated by a discussion of title pages that increasingly highlighted Luther’s name. In contrast, Calvin faced the challenge of concealing his “brand” for protection from French royal censors, but was keenly attuned to the annual cycle of the book trade, ensuring that he completed books in time to appear at the Frankfurt Fair. In a time period when most authors and printers were still figuring out the dynamics of the new industry, Luther and Calvin both demonstrated an impressive awareness of the new possibilities of print, a recognition of the new type of writing required for printed texts (pithier sermons, for example), and an arguably unexpected adaptability to these new circumstances. Pettegree insists that we cannot fully understand the formation and impact of the ideas presented in early modern books until we also understand the process by which the physical books were themselves constructed and disseminated. In terms of “Calvin and the Book”, this means keeping the reformer firmly grounded in his historical context and examining how the spread of his ideas was shaped by the necessities of the print trade, as well as how the influence of his ideas benefitted the printing industry – in other words, looking at the final texts as the product of multiple interactions among author, printer, booksellers, and audience. Following Pettegree, Margo Todd focuses on a particular book – Scotland’s First Book of Discipline, produced in 1560 by John Knox and his colleagues – to explore how the standards articulated in that book were initially influenced by Genevan texts such as the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541 and Calvin’s Institutes, and then carried out in practice by Scottish kirk sessions. In this chapter, we turn from the question of how books were produced and circulated to the problem of how the ideas in a book were put into action, once the book arrived at its destination. Todd’s discussion centers on the importance of context – how did traditional aspects of Scottish society influence the ways that the kirk sessions read and enacted the Book of Discipline? She approaches this question by looking at the Perth kirk session records as a case study to determine whether the processes of the sessions were as egalitarian as others have argued, or whether the records instead reflect the continued influence of a sexual double standard and preferential treatment based on social status. Ul-

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timately, Todd finds that the Perth sessions did endeavor to uphold Calvin’s ideal of imposing discipline equally across gender and social status but that, at the same time, in certain cases traditional social connections or gender hierarchies still determined (or at least influenced) case proceedings and outcomes. One of Todd’s most striking contributions to the conversation on “Calvin and the Book” is her insistence that we must acknowledge the historical importance of the kirk sessions’ attempts to meet the ideal, despite the fact that those efforts inevitably were less than perfect. In applying this observation to her own discussion, she demonstrates a productive way for scholars to grapple with the interactive nature of texts and contexts, and ideas and actions, as historical realities. Chapter three enters the conversation with another fruitful approach to examining the changing role of a printed text and the ideas it contains over time. While Todd’s discussion covers several decades of kirk session proceedings, Jennifer Powell McNutt explores the shifting place of Calvin’s Catechism in Geneva over more than two centuries. McNutt focuses primarily on the concerns of eighteenth-century Genevan pastors regarding the effectiveness of their catechetical practices. In this study, McNutt is contributing to recent discussions challenging the well-established notion that religion had become irrelevant in the 1700s. Her work in the Genevan archives demonstrates, rather, the lengths to which the Genevan pastors continued to go in order to ensure that their religious teachings were both correct and effective. Her discussion provides an excellent window onto the issue of how words and ideas are connected. First, she points out that Calvin’s catechism had never fully dominated Genevan religious instruction – by the early 1560s, competing catechisms already existed and were being put to use. This observation is an important reminder that books existed (and competed with one another) as an ongoing discussion with their readers – there was not always a single right answer in terms of ideas and practice, even in the first century of the Reformation, even in Geneva. Second, McNutt finds that the eighteenth-century Genevan pastors did preserve Calvin’s catechism; while it still was not the sole accepted text at the end of the 1700s, the pastors retained the book as a source of what some perceived to be the most correct version of Christian teachings, uncorrupted by the intervening centuries. Thus, the Reformed catechism, a book specifically intended for teaching by memorization, was in some ways the most fixed of texts (to be memorized, not interrogated) and yet also the most changing, with a variety of versions by a variety of authors always in circulation. As McNutt discusses, many different catechisms appeared in Geneva over time; in her analysis, Calvin’s catechism itself becomes a symbol of the tension between maintaining Calvin’s original vision (as later followers understood it) and adapting to social and cultural needs in 1700s Geneva. In other words, the printed text of Calvin’s catechism lay at the center of ongoing

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exchanges and debates regarding both the articulation of Reformed tenets and the inculcation of those beliefs into Reformed congregations. Following McNutt’s examination of these issues raised by both the material object and the intellectual content of Calvin’s catechism two centuries after his death, Euan Cameron returns us to Calvin himself. This chapter examines the reformer’s interactions with one aspect of Scripture: the question of the importance of historical context in the interpretation of the Bible. Cameron sets Calvin firmly into a web of printed texts including the Old Testament, historical works of fellow reformers such as Bullinger, and works of classical historians such as Herodotus. He asserts that, while Calvin did not produce historical accounts, as some of his contemporaries did, his strong sense of historical eras as past and irrecoverable was fundamental to his exegesis of the Old Testament. Further, while Calvin does not qualify as a modern historian, certain aspects of his historical thinking regarding the Bible were strikingly modern and distinct from other reformers’ notions. For example, Cameron argues that Calvin both insisted on the providential nature of the scriptural message and perceived clear limits on the meanings of Old Testament prophecies – in particular, Cameron reveals the important role that historical context played in Calvin’s scriptural exegesis. This emphasis on context allowed Calvin to interpret the words of the Old Testament prophets as messages articulated in particular ways for particular times and peoples; these were prophecies that looked to the coming of Christ, not far past it to the sixteenth century. For readers and listeners in the sixteenth century, Calvin emphasized the importance of the moral lessons presented by biblical prophecies. In Cameron’s analysis, we gain entrance not only to Calvin’s engagement with a printed text, but also to a discussion about the interactive nature of the ideas represented in that text. Calvin’s emphasis on historical context highlights the Old Testament prophets as figures engaged with their contemporary audiences, at the same time that their prophecies convey different messages to audiences in later times and places. Bruce Gordon pursues the question of the significance of historical context beyond Calvin himself, shifting the story of Protestants and the Old Testament to the next generation of reformers.3 His discussion suggests ways that Reformed scholars were aware both of the historical context of Scripture and of their own historical contexts, particularly in terms of the ways that existing contemporary knowledge could both improve and limit their comprehension of scriptural truths. Specifically, Gordon examines the sixteenth-century Protestant practice of producing Latin translations of the Bible. He explains that while many Protestants – including Calvin – continued to be influenced by aspects of the Vulgate, they were 3 I wish to thank Bruce Gordon for contributing this highly relevant essay to this volume, despite the fact that it was not originally presented at the Spring 2013 Colloquium.

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also moving toward a new kind of text: a “study Bible” with annotations meant for both pastors and theological students. A crucial concept here, as Gordon explains, was the Protestant idea that “truth could be linked not to any one text but to the ongoing process of translation and interpretation”.4 He demonstrates the impact of this interactive approach to Scripture by examining the work of Reformed scholars Immanuel Tremellius and Franciscus Junius, whose Latin version of the Old Testament, the Testamenti veteris biblia sacra, first appeared in 1579 and was still popular among highly educated Protestants a century later. Gordon explores how this edition of the Old Testament was both a product of the first century of the Reformation and a dynamic text well-adapted to “the intellectual and ecclesiastical culture of post-reformation Reformed Christianity”.5 By closely comparing the 1580 and 1590 versions of the Tremellius/Junius Old Testament, Gordon identifies connections among scriptural interpretation, historical context, and the early modern publishing process. He considers how the background and position of the editors shaped their editing decisions and how their goals connected to contemporary events and concerns, ultimately revealing their collaborative text to be something that they themselves saw as a work in progress. As Gordon explains, Tremellius and Junius sought to produce the best possible edition of the Old Testament based on current knowledge (including literary, historical, and scientific knowledge) in the late sixteenth century, while carefully indicating areas that might be better understood in the future, when scholars had uncovered additional information. Dovetailing with Cameron’s excavation of Calvin’s historical thinking, Gordon finds that Junius (who completed the project as well as the revised 1590 edition) also relied on detailed descriptions of historical context, in this case to confirm the veracity and consistency of the biblical texts. The annotations of the 1590 version were, thus, premised on the understanding that the precise relationship between printed editions of the Old Testament and readers would continue to evolve over time, as scholars learned more about the text and its historical context. Up to this point in the volume, while these first five essays differ in terms of specific topic and guiding questions, all are deeply grounded in historical methodology, as the work of historians, examining archival sources. Naturally, they do not present the full spectrum of approaches and issues that comprise Calvin studies. Such deeply historical thinking is complemented, challenged, and invigorated by more fully theological approaches to understanding the importance of John Calvin and his relationship to the book. To that end, in the final two essays, William Dyrness and Matthew Myer Boulton confront questions about how Calvin perceived the impact of scriptural texts on readers and lis4 See below, chapter five, pp. 107 – 108. 5 See below, chapter five, p. 96.

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teners. Their discussions bring the topic of “Calvin and the Book” right up to the present moment, leading us to consider the dynamics of Calvin’s own interaction with Scripture, his views of faithful Christians’ engagement with Scripture, and the interactions of modern readers with Calvin’s writings. In chapter six, William Dyrness explores how medieval and Renaissance concepts of drama influenced Calvin’s discussions of the relationship between God and humankind. He begins with the established idea that Calvin interprets the sacred drama of Scripture as an ongoing drama played out by human beings in the physical world, beyond the confines of a cathedral or, even more specifically, the Mass. He then sets this broader point into the context of medieval Mystery Plays and Renaissance concepts of drama, arguing that in his vision of the drama of Christian faith, Calvin is breaking away from the timeless cycles of the medieval Mass and Mystery Plays, which asked the audience to witness the sacred mystery of the crucifixion reoccurring. Instead, Dyrness suggests, Calvin is influenced by Reniassance drama and humanist concepts to insist that the Christian audience should both see themselves reflected in the drama of the crucifixion that happened long ago and be moved by that story to carry the drama of Christian faith out into their daily lives, thus moving the divine drama forward in time rather than keeping it within a closed cycle. As Dyrness asserts, the Bible is always at the center of this human-divine drama, as envisioned by Calvin. Thus, Christians’ engagement with this particular book is not only within their hearts and minds, but manifests itself physically, in believers’ daily interactions with the world. Finally, rather than drawing the volume’s conversation to a firm close, in chapter seven, Matthew Myer Boulton opens the door to further discussions to be taken up by Calvin Studies scholars of all types. Further developing the theme of the interactivity and malleability of Calvin’s (and Calvinists’) relationships to books, Boulton challenges us to remain open to reconsidering Calvin’s own interpretations of Scripture. In his close reading of Calvin’s Institutes II.xvi.1 – 3, Boulton looks at Calvin’s appreciation of the rhetorical nature and power of the words of Scripture. Similar to Dyrness, Boulton investigates how Calvin perceives the impact of the words of Scripture on its human readers and listeners. Specifically, he examines how Calvin confronts the paradox posed by the scriptural implication that God was the enemy of human beings until Christ’s crucifixion saved humanity (satisfaction atonement theory). The tension here, Boulton explains, is the seeming impossibility of a God who was the enemy of humanity making the choice to send Christ as a savior. In this passage of the Institutes, Boulton argues, Calvin offers a solution to that conundrum, which revolves around Calvin’s use of the word quodammodo – “in a certain way” or “so to speak”. Thus, God was only “so to speak” the enemy of humanity because human beings needed to fear God to be fully convinced of their own depravity. While this reading may appear to suggest that Calvin was proposing an inter-

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pretation that contradicts his scriptural exegesis in other places, Boulton argues that, instead, Calvin’s insistence on the rhetorical power and necessity of depicting God as the “enemy” of human beings may be a key to understanding Calvin’s approach to satisfaction theory itself as a divine accommodation to human need and understanding. This is an exciting and provocative argument that reminds us of the complexity of Calvin studies – the seemingly inherent tensions among scholars of different fields, with different questions and ultimately different disciplinary goals. For some readers, Boulton’s discussion may raise thought-provoking questions about whether the absolute or obvious consistency of a single author’s message is inherent to the printed articulation of that message or is imposed from outside by readers and listeners. While a question like this may strike some as a distressing challenge to the work of Calvin studies, it may also be heard as an invigorating reminder of the challenge of achieving absolute certainty in many areas – a notion familiar to Calvin himself.6 Taken all together, these seven essays remind us of the vigor, complexity, and continued importance of Calvin Studies when the field is conceived broadly in terms of discipline, time period, and geography. They shed light on the various ways that Calvin’s interactions with scriptural texts and his engagement with the printing industry shaped the transmission and reception of his teachings. Further, they reveal important dynamics of how later Reformed Christians received and engaged those teachings, as articulated in printed texts. In our current age of reading devices, smart phones, and seemingly constant technological revolutions, printed books are often seen as restrictive, non-interactive media. As printed newspapers and magazines give way to “new and improved, interactive” websites, it may be easy to lose sight of the fact that interaction and change are fundamental characteristics of printed texts, as they appear in different versions, at different times and places, altered by editors and translators, to be consumed by varying audiences. The essays collected here create a conversation that pushes us to reconsider “Calvin and the Book” as an always-evolving topic of fertile, thought-provoking discussion. Despite his infamous deathbed injunction to the Genevan pastors to “change nothing”, John Calvin himself set a model for constant interaction with “the book” that led to an ongoing Reformed tradition of encountering and revisiting Christian teachings as articulated in printed texts. 6 David Jeffrey explores the long history surrounding this issue of uncertain scriptural interpretation, observing: “Augustine reflects the consensus of early Christian thought about interpretation in his belief that no single fallen human perspective can be assured of complete understanding, and therefore that the conversation of readers, the witness of the body of Christ both in the here and now and also of generations past, must constitute an important control on any single effort.” David L. Jeffrey, People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 84 – 85.

Andrew Pettegree

Chapter One: Calvin and Luther as Men of the Book

In June 1546 Calvin fell into a deep depression, and took to his bed. That Calvin should be ill was not in itself unusual. Throughout his life Calvin suffered from poor health – he had a delicate frame, pushed to the edge by incessant work. But this particular physical collapse had a proximate cause. One of his manuscripts had gone missing. Calvin, as was his wont, had dispatched the text of his commentary on Two Corinthians to a messenger to carry to Strasbourg, to be printed there by Wendelin Rihel. Rihel was a printer with whom Calvin had a longstanding relationship; nevertheless, it was a complex procedure, and a risky one, as it turned out in this case. Somewhere on the 400-kilometer journey the manuscript went missing. Calvin’s reaction was extraordinary. He found he could not work. Eventually, after some months, the text turned up, but only after he had endured the sort of heartache that would all too often be associated with his writing.1 Calvin and Luther were both men of the book. The connection between print and the Reformation is so scored into our consciousness that we do not always recognize how profound were the changes required by the print revolution, on the part of authors, readers, and producers. This is partly because even at the time, commentators created around print a seamless narrative of modernity and success: a point made very effectively in Elizabeth Eisenstein’s excellent recent book: Divine Art, Infernal Machine. This charts with meticulous care the hymns of acclamation that greeted every stage of the print revolution.2 Technical excitement inspired a Gadarene rush to share in the new art. The result was often catastrophic for many of the unfortunate printers recruited to publish the new books. Fortunes were invested, and by and large lost. Many of the first printers were forced into bankruptcy by the inability to dispose of their stock. 1 This story is beautifully told in Jean-FranÅois Gilmont, John Calvin and the printed book, trans. Karin Maag (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2005), pp. 3 – 4. 2 Elizabeth Eisenstein, Divine art, infernal machine: the reception of printing in the West from first impressions to the sense of an ending (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

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This reminds us that for the first seventy years of print, before the Reformation, it is quite possible to construct an alternative, more critical narrative: of rash decisions repented at leisure; of humanists, greedy to enhance their own collections, urging on printers ill-advised publishing programs; of over-supply, distribution problems, and bankruptcy. Among the most disappointed were those who hoped to shine as authors in this new firmament. Whereas the rhetoric of print was certainly author-led, this was in the last resort an industry like any other, with investment, credit transactions, transportation costs, and extended supply chains. Scholars found they were indeed in demand, but not for the compositions they offered, with insistent optimism, to reluctant printers. Rather, they found employment as proofreaders – the one occupation in the print shop for which a philosophical education was a tangible asset.3 The first seventy years of the age of print was in this respect a period of cruel disappointment for those who sought to make their reputations in the world of letters. Few stars shone in this firmament: a rare exception was, of course, Erasmus, who found the way to monetize his talent. This may indeed have been a large part of the reason why he was so lionized by aspiring authors, rather than for any particular thing he wrote. Erasmus was a celebrity in an age which seldom conferred fame on the low born. Luther and Calvin, as I have said, were both men of the book, but this was partly because they both showed a profound grasp of how the industry functioned, and what the author could most effectively contribute. Both intervened directly to create the industrial infrastructure necessary to sustain their respective movements. Both adapted their writing style to the requirements of the new book world. In the process they created in their respective cities industries of considerable size – a development that went against the grain of a previous trend towards consolidation and retrenchment. So this paper is about book professionals: the men who printed, published, and distributed the books of Wittenberg and Geneva, but also the two celebrated authors who worked closely with them. It is a story that has not been wholly told, partly because it involves processes that are in some way foreign to us: an attention to artifact and medium, rather than simply context and text. Luther and Calvin did what was necessary to make this all work, rather against the grain of their character in both cases: Luther, a conservative academic in middle years; Calvin, by nature a scholarly aesthetic. They had a pragmatism which matched

3 Anthony Grafton, The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe (London: British Library, 2011).

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their inspiration. This adaptability is not to be underestimated, or indeed despised. Luther and Calvin were both consummate professionals.

II How to compare two very different men? Martin Luther loved Wittenberg in a way Calvin never felt about Geneva. Luther was profoundly happy in his role as preacher and professor. But he knew that he was a big man in a small place – he knew Wittenberg was a backwater. When the indulgence controversy propelled him to a quite unexpected notoriety, Luther fretted about how difficult it was to get news in Wittenberg. Indeed, part of the reason why the church hierarchy was so slow to react was that it was so difficult to imagine anything important coming from such a place. Luther made good use of the time afforded him. The professor transformed himself into the passionate prophet of reform. How this astonishing re-invention was accomplished is one part of our story : the other has to be how this message was fed into the bloodstream of German and European public life. Both were in their way dauntingly improbable. Luther would in time make of Wittenberg a major center of the print trade, but the true extent of this achievement has been masked by some fundamental misunderstandings about the early history of print. Printing was introduced into Europe around 1450. It spread quickly down the Rhine valley and then, crucially, crossed the Alps into Italy. In the next thirty years a printing house was the must-have accessory for every aspirational prince, bishop, or university. By the 1480s print had reached England and Spain and, in 1482, Scandinavia. In all, by the end of the fifteenth century, over two hundred towns and cities had first-hand experience of printing. Thus runs the conventional narrative of print. But if we look more closely we see that in many of these places which had a functioning press in the fifteenth century, printing was no longer taking place by the early years of the sixteenth century. Most printing presses failed. Few survived for more than a few years; many published not more than a handful of books. These presses were never truly economically viable. What had happened? It is fair to say that despite the expansive humanist rhetoric that had propelled it forward, print almost failed. It did so because in many respects it was too respectful of the inherited manuscript tradition. The first printers published books aimed at the most reliable customers of the preprint era: scholars, courtiers, and university teachers. So they reached for established best-sellers, which of course could not be best-sellers if numerous printers published the same books in too many copies. And they assumed that

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the same dispersed model of production that had characterized manuscripts would work for print. These were crucial misunderstandings. In time purchasers could be taught to accept the dull black and white books as a substitute for lavishly illustrated manuscript. But over-supply, a narrow range of titles, and the total lack of a rational distribution network were critical problems. It took thirty years and many lost fortunes to establish a solid basis for the trade. This involved the recognition of several factors specific to print and largely irrelevant in the manuscript world. Whereas a manuscript book represented a single retail transaction, print required an understanding that a complete edition would take a long time to sell out: purchasers could be dispersed throughout Europe and transportation, together with storage until an edition was exhausted, both added considerably to both cost and logistical complexity. It gradually dawned on printers that rather than continue to turn out repeat editions of the texts most popular from the medieval intellectual agenda, competing editions of identical texts spelt ruin for all concerned. Gradually, painfully, these lessons were learned. The business consolidated. So while it was true that 200 European towns at some point had a printing press, two-thirds of all books published in the fifteenth century were in fact printed in twelve places.4 These were all major centers of commerce, many of them close to the trade and information highway that linked the Low Countries in the north with Italy in the south. Outside this corridor was a secondary zone of dependent markets: these places received most of their books from these major centers, printing locally only for local purposes. This geography proved remarkably enduring. If we look at the situation from the perspective of one hundred years later, at the end of the sixteenth century, only three cities had forced their way into this elite: London, Antwerp, and Wittenberg.5 London was the capital and monopoly provider for one of Europe’s rising nations. Antwerp was the commercial center of the Low Countries and a major hub of international trade. Wittenberg was not only far distant from the main trade routes, it was also within a few kilometers of a well-established printing hub, Leipzig. Leipzig was itself rather isolated on our map, but flourished as an entrepút and clearing center for trade to lands to the East and North. Its production, and access to books published elsewhere in Europe, was quite sufficient to meet the needs of a place like Wittenberg. The establishment of printing in Wittenberg was not therefore an economic

4 Venice, Rome, Florence, and Milan; Augsburg, Basel, Cologne, Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Strasbourg; Paris and Lyon. 5 They replace Augsburg, Florence, and Milan in the leading twelve.

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necessity, but an act of state. This was very much the same in Scotland.6 In Scotland this was achieved in 1508; in Wittenberg 1502 represents the incunabula age. In Scotland the initiative petered out after two years, and this might easily have been the case in Wittenberg. To judge by the rapid turnover of printers in the first years, the appointment as university printer hardly brought great wealth. The assumption that printers would flourish in university towns was a hangover from the manuscript age, but actually it was in major trading centers, where merchants had deep pockets and were used to long-term credit transactions, that the industry put down roots. Wittenberg could easily, like Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg, or Tübingen, have given up on printing and relied on supplies from larger centers nearby. Heidelberg had no press between 1516 and 1546. This was the pattern over and over again throughout Europe, where the greater economies of scale and deeper capital resources available in the major publishing centers effectively throttled local competition. University towns represent one case; in other small cities where printing survived, it did so largely through jobbing work for official purposes: for the state, the city, or the church. In the first era of print, work for the church was particularly important. Rather ironically, of the 3,000 single-sheet items known from the fifteenth century, around a third emanated from the indulgence trade.7 It is a fair assumption that this trade continued to be a mainstay of the industry into the first twenty years of the sixteenth century. I say assumption because reconstructing the print output of Germany in these years is rendered almost impossible by the decision of the VD 16, the German national bibliography, to exclude single sheet items: surely the most disastrous policy decision in the history of material bibliography. This means that Luther’s 95 theses, a seminal document of German national consciousness, is not part of the German national bibliography, at least not until it was republished as a pamphlet by Adam Petri in Basel.8 So while we know that vast quantities of print accompanied the great 6 Sally Mapstone, ed., The Chepman and Myllar Prints: Scotland’s First Printed Texts. DVD. (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society and the National Library of Scotland; Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2008). 7 See Falk Eisermann, Verzeichnis der typographischen Einblattdrucke des 15. Jahrhunderts im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation: VE 15 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004). Falk Eisermann, “The Indulgence as a media event” in: Robert N. Swanson, ed., Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits. Indulgences in Late Mediaeval Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 309 – 330. 8 Josef Benzing, Lutherbibliographie. Verzeichnis der gedruckten Schriften Martin Luthers bis zu dessen Tod (Baden-Baden: Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, 1966), no. 87 – 89 (the pamphlet edition is Benzing, no. 89). To be read in connection with the supplement, in two volumes, by Helmut Claus (Baden-Baden: Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, 1989 and 1994), vol. X and CXLVI.

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preaching tour of Raymond Peraudi in the 1490s, the print footprint of the campaign of 1502 – 1505 is largely lost.9 This, incidentally, was a campaign that brought Peraudi to Wittenberg for the inauguration of Frederick the Wise’s new Castle church, an event for which he announced a generous indulgence. So we have particular reason to be grateful to the German historian Hans Volz, who in 1966 undertook a careful reconstruction of the printed remains of the preaching of the St Peter’s Indulgence of 1515, the campaign that stirred Luther’s ire.10 This evidence is remarkable, not only for the extent of the printing, but for its variety. There were editions of the Bull, in both Latin and German translation. There were two editions of the manual supplied to those charged with preaching the indulgence. This was the document to which Luther took particular exception, and his first communication with Albrecht of Mainz was to ask him to withdraw it. Then there are the indulgence certificates themselves, several editions published in at least four German cities. Interestingly, the printers engaged for this work included several who would later take a role in publishing Luther : Melchior Lotter of Leipzig, Silvan Otmar in Augsburg, Friedrich Peypus in Nuremberg, and Adam Petri in Basel. So when Luther took aim against Indulgences, he was attacking not only an institution of crucial financial importance to the church, but a mainstay of the printing industry. At the time this would probably not even have occurred to him. In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the 95 theses, Luther had more immediate concerns: that the controversy might cause offense in his own Augustinian order, or that it might damage his beloved university and imperil the curriculum reform to which he was so committed. His fear that the University of Leipzig might take this opportunity to squash its upstart local rival was one to which he referred frequently in his correspondence at this time. Most of all he fretted that nobody seemed to be taking much notice. It was only at the turn of the year that Luther became aware of the first serious response, a series of counter-theses sponsored by Johann Tetzel’s Dominican order. It was this which inspired Luther’s most decisive intervention: the publication in German of a short defense of his teaching, the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace. For many this little book is the true beginning of the Reformation. Luther’s decision to address a wider public audience was a point of no return. His defense, and a legitimate one, that he had proposed an academic debate in which he could accept correction and withdraw propositions shown to be faulty, was now blown out of the water. With the vernacular sermon Luther appealed above the heads of 9 Nikolaus Paulus, “Raimund Peraudi als Ablasskommissar, ” Historisches Jahrbuch 21 (1900), pp. 645 – 682. 10 Hans Volz, “Der St.Peters-Ablass und das deutsche Druckgewerbe,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 46 (1966), pp. 156 – 172.

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his church superiors to a wider public. This was remarkable. But what was truly incredible was that Luther – an academic used to endlessly patient audiences – understood the essential features of a reading public that had not yet been discovered. The sermon was not like any sermon anyone had ever preached. It was direct, punchy, and short.11 This was not an age, we should remember, that valued brevity. Even official communication multiplied words with legalistic glee. A sermon in particular was an opportunity for theater : for rhetoric, exhortation, and endless repetition. It was an endurance test for speaker and audience alike.12 Luther, in contrast, distilled his life-changing message into 1500 words. It takes only eight minutes to read out loud. The Sermon on Indulgence and Grace was the first publishing sensation of the Reformation. There were sixteen editions in the first year alone: three in Wittenberg, four in Leipzig, two each in Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Basel.13 In modern parlance, Luther had gone viral.

III When Luther commented, many years later, that his indulgences were known throughout Germany within two weeks, he probably had this work in mind, rather than the publication of his Latin theses the previous autumn. The sermon was the first of a flurry of small works that filled his time in 1518. He replied, in Latin, to his first serious critics; and he articulated his views on indulgences and developing theology in small German tracts. The Sermon on Indulgence and Grace also alerted Luther to the potency of printing. In Wittenberg itself, this new sensitivity to the power of print was not entirely comfortable to the print professionals. As his writings were printed and reprinted across German, Luther became increasingly aware that the Wittenberg industry was not equal to the challenge. At the time, Wittenberg had only one printer – Johann Rhau-Grunenberg. Installed as the university printer in 1508, Rhau-Grunenberg could just about keep abreast with the demands for publication of university theses and the works of the local professors: probably it 11 For an English version see the excellent collection of documents relevant to the indulgence controversy, Kurt Aland, ed., Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1967), pp. 63 – 67. 12 Larissa Taylor, ed., Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2001); Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing. English Preachers and Their Audiences, 1590 – 1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 13 Benzing, no. 90 – 114.

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was he who published the first broadsheet version of the 95 theses.14 But in truth, he was never a very good printer. His works are often poorly aligned and relentlessly utilitarian. They show none of the design ¦lan of which Germany’s established centers of publication were capable, and which they were beginning to manifest in their publication of Luther’s works. Luther was aware of this, and he now intervened personally to do something about it. In 1518 he entered into negotiation with Melchior Lotter of Leipzig to establish a branch office in Wittenberg. Lotter was a different proposition entirely, one of the leading figures in one of Germany’s most important publication hubs.15 He did not come to Wittenberg himself, but sent his son, Melchior Junior, along with a range of the Lotter types. The look and quality of Wittenberg books improved markedly. This was the beginning of a development that would in due course see Wittenberg emerge as one of Germany’s leading centers of publication. But this was not immediate, nor indeed easily accomplished. It would not in fact be until 1523/1524 that Wittenberg was even the leading place of publication of Luther’s own works. By this time there were four other printing houses active in Wittenberg, and the publication of the New Testament translation in September of the previous year, 1522, helped consolidate Wittenberg’s place in the German printing firmament.16 The comparative eclipse of Leipzig, following Duke George’s ban on the printing of Lutheran works, also helped. But we will concentrate here on the intervening years, 1519 – 1522, which saw not only the publication of many of Luther’s most significant works, but the consolidation of Luther’s publications as a recognizable brand. In this, the critical steps took place largely away from Wittenberg, in the major established centers of printing where his works were so extensively reprinted. When we chart Luther’s growing fame, or notoriety, around Germany, we think naturally of the growing familiarity of Luther’s image. Here we think first and foremost of the magnificent series of pictorial representations designed and executed by Lucas Cranach. But Cranach rendered Luther’s image primarily in the traditional medium of the panel portrait, and it would be some years before a representation of Luther appeared in a book published in Wittenberg. Here the first tentative steps were taken in Nuremberg, and then more confidently in Strasbourg. The Rhineland town did not play a leading role in the publication of

14 Maria Grossmann, “Wittenberg Printing, Early Sixteenth Century,” Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 1 (1970), pp. 53 – 74. For the controversy on whether the 95 theses were printed (or even posted), see Joachim Ott and Martin Treu, ed., Luthers Thesenanschlag – Faktum oder Fiktion (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2008). 15 The USTC lists 511 works printed in Leipzig before 1518. 16 Heimo Reinitzer, Biblia deutsch. Luthers Bibelübersetzung ind ihre Tradition (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1983).

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Luther’s works, but it did supply two striking and well-known images, one a title-page, and the other on the title-page verso.17 These played a role in promoting a Luther cult, but by no means the most important role. Images like these have become well-known through constant use, but the vast majority of Reformation Flugschriften, probably as much as 95 %, were completely un-illustrated. What then was the essence of “brand Luther”? I would highlight three elements. The first was the use of Luther’s name. This is a critical moment, not just in the history of the Reformation, but also in the wider history of print, because until this time hopes that budding authors had invested in the new medium had been largely disappointed. In Luther’s case it was clear that he was the brand – and we can see the industry responding in the increasing prominence it gives his name on titlepages. The first efforts do not really meet the case. Typographical traditions take precedence, and the name can be lost, wrapped around two lines, preserving the symmetry of the design. But gradually the name is separated, highlighted, and given full prominence. The second element of the branding is the city name, Wittenberg. This again is very interesting, because it shows the extent to which Luther, though in many respects already a pan-German figure, was indelibly associated with his city. This is reinforced by the recognition that many of the works that proudly announce Wittenberg on the title-page were printed elsewhere.18 It is a moot point whether this was an attempt at deception – or was this simply announcing a work by Martin Luther of Wittenberg? We notice too that the printer’s name is scarcely ever given: this is not yet an essential function of the title-page. The third element in brand Luther is the distinctive look given by the decorative frame. This again was not initiated in Wittenberg, where the title-pages of the first Luther works were austerely utilitarian, but was something Wittenberg printers learned from the reprints in Augsburg, Leipzig, and Basel. In these places Luther’s increasing fame was matched by a comparable effort to enhance the physical appearance of the book. In due course this was incorporated back into the Wittenberg tradition by Lucas Cranach, playing his most crucial role not as a painter, but as a woodblock designer.19 These characteristic and charac-

17 Martin Luther, Von der Babylonischen Gefengknuß der Kirchen (Strasbourg: Johann Schott, 1520). USTC 703376. Benzing 713. VD16 L 4195. Michael Stifel, Von der Christförmigen, rechtgegründten leer Doctoris Martini Luthers (Strasbourg: Johann Schott, 1522). USTC 617295. VD 16 S 9020. 18 As, for instance, Martin Luther, Ein underricht der beychtkünder über die verbotten buecher (Augsburg: Melchior Ramminger, 1521) USTC 647330. Benzing 839. VD 16 L 6857. 19 See here the ground-breaking study Jutta Strehle, Cranach im Detail: Buchschmuck Lucas Cranachs des A¨ lteren und seiner Werkstatt (Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 1994).

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teristically beautiful frames became in these years an essential part of the brand, and it is perhaps Cranach’s most substantial gift to the Reformation. Cranach combined piety and fidelity to Luther with a ruthless business instinct. His was the only workshop in Wittenberg capable of executing these woodcut title-pages, and he exploited this monopoly quite purposefully. In 1523 he briefly set up his own print shop, and seems to have aspired to a monopoly of the first editions of Luther’s new works: he and Luther were close friends, and social equals.20 But despite strong ties of friendship, Luther insisted that his works be shared around the print-shops, even that of the hapless Rhau-Grunenberg. Though Luther complained ceaselessly about Rhau-Grunenberg’s work, he valued his loyalty and personal commitment to the Reformation. This conscious decision to involve several businesses in publishing his work was crucial to maintaining diversity within the industry, especially when the pace of publication slackened after 1525. It was one of Luther’s greatest gifts to the local economy, and to the revitalization of the print industry throughout Germany. For the publication of Flugschriften – cheap short works that took scarcely a day to publish and sold out quickly – permitted the re-establishment of printing in places where previously it had been extremely marginal, or had died out completely. It is not unfair to say that Luther almost single-handedly changed the geography of print in Germany, and here his influence was enduring. At least forty towns owed the establishment or re-establishment of a press to the Reformation; and in most places these presses endured.

IV To see if this was a purely German phenomenon, or of wider European application, it is instructive to turn to the case of John Calvin, our second man of the book. Calvin grew up in the world reshaped by Luther. He was only eleven years old when Luther published his three great Reformation manifestos in 1520. By the time Calvin returned to Paris to pursue his literary ambitions, German publishers had cranked out over five million copies of the Reformation’s publications. But of course Calvin had no wish to be Luther : he wanted to be Erasmus. It was certainly Erasmus who inspired Calvin’s confident, rather brash entry onto the literary scene, with his Seneca commentary. Its failure was a signal demonstration of the perils that could befall the nave author in the cruel and unforgiving world of commercial print. Like many aspirant authors Calvin had, in effect, to be his own publisher. 20 They were, for instance, mutually godparents to each other’s children.

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Given that Calvin was a young man with no established reputation, and the Seneca text was already available in many versions, the printer demanded that Calvin pay the production costs. He then had the task of disposing of the copies. Attempts to encourage academics in Paris and Bourges to adopt it as a course text fell on deaf ears. In desperation Calvin consigned a portion of the edition to an Orleans bookseller, who had his own version of the title-page.21 In vain: Calvin was left with a considerable portion of the edition on his hands, and was forced to liquidate part of his inheritance from the estate of his father in order to pay the Parisian printer. The contrast could not be more vivid when Calvin next attempted to engage the scholarly world, probably with less expectation, with the first edition of his signature work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion.22 Whereas the Seneca commentary had been placed with a rather marginal member of the Parisian book fraternity, the Institutes connected Calvin with some of the most influential members of Europe’s most scholarly and cosmopolitan center of printing, Basel. It is, technically speaking, a lovely piece of work, executed by experienced craftsmen, and Calvin lived the experience in the printer’s shop. Even by this time he knew enough about the book world to grumble that the slow rate of progress meant that it had missed the deadline for the Frankfurt Fair. It is impossible not to compare this with the first work of Calvin published in Geneva, a scrappy black-letter congregational handbook published by Wigand Koeln.23 For the Latin version Calvin preferred to go back to Basel, demonstrating, as would often be the case subsequently, that there was no room for sentiment if Calvin wanted to get the best for his books. Calvin completed his crash course in the practicalities of the book world with his move to Strasbourg in 1538. This was another great printing city, though rather more Germanic in its output than Basel. Still, the best of Strasbourg’s established printing fraternity were capable of very high quality work, as we can see with the second and greatly expanded edition of the Institutes. This is the book that initiated the relationship with Wendelin Rihel that ended so disastrously in 1546: it is a superb book of 434 pages in folio, and it quickly found a wide readership in the international scholarly community.24 Calvin also had the opportunity in Strasbourg to cut his teeth in other genres: there are several pamphlets and at least one broadsheet. All of Calvin’s correspondence in these years suggests that he was happy in Strasbourg; he had no wish to return to Geneva, and when the call came he 21 22 23 24

Jean-FranÅois Gilmont, Bibliotheca Calviniana, 3 vol. (Geneva: Droz, 1991 – 2000), 32/1. Gilmont, BC, 36/1. USTC 621131. Gilmont, BC, 37/2. USTC 4750 Gilmont, BC, 39/4 a-b. The two variants are USTC 666787 and USTC 666788.

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followed it with reluctance. The record of the printed book tells a rather different story. In March 1539 Cardinal Sadoleto made an opportunistic attempt to exploit the turmoil caused by the expulsion of Calvin and Farel, by suggesting that the city return to Roman obedience. A response was obviously required, and Calvin was happy to take on the task (perhaps not without a certain satisfaction that the city had been forced to turn to him). Calvin’s letter to Sadoleto was published in Strasbourg in Latin, and then reprinted in Geneva in both Latin and French.25 Calvin personally approved the translation and noted, in a letter to Guillaume Farel, the bad grace with which the Geneva Council had accepted the French edition.

V When Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541, he did so very much on his own terms. But he also returned as an experienced bookman. He had seen his work published in Latin, French, and German. He had worked with printers in three of Europe’s greatest centers of print – Paris, Basel, and Strasbourg. He had experienced the extremes of success and failure as an author. In other words, when Calvin settled definitively in Geneva he had behind him a far more complete apprenticeship in the international book world than did Luther, perched in his pulpit on the Empire’s eastern marches. Whereas Luther had catapulted to fame through his accidental bestseller, Calvin had experienced five years working with some of Europe’s most accomplished printers in the two Protestant cities most strategically placed for access to the international scholarly community. It was a training he would put to very good use in his new adopted home. In 1541, the local Genevan publishing industry was badly in need of Calvin’s cosmopolitan ¦lan. Whereas the press in Wittenberg was a rather artificial creation, an adornment for its university, Geneva had at least had a printing press at a relatively early stage.26 But like so many printing presses in secondary towns, it wilted in the shadow of larger proximate centers, in this case Basel and Lyon. While never exactly extinguished, in some years Geneva’s printers turned out as few as one or two books. The Reformation brought some limited revival, but only that: eleven books in 1538, thirteen in 1539. Some new impetus was badly required: here Calvin’s charisma and versatility were absolutely decisive. Calvin found two printers committed to the Reformation, Michel du Bois, who had printed the tract of 1540, and Jean Girard. He rewarded both with a string of commissions. But he still dispatched the third edition of his Institutes 25 Gilmont, BC, 39/5, USTC 664732; 40/6, USTC 450001; 40/7, USTC 4751. 26 The USTC lists 107 works published in Geneva between 1478 and 1500.

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back to Rihel in Strasbourg.27 Calvin had a close interest in the mechanics of the press, and he seems to have conceived a dichotomy between his Latin works, to be printed and circulated abroad, and the French works for local consumption.28 This might indeed have continued for some time but for the disaster with the Corinthians commentary, with which this paper began. From this point on Calvin’s new works no longer made the 800 kilometer round trip to Strasbourg. Even so it was some time before a Geneva printer had the confidence and skill to produce a folio edition of one of Calvin’s Latin commentaries, and by that time a new generation of printers had settled in Geneva, several drawn to the city by Calvin’s presence. Calvin faced one more issue that had not been relevant to Luther in the first exuberant days of the Reformation: the mission to his homeland. Calvin became engaged with rebuilding an evangelical community in France from an early point in his fixed Geneva residence. Twenty years of writing, exhorting, and training a ministerial cadre would, in due course, have a transforming effect on both France and Germany.29 Preaching to France revealed in Calvin news skills, of a sort that few would have looked for in the shy scholar. Just as Luther had revealed himself as a vernacular writer of rare genius, so too Calvin discovered a rare talent for French polemic: one who, furthermore, shared Luther’s gift of brevity.30 Others have written at length on the subject of Calvin’s French writings, so I will add here only a few observations from an industry point of view. First, of course, the increasing pace of vernacular publication in the 1540s and 1550s contributed to the very rapid growth of the Genevan industry. At first Jean Girard was the major beneficiary, though by 1551, the year in which Geneva was singled out as the seedbed of heresy in the Edict of Ch–teaubriant, the weight of publications could sustain a number of new presses. But the economics of this trade were by no means as straightforward as in Wittenberg. In principle short books made quick profits; that is why printers preferred them. But that was only the case if they found their way easily to their purchasers. The problems and dangers of bringing Calvin’s writings to a readership 27 Gilmont, BC, 54/5, USTC 666790. 28 It is significant that whereas the fourth edition of the Institutes was once again sent to Rihel, the French edition was entrusted to Girard in Geneva. Gilmont, BC, 45/5, USTC 666791 (Latin), 45/6, USTC 1099 (French). 29 Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France (Geneva: Droz, 1956) is still a valuable study, though refined by new scholarship. See Sara K. Barker, ed., Revisiting Geneva: Robert Kingdon and the Coming of the French Wars of Religion (St Andrews: St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture, 2008). 30 Francis Higman, Jean Calvin, Three French Treatises (London: Athlone Press, 1970). Id., The Style of John Calvin in his French Polemical Treatises (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).

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in France were very considerable, and indeed essentially a new challenge in the international book trade, at least on this scale. It necessitated the development of a parallel underground network, functioning alongside the well-established trade in legitimate books.31 It also introduced a considerable price premium. The growing notoriety of Geneva also had design implications. Genevan books of the 1540s and 1550s were produced in a pleasing French style – gone was the angular Gothic of Wigand Koeln. But the publishers could not make full use of their greatest assets – the growing renown of Calvin and Geneva. For Luther’s books, these were essential aspects of their branding and marketing. For purchasers of Calvin’s French works, they were a potential death sentence. In the 1550s, therefore, Calvin disappeared from the title-page of many of his books, along with Geneva. In some cases publishers would produce part of the edition with this data, and an export version without. Like many academic authors, Calvin had his small vanities. He wrote very rapidly, and to judge by his correspondence he was rather proud of this facility. Producing the copy for a pamphlet was something he could do very fast, and it was not a task to which he needed to devote special care: works which seem to us to be perfectly formed were not in fact endlessly revised. Most of all Calvin was unusually attuned to the rhythms of the book year. Perhaps because of his years in Strasbourg, at the western heart of the Germanic book world, Calvin knew that for maximum impact books had to be fresh and ready for the Frankfurt Fair. To a remarkable extent, considering the weight of his other responsibilities, Calvin’s writing was framed around this timetable.32 If a book could not be ready for the Fair, he might write a shorter version. But mostly he ensured that the copy was ready for printers to finish the job in that ferment of activity and long days that characterized the printing industry in the weeks before the two Frankfurt fairs. For publishers Calvin was a dream collaborator, since his extraordinary discipline and industry awareness ensured that they minimized the time that completed projects were sitting in the warehouse, tying up capital. This discipline as a book man played a not insignificant part in ensuring that capital resources in Geneva were most effectively deployed. The city became a most efficient part of the European book trade. One never gets the sense that timetable considerations of this sort impacted on Luther to the same extent. His torrent of writings flew from his pen whenever the inspiration took him, all through the year. In 1526 Erasmus would relate with considerable pride his own joust with Luther, where he claimed to have out31 Heidi-Lucie Schlaepfer, “Laurent de Normandie,” in Gabrielle Berthoud, ed., Aspects de la Propagande Religieuse (Geneva: Droz, 1957), pp. 176 – 230. Jeannine Olson, Calvin and Social Welfare: Deacons and the Bourse franÅaise (London and Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1989). 32 See Gilmont, Calvin and the Printed Book, pp. 220 – 222.

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witted his great foe over the publishing timetable. The arrival of a copy of Luther’s De servo arbitrio left Erasmus short of time to respond before the spring Fair – if he did not, Luther would have a six month selling season before Erasmus’s response could be circulated. Persuading Froben to clear six presses, Erasmus had his response ready within a week, and in time for the Fair.33 It is a good story, and a telling demonstration of Erasmus’s industry power. Remember, this was the same Johann Froben who had played quite a significant role in making Luther’s first writings known around Europe, with a highly successful Latin edition of his collected early works.34 Froben claimed it was the most successful book he ever published. But he was soon forced to abandon this lucrative side-line, rather than jeopardizing his relationship with Erasmus. Erasmus was a big man in the trade, and not afraid to use his industry muscle to freeze out critics.35 Even so, his tale of the joust with Luther looks overblown. Luther’s work had been published the previous December, leaving plenty of time for a response. Rather than engage in such skullduggery, Luther was rather an innocent in matters of money : content to provide his writings to the Wittenberg publishers without recompense, and to let his redoubtable wife Katherine take care of their domestic comforts, with her brewery, market garden, and boarders.

VI So with Calvin and Luther we have two men who were not just inspired authors, but real book men. They understood at a very profound level the disciplines, mechanics, and trade craft of the industry. In the case of Luther, it was not just the extraordinary facility with which he took to a form of literature that had scarcely existed before he began to write. It was also the profound aesthetic sense that he brought to the business of books, alongside his willingness to work closely with the printers. With Calvin, we have a different trajectory : a long, if rather fortuitous apprenticeship in three of Western Europe’s major book emporia gave him a clear grasp of how the industry worked, an understanding he applied with typical rigor to making Geneva a major publishing hub.

33 Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 82 – 86. 34 Ad Leonem X. Pontificem maximum, resolutiones disputationum de virtute indulgentiarum Martini Luther Augustiniani Wittenbergensis (Basel: Johann Froben, 1518). Benzing 3. USTC 608977. 35 For a particularly gross example of this, where the victim was the English scholar Edward Lee, see Robert Coogan, Erasmus, Lee and the Correction of the Vulgate (Geneva: Droz, 1992).

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In both cases the legacy was profound. Wittenberg came from nowhere to reach the upper echelons of the international publishing network. Meanwhile, students flocked to the city to study at the university built by Luther and Melanchthon. One only has to walk the streets of Wittenberg today to see the impact of the new wealth generated by this extraordinary influx of new business. Calvin, just as remarkably, brought Geneva out of the shadows of Lyon and Basel, and provided in his own writings the bedrock of a trade that both reached into the international Latin market and created a new clandestine network of distribution to France. In both cases the legacy was enduring. This is the last remarkable demonstration of their impact on the European book world: that their renown, and that of their cities, outlived them. The production of books in Wittenberg actually rose in the second half of the sixteenth century and became increasingly Latinate: a striking fact, given the dominance of the vernacular in the age of the Flugschriften. The same can be said of Geneva, which, after the torrent of pamphlets in the 1560s, was successfully re-orientated towards the production of high quality scholarly works. In each case the brand was strong, and outlived its founder. Luther and Calvin were both writers of genius, but they also both understood that a book is more than a text: it is an industrial product, an artifact, that requires the intervention of multiple skills and trades to bring it to an audience. We can only really understand the thought world of the sixteenth century if we keep this in mind.

Margo Todd

Chapter Two: Practicing the Books of Discipline: The Problem of Equality before the Law in Scottish Parish Consistories

John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland famously called Calvin’s Geneva “the most perfect school of Christ. In other places”, he granted, “I confess Christ to be truly preached, but manners and religion so sincerely reformed I have not yet seen in any other place” – not yet, because at the time he was writing, Scotland’s Reformation had not yet happened.1 Knox had lived in Geneva briefly in 1553 and for longer periods between 1555 and 1559, so he had first-hand knowledge on which to base his claim. His experience of the preaching and purity of worship in Calvin’s town, and particularly of the strict moral discipline that was meted out by the consistory run by the Company of Pastors, inspired him to try to duplicate Geneva’s “perfection” upon his return to Scotland in May of 1559.2 Accordingly, he used Genevan books, including the Ordinances of 1541, together with principles in Book IV of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, as the model for Scotland’s First Book of Discipline (1560), the theoretical foundation of the Scottish kirk’s system of consistories (sessions) and later classes (presbyteries).3 In fact the Scots’ First Book of Discipline follows almost exactly the outline of the 1541 Ordinances, with sections on the four offices, elections, sacraments, schools, moral discipline, etc. Both are books of more than discipline, then, but given that the Scots Reformed church (the kirk) went beyond Geneva to make discipline a “mark” of the true church, the title is apt. 1 John Knox, Works, ed. D. Laing, 6 vol. (Edinburgh: James Thin, 1846 – 1864, hereafter KW), vol. 4, p. 240. 2 Jane Dawson, “Knox, John c. 1514 – 1572,” in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/15781]; Dawson, John Knox (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015). 3 The First Book was translated into Latin and sent for review to Calvin, Viret, and Beza in Geneva, and to Peter Martyr and Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich: The First Book of Discipline, ed. James Cameron (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1972), pp. 4, 8. Its authors were the “six Johns”: Knox, Winram, Row (the first protestant minister of Perth), Willock, Spottiswode, and Erskine of Dun: KW 2:128; John Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. David Laing (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1842), p. 16.

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All three books are noteworthy for their insistence that, as the Institutes remarked of the purer, primitive church, “no one was exempt from this discipline”; “both princes and common people” were subject to it.4 Equal subjection to the law is clear in the Ordinances, and the divorce ordinance is especially startling in its application of the principle to men and women alike: women could divorce husbands for adultery, so that finally men were to be held to the same sexual requirements as women.5 This was a stunning challenge to the prevalent double sexual standard in early modern Europe, in accord with that most important book, where (says the ordinance) the apostle called the obligation of fidelity “mutuelle et reciproque”.6 The other important Genevan books for Knox, the Registers of the Genevan Consistory, make it quite clear that Calvin’s consistory took the principle seriously, applying the same discipline both to people of varying social status, and to men and women alike in cases of sexual offense. The same penalties for fornication (six days of imprisonment on bread and water and a fine of 60 sous) and adultery (nine days and a fine) were prescribed in 1546 for anyone convicted, whether male or female.7 And very significantly, slightly more men than women found themselves prosecuted by the consistory for sexual offense.8 Other kinds 4 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960), IV.xii.7. 5 Ioannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, ed. William Baum, William Cunitz, and Edward Reuss (Brunsvigae: Apud C.A. Schwetschke, 1871) [CO] 10:15 – 30, and especially 29– 30, insisting that the faults of “each one” be reproved, and that “anyone” negligent must be summoned. For the marriage and divorce ordinances (10 November 1545), see 41– 43, noting that “Anciennement, le croict de la femme n’ayt point est¦ esgal a celuy du mary en cas de divorce.” 6 CO 10:41, continuing, “en cela la femme n’est point plus subiecte au mary que le mary — la femme”. 7 Registres du Consistoire de GenÀve au Temps de Calvin, ed. Thomas Lambert and Isabella Watt, 6 vol. (Geneva: Droz, 1996– ), vol. 2, included also by Philip E. Hughes in his excerpts from the Register, The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966). The 1546 register’s section on fornication (Hughes, pp. 58 – 59) specifies penalties whether the offender is male or female. 8 Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536 – 1609 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 201 (in the consistory registers from 1542 through 1609, 636 men and 538 women were punished for fornication and adultery). See also Manetsch’s “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1569 – 82,” Church History 75 (2006), p. 289. E. William Monter, “Women in Calvinist Geneva (1550 – 1800),” Signs 6 (1980), pp. 189 – 209, found that 55 % of the sexual offenders disciplined were men (191), though the consistory in 1564 reminded magistrates that men must be punished as severely as women for sexual offenses (p. 192). He also remarks on the greater number of female adulterers executed in the 1560s. Jeffrey Watt, “Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva,” Sixteenth Century Journal [SCJ] 24 (1993), pp. 429 – 439 insists that there was no double standard evident in the registers of 1542 – 44 in cases of illicit sexual behavior, and finds that the consistory “convoked as many men as women for fornication” (p. 438); see also his forthcoming “Attitudes toward Femininity and Masculinity : Evidence from the Consistories” in: Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern

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of cases recorded in the Registers show both the wealthy and powerful, and ordinary folk, investigated and penalized without regard to social standing: at a 1546 wedding, for instance, 26 prominent people (including the bride and groom) were arrested for dancing; and the most eminent Genevan families were prosecuted for poor sermon attendance, attempting to use traditional baptismal names, and questioning predestinarian theology. The famous Perrinist affair resulted in the 1555 expulsion of dozens of leading citizens.9 Nor were ministers and elders exempt from stern discipline, as the jailing of the former elder and syndic Jean Philippin attests. Between 1542 and 1609, sixteen percent of Geneva’s ministers (22 of 135) were removed from office for misbehavior.10 Clearly Scott Manetsch’s assertion that Geneva’s consistory was “blind for the most part to the status and social prominence of defendants” is accurate, though the caveat is important.11 World, ed. G. Starr-LeBeau and Charles Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Watt’s The Making of Modern Marriage: Matrimonial Control and the Rise of Sentiment in Neuch–tel, 1550 – 1800 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 178 – 194, does report that in the rural consistory of Valangin, within the county of Neuch–tel, women comprised around 60 % of those convoked for fornication in the seventeenth century, though men outnumbered women among those accused of adultery by two to one. Raymond Mentzer asserts that there was no double sexual standard evident in the registers of French Reformed consistories: “Marking the Taboo: Excommunication in French Reformed Churches” in: Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition, ed. Raymond Mentzer (Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press,1994), pp. 97 – 128; cf. his “La R¦forme calviniste des moeurs — N„mes” in: La construction de l’identit¦ r¦form¦e aux XVIe et XVIIe siÀcles: Le role des consistoires (Paris: Champion, 2006), p. 42, and his “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: The Calvinist Reformation of Morals at N„mes,” SCJ 18 (1987), pp. 89 – 116. 9 William Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 96 f (the Lect wedding), pp. 145 – 152 (baptismal names), pp. 170 – 174, pp. 189 – 197 (the Perrinist controversy). There were exceptions, as when a magistrate’s son was arrested for robbery in 1557, and the Council of Two Hundred remitted his whipping sentence in consideration of his family, which Naphy notes “hardly seems to show a Calvinist enthusiasm for applying the same law to everyone equally” (p. 217). 10 Naphy, Consolidation, p. 217; Manetsch, Company, p. 196. This figure includes ministers deposed by the Small Council in some cases without consistory judgment preceding deposition. Eighteen members of the Company of Pastors were examined by the consistory for moral offenses, and nine of these were suspended from communion and deposed by the Small Council with the pastors’ support (Manetsch, pp. 194 – 195). 11 Manetsch, Company, p. 194, echoing Robert Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 181 – 183, remarking that the consistory worked “toward social equality” by trying to hold patricians as well as less privileged, men as well as women, to the same moral standards, and that Genevans were “moving toward neutral treatment of the genders” (p. 139). In fact, however, when in the 1560s the death penalty was for the first time applied to cases of particularly outrageous adultery, it applied only if the offender were “not protected by noble status”; moreover, four of the five death sentences meted out applied to women, despite the 1566 law requiring that if an accused pair were both married, each would be executed if found guilty (p. 177). Cases against married men were rare (pp. 118,

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Knox was impressed, and so, apparently, were his protestant clerical and lay colleagues when he returned to Scotland in 1559 and recommended the Genevan pattern for the realm. The First Book of Discipline (written by Knox and five clerical colleagues) duplicated the Ordinances, but at greater length, adding a subheading called “Persons subject to discipline” which begins, “To discipline must all the estates within this realm be subject, as well the rulers as they that are ruled; yea and the preachers themselves, as well as the poor within the kirk.”12 The first General Assemblies explicitly required that the law be executed “without exception of persons”, and that “alsweill the man as the woman” be subjected to discipline.13 In 1563 those noble Lords of the Congregation who had adopted Knox as their chaplain in the civil war for Reformation sat in a parliament, where they passed an adultery act that required the penalties of the act (which made “notorious adultery” a capital crime) to fall “as well on the woman as the man doer”. In 1567, their fornication act reversed the order and commanded “as well the man as the woman” to underlie the penalties.14 The theory of equality before the law was thus clearly established in ecclesiastical and secular law. How closely did Scots sessions and presbyteries actually follow that written theory? Did they practice the books of discipline, or merely pay them lipservice? A close look at one key parish and its presbytery will provide answers to these questions. Perth, one of Scotland’s four “great burghs”, has an unusually complete collection of session books from the 1570s (with earlier fragments) well into the next century. Its presbytery was operating from 1579 (before the official establishment of presbyteries) and has good records surviving from the 183). See also Kingdon, “The First Calvinist Divorce” in: Mentzer, ed., Sin and the Calvinists, pp. 1 – 13. He does note (p. 12) that the consistory and Company of Pastors complained that the magistrates treated male adulterers too leniently, frequently letting them off with short terms and small fines. See, for example, the Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de GenÀve, ed. Robert Kingdon and Jean-FranÅois Bergier (Geneva: Droz, 1962), vol. 2, p. 109. 12 First Book, ed. Cameron, p. 173. 13 Book of the Universal Kirk: Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland 1560 – 1618 [BUK], 3 vol. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1839 – 45), vol. 1, pp. 31 (both male and female fornicators having performed their repentance nonetheless to be expelled from the household of a commissioner, 1563), 41 (“without exception of persons”, 1563), 76 (in regard to antenuptial fornication, “alsweill the man as the woman” to make public repentance, 1565), 91 (“man and woman to be given up to the session of the kirk wherein they dwell to be accused criminally” for adultery, 1566). Knox was a commissioner from Edinburgh to each of these conventions of the General Assembly. His 1559 Brief Exhortation to England had stressed the principle of equal justice (KW 2:364ff). The 1573 Assembly declared that “great men offending to such crimes as deserves sackcloth should receive the same as well as the poor” (BUK 1:284). 14 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, ed. Thomas Thomson and Cosmo Innes, 12 vol. (Edinburgh: 1814 – 75) [APS] vol. 2, p. 539; vol. 3, pp. 25, 213 (the penalty for “notorious adultery” for all). Cf. the pre-Reformation act of 1551, which does not specify both sexes liable to punishment: APS, vol. 2, p. 486.

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early seventeenth century. Perth was one of the first towns to embrace Reformation, welcoming and assisting the army of the Lords of the Congregation when they marched across the country in 1559. It also has a Genevan connection: protestantism in the burgh was established in the wake of one of the first incendiary sermons preached by Knox upon his return from Calvin’s town in 1559 – a sermon that led immediately to an iconoclastic riot and dissolution of the four religious houses clustered near the town walls. Perth’s first protestant minister, John Row, was with Knox one of the authors of the First Book of Discipline. By the 1560s, the most zealously Reformed of Scots burghs, Perth among the vanguard, were well on the way to establishing their kirk sessions, determined not merely to emulate Geneva, but quite self-consciously to fashion themselves as rivals to that model in the strictness and comprehensiveness of their moral discipline.15 It is worth bearing in mind that Scotland’s was the Reformation that abolished not only saints’ days, but the entire liturgical calendar, including Christmas and Easter. And while Geneva’s consistory met once a week, Perth’s was meeting three or four times weekly by the turn of the century. The Scots General Assembly opined, with perhaps pardonable hubris, that “other kirks abroad […] have not been favoured with [our] measure of reformation”, and since “the Lord hath been more liberal to us” we must “give example and encouragement to them to aspire to our perfection”.16 Perth’s elders and magistrates after 1560 regularly referred to their town as “this Reformed burgh” and the place “where the truth first began in this kingdom to be published”, and the discipline that its session exercised, with broad community support, at least equalled that of Calvin’s town.17 It was also, in general, as even-handed, though – as in Geneva – the exceptions are important. Its efforts at equality before the law can be examined under two rubrics – gender and social status.

15 Some parishes had functioning sessions even before the official Reformation. These include St Andrews: Register of the Minister, Elders and Deacons of the Christian Congregation of St Andrews, Comprising the Proceedings of the Kirk Session […] 1559 – 1600, ed. David Hay Fleming, 2 vol. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1890), vol. 1. On sessions and their minutes, and for comparison of the rigor of Reformed discipline in Scotland and England, see Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), chapters 1, 4, and 7. 16 The Perth Kirk Session Books 1577 – 1590, ed. Margo Todd (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2012) [PKSB], p. 32, n.118. PKSB is a print edition of the Perth minutes through 1590 from National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh [NRS] mss CH2/521/1 and 2, including fragments from 1567 – 69 mixed in with the baptismal registers of the 1560s, New Register House, Edinburgh [NRH] ms OPR 387/1. On the General Assembly’s abolition of the “days dedicat to Christ” – Circumcision, Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost – in opposition to the Helvetic Confession, see BUK 1:90 (1566). 17 PKSB pp. 383, 385.

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Was there in fact as well as theory an erasing of the double sexual standard in Reformed Scotland? A glance at the historiography of this subject in the British Isles provides some perspective on the question. Keith Thomas’s classic essay in the Journal of the History of Ideas on the double standard, now half a century old, has generated a rather considerable debate among British historians in the past decade or so. In general terms, three “sides” have emerged. Some find him on the mark: the double standard – excusing men for sexual offenses that in women were condemned – was alive and well in early modern Britain, however much protestantism and what he was pleased to call the rise of “middle class respectability” were beginning to erode it.18 Others find that the evidence of moralistic prescription and ecclesiastical pronouncements (especially protestant ones) suggests that in theory the double standard was erased in postReformation England, but in civil law and in the practice of both secular and ecclesiastical courts, it remained alive and well.19 They have on their side the 1552 Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, which did require the same penalties for both sexes in adultery cases. The English parliament never adopted it as law, however, and this second school of historians set its theory over against a wealth of data showing women suffering much more severely than men in judicial practice. But it is clear that the exercise of moral discipline in English diaconal courts (which were, as the puritans said, “but halfly reformed”) never came close to what was being accomplished in Huguenot communities; or in Geneva, Berne, Delft, or the Scots towns; or for that matter in the Reformed courts of Hungary and Transylvania.20 Students of Reformed discipline need to bear in mind that 18 Keith Thomas, “The Double Standard,” Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959), pp. 195 – 216, the “middle class” argument emerging p. 204 ff. Patricia Crawford and Sara Mendelson, Women in Early Modern England 1550 – 1720 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 34 – 36, 48, echo most of his conclusions. 19 E.g., Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early Modern Society (London: Arnold Press, 1995), pp. 142 f, 145 f, 149 f. 20 Graeme Murdock, Calvinism on the Frontier 1600– 1660: International Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); cf. Heinrich Richard Schmidt, Dorf und Religion: Reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinden des Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, Jena, and New York: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1995) and his “Morals courts in rural Berne during the early modern period” in: Karin Maag, ed., The Reformation in Eastern and Central Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 155 – 181; Charles H. Parker, The Reformation of Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), and “Two generations of discipline: Moral reform in Delft before and after the Synod of Dort,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 92 (2001), pp. 268 – 284; DaniÀle Tosato-Rigo and Nicole Staremberg-Goy, ed., Sous l’œil du consistoire: sources consistoriales et histoire du contrúle social sous l’Ancien R¦gime, (Lausanne: Êtudes de Lettres, 2004), pp. 113 – 123; Mentzer, ed., Sin and the Calvinists; Philippe Chareyre, Le consistoire de N„mes de 1561 — 1685 (Ph.D. thesis, Universit¦ Paul Val¦ry – Montpellier III: 1987); Todd, Culture of Protestantism, Conclusion; Naphy, Consolidation; Christian Grosse, L’excommunication de Philibert Berthelier: Histoire d’un conflit d’identit¦ aux premiers temps de la R¦forme Genevoise 1547– 1555 (Geneva: Droz,

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Calvinist morals courts were actually not very representative of the efforts of earlier or other ecclesiastical courts in Europe, including those with which presbyterians shared an island. Even Keith Thomas had to grant that English puritans (whom he explicitly associated with that “bourgeois respectability”), were so far behind the Calvinist mark that they explicitly and unapologetically endorsed the double standard when they made adultery a capital offense in 1650.21 Finally, there is now an interesting cohort of historians arguing that, while the double standard continued, “deeply embedded in the culture” despite the theoretical opposition of preachers and conduct-book writers, male honor was in fact so linked with sexual reputation, that women in the courts had “an effective lever” to secure less unequal treatment.22 Precisely how effectively they were able to use that leverage in English courts remains moot. If, as Thomas and others suggest, protestantism was an important force for ending the double standard, one way to settle the question of when and how it happened is to examine closely the practice of ecclesiastical courts in the most vigorously and pervasively Reformed realm of Europe – Scotland, where the Genevan disciplinary system was first implemented at a national level, far beyond that of its original city-state. It was first established in towns, a full generation before it becomes visible in rural areas of Scotland, but urban practice became the pattern for the rest of the realm.23 In practical terms, burgh kirk sessions were founded on the 1995); Robert Kingdon, “The Control of Morals in Calvin’s Geneva,” in: Lawrence P. Buck and Jonathan W. Zophy, ed., The Social History of the Reformation (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1972), pp. 3 – 16; Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce; and Watt, “Women and the Consistory.” 21 Thomas, “Double Standard,” p. 212; Charles Harding Firth and Robert Sangster Rait, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum 1642 – 1660 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), vol. 2, p. 388, the Adultery Act of 1650 punishing the adultery of the married woman but not of the married man. 22 Bernard Capp, “The Double Standard Revisited: Plebeian Women and Male Sexual Reputation in Early Modern England,” Past and Present, 162 (1999), pp. 70– 100, here at p. 98; and his When Gossips Meet: Women, Family and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 1 – 25. Capp builds on the work of Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), and “Women, Status, and the Popular Culture of Dishonour,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society [TRHS] 6th ser. (1996). Alexandra Shepard, “Manhood, Credit, and Patriarchy in Early Modern England,” Past and Present 167 (2000), pp. 75– 106, carries the argument further, stressing “overlap between the sexes, focusing on the broader foundations of female honesty beyond chastity and on the damaging potential of sexual slander for men” (p. 77). See also Garthine Walker, “Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern England,” TRHS 6th ser. (1996). The work of Susannah Lipscomb on N„mes echoes some of these themes: “Refractory Women: The Limits of Power in the French Reformed Church” in: Dire l’Interdit: The Vocabulary of Censure and Exclusion in the Early Modern Reformed Tradition, ed. Raymond Mentzer, FranÅoise Moreil, Philippe Chareyre (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 13– 28, though with the emphasis on women’s use of the morals courts for their own benefit. 23 It may be useful to note that, although Scots towns were small (Perth, one of the four “great

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model of the towns’ bailies courts, complete with their careful minute-keeping, interrogation and investigating mechanisms; and their personnel drew heavily on the broad-based urban oligarchy that characterised Scots towns.24 Unlike Geneva’s, Perth’s consistory could excommunicate and assign corporal punishments, in the full expectation that the town bailies would carry out its will. Also unlike Geneva’s, Scots sessions were dominated by laymen – twelve in Perth, with only one minister until 1595, thereafter two with fourteen elders. Geneva’s Company of Pastors, by contrast, generally outnumbered the lay elders on its consistory.25 Scots sessions produced volumes of evidence that both permit some restrained statistical analysis and provide often quite fulsome narrative accounts that flesh out the numbers. To test out any aspect of the exercise of protestant moral discipline, including equality before the law, then, the records of that most protestant of laboratories, kirk sessions, offer an extraordinary opportunity. There is in Perth’s consistory records abundant evidence that the elders and ministers in practice did follow Genevan guidelines and the national dictates of burghs” had perhaps 6,000 people before the plague of 1584 – 1585, Edinburgh perhaps 15,000), about the same proportion of the population lived in towns as was the case in England, with about the same degree of literacy : Michael Flinn, ed., Scottish Population History from the Seventeenth Century to the 1930s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 109; Thomas Christopher Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560 – 1830 (London: Collins, 1969), pp. 100, 111, 145. National Library of Scotland [NLS] ms Adv. 35.4.4, fol. 4, gives a figure of “1427 souls young and auld” dead from the plague; see also PKSB, p. 289 (October 1584). On literacy, Rabb Houston, “The Literacy Myth? Illiteracy in Scotland 1630 – 1760,” Past and Present 96 (1982), pp. 81 – 102, and his Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity : Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England 1600 – 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 24 For the distinctively urban models adopted by Scots sessions, see Margo Todd, “Consistoire, guilde et conseil: Les archives des consistoires Êcossais et l’urbanisation de la culture paroissiale,” Bulletin de la Soci¦t¦ de l’Histoire du Protestantisme FranÅais 153 (2007), pp. 635 – 648. On oligarchy and consistorial government, see also Heinz Schilling, “Calvinistische presbyterien in städten der frühneuzeit: Eine kirchliche alternativeform zur bürgerlichen repräsentation? (Mit eine quantifizierenden Untersuchuun zur Holländischen Stadt Leiden)” in: Wilifried Ehbrecht, ed., Städtische führungsgruppen und gemeinde in der werdenden neuzeit (Cologne: Böhlau-Verlag GmbH , 1980), pp. 385 – 444, which suggests that we may have overstressed the narrowness of urban oligarchies in the early modern period in central Europe and the Low Countries. Parochial discipline in Scotland was also aided by the larger network of presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly established between 1560 and 1581: here a distinctively urban invention that sets Scotland apart from other European towns, a national representative assembly for towns called the Convention of Royal Burghs, must have provided a useful model: APS 2:542 (1563), 2:497, delineating the powers of the Conventions; Records of the Conventions of the Royal Burghs of Scotland 1295 – 1614, ed. J.D. Marwick, 2 vol. (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1870). 25 Nine to nineteen pastors sat on Geneva’s consistory with its dozen lay elders: Robert Kingdon, “Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline in Geneva: The Institution and the Men Who Directed It,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 70 (1990), pp. 158 – 172, here at p. 162.

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parliaments and General Assemblies and eschewed the double standard. Approximately equal numbers of women and men were prosecuted for fornication and adultery. It is a rare case indeed when a woman is charged without her male partner being identified and pursued as well, though one would expect more women’s names given that men were more likely to travel and so either evade prosecution or be pursued in another parish, and of course women’s pregnancies were difficult to hide.26 In fact, however, pregnancy only entered the equation in a small minority of the cases – on average, 17 % (a number arrived at through baptismal registers, which record “begotten in fornication”, as well as session minutes). Most couples appeared before the session because of the nosiness of their neighbors, though occasionally a couple was caught in the act by either elders or the watch; moreover, one ought not discount voluntary confession.27 The following table shows how small the disparity is in the earliest Perth records: Persons charged with sexual offenses and appearing before the session Year male female 1577 20 21 1578 32 40 1579 42 45 1580 39 39 1581 28 25 1582 40 40 1583 25 27 1584 13 14 1585 29 31 1586 12 14 1587 35 36 1588 2 5 1589 26 32 1590 29 36 1591 27 2728 26 Well-off burgesses and local lairds did not escape (e. g., PKSB, p. 338); the well-born, however, were more often referred to the presbytery. Michael Graham has produced interesting evidence that some of the better-off voluntarily submitted to discipline as a means of displaying their “godly” credentials: “Equality before the Kirk? Church Discipline and the Elite in Reformation-Era Scotland,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 84 (1993), pp. 289 – 309. 27 “Diverse bruits” brought Effie Tully to the session’s attention in1587, for instance, her behavior “greatly cried out against by the whole honest and godly neighbours as most filthy”; George Makchanse and Elspet Cudbert were during a communion service in 1585 “both apprehended in naked bed together in filthy fornication” by elders making their sabbatarian rounds (PKSB, pp. 374 f, 325 f). “Bruit” or rumor played an important role in Huguenot courts, too: Lipscomb, “Refractory Women,” pp. 20 – 23. Baptismal registers survive for Perth from 1565 – 1581, and then pick up again in 1615: NRS/NRH ms OPR 387/1, n.f. The relevant kirk session book is NRS ms CH2/521/1. The pregnancy rate for 1577 – 1581 fornication cases averages ranges from 7 % to 27 %. 28 The earliest extant session book (NRS ms CH2/521/1) begins in May of 1577, and the 1586 records only exist for five months: there are no February 1586 entries, and all entries after

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A sampling from the early seventeenth century indicates that the trend continued over the first three generations of protestantism: Year 1617 1618 1619 1620

male 31 37 38 28

female 30 37 43 2829

The double standard appears, in this Reformed town, to have been well and truly quashed, and a similar counting for sampled years in the parishes of Falkirk, Kirkcaldy, and South Leith suggest that at least in urban settings, this was typical in Scotland.30 Anecdotal material, on the other hand, must give us pause. Although “notorious adultery” (defined as blatant and widely known, or having produced offspring) was a capital offense, only once in the history of Perth were adulterers executed: two were hanged in 1585. They were partners in crime – Helen Watson and David Gray, so the single standard seems to be holding firm in this case. But when we look a bit more closely, Helen’s circumstances look considerably grimmer than David’s. On 24 August 1584, her neighbors interrupted a session meeting to summon the elders along with two bailies to Helen’s dwelling; there the authorities found her unable to rise from her bed in the brewhouse “being full of blue and bloody strikes”. Appalled at her injuries, they asked her “who handled her so”, and she reported, in the presence of neighbors who had heard the violent conflict, that David Gray had ruthlessly beaten her “because he got not his will of her”.31 They proceeded to arrest David, but later hauled her off to June are missing from the mangled end of the bound volume. Low numbers for 1584 may reflect the impact of the plague year, but there is no evident explanation for the small numbers in 1588. NRS ms CH2/521/2 contains the minutes from January 1587 through 1597. Women do make the first appearance before the court in a small majority of cases: of the 92 couples prosecuted from 1577 to 1579, the woman appeared first in 44 cases, the man in 31, and both at once in six; in sixteen both were summoned together explicitly because of “common bruit”. In two cases, only the man was named (one having fornicated with a nameless “Highland woman”); in fourteen, only the woman. In the latter category, women either declined to name their partners or (more often) identified them as travelling (merchants or mariners), Highlanders (often unnamed and rarely pursued), or dwelling in other parishes. The session clerk generally wrote to his counterpart in the other parish to urge pursuit of the offender there. 29 1617 minutes are in NRS mss CH2/521/6, pp.139 – 259; 1618 are in the same volume pp. 260 – 350; and CH2/521/7, pp. 1 – 111 has 1619, with 1620 pp. 112 – 211. 30 NRS ms CH2/400/1 shows 30 men and 32 women prosecuted in Falkirk for sexual offence in the sampled year of 1618, 25 men and 23 women in 1619, for instance (fol. 16 – 52); ms CH2/ 636/34, fol. 11vff give about equal numbers for Kirkcaldy ; and South Leith’s numbers are exactly equal for 1611 – 1642: ms CH2/716/1, fol. 26 – 42v. 31 PKSB, p. 288.

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jail as well, and since both were married, they were charged with adultery. There is no record in bailies or sheriff ’s court of David being charged with rape. Indeed, because he managed to find a “caution” (a bit like our bail bondsman), he was released from jail for his promise that he would not again be “found in suspect places with Helen” or (euphemistically) “abuse himself again” with her. His caution was a wealthy merchant (and sometime elder) for whom he may once have worked. Helen was not so lucky with her employer and remained imprisoned for several weeks. (It is worth noting that David’s wife cannot have been happy to have him back home: not only was he a serial adulterer, but she had reported him on a previous occasion to the session for having “bound her hand and foot and taken the handle of an axe, and laying her on a stool, broken her legs, arms, and shoulders” when she reproved his philandering.)32 In the event, David did not keep his promise, and the nightwatch pulled a half-clad Helen Watson out of his house late one night in December, reporting him “in his naked bed”. The bailies again imprisoned both, though Helen insisted that she had refused to lie on the bed with him and had only been sitting in the chimney nook with her plaid about her. Despite David’s notorious reputation for violence and Helen’s obvious terror of him, the session again condemned both as adulterers. Not content with their usual penalty of public humiliation, however, they enjoined the bailies to implement the full force of the parliamentary statute. The couple were executed in January, the gibbet erected in front of her mother’s front door.33 Such a draconian response was highly unusual, though, so the elders explained it in their petition to the bailies: “Otherwise, being long winking at their wickedness, God of his justice [will] plague both us and you with the rest of this city, as miserable experience has begun to teach us.”34 That experience was the death of a quarter of the town’s population in the continuing plague.35 Interestingly, it was in a plague season that Geneva saw a notable peak in arrests for sexual misbehavior – after just one in 1544 and eight in 1545, there were 32 in the disastrous year of 1546, down to three in 1547. The notion that epidemic disease was a divine judgment on sin in the community was a powerful one.36 Another Perth case study muddies the waters further as to practice. The story 32 PKSB, p. 239 (11 September 1582). The neighbors confirmed her testimony. Apparently “sundry neighbours” had in fact gathered on the street outside the house of Donald Thomson, with whose wife David was consorting at midnight, and followed him home, where they overheard the violence. David’s wife, Elspeth Campbell, displayed the resulting injuries to them and later to the session, which ordered him warded. 33 PKSB, pp. 294 – 295 (5 January 1585); cf. Perth and Kinross County Archives [PKCA] ms B59/ 12/9 (bailies court minutes, 1580 – 1586), fol. 169. For other cases of rape treated as adultery or fornication by victim as well as attacker, see Todd, Culture of Protestantism, p. 296 f. 34 PKSB, p. 295. 35 NLS ms Adv.35.4.4, fol. 4. 36 Naphy, Consolidation, p. 108.

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of Jean Thornton has all the stuff of modern blockbusters – lust and seduction, privilege and loss, a friend’s betrayal, and ultimately murder. Jean was in 1582 a perfectly respectable woman – a model of comportment and piety, in fact, as an elder’s wife. Her marriage to the successful merchant and magistrate Oliver Peblis was doubtless based on her family’s social position and her own reputation for godly living. It ought to have guaranteed her future standing in the community.37 There is no indication at all in the minutes that she was a flirt, or that she did anything to encourage the roving eye of her husband’s friend and erstwhile colleague on the session: apparently the elder Henry Adamson was determined to seduce her. Henry was also a frequent holder of high burgh office, at the time dean of guild. His friendship with Peblis is evident from the fact that he asked Peblis to stand as godfather when his daughter was born in 1581. Yet he “pursued” his friend’s wife, despite her repeated efforts to rebuff his attentions.38 How frustrating it must have been for her, in this town where all eyes were upon her, in this time when reputation was everything, to resist a powerful man whose integrity would have been unquestioned by the neighbors, who himself had sat regularly in judgment on sexual offenders. She would report to the session that for nine years she resisted his unwanted advances, and then, in August of 1581, she gave in to him, exhausted by her efforts, perhaps, or hopeful that the stalking would now end, or maybe just swept away by her own sexual desires and his persistence. They got away with it three times, which she described for the prurient elders: the first time on the chest by her bedside while her husband was at the watch, the second in Henry’s barn, and the third (however improbably) in her coal cellar while her husband was upstairs. But at some point after the fourth time – carelessly outdoors in Henry’s yard – their affair became public, and the scandalized elders summoned both offenders. Jean appeared on 20 August 1582, 37 Peblis was at various times bailie, council, dean of guild, and town treasurer. See PKCA mss B59/12/2, fol. 21 – 22, 24v–25, 26, 27 – 28v, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 42; B59/13/1, f. 2 (a 1577 assize); B59/12/9, fol. 19v, 23, 34v, 40v, 42v, and throughout the volume as judge, arbiter, and compositor in the bailies court in the 1580s. NLS ms Adv 31.1.5, p. 63; APS 3:77, 524 (his membership in the parliaments of 1572 and 1590); Guildry Book of Perth, ed. Marion L. Stavert (Edinburgh: 1993), 234, 534 – 535; Rental Books of King James VI Hospital, Perth, ed. Robert. Milne (Perth: 1891), 16, 19, 28, 47, 51, 62, 69, 87, 132, 534 – 535; NRS/NRH ms OPR 387/1, n.f. (11 November 1581 baptism of Adamson’s daughter). NRS mss CH2/521/2, fol. 53, 85v ; CH2/521/3, pp. 48, 110 – 111; CC8/8/41/353 – 354 (his will); SC49/1/1/3 (Perth sheriff ’s court records), passim. 38 For Adamson’s standing in the burgh, see PKCA mss B59/12/2 (Council minutes and election returns), fol. 27 – 28, 31, 33, and 62; ms B59/12/8 (bailies court minutes), fol. 221v, 224 et passim; B59/26/1/11, Guildry Book, pp. 202, 278, 280, 302, 313, 327 – 29, 410, 534; APS 3:195; BUK 3:621 – 22. NLS mss Adv 31.1.1, f. 60v ; Adv 31.1.5, pp. 215 – 216; Adv 35.4.4, f. 6. NRS ms CC8/8/22/705 (1598 will submitted by his widow Helen Orme). NRS/NRH ms OPR 387/1, n.f., 11 November 1581, lists Perth’s minister Patrick Galloway along with Oliver Peblis as witnesses of the baptism of Adamson’s daughter, Agnes.

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confessed, and promised to perform her public repentance, but Henry failed to show up until the following week, when he responded to a bill of complaint submitted by the cuckolded husband, Oliver Peblis. He denied the adultery, even in the face of thirteen “witnesses” produced by Peblis. The witnesses’ depositions report only circumstantial evidence – having noticed the couple together and overheard an assignation being made, and carrying messages between them – but in ordinary cases, the confession of his partner would prove as damning to the man as to the woman.39 This case was not ordinary, however. Henry, steadfastly insisting on his innocence, took a three-pronged defense: first, he questioned whether the depositions of the two women among Oliver’s witnesses could be accepted, but – significantly for our purposes – the elders ruled “with one voice that famous women ought to bear witness in any matter that comes before them”; in fact, they designated this principled stand an “Act of Session” to guide all their future deliberations. Second, Henry produced two of his own witnesses – as to character, not events. Finally, he insisted that the elders and minister were not competent judges, given his standing as a former elder.40 In February, his case was therefore referred to the higher court of presbytery, and eventually it went to the highest ecclesiastical court, the General Assembly (where, incidentally, he had himself sat as a commissioner in 1581). To this point, the session strikes us as even-handed, pursuing both parties and including the testimony of women. But while Jean was beginning her humiliating weekly public repentance before the congregation in sackcloth, on the stool of repentance (public repentance for adulterers could go on for six months of Sundays), Henry’s case was languishing. It was nearly a year before the General Assembly ruled. Then it stopped short of condemning Henry for adultery, denouncing only his indiscreet behavior, “giving occasion of slander”, and requiring a confession before the Perth presbytery and the burgh congregation only for giving the appearance of unchaste conversation (and no sackcloth for Henry).41 Apparently in the ministers’ view it only took one to tango: they could 39 PKSB, pp. 197, 233 – 235 (11 September 1581; 13, 20, and 27 August 1582). On the thirteenth, Peblis complained that the session was dragging its feet in pursuing Adamson. Interestingly, the conversations between the two reported in one witness’s deposition had to do with a commercial dispute between Peblis and another sometime elder and dean of guild, Dionysius Conqueror : see PKCA ms B59/12/2, fol. 27 – 28v, 31v–40, 64; B59/13/1; and B59/12/9, fol. 1, 19v–20v, 80 – 80v, 87v, 116v. 40 PKSB, pp. 196 f (4 and 11 September 1582). Unfortunately the depositions of Adamson’s witnesses are not included in the record. 41 BUK 3:621 – 622: In the “process deduced before presbytery against Henry Adamson burgess of Perth and approved by the synodal assembly of the province, the whole kirk […] being well resolved and advised therewith, in one voice declares and finds the said Henry by his familiar and suspect behaviour with Jeanie Thornton, spouse of Oliver Peblis, resorting with

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condemn Jean’s adultery with Henry, but grant the possibility that he had not committed the act with her. It is not difficult to understand how the injustice of her situation sent Jean Thornton ’round the bend. Angry and increasingly bitter, her behavior became more and more erratic as she faced the public mockery of her neighbors while Adamson sat smug in his pew, secure in the privilege of his offices from the awful punishment that she endured for the same offense. Finally, she abruptly ceased her required appearances on the penitents’ seat, went on the offensive against the hypocrisy of the “godly” and began “slandering honest men and women in this town, alleging them more guilty of adultery than she was”. In particular, demonstrating that she had no political sense whatsoever, she targeted the minister’s new fianc¦e, Mattie Guthrie.42 Together with her “obstinate disobedience” of the kirk’s orders, this got her jailed, and finally, in October, she was excommunicated.43 She apparently left town at some point after this and became a fugitive from the kirk’s justice, and so also an enemy of the king: in1588 she was “put to the horn” or outlawed with other fugitive adulterers “excommunicate for their obstinancy” and now condemned “to suffer death” and all their “moveable goods to be escheat and moved to His Highness”.44 (Even an outspoken antipresbyterian king cooperated with session discipline, though perhaps with an eye on the material rewards.) She also now embarked on a life of sexual abandon: why not, since she was condemned anyway? But her roots were in the burgh, and despite the threats attendant on horning, she returned to the town, pregnant from a relationship with a servant of the earl of Crawford. Shortly after the birth, she admitted to the elders “sent to enquire” after “the great bruit of the same” her in private and suspect places, drinking and conversing with her, and other ways behaving himself not so chastely as becomes an honest married person, as by sundry circumstances in the said process appears to have given suspicion that he has committed adultery with her, and thereby to have given occasion of slander in his person, therefore ordain him […] to compear before the presbytery of Perth and there with humility unfeignedly to confess and acknowledge that he has given occasion of slander, asking God and the kirk forgiveness, and thereafter upon a Sunday to be appointed by the said presbytery, he shall compear in the parish kirk of Perth in time of sermon before noon, sit in the place of repentance in his common apparel [rather than sackcloth] until the sermon be ended, and immediately after the end thereof and before the prayer, stand up in the said place of repentance and confess and acknowledge the slander given by him and ask God and [the] kirk pardon therefor, with promise in time coming to avoid all slanderous behaviour and suspicion of any such crime” (emphases mine). For Adamson as commissioner to the 1581 Assembly, BUK 3:544. 42 PKSB, p. 253 (18 March 1583). Her husband serving as caution for Guthrie when her marriage banns were proclaimed may have been his way of apologizing for his errant wife, or Guthrie’s way of re-assuring him that she did not blame him (p. 255, 21 April 1583). 43 PKSB pp. 267, 269 (2 September and 19 October 1583, the excommunication “by reason of her obstinate disobedience”). 44 NRS-West Register House ms JC 26/Box 2, n.f. (22 December 1588 – miscellaneous Justiciary Court documents).

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that the bairn was not her husband’s, and that she had had “carnal deal […] sundry and diverse times” with David Auchterlony.45 The session’s response is not given in the minutes, but somehow Jean remained within the town, now moving in with Thomas Moneypenny. The last mention of her in the session books is in October of 1589, when the session ordered two elders and all four bailies of the burgh to go to Moneypenny’s house and order him to put her out or himself be excommunicated, since she “is an excommunicate and should not be held in the company of good Christians that serve God, much less to be entertained in bed and board within any honest godly man’s house, to the great slander of God, his word, kirk, and this congregation”.46 As for Henry Adamson, while he may have escaped serious ecclesiastical discipline, the power of family loyalty would in the end levy the heaviest penalty for his affront to Oliver Peblis. In 1598, a kinsman of Oliver murdered Henry on the High Street of Perth.47 Does Jean Thornton’s story demonstrate that the theory of a single standard of sexual probity for men and women was only that – a theory, something one finds in the books, but not in the courtroom? The bizarre decision of the General Assembly would lead us to think so, and certainly Jean did not think she had been fairly treated. But consider that the Assembly was comprised almost entirely of ministers, given to protecting their own, and in a system like Scotland’s, elders occupied a fuzzy middle ground between clergy and laity. The Assembly met in Edinburgh that year, and few if any would ever have met Jean, though they knew Henry. Would the most local authorities, the elders of Perth, have rendered a different decision? We cannot know, since Henry was within his rights to demand that as an elder he should be tried by a higher court.48 Consider, too, how far beyond the pale Jean’s behavior went in protest against her differential treatment. Could the session have just sat by when she slandered and openly railed at the faithful of her community, women as well as men? Could they have stopped short of excommunication when she refused to complete her repentance? Could they have kept her from being put to the horn when she continued and even flaunted her sexual misconduct with other men? Surely the preponderance of the evidence suggests that at the most local level, the mostly 45 Still, poor Oliver had to appear before the session himself in January of 1589 and swear that the child was not his. Jean was summoned to the following session meeting, where she “confessed her former faults and crimes, […] and now of new confesses her fact of adultery with David Achterlony”; she again exonerated her husband of any suspicion – or responsibility for supporting the child, confirming that she had not had sex with him for many years. PKSB, pp. 408, 409 (13 and 21 January 1589). 46 PKSB, p. 430 (21 October 1589). 47 NRS ms CH2/521/3, p. 28 (15 May 1598). The avenger of Peblis’s honor, John Peblis, was excommunicated by the presbytery and executed by order of the bailies of Perth. 48 Of course, Jean had not the option of being an elder in the first place because of gender.

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lay leadership of the kirk in this Scottish town did make a concerted effort to adhere to the ideal of a single, and high, standard for men and women, however complicated it might have been in practice in a society that still set clergy apart from laity, that desperately sought to establish a rigorous moral order to avoid divine wrath, and (to return to Helen Watson’s case) that utterly failed to see rape from the victim’s perspective. If Thomas’s sweeping claims about “bourgeois” morality can be taken to apply not to an anachronistic notion of the middle class, but to actual town dwellers, and if his focus on protestant input can be more precisely narrowed to Reformed protestantism, then the evidence of sixteenthcentury Perth sustains his thesis about the undermining of the double standard, though at least modestly qualifying his presumptions about the tenacity of unequal sexual discipline in all circumstances. The matter of Henry Adamson’s status introduces the other challenge to the claim that Calvinist discipline followed the guidelines offered by Calvin’s books in regard to discipline being imposed upon all sorts. It is not the only evidence that people of higher status could receive preferential treatment, for all kinds of offenses. This is not to deny that stern punishments were meted out to the well born and to the clerical elite. There are famous cases, like the 1563 public repentance in St Giles of the Lord Treasurer of Scotland, or the severe public humiliation of the fornicating minister John Methven in the same year.49 Such cases were heard by the General Assembly, given the status of the offenders, but the rod was not generally spared as it had been in Adamson’s case. There is, moreover, some good evidence that lords who wished to affirm their commitment to the new religious order willingly submitted to discipline as if to display their religious credentials.50 Some Perthshire lairds cooperated even with the social inferiors on their parish sessions: the laird of Lawers in 1598, for instance, made no objection to public repentance for adultery, and Lady Craigie in 1622 was to “have no longer residence w/in Perth” until she turned in a testimonial from her minister in Dumbarney that she had publically repented there for her fornication.51 Ministers and secular lairds (the rough equivalent of the English gentry or lesser 49 Calendar of State Papers, Scottish, 2, no. 45, p.33; KW 2:364ff; Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. Laing, vol. 2, pp. 66 f, 187 f. Following excommunication, Methven repented before the Assembly on his knees and weeping. He was ordered on three days to appear barefoot in sackcloth at the main entry of St Giles in Edinburgh before the service and stand there for an hour, “the whole people beholding him”, and then after prayer and psalms to come to the penitents’ seat in the church. Upon the third appearance, following the Sunday sermon, he was ordered “in the face of the whole church” to “declare his repentance with his own mouth”. 50 Graham, “Equality before the Kirk?,” pp. 289 – 309. 51 NRS mss CH2/521/3, p. 10 (9 Jan 1598); CH2/521/7, p. 359 (16 Sep 1622).

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nobility) received similarly humiliating punishment at the presbytery level, particularly in cases of criminal misbehavior, in which the offender was pursued simultaneously by secular courts. In Perth presbytery, for instance, Colin Pitscottie, eldest son of the laird of Loucardy, having “cruelly murdered Alexander Lamb […] under silence and cloud of night” in November 1619, did public repentance in linen, having avoided the most severe secular penalty by working out a deal with his victim’s kin (Scotland’s being still a feuding culture, kin violence was as much to be feared as the king’s). There are many similar cases, but a notable departure from the treatment of ordinary folk is visible in Pitscottie’s case, and quite typical: he managed to delay his repentance for over a year, successfully pleading business out of the country, or “danger of civil arrest”, or “the wrath of the parties” offended by the murder. He also had the option of representation – not available in kirk sessions for anyone lower born.52 The lord, lady, and master (heir) of Oliphant, Catholics suspected of receiving and protecting Jesuits, initially came to the attention of the Perth session in 1604 when Lord Oliphant was summoned as “an evil example” to others for skipping Sunday sermons. Ordinarily, the elders would automatically refer the case of a laird to the next higher court, given their own political vulnerability as mere townsmen; in this case, however, a new “landwart” elder, the laird of Balhousie, had recently been elected to the Perth eldership and so could be dispatched with two other elders to admonish his social equal. But the Oliphants were able similarly to delay proceedings in their cases repeatedly over a period of nearly a decade before the son finally repented and received protestant communion in Perth parish in 1629. Lady Oliphant kept the presbyters waiting until her death in 1632; interestingly, the Perth session decided despite her evident heterodoxy to allow her burial in the kirk’s Bailies Aisle – for a payment of 20 dollars (£40).53 Her son, for all his supposed penitence in 1629, found himself before the session again in 1633, this time for fornication; the elders again referred him to the presbytery, and this time he was able to buy his way out of public repentance (for £20), having also arranged a marriage for his pregnant paramour, who nonetheless did have to perform her public repentance.54 He was back before the

52 NRS ms CH2/299/2 (the earliest surviving presbytery minute book for Perth), pp. 27, 29, 32, 24, 41, 43, 44, 45, 48, 53. 53 NRS mss CH2/521/4, p. 7 (19 Nov 1604, Colin Eviot of Balhousie the elder); CH2/299/2, pp. 42, 48, 50, 151, 157, 160, 162, 190 (1628, the master [heir] of Oliphant claiming ‘necessary business in the Mearns with the laird of Hackerton’ to delay his case), 192, 193, 196, 198, 205, 210, 213 (a December 1628 letter from the archbishop of St Andrews indicating that the Master of Oliphant would communicate in the spring) and 219 (the communion, April 1629); CH2/521/8/1, p. 82 (8 December 1632), noting a unanimous vote on the burial. 54 NRS ms CH2/521/8/1, fol. 21v, 36v, 117v, 126, 138, 144v, 150v, 158v (dates from 17 October 1633 to 27 October 1634). On 20 February 1636 she paid 10 merks for exemption from ward

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presbytery again in 1636, however, for fornication with another woman – also remanded to the repentance seat while his prosecution was delayed. This time, threatened with the court of High Commission, he finally repented, but only before the presbytery.55 There are several other cases of well-born local Catholics referred to the presbytery. Lady Fingask Bruce, her husband the laird, and their son, also receivers of Jesuits and readers of their books, were summoned to the presbytery in 1621 for failing to communicate for more than four years. The relative weakness of parish authorities dealing with lairds, however, is apparent in this case: Lady Fingask’s minister paid the price for turning the family in when the laird directed his tenants “barbarously and violently” to demolish the manse and to withhold vicarage payments for six years. After regular conferences and admonitions, Lady Fingask finally came to communion in 1627 and relinquished a bond of £1000 to ensure that she would avoid “any suspicions of papistry” in future. Meanwhile, however, her husband and son continued to resist the presbytery, and his wife’s penitence proved short-lived. In 1632 she was threatened with excommunication both for failing to come to church and for “foul bruit and public slander with” one of her servants, “in that he resorts to her night and day as [if] he were her married husband”. Her angry response is telling: “Who can hinder me, a gentlewoman, to hold a servant to serve me?” Several more weeks of private admonitions followed, but to no apparent avail; in 1636 the Perth elders were still remonstrating with her about church attendance and her unwillingness to be examined about her belief, after which she disappears from the record.56 Clearly kirk sessions were in very practical terms handicapped in dealing with even the lesser nobility ; and presbyteries, for all their efforts, did not quite achieve equality of discipline for rich and poor. That the courts at both levels tried at all, however, is noteworthy, and despite long delays and considerable indulgence, many lesser nobles in Perthshire did submit to some discipline, and they certainly paid significant fines to exempt themselves from more humiliating penalties. The presbytery was on firmer ground in disciplining its own clerical members. John Wood, minister of Rynd, was deposed from the ministry after committing fornication with Isobel Mug in Perth, despite having “humbled himself upon his knees with tears craving the mercy of the Lord” before the Perth and crosshead, but she still had to appear on the repentance seat on three weekdays: NRS ms CH2/521/8/2, fol. 3, 43. 55 NRS ms CH2/299/1, pp. 359, 360. 56 NRS mss CH2/299/2, pp. 57, 58, 67, 69, 127, 145, 151, 161 f, 164, 167, 223, 234, 244; CH2/521/ 8/1, fol. 47v, 54, 56v (5 March, 1 and 21 May 1632); CH2/521/8/2, fol. 10, 43 (6 April 1635, 18 April 1636).

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presbytery ; in addition, he had to perform public repentance in the kirk of Perth.57 The Perth session needed no recourse to presbytery to discipline their own Reader, Henry Adamson (a nephew of Jean Thornton’s stalker): licensed by the presbytery to teach in 1620, Adamson was in June of 1621 suspended from office by the minister and elders of Perth when they discovered that he had committed fornication with one of his father’s servants a few months earlier. He submitted to public repentance before the congregation, and then was restored to office in view of his penitence, and of the parish’s need for a reader. Although his repentance was a humiliating experience, it is significant that his appearances were only at weekday prayers, not at the Sunday sermon, when the audience would have been greater.58 Again, then, we find kirk discipline meted out even to those holding important church offices, but at least on some occasions with a lighter hand than was used on lesser folk. Elders under discipline generally did not follow the example of the other Adamson and appeal to presbytery ; instead, they underwent precisely the same punishments as those over whom they sat in judgment. The aptly-named Constantine Malice, for instance, in 1581 paid a penalty of £4 and performed public repentance for holding his wedding feast during a public fast – despite the eminence and wealth of his merchant burgess family and his frequent service as an elder.59 The elder Gabriel Mercer in 1595 likewise submitted with no complaint to public repentance, this time on a Sunday, for offering hospitality to an excommunicate papist.60 The most blatant inequity in session discipline was, as one might expect, in the levying of fines as an alternative, for those who could afford it, to public humiliation, incarceration on bread and water, or other corporal punishment (generally the “crosshead” or pillory). In 1617, for instance, Isobel Stoddard paid 20s to exempt her from the cuckstool and repentance seat for slander. James Kyle paid £3 8s to avoid jailing for contumacy, and Agnes Gibson, a relapsed fornicator, was assigned to the crosshead on a market day “unless she redeem herself therefrom by payment of £6 6s”; she still had to sit on the penitents’ seat, as did her partner, who paid only £3 for exemption from the crosshead, since he was a first-time offender.61 What is interesting about the rash of such instances for several years from 1617 through the 1620s is that the session minutes note the parish’s particular financial need at the time: Kyle’s fine was paid directly to a 57 NRS ms CH2/299/2, pp. 235, 237 f, 241. 58 NRS mss CH2/299/1, p. 39; CH2/521/7, pp. 221, 247, 250. His restoration was by session and burgh council. 59 PKSB, p. 177. His wife, Isobel Elder, was also from a prominent and wealthy family. 60 NRS ms CH2/521/2, fol. 138v (8 December 1595). 61 NRS ms CH2/521/6, pp. 211, 202, 238 (4 September, 21 July, 8 December 1617), among many other examples.

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painter to gild the king’s chair in the kirk prior to an expensive royal visit, the kirk roof was found to be in a dire state of disrepair in 1617 and again in 1619, when rain poured onto the congregation, the steeple was found to be in ruins in 1619, the road beside the kirk needed to be rebuilt, and a storm that destroyed the town’s bridge in 1621 led to a much greater use of exemption fines thereafter as the town tried to raise funds for a new bridge. In 1622, several wealthy young women guilty of sabbath breach informed the elders that they were “ashamed to appear but are content to pay 12s each person” – a policy eagerly adopted and formally enacted by the cash-strapped session.62 By contrast, a pregnant servant unable to pay a fine for her fornication was sentenced in 1618 to “abide six days in the tower and live on bread and water”, stand two hours on the crosshead, and appear three times on the repentance seat; and a relapsed fornicator was jailed for 20 days and spent six hours on the crosshead.63 It should be borne in mind that those incarcerated had to provide their own maintenance, and the poor were obviously least able to do so. Elspeth Blythe in 1622 was reportedly “near famished for want” after fourteen days in jail, and in 1633 a fornicator jailed in the town toll booth “feared to have been destroyed” by the multitudes of rats there.64 Money made a real difference. The elders ought not be too hastily condemned, however: they did offer a sliding scale of payment – at least a nod in the direction of equity. So in 1616 the Perth session determined that Jonat Donaldson, a poor servant guilty of fornication, should “in consideration of her poverty” pay a 40s penalty to exempt her from jail and crosshead, while the craftsman Henry Crie could very well afford a £4 exemption for the same offense. A few years later the skinner Walter Young paid more than double the fine of his sexual partner given his economic standing as a craftsman.65 The amount of an exemption, they ruled in 1617, should be set “according to [the sinner’s] quality, means and estate”. Accordingly, the penitent adulterer James Turnbull, “being but a poor chapman living on the readiest of other men’s goods” found his penalty mitigated. Such reduction was available only to the penitent, however: James Mar was able to avoid ward and crosshead in 1619 for £10 after reporting that “he had been sore troubled in his conscience” and “now by the motion of God’s spirit being heavily displeased for his sin”, he confessed; his partner, however, denied having sinned

62 NRS ms CH2/521/6, pp. 201, 215, 328; CH2/521/7, pp. 51, 94, 99, 107, 330 – 336; see also pp. 49, 345. For efforts to deal with the bridge, see PKSB, p. 12, n.38. Much earlier, in 1591, the session had designated that fines from fornicators be directed to the repair of the kirk tower, just before the queen was to visit the town: ms CH2/521/2, fol. 49. 63 NRS ms CH3/521/6, pp. 247, 249. 64 NRS ms CH2/521/7, 1 Oct 1622; CH2/521/8/1, fol. 102v. 65 NRS mss CH2/521/6, p. 84; CH2/521/7, p. 44 (he paid 10 merks to her £3).

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and so was jailed.66 A poor man with skill could barter his services: in 1622 a slater’s apprentice with “no money to pay exemption from ward and crosshead” for fornication was ordered instead to “mend a hole of the body of the kirk in part of payment of his penalty and to help other faults of the kirk thereafter when he shall be required” – a good deal for the kirk’s coffers.67 The abjectly poor and unskilled were just out of luck: Jonat Broun, with child as a result of fornication, found that “because she has no money to exempt her” she was committed to the tower.68 And the session ruled in the deep winter of 1602 that the servant Jonat Sym, pregnant by “John Barrie, cripple”, must be jailed, carted, and banished despite their confessions, because “they are both poor bodies, having nothing either to pay a penalty or to entertain themselves in ward, neither yet counted of public repentance.”69 So much for equality before the law. Finally, bringing us full circle to Helen Watson’s case, both gender and social standing determined how session and presbytery handled rape cases. Isobel Ray in 1590 explained her pregnancy to the session by reporting that a wealthy craftsman, the mason John Firbrand, “broke in by force upon her under silence of night and forced her against her will” and then in view of her poverty threatened her with non-support of the child should she reveal his paternity. Because a child had resulted from the encounter, the elders believed that she had in fact consented and prescribed public repentance for both parties.70 Cases of kidnap and rape, particularly by the well-born, were after 1579 referred to the higher court of presbytery, where the victims were given the benefit of the doubt as to fornication because of the evident violence level and frequent use of arms, but where the objective seems to have been to ensure that the victim marry the

66 67 68 69

NRS ms CH2/521/6, pp. 211, 328; CH2/521/7, pp. 25 – 27. NRS ms CH2/521/7, p. 12 (9 July 1622). NRS ms CH2/521/7, p. 315 (26 March 1622). NRS ms CH2/521/3, p. 210 (11 Jan 1602). Note that this poor couple and their newborn were cast out upon the highways with no hope of being taken into a neighboring community, since a testimonial of good behavior from one’s previous parish was required for admission to a new one. Perth was not Geneva, where one might take refuge with Catholics in nearby Savoy, or Leiden, where one might find refuge with a different religious community in the same town. 70 PKSB, pp. 455 f, 16 November 1590. William Naphy, Sex Crimes from Renaissance to Enlightenment (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2002), ch 4, “Rape and Sexual Assault,” noting (p. 88) that Genevan judges “show a consistent willingness to take seriously the accusations of these female victims”, but also that (p. 93) there was in the sixteenth century “a widespread view that conception could only take place if ejaculation (i. e., an orgasm) took place in both man and woman” so that a “woman claiming rape resulting in pregnancy had her case seriously undermined since her condition showed that she had ‘enjoyed’ the sexual act”. In his 2012 U.S. Senate race, the Republican Party’s Todd Akin gave the lie to any presumption that this notion about rape and pregnancy has disappeared in our more enlightened age when he claimed that raped women cannot become pregnant.

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rapist.71 In 1620 William Stewart, heir of the laird of Kinnaird, “under silence and cloud of night violently ravished and took away Elspeth Henryson […] from her mother’s house in the Southgate of Perth […] assisted by divers of his complices all in armor”, which the presbytery found a “barbarous fact”. Threatened with excommunication, William declined to appear before the presbytery, insisting both that he was in danger from Elspeth’s offended kin and that in fact he had “obtained the good will and assent of the said Elspeth”. Told to send her home until the matter was settled, he declined, still “cohabiting with the said ravished [woman] and detesting the voice of the kirk to the dishonour of God and evil example of others”. Her mother and brother appeared before the presbytery to demand justice for Elspeth, and William was duly excommunicated two months after the abduction and put to the horn (outlawed). Neither act helped Elspeth, though. She was held captive for a year and a half, after which apparently her family capitulated and made a deal with the laird to marry the young woman. But at least the presbytery did not treat her as a fornicator.72 The violent 1620 rape of Jonat Mar, a married woman, by Harie Shaw, laird of Pitmurthlie, had a like result, despite the fact that Jonat had (at her husband’s insistence) “confessed the sin of adultery”; the presbyters seem to have recognized her as a victim when she reported that Shaw “ravished her against her will in her barn when she was getting straw to fill her bairn’s cradle. He steiked [locked] the door, and wrestling with her she got a grip of his dirk [and] almost drew out the same,” but “he checking it in again bled her hand and made a great wound into it”. She was not punished, but his public repentance was lengthened both because of his violence and because he subsequently attacked his own minister for reporting him.73 Calvin’s insistence that “no one be exempt from discipline” clearly had a checkered career in the national Reformation of Scotland. Certainly the Genevan books were taken very seriously : equality before the law was clearly maintained in theoretical literature – the Books of Discipline, the Acts of the General Assemblies, and parliamentary statutes. And as a general rule, Scotland’s sessions, 71 Perth’s presbytery was clearly functioning at least a year before the official establishment nationally of presbyteries: PKSB, p. 101, n. 79. 72 NRS ms CH2/299/1, pp. 32 – 35 (abduction 10 February 1620), 37 – 39, 62 f (Elspeth finally appeared 11 July 1621 and “gave her consent and craves that he may be relaxed [from the sentence of excommunication] and declares that it was her own will and consent that she was taken away by him forth of this town”, and on 18 July, William “humbly on his knees” declared his repentance to the presbytery), 64 (William sentenced to three Sundays of public repentance in sackcloth in Perth, three more in the kirk of Little Dunkeld where his first act of “fornication” was committed), 65 (recording his public acts of repentance 19 September–31 October 1621). The settlement with Elspeth’s family allowed him to be relaxed from the king’s justice as well. 73 NRS ms CH2/299/1, pp. 43 – 45, 49, 50 – 52 (the attack on Schaw’s minister), 53.

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like the Geneva consistory, did practice what the books ordained. But in a hierarchical society, social standing did on occasion matter, if only in determining which court heard a case. And in a society in which women were strictly subordinated to men, and where the violence level made them especially vulnerable, equal treatment was sometimes illusory. In a town hard-pressed to pay its bills, disasters like a bridge collapse could result in punishments being commuted to fines payable only by the propertied, and the very poorest offenders being discarded from the process, as John Barrie the cripple was. Finally, in a society in which epidemic disease, dearth, and famine made life periodically fraught, desperation could lead to the execution of rape victims, surely the greatest of inequities. Contingencies, then, must qualify our claims for the effects of a new principle. They should not, however, diminish its importance, far beyond Geneva.

Jennifer Powell McNutt

Chapter Three: Replacing Calvin? The Catechism of Calvin in Eighteenth-Century Geneva

It used to be that the story of the Enlightenment was an easy one to tell. As much as the Reformation worked to reform religion, the Enlightenment sought to destroy it. If Luther’s work was to “Re-Christianize”, as Scott Hendrix has argued,1 then the Enlightenment sought to “Dechristianize” or “Desacralize”.2 Increasingly, however, Enlightenment studies have undergone a dramatic paradigm shift in the understanding of how religion and the Enlightenment intersected.3 Beginning with Roy Porter’s work in the 1980s, and particularly at the turn of the twenty-first century with the research of Jonathan Israel, new research has increasingly complicated a narrative that was once rather straightforward.4 Meanwhile, growing attention to the presence and activity of religion within revisionist research has led both to the development of new

1 Scott Hendrix, “Rerooting the Faith: The Reformation as Re-Christianization,” Church History 69:3 (2000), pp. 558 – 577. 2 The prominence of this discussion for Enlightenment scholars is seen in Roger Chartier’s The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991) as well as Daniel Roche’s France in the Enlightenment, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). See also Michelle Vovelle’s seminal discussion of dechristianization through a study of eighteenth-century wills: Pi¦t¦ baroque et d¦christianisation en Provence au dix-huitiÀme siÀcle: Les attitudes devant la mort d’aprÀs les clauses des testaments (Paris: Plon, 1973). More in-depth study of prominent religious Enlightenment figures in the context of the French Revolution, such as the Abb¦ Gr¦goire, has illumined those who fought against radical developments for the sake of religion while still seeking to advance Enlightenment aims: Alyssa Sepinwall, The Abb¦ Gr¦goire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (Berkeley : The University of California, 2005). 3 For a classic approach to the polemical relationship between religion and the Enlightenment, see Peter Gay’s The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom, reissued (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1996) and The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism, reissued (New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1996). 4 Jonathan Sheehan, “Enlightenment, Religion, and the Enigma of Secularization: A Review Essay,” The American Historical Review 108:4 (2003), pp. 1061 – 1080.

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categories, such as David Sorkin’s “Religious Enlightenment”,5 and to the challenging of old categories such as “Deism”.6 However, the substantial transformation of the Enlightenment story has much larger implications than merely how one teaches and writes eighteenth-century history : this story is too closely tied to how scholars understand the emergence of the Modern Age to be an isolated historiographical development. Altering the Enlightenment story raises questions not only about how historians tell the story of the aftermath of the Enlightenment era but, perhaps most importantly, about how historians understand the trajectory of the Reformation and its aftermath.7 Perhaps harsh contrasts once commonly made between Reformation and Enlightenment studies have stemmed at least in part from the scholarly neglect of the transformational era after sixteenth-century reformers through the eighteenth century. Because they are often segmented off as separate eras without connection, Enlightenment studies has suffered from a lack of familiarity with the Reformation and its aftermath,8 and this blind spot has led to distorted understandings of the uniqueness of eighteenth-century contributions and developments, which have tended to further perpetuate extreme polarizations between the two eras.9 Furthermore, misperceptions about the prevalence of Enlightenment atheism and deism as well as the inevitability of secularization have led to inordinate interest and attention being directed by scholars toward philosophers of the period to the neglect of eighteenth-century churches and clergy. All the while, much of seventeenth-century scholarship sleeps soundly between the two giants of the Reformation and Enlightenment with few venturing to wake her slumbering form.10 In this context, my research seeks to

5 David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 6 S. J. Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity (Manchester : Manchester University Press: 2003). 7 See Jennifer Powell McNutt, Calvin Meets Voltaire: The Clergy of Geneva in the Age of Enlightenment, 1685 – 1798 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013). Some of the research presented here is more fully expanded upon in this book. 8 Dale Van Kley’s work offers rare examples of effective Enlightenment scholarship conducted in light of the Reformation and its legacy. His monograph, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560 – 1791 (New Haven: Yale University, 1996), offers a particular challenge to dechristianization conclusions. 9 Discussion over the origin of toleration is a good example of how emphasis on the radical Enlightenment has neglected attention to the radical Reformation. Furthermore, as Brad Gregory argues, “In their modern, secular forms in the Western world, all such rights are derived and adapted from Christianity and Judaism, religions in which it makes sense to say that rights are real because it is believed that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God.” Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 228. 10 While much attention has been afforded to assessing seventeenth-century theology, further

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contribute to the existing scholarship by bridging these two fields with attention to the enduring legacy of the Genevan Reformation broadly and of John Calvin in particular. That being said, identifying and weighing legacy is no simple task: the historiographical debate over “Calvin vs. the Calvinists” is one of the more memorable illustrations of that challenge.11 To what extent can a legacy diverge from its origin before it is no longer a legacy? In essence, legacy tends to be an intangible presence of the past that somehow shapes and forms the present. At times, that form is maintained with acknowledgment of the past, and at times, it is maintained without any recognition. Sometimes, however, legacy can come in a tangible form such as a catechetical book written by the most monumental figure that Geneva’s history has ever known. As Robert Kingdon’s work has shown, Calvin’s revised version of the 1537 catechism was adopted in 1545, “put into use among Genevans and served for generations to introduce Genevan children to the Christian faith”.12 Yet, for how many generations was Calvin’s catechetical book used? What does its inclusion or exclusion say about his legacy in Geneva? In order to explore the legacy of Calvin further, a study of catechetical practices during the Enlightenment provides a broader context for understanding the presence and role of Calvin’s catechism in eighteenth-century Geneva. Not only can the life of Calvin’s catechism offer insight into the enduring force of the Reformation as it functioned in later periods, but it can also highlight the complexity faced by traditions rooted in the Reformation yet challenged to maintain continuity with the past in the midst of the ever-changing circumstances of context.

work on ecclesiological developments within the social-political context of the seventeenth century is greatly needed in Genevan studies. 11 See Basil Hall, “Calvin against the Calvinists” in: Gervase E. Duffield, ed., John Calvin, reprint edition (Appleford: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1996), pp. 12 – 37. Richard Muller offers a summary in his two-part article, “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between the Reformation and Orthodoxy,” Calvin Theological Journal 30 (1995), pp. 345 – 375; 31 (1996), pp. 125 – 160. For a more recent overview and response, see Carl Trueman’s “Calvin and Calvinism” in: The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald McKim (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 225 – 244. 12 Robert M. Kingdon, “Confessionalism in Calvin’s Geneva,” Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 96 (2005), p. 110. For other scholarship relating to education and catechism during the Reformation era, see John Nordling, “The Catechism: The Heart of the Reformation,” Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology 16 (2007), pp. 5 – 13; Jeffrey R. Watt, “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education: The Evidence from the Genevan Consistory,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 33 (2002), pp. 439 – 456.

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“Catechism” in Eighteenth-Century Geneva The essential value and role of the catechism in the life of the church was not lost on Geneva’s church and clergy with the passing of time. Over the course of the long eighteenth century, the catechism continued to function in Geneva as an essential tool for teaching youth and laity right understanding of scripture and theology. Several key contextual factors contributed to the ongoing role and value of catechism within Genevan society for this period. The first of these was the response of Geneva’s church and state to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. As Huguenot religious freedoms gradually diminished over the course of the seventeenth century due to the persecuting policies of French monarchs after Henri IV, Geneva’s Company of Pastors increasingly promoted a renewed focus on the catechism in response. In large part, catechetical teaching was intended to combat theological ignorance13 and thereby to strengthen Protestant conviction and commitment even in the midst of crisis. At the same time, the clergy regarded the catechism as an invaluable tool in encouraging holy living as the outworking of right belief but also as a key means for avoiding “the judgments of God,”14 a sensitive concern at a time of grave danger for so many of Geneva’s francophone cousins. As the city began to swell from the influx of refugees, the feeling of danger was palpable.15 In the midst of regularly receiving disturbing reports of Protestant persecution and abjuration, the instruction and catechizing of the congregation became a singular priority among pastoral duties, according to the council’s express and urgent wishes.16 In this setting, the Company’s response was to increase the number of clerical catechists serving in their ranks from January 1685.17 Pastors began gathering families in their districts for catechetical lessons in homes three times a week for 13 Roger Stauffenegger, Êglise et Soci¦t¦ GenÀve au XVIIe SiÀcle (Geneva: SHAG, 1983), pp. 405 – 407. 14 Ibid., p. 405. 15 At points during the 1680s, up to a thousand refugees entered Geneva per week. Due to those who sought permanent residence, Geneva’s population increased by a third: Richard Whatmore, Against War & Empire: Geneva, Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 21. 16 In 1684 Syndic Trembley directly requested that the company work extraordinarily hard to instruct the people as the number of refugees in the city began to increase: AEG, RCP 15, 6 Nov. 1684, fol. 16. Even before the heightening crisis, the clergy were protective of catechetical time and teaching, such as in March 1677: Stauffenegger, Êglise et Soci¦t¦, p. 406. 17 The Company added two catechists to their numbers: AEG, RCP 15, 2 Jan. 1685, fol. 71. The country pastors offered their services to fill these places: Ibid., 9 Jan. 1685, fol. 74. The two catechists were appointed with all the requisite approval: Ibid., 20 Feb. 1685, fol. 87. The influx of refugees also led the Company to open another church to meet the growing numbers of congregants within the city.

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four-month periods of instruction.18 A plan was formulated in February to conduct numerous simultaneous catechisms by various pastors over the course of fifteen days; a catechetical intensive, if you will.19 Meanwhile, the instruction of the Genevan youth was extended to twenty years of age.20 In these multifaceted ways, Geneva’s magistrates and clergy elevated the priority of catechetical education during a time of Protestant crisis.21 Equipping the laity with the resources of the catechism was not just about edifying congregants but also preparing them to respond apologetically to Roman Catholic opponents, merely one example of how the revocation heightened anti-Catholic sentiment within the city. In that spirit, catechisms of “controversy” that explained the cause for the separation from Catholicism during the Reformation were revised and reprinted.22 B¦n¦dict Pictet’s catechism, dedicated to instructing congregants in the errors of the Catholic Church, was particularly popular well through the mideighteenth century.23 The catechism, thus, functioned in a critical way to reinforce Genevan Protestant identity and belief in opposition to Catholicism. The tactic had simply not changed since the sixteenth century.24 This teaching was further supported by regular sermons on the controversies as well,25 and fittingly, throughout the year of 1685 as more and more refugees flocked to the city from France, the clergy preached on the book of Exodus. Meanwhile, this activity was also coupled with vigilance against the circulation of any papist literature within the city.26 In these ways, the clergy were deeply invested in carefully

18 Olivier Fatio and Louise Martin van Berchem, “L’Êglise de GenÀve et la R¦vocation de l’Êdit de Nantes” in: Olivier Reverdin, ed., GenÀve au temps de la R¦vocation de l’Êdit de Nantes,1680 – 1705, M¦moires et documents publi¦s par la Soci¦t¦ d’histoire et d’arch¦ologie de Gen¦ve 50 (Geneva: Droz, 1985), pp. 161 – 311, here at p. 190. 19 AEG, RCP 15, 6 Feb. 1685, fol. 84. 20 Fatio, “L’Êglise de GenÀve,” p. 168. 21 Catechizing was coupled with sermons exhorting the people to repentance and days dedicated to fasting based upon the perception that the Revocation represented God’s judgment. This is evident in the clergy’s preparation for the day of fasting: AEG, RCP 15, 27 Nov. 1685, fol. 169; Ibid., 7 May 1686, fol. 211. See also Fatio, “L’Êglise de GenÀve,” pp. 205, 216 f. 22 See Cyrus Du Moulin’s Cat¦chisme de controverses and Charles Drelincourt’s Abr¦g¦ des controversies. This was commissioned at the following meeting of the Company : AEG, RCP 15, 16 Jan. 1684, fol. 78. 23 Fatio, “L’Êglise de GenÀve,” pp. 226 – 227, 295. 24 Jeffrey Watt writes regarding the Reformation context, “As Europe was bitterly divided over religion, Genevan leaders, like those of all confessions, saw the need to indoctrinate the young in order to lead them down the straight and narrow path and protect them from unacceptable beliefs”: Watt, “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education,” p. 449. 25 AEG, RCP 15, 30 Oct. 1685, fol. 157; Fatio, “L’Êglise de GenÀve,” p. 189. 26 AEG, RCP 15, 20 March 1685, fol. 94. The Company recorded the discovery of several copies of a book in a home for the newly converted.

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guiding the formative influences that were shaping the minds and hearts of Genevans. In the wake of the revocation and as persecution continued into the early eighteenth century, the generation of clerical leaders that emerged from these events was increasingly concerned about forging greater political and religious unity with other Protestants, particularly Lutherans. On 16 June 1702, the Company set out its agenda for greater Protestant unity with the following declaration: “The reunion of German Protestants is the most just thing in the whole world, judging by the rules of the gospel […] It is absolutely necessary for our common preservation […] It is the only way to keep us from the enterprises of papism, which does everything to separate us from each other.”27 Taking a page out of the sixteenth century, the Company determined that “the questions which divide us are in no way essential to the faith, nor are they fundamental to religion. Our Doctors have always maintained this since the time of the blessed Reformation.”28 After years of arrangements and negotiations, Antoine Schultz arrived from Leipzig in July 1707 to serve as the first Lutheran pastor of Geneva.29 It was no coincidence that he did not arrive until 1707, for it was only in 1706 that leniency regarding the ascription to the Formula Consensus began to make headway among the clergy.30‘ In order to enable greater unity among Protestants, it was believed by many of the clergy post-1685 that the Formula Consensus had to be retired. Geneva had implemented the consensus in 1679 under the leadership of FranÅois Turrettini,31 and from that point the Company required all candidates for positions in the church and academy to apply their signatures.32 Increasingly, however, the Company agreed that the Formula was the cause of internal divisions amongst the Reformed Churches and the most significant barrier to building unity with

27 28 29 30

BGE, MS. Fr. 452, 16 June 1702, fol. 150. See also AEG, RCP 18, June 1702, fol. 362. BGE, MS. Fr. 452, 16 June 1702, fol. 150 – 151. AEG, RCP 19, 29 July 1707, fol. 186 – 187. AEG, RCP 19, fol. 98. On 7 May 1706, the Company determined that the theological matters presented in the Formula were not “fundamental” to the faith. Consequently, the Company permitted a variant signature valid. Proposants were asked to profess an oath to adhere to the content of scripture and to teach nothing contrary to the confession of faith and the catechisms, as the summaries of the doctrines of scripture: AEG, RCP 19, 27 Aug. 1706, fol. 125; Copy in BGE, MS. Fr. 469, fol. 79v–80; AEG, RCP P46. In this manner, the Reformed adherence to sola scriptura was newly applied and the confession of faith along with the Geneva catechism was reaffirmed as the measure to which theology must adhere. Furthermore, teaching anything in opposition to the Synod of Dort was prohibited in a general manner. 31 BGE, MS. Fr. 469, fol. 196. It was explained to the Cantons that “the dissent between some of our pastors and professors on the doctrine of Grace” was the cause for their reticence. 32 Ibid., fol. 58v.

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other Protestants churches.33 Thus, twenty years later, the consensus regulation was wholly abolished. Interestingly, the Company framed their decision to move away from seventeenth-century theological debates as a return to Calvin’s sixteenth-century ordination regulations. From 1725 on, it was decided that proposants would take the oath of article six, title one of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, wherein the candidate committed to upholding doctrine taught in scripture and summarized by “our Catechism”.34 With this move, the Company aligned itself with Louis Tronchin, who had opposed the Consensus for moving Reformed orthodox thought beyond Calvin.35 In that same vein, the Company claimed, “That finally, by using this last protestation, we are holding to the ordinances; we are following the goals of the Reformers, and we once again place ourselves under the rule that we should have followed and under which our church has lived for nearly a century.”36 With that, the matter was unanimously approved. In effect, the demotion of the formula meant the elevation of the catechism. As the eighteenth century unfolded, the catechism continued to hold a central place in Genevan religious life, and ironically, this is related to the presence of Voltaire in Geneva. Though he was welcomed to the city of Geneva with a cautious optimism in 1754, undoubtedly, the clergy learned their lesson when general attacks of philosophical literature against clergy and religion began to be directed specifically at them as well as Calvin. After Jean D’Alembert’s Encyclop¦die article of 1757 portrayed the clergy as Socinians and Calvin as having an “atrocious soul”, the Company of Pastors campaigned against the work of the philosophes with fervor and without hesitation. “How could Voltaire come to Geneva only to then print ‘under our eyes one hundred injurious things regarding religion and our churches?’” asked clergyman Jacob Vernet.37 With conviction, Vernet declared that he would not stand by while Voltaire “attacked religion and demeaned and blackened our reformer”.38 The clergy thus retaliated

33 Ibid., fol. 74v. 34 Ibid., fol. 74. Transcription of the document passed on 3 June 1576: Jacques Grenus, Ordonnances Eccl¦siastiques Conserv¦es par la Constitution pour Servir de R¦gle — l’Êglise et aux FidÀles (Geneva: Luc Sesti¦, 1817), p. 3. In addition, they were expected to “to treat neither curious nor useless material, nor anything that might disturb the peace, in the pulpit”: BGE, MS. Fr. 469, fol. 74v. 35 Martin I. Klauber, “Jean-Alphonse Turrettini and the Abrogation of the Formula Consensus in Geneva,” Evangelical Theological Society Papers (Portland: Theological Research Exchange Network, 1990), pp. 5 f. 36 BGE, MS. Fr. 469, fol. 75. 37 Jacob Vernet, Best.D6692 in Les oeuvres completes de Voltaire, ed. Theodore Besterman, vol. 101 (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1971). 38 Ibid., Best.D6707.

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by condemning Voltaire’s Candide in 1759 and requesting its suppression.39 Vernet also published several pieces again Voltaire challenging his historical retelling of the Genevan Reformation and defending Calvin, his clerical legacy, and religion in general.40 When a printed libelle that defamed Vernet’s reputation and ministry came to the city’s attention, the Company was stunned that someone of his standing was not immune to what they described as the “persecution” of the age. The attack upon Geneva’s clergy by the moderate Enlightenment was all it took to get the Council on board. In 1761, the Petit Council renewed legislation to eradicate clandestine printers in the city and then restored the policing of the booksellers through unexpected visitations of the publishing houses.41 As the government became aware of works deemed dangerous, they would alert booksellers and forbid them from receiving a copy of the particular book or from selling it in Geneva and abroad. This was done, for example, in August 1770 with Baron d’Holbach’s radical work, Le systÀme de la nature.42 Meanwhile, the Company of Pastors43 as well as the Consistory44 actively brought infamous books to the attention of the government. If caught, those involved in the authorship, printing, and distribution of forbidden works were convicted according to Genevan censorship laws.45 The 39 Clergyman Sarrasin l’Ain¦ reported to the company that the book advanced “filthy things, inspiring inhumanity contrary to good morals and injurious to providence”: AEG, RCP 28, 23 Feb. 1759, fol. 159. Yet, history has proven that book prohibitions can often popularize a book, and in fact, Candide would become the highest selling, newly-written work in French at that time with more than fifty editions: Voltaire, Candide, trans. and intro. David Wootton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000), p. xxviii. 40 These events were recounted by Vernet: AEG, RCP 28, annexed piece, “Lettre — Monsieur le Premier Sindic.” Vernet, Lettres critiques d’un voyageur anglois sur l’article Geneve du dictionnaire EncyclopÀdique, et sur la lettre de Mr. d’Alembert de Mr. Rousseau touchant les spectacles, third ed., vol. 1 – 2 (Copenhagen: Claude Philibert, 1766). 41 A copy of Reglement sur l’imprimerie et librairie, approuv¦ en Conseil le 28. Ao˜t 1761 is found in RCP 29, 4 Sept. 1761, fol. 103 – 4. Geneva and Fribourg also collaborated against seditious publications: Marc Neuenschwander, “Solidaires et complices: les gouvernements de GenÀve et de Fribourg — la poursuite des s¦ditieux” in : Jean-Daniel Candaux and Bernard Lescaze, ed., Cinq siÀcles d’imprimerie genevoise: actes du Colloque international sur l’histoire de l’imprimerie et du livre — GenÀve 27 – 30 avril 1978, (Geneva: SHAG, 1981), pp. 157 – 184. 42 AEG, RCP 31, 24 Aug. 1770, fol. 57. 43 The pastors were particularly concerned about controlling the output of “licentious” works, and they often put pressure on the council and consistory to resolve the problem: AEG, RCP 29, 31 Aug. 1764, fol. 353; Ibid., 15 Feb. 1765, fol. 385. 44 The brochure Questions sur les miracles (1765) is one example of this forbidden genre: AEG, Reg. Consist. 88, 18 July 1765, fol. 86; Ibid., 25 July 1765, fol. 87 – 88. See transcriptions on the deliberations over this brochure by the Consistory in appendix D266 of OCV, vol. 113, pp. 494 – 496. See also their opposition to Vie de Voltaire: AEG, RCP 34, 20 Oct. 1786, fol. 19. Warnings against Philosophie de l’Histoire offer another example: AEG, Reg. Consist. 88, 25 April 1765, fol. 54. 45 Thus, in 1780, the publisher Gabriel Grasset was fined and imprisoned for the publication of

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year after these laws were reinvigorated, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s La Nouvelle H¦lose was condemned.46 By 1762, Rousseau’s Êmile and Contrat Social were condemned and burned as literary crimes against the state and religion in Paris and Geneva.47 Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique suffered the same fate in 1764.48 That year Rousseau’s Lettres ¦crites de la montagne was described by the Consistory as filled with “dangerous” and “destructive” views on Christianity that “can do nothing but great harm”.49 For the first time in a long time, French authorities and Genevan authorities were in agreement about which pieces of literature should not be permitted to circulate. In the midst of this tumultuous period for Enlightenment print culture in Geneva and beyond, the catechism – in addition to preaching – was highlighted and specifically advanced as one of the primary ways to combat the effects of forbidden literature, which the Consistory described as a corruption of youth and that which “spoils the heart and corrupts the morals”.50 To prevent this, Geneva was diligent in carving out a consistent place for catechetical teaching within the liturgical calendar as well as within Genevan society through the development of the Society of Catechumens.

Geneva’s Society of Catechumens Due to the work of the clergy, catechetical teaching was a central aspect of Genevan religious life in numerous contexts. Within the city’s districts, a pastor’s responsibility was not only to care for the spiritual needs of residents

46 47 48

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impious books: see AEG, ProcÀs Criminel [PC], 13440. Grasset had initially established his printing company in Geneva without permission: John Rochester Kleinschmidt, Les Imprimeurs et libraires de la R¦publique de GenÀve, 1700 – 1798 (Geneva: Journal de GenÀve, 1948), pp. 131 f. He was also charged for forbidden publications in 1779: PC 13431. Problems with Grasset are recounted: BGE, MS. Suppl. 1540, 13 Feb. 1759, no. 2; Ibid., 22 Jan. 1760, no. 11. See also Michel Porret, “La censure des imprim¦s au siÀcle des LumiÀres selon les r¦quisitoires du procureur g¦n¦ral de GenÀve” in M¦dias, criminalit¦ et justice (Zurich: Rüegger, 2001), p. 54. AEG, Reg. Consist. 86, 22 Jan. 1761, fol. 447. Transcriptions of these events are published in Eugene Ritter’s Le Conseil de GenÀve jugeant les oeuvres de Rousseau (Geneva: Librairie H. Georg, 1883), pp. 9 – 15. AEG, Reg. Consist. 87, 20 Sept. 1764, fol. 442; AEG, RCP 29, 23 Nov. 1764, fol. 364. Transcriptions of entries regarding this book are found in appendix D249 of OCV, vol. 112, pp. 493 – 496; Ibid., pp. 510 f. The Paris Parliament condemned Emile on 9 June 1762, and Rousseau fled the country. Geneva condemned both works June 18 to 19 and declared that Rousseau would be apprehended if he set foot in the city. AEG, Reg. Consist. 87, 18 Dec. 1764, fol. 491. This book was later described as dangerous to the government: Ibid., 3 Jan. 1765, fol. 495. AEG, R. Consist. 86, 17 Jan. 1760, fol. 369. The catechism continued to be recommended by the authorities as a key way to enhance piety within the city : AEG, RC Publ. 6, 23 April 1768, fol. 127.

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through visitation but also to ensure that congregants were attending worship services and that their children were attending catechism.51 The clergy expected parents also to contribute to the education of their littlest children and ensure their older children were attending catechism.52 In the context of the prison, pastors exhorted criminals toward repentance, and readings were offered from the catechism along with the Psalms and New Testament.53 Furthermore, at Geneva’s General Hospital, catechetical classes were offered in preparation for communion after 1710 into the late eighteenth century.54 By 1788, catechism classes were offered there every two weeks.55 Finally, catechetical teaching was also regularly held during the liturgical week at Geneva’s main city churches and country churches; however, the registers indicate extensive variation in that schedule over the course of the century. The offerings of catechetical education ebbed and flowed over the century depending on various factors. The level of congregant participation and interest sometimes guided decisions about catechetical schedules. In the rural context, pastors continually had difficulty getting farmers to attend their catechisms, though the Company expected them to persist in their offerings.56 Country schoolmasters were also expected to contribute by instructing the catechumens in addition to teaching reading, scripture, singing the Psalms, and arithmetic.57 Their teaching, held five days per week for two hours, began in November and finished one week before the first communion of Easter.58 Catechism was also offered in churches as the Company saw fit according to the needs of that parish. 51 Reminders of clerical duties to the districts are evident in some of the following registers: AEG, RCP 27, 6 Oct. 1752, fol. 186; RCP 30, 10 March 1769, fol. 358 – 359; RCP 32, 11 Dec. 1778, fol. 265 – 267. 52 This was the expectation since the sixteenth century that parish catechism classes would be supplemented by home instruction: Robert Kingdon, “Catechesis in Calvin’s Geneva” in: John Van Engen, ed., Educating People of Faith: Exploring the History of Jewish and Christian Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 300; Watt, “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education,” p. 448. The involvement of the parents continued to be the expectation during this period: AEG, RCP 30, 10 March 1769, fol. 358 – 359; AEG, RCP 32, 11 Dec. 1778, fol. 265 – 267. G¦d¦on Mallet’s abridged catechism was intended to help parents catechize younger children at home: AEG, RCP 34, 27 Nov. 1789, fol. 219. 53 The Company also decided that it was appropriate to read Exposition du la Foi Chretienne, Pratique des Vertus chr¦tienne and a collection of prayers by J.F. Ostervald to prisoners: AEG, RCP 32, 21 Feb. 1777, fol. 71. 54 AEG, RCP 34, 16 April 1790, fol. 249. 55 Ibid., 5 Dec. 1788, fol. 134. Approved: Ibid., 26 Dec. 1788, fol. 137. 56 AEG, RCP 23, 17 Sept. 1728, fol. 25. 57 AEG, RCP 31, “Memoir on the Country Schools” (1775). 58 They were paid the least for this work; consequently, the Committee of the Catechumens decided to raise their salaries after a 1775 memoir assessed their working conditions: AEG, RCP 31, 16 Feb. 1776, fol. 541. The pastors’ salaries were augmented the following year : AEG, RC 277, 22 March 1776, fol. 124 – 125.

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In 1716, a Monday catechism was introduced at Temple Neuf for a six-month trial period. Because the catechism was deemed “very useful, very frequented, and very enjoyed”, the Company agreed to continue holding the catechism there.59 Additionally, the seasons of the year consistently impacted the scheduling of catechisms, which were moved from one church to the other. In 1718, a Tuesday catechism was requested for the winter at the country church of Dardagny.60 That same winter, the Sunday catechism was moved to St Germain in order to avoid the cold of the lofty yet drafty St Pierre Cathedral and the small size of the auditoire.61 By 1792, the morning winter catechism held at St Germain (8AM) was moved to the Madeleine.62 Meanwhile, along with the reinstatement of the circulation of sermons in 1704, the catechists of the city also circulated every Tuesday evening.63 As may be inferred from these few examples, the number of catechetical services provided by the clergy fluctuated over time, thereby further complicating a summary of the liturgical week. In most cases, altering the frequency of catechetical teaching was directly related to efforts to improve religious life in the city. In some cases, reducing the quantity of catechetical classes was seen as one step toward improving the quality of those classes. In 1769, a commission was created not only to “perfect” the liturgical schedule but to lighten the substantial load of liturgical duties that the pastors carried.64 The clergy were overworked and underpaid, and a group of Genevan citizens brought their concerns to the councils. By 1776, Sunday catechisms were limited from two sessions to one with summer classes at St Pierre and winter classes at the Madeleine.65 By this, the catechetical Sunday services were reduced from 336 to 194 per year by their calculations.66 This change, however, did not last much longer than a decade. With the introduction of a new liturgy in 1788, Sunday catechisms were increased to three sessions as before.67

59 60 61 62 63 64

AEG, RCP 20, 3 July 1716, fol. 460. Approved: Ibid., 17 July 1716, fol. 466. Ibid., Jan. 1718, fol. 616. Approved: Ibid., 4 Feb. 1718, fol. 628. AEG, RCP 34, Sept. 1792, fol. 435. AEG, RCP 18, 14 March 1704, fol. 514 – 515. AEG, RCP 31, 2 Feb. 1770, fol. 13. These are merely some of the many liturgical commissions that were created over the course of the century to bring alteration to the liturgy for the benefit of more fruitful worship. For commissions from earlier on in the century see AEG, RCP P57, no. 4. 65 AEG, RC 277, 22 March 1776, fol. 125. It is probably no coincidence that the records reveal some frustration with children and Regents neglecting the Sunday catechism prior to this change: AEG, RCP 31, 20 Jan. 1775, fol. 441. 66 BGE, “Tableau de comparaison, entre l’etat pr¦sent du culte and le projet de la noble commission” in: Publications Genevoises XVIIIe SiÀcle, 19 Sept. 1777, no. 187. 67 BGE, MS. Fr. 473, Liturgie de l’Eglise de Geneve (1788). Approved: AEG, RCP 34, 23 Nov. 1787, fol. 79. Two Sundays before communion, the catechisms were expected to focus

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Though this schedule was abolished briefly during the Revolution of 1794, catechism services were soon restored once again at St Germain, St Gervais,68 and the Madeleine, thereby indicating once again how much catechetical patterns defy a simple summary for the course of the century.69 In other cases, an increase in catechetical education was characterized as essential to curbing irreligious behavior, particularly in Geneva’s youth, and enabling necessary spiritual formation. The most important example of this rationale at work is evident in 1736. During that year, concerns that Geneva’s youth were not getting enough religious education began to surface. In response, the Society of Catechumens was established for the free instruction of the youth.70 Interestingly, this plan was brought to the attention of the Company by citizens “pious and zealous for the good of the church,” who were willing to support their concern with funding.71 The purpose of the society was to offer instruction “more complete and more detailed” on the matter of morality in particular, since they saw this component as particularly neglected by the “ordinary Masters”, a critique already raised about Calvin’s catechism.72 To that end, books of piety were distributed as well as “known catechisms and New Testaments” to those who could not purchase them.73 After its establishment, reports on the state of the society indicated much vitality with nearly two hundred and fifty students enrolled and divided into two separate classes on each side of the Rhone.74 The prosperity and success of the catechetical teaching continued in the following decades75 to the point that the catechist ministers began to struggle with having too many students in attendance.76 It was only a matter of time before classes

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on the nature of communion, its usage, the necessary dispositions, and the advantages of the redemption that our “divine saviour has come to procure for men”. AEG, RCP 34, 17 Oct. 1794, fol. 557. Ibid., 13 March 1795, fol. 577. AEG, RCP 24, 10 Aug. 1736, fol. 476 – 477. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 23 Nov. 1736, fol. 520. AEG, RCP 26, 24 Sept. 1745, fol. 19; AEG, RCP 27, 6 Oct. 1752, fol. 186; AEG, RCP 28, 29 Sept. 1758, fol. 125; Ibid., 14 Sept. 1759, fol. 231; Ibid., 5 Sept. 1760, fol. 387; AEG, RCP 29, 30 Aug. 1765, fol. 412. Salaries were increased: AEG, RCP 28, 16 Sept. 1757, fol. 49. Apparently the issue here was that children were being sent who were too young: AEG, RCP 30, 14 March 1766, fol. 26. Additionally, children were sometimes attending catechism outside their districts, thereby creating an unequal distribution of catechumens: AEG, RCP 30, 8 Aug. 1766, fol. 78. A diminution in numbers was also reported: AEG, RCP 31, 29 March 1776, fol. 588. A commission was created in response: AEG, RCP 32, 18 Sept. 1778, fol. 234. It was discovered that other factors were generating unsuccessful sessions, such as tardy catechist ministers, inconvenient hours, and neglectful parents: AEG, RCP 32, 11 Dec. 1778, fol. 265 – 267. A full assessment of the matter was made by the Company : AEG, RCP 32, 2 April 1779, “Memoir on the School of Catechumens.” It was suggested that the ministers

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were offered for both boys and girls and one catechist minister turned into six ministers by 1770 in order to accommodate the growing number of youth in attendance.77 In these many ways, the importance of catechism to the religious life of the city is evident throughout the century, but it is also clear from the records that Geneva had more than one catechism in circulation, whether due to age differences in intended audiences or due to varying purposes, such as preparing Genevans for debate with Roman Catholics. Where – if at all – did Calvin’s catechism fit into the life of Geneva’s eighteenth-century church?

Calvin’s Catechism in Eighteenth-Century Geneva Though this story has never been told before by scholars, references to the use and functioning of Calvin’s catechism within eighteenth-century Geneva can indeed be found within the ecclesiastical records of that era. In fact, piecing the story together thus far has shown that Calvin’s catechism was used for religious education in the city of Geneva at a number of different venues at least as late as 1787. Sometimes, however, the only way to confirm that Calvin’s catechism was in use is by uncovering meetings recorded in the registers wherein the clergy discussed the possibility of revising and sometimes even replacing his catechism. These discussions reveal the challenge faced by Geneva’s clergy of maintaining a Reformed identity grounded in Calvin while also adapting to new circumstances and needs within the life of Geneva’s church and the larger Reformed community. In the early part of the century, the registers indicate that both children and adults were taught Calvin’s catechism within the church context. Registers from 1717 confirm that children were still required to recite Calvin’s catechism in church.78 However, in November 1717, concerns began to surface within the Company regarding the suitability of certain portions of Calvin’s catechism that children were reciting. It is clear from the record that the nature of that concern was not related to the content of ideas being taught but to the way in which those ideas were communicated. Thus, the possibility of altering some of Calvin’s “inappropriate” expressions was floated amongst the group.79 Unfortunately, could also do a better job engaging and explaining to students, particularly by avoiding the reading of their lessons and stressing the certitude of religion and its connection with morality. 77 The practice of instructing both boys and girls is evident: AEG, RCP 28, 14 Sept. 1759, fol. 231. The appointment of six catechist ministers is evident: AEG, RCP 31, 27 April 1770, fol. 32. 78 AEG, RCP 20, 5 Nov. 1717, fol. 588. 79 Ibid.

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they did not offer any examples. Nevertheless, this discussion can provide two notable insights about the place of Calvin’s catechism in the Enlightenment. For one, this example seems to confirm what other scholars have already said about the evolution of the French language. As modern French began to emerge over the course of the seventeenth century, by the eighteenth century, Frenchspeaking contemporaries found Reformation-era French increasingly onerous. Michael Bush explains that, due in large part to Calvin’s own contribution, “Over the course of the seventeenth century, modern French fully emerged as a language capable of scholarly precision and nuance.”80 Similarly, when the revision of the Psalms was introduced within Genevan worship in 1698, the reason was due to the desire not simply to improve the tunes but also to revise outdated French expressions.81 The issue was, in this regard, one of language and not one of lineage. Furthermore, the way in which the matter was broached is telling. Reticent to move flippantly forward with any revisions, concerned clergy were cautious not to alter any of Calvin’s writings without the official consent of the Company. In this way, a reverence becomes apparent that underlines a crucial question faced by new generations of Reformed clergy : was Calvin’s legacy something to be preserved unaltered, or something to be used and possibly updated? Calvin’s catechism was, in fact, being used in the educational contexts of Geneva as well. Records from 1707 indicate that students in the seventh class of the collÀge were given an examination of Calvin’s catechism in Latin in addition to their New Testament exam in French.82 The Rector was expected to ask questions relating to grammar, syntax, and the content of the catechism as well as additional questions about piety. Calvin’s catechism was also taught to students at the upper classes of the collÀge at least until 1726.83 In April of that year, however, the convened Academic Assembly raised the question of the suitability of Calvin’s catechism for teaching at the level of the high school.84 A rather brief mention of using a different catechism for the academic venue was quickly superseded by the suggestion that the catechism be reviewed and better adapted for the current audience, particularly in regard to those students who recited the catechism publically. This time the concern was not about language but about the distribution of content wherein extensive explanations were given for certain topics and not others. In particular and true to its Reformation origins, Calvin’s 80 Michael D. Bush, “Calvin’s Reception in the Eighteenth Century” in: Herman Selderhuis, ed., The Calvin Handbook, trans. Henry Baron, et. al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 480. 81 BGE, MS. Fr. 452, 12 Jan. 1700, fol. 55. 82 AEG, RCP 19, 11 Feb. 1707, fol. 156 – 157. 83 AEG, RCP 22, 12 April 1726, fol. 181 – 182. 84 Ibid., fol. 182.

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catechism seemed to be too focused, they thought, on the matter of sacraments. Indeed, in an era where Geneva welcomed its first Lutheran pastor to minister in the city, it was clear that the church had come a long way since the repercussions of the Marburg Colloquy of 1529. Divisions over Eucharistic theology were simply no longer the most pressing issues at hand. Thus, with “too great a number of sections concerning the sacraments”, the suggestion was made that “useless” portions be cut and more sections be added to Calvin’s catechism to address “moral works”, a phrase commonly used by the clergy interchangeably with “sanctification” and “piety”.85 Thus, the idea of altering or revising Calvin’s catechism was under consideration in light of the era’s shift in theological concerns from matters of sacraments to moral behavior. These examples aside, a complicating factor in determining the place of Calvin’s catechism in Enlightenment Geneva is that the records also show that other catechisms were being used over the course of the century, though verifying when, where, and to what extent is rarely clear. Swedish traveller Jacob Jonas Björnst”hl commented during his trip to Geneva in 1773 that Calvin’s catechism was still a presence in Geneva though frequently sidelined,86 and there may be some truth to his observation. Calvin’s catechism was simply not the only catechism available. In 1775, a memoir exploring the state of rural education and catechetical teaching helpfully explained that the catechism of Neufchatel Pastor JeanFr¦d¦ric Ostervald was being customarily taught in the environs of Geneva, and that they were not permitted to innovate anything without approval from the Company.87 Yet, later records indicate that this catechism was not used much longer than a decade from that time. With a critical air, the Company stated in 1788 that Ostervald’s Large Catechism had not been in use for some time and that his abridged catechism of scripture was regarded as “too abridged to give sufficient instruction”.88 The clergy understood this to be the reason why so many printers and booksellers still held unsold copies. Perhaps the waning influence of Ostervald’s catechetical material was accelerated by the introduction of Genevan clergymen Jacob Vernes’s catechetical work. Vernes had served as a catechist from 1755 – 1761 and took it upon himself to publish

85 See McNutt, Calvin Meets Voltaire, ch. 5. 86 Jean-Daniel Candaux, Voyageurs europ¦ens — la d¦couverte de GenÀve (Geneva: Populaires, 1966), p. 104. 87 AEG, RCP 31, “Memoir on the Country Schools” (1775). 88 AEG, RCP 34, 27 June 1788, fol. 113. For a brief background on Ostervald’s catechisms, see Martin I. Klauber, “Confessions, Creeds, and Catechisms in Swiss Reformed theology (1675 – 1734),” Westminster Theological Journal 57 (1995), p. 410 f.

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catechisms for the church in 1776 and again in 1778. Both of these versions were approved by the Company after providing feedback for corrections.89 Though other Genevan clergymen sought to develop their own catechisms during this time as well, the Company’s approval was by no means a perfunctory courtesy or even a foregone conclusion. For example, years after Vernes’s catechism, Minister Charles-Etienne-FranÅois Moulin¦ prepared a new catechism called La Lait de la Parole that he dedicated to the Company. Unfortunately for him, Moulin¦ neglected to consult the Company before proceeding, and after reading the catechism for the first time, the Company charged the Moderator to inform him that “his dedication had been unanimously disapproved and that they had found in this work much imperfection in both the form and the content”.90 In the end, Moulin¦’s catechism was still published, but no printer location was listed because of its rejection by the Company. The very next month, G¦d¦on Mallet pursued a similar endeavor but through the right protocol.91 In order to help parents educate younger children more easily, Mallet created an “abridgment” of the abridged catechism of 1788. It was reviewed and approved by a designated commission that had been appointed to evaluate the catechism. The Company then adopted it and requested its printing. Through these two examples, the vigilance that the Company took in filtering appropriate catechisms for congregants is evident. As in other areas of its work, proper procedure was followed, and the Company was discriminating in their approval of content. Meanwhile, this also shows that catechism usage was complex and that Calvin’s catechism was by no means the only option. Initial calculations of the holdings at the BibliothÀque de GenÀve (BGE) show that there were at least eighteen different catechetical books published and circulating in Geneva during the eighteenth century. If counting the multiple editions published as well, there were at least thirty different versions of catechisms available. Meanwhile, eleven clergymen also wrote multiple volumes on catechetical teachings over the course of the eighteenth century, the majority of which were never published but are found in the manuscript collection of the BGE.92 That does not even take into consideration the fact that the Company was also handling the problem of rogue catechisms accessible in the city. In September 1787, for example, Dunant reported that a “dangerous” catechism was

89 In 1778, Jacob Vernes, who had served as a Catechism Minister for many years, reported that he would publish a new edition of his catechism from 1776: AEG, RCP 32, 1 May 1778, fol. 184 – 185. He requested that a group of Company members examine the work: Ibid., 12 June 1778, fol. 200 – 201. 90 AEG, RCP 34, 30 Oct. 1789, fol. 211. 91 Ibid., 27 Nov. 1789, fol. 219. 92 Three of them published their work.

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being circulated.93 In response, Professor Maurice was commissioned with reporting this to the Premier Syndic and soon after, copies of the catechism were retired.94 Given these many options, it is no wonder that by 1787, the Company was being approached by parents as well as the Consistory to make a decision about which catechism should be used and for which audience and venue. There were simply too many options, and the Company had to make a choice. One significant impetus for the Company in deciding to be more intentional about which catechisms to use was a growing concern over the lack of uniformity of the teaching taking place in the city. It is probably no coincidence that as this concern was raised, the clergy were also extremely anxious about the influx of Catholics residing in the city. According to Company records, there were about 1400 to 1500 Catholics living within the city by April 1787.95 In this setting, the clergy expressed the desire to find “the means of affirming our flock in the true principles of the Reformed Religion at the occasion of the great number of Catholics who are establishing themselves in our city”.96 Once again, the catechism was a critical apparatus for enabling religious stability as circumstances shifted. Thus, true to form, a commission of clergy was appointed to examine the various catechisms in circulation.97 The job of the commission was either to select a current catechism, with or without change, or to create a new catechism for the contexts of the collÀge, the classes of the catechumens, and the education of the public. In fact, catechism was only one aspect of religious life that the Company was re-evaluating. At that same time, the clergy were also developing a new edition of the Genevan liturgy,98 and it was in the midst of these considerations that Calvin’s catechism was re-assessed. One year before a commission was appointed to evaluate the catechism, the idea of replacing Calvin’s catechism was officially raised by the Company for what seems to be the first time in the registers.99 The suggestion was made that as an alternative to Calvin’s catechism, a selection of scripture passages would take its place and would be included in the publication of various catechisms already in circulation. This idea, however, was shelved, and by March 1787, the records indicate that the idea of replacing Calvin’s catechism altogether was disregarded as the commission proceeded not just to single out Calvin’s but to reconsider all 93 94 95 96 97

AEG, RCP 34, 21 Sept. 1787, fol. 73. Ibid., 28 Sept. 1787, fol. 73. Ibid., 6 April 1787, fol. 49. Ibid., 2 March 1787, fol. 43. Ibid., 2 Feb. 1787, fol. 40. The commission was made up of De Lescale, Martin L’aine, De Roches, and Mallet. 98 Ibid., 23 Nov. 1787, fol. 79. The new edition included three new prayers and a revised preface that was approved by the magistrates. 99 Ibid., 17 Nov. 1786, fol. 22.

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the catechisms being used within the city. Within a month, the commission was prepared to make its report.100 The decision made by the Company shows both innovation and tradition at work. On the one hand, it was decided that they would create a new small catechism and large catechism for the collÀge and for the education of the catechumens. These two pieces would be based upon Ostervald’s work, with revisions that supplemented omissions and simplified concepts in order to ensure greater uniformity of catechetical teaching within the city.101 Yet, this innovation was not followed by the decision to eliminate Calvin’s catechism from the education of the city. On the contrary, the Company also reported that it would continue to use Calvin’s catechism for public exercises.102 Nevertheless, the desire to make Calvin’s catechism more useful to the average Genevan and more uniform to the changes being newly introduced led the clergy to raise ideas of adapting Calvin’s catechism for the new context. First, it was suggested that the catechism be rearranged in terms of its order and the spread of its sections.103 The next month, it was proposed that a table of the sections of Calvin’s catechism be created and arranged in such a way as to “assimilate” them to the new catechism being developed.104 In this way, Calvin’s catechism survived another century of use after the Reformation and post-Reformation contexts, though it was certainly no longer the most prominent catechism taught by Geneva’s clergy within the educational system.

Conclusion During the era of the Enlightenment, as the Company vigilantly pursued the condemnation and suppression of “dangerous” books such as The Life of Voltaire,105 defended religion against the philosophes as seen by Vernet’s tenth and final volume on the Truth of Christian Religion (1788),106 and combated the influx of Roman Catholic inhabitants, the clergy were also reassessing the place 100 Ibid., 9 March 1787, fol. 43. 101 Ibid., 16 March 1787, fol. 46. Discussion of these suggestions continued in the following days: Ibid., 23 March 1787, fol. 47; Ibid., 30 March 1787, fol. 48. It was decided that Ostervald’s catechisms would be used as a basis for two new catechisms to be written with abridged notes to be made for the lower classes: Ibid. 102 Ibid., 16 March 1787, fol. 46. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid., 20 April 1787, fol. 51. Up until this point, no table has been found if, in fact, it was ever completed. 105 Ibid., 20 Oct. 1786, fol. 19. 106 Ibid., 22 Aug. 1788, fol. 123. One year before his death, in fact, and he was praised for his willingness to defend religion without fail.

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of Calvin’s catechism in the worship life of the city at the end of the century.107 These examples offer a valuable illustration of the complexity that Calvin’s eighteenth-century clerical legacy faced when it came to filtering books. On the one hand, the Company fervently worked to resist and reject the most popular forbidden books of the moderate and radical Enlightenment circulating at the time. On the other hand, the concerns, questions, needs, and even the French language of the Genevan context had shifted since the sixteenth century, and the Company recognized that new religious materials were needed to reflect those shifts. Interestingly, the idea of completely replacing Calvin’s catechism was not raised until well toward the end of the century – a hesitation that reveals Geneva’s unwillingness to let go of its roots. In fact, even with that option raised, the clergy were not ready to retire Calvin’s catechism or even to sideline it altogether from the worship life of the city, though it was clearly no longer the dominant authority within catechetical education. Nevertheless, even this point is softened when considering Rodolphe Peter’s work, which shows that Calvin’s catechism was not the sole option within the Genevan context even as early as 1562. In fact, “in sixteenth-century Geneva, Calvin’s catechism, classic that it was, did not have a monopoly, but that religious instruction was diversified.”108 By the eighteenth century, Calvin had not lost his place, though he increasingly shared it with other Reformed voices with the passing of generations. What is more, the clergy of Geneva engaged Calvin’s catechism not as a relic but as a usable legacy for the life of Geneva’s eighteenth-century congregants. That is remarkable in itself when considering that even Calvin expressed regret on his deathbed for the hasty composition of his catechism and the fact that he had never revised it.109 Most importantly, the presence and activity of Calvin’s catechism during the age of Enlightenment represents more than just an enduring object or even an enduring theological voice. The use of Calvin’s catechism by the Genevan clergy of the eighteenth century also represents the ongoing legacy of the Reformation principle that affirmed the education of children and lay adults in the right understanding of the Christian faith to be absolutely essential to the trans107 Ibid., 17 Nov. 1786, fol. 22. 108 Rodolphe Peter, “The Geneva Primer or Calvin’s Elementary Catechism,” trans. Charles Raynal, in: John H. Leith, ed., Calvin Studies V: Presented at a Colloquium on Calvin Studies at Davidson College and Davidson College Presbyterian Church, Davidson, North Carolina, January 19 – 20, 1990 (Davidson, NC: Davidson College, 1990), pp. 135 – 161. Nevertheless, from 1545, the Genevan primer was particularly adapted to coincide with Calvin’s work and included his texts: Ibid., p. 137. Peter also shows that though a tradition of elementary religious education was in place when Calvin arrived in Geneva, “He did not give up his own catechism for it, but let the primer remain, adapting it entirely for his own needs.” Ibid., p. 140. 109 Kingdon, “Catechesis in Calvin’s Geneva,” p. 304. See Calvini Opera, 9:891 – 894.

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formation of the church, family, and society. The inculcating of congregants by catechism was still the trusted approach of Geneva’s Reformed Church, from the Reformation through the Enlightenment.

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Chapter Four: Calvin the Historian: Biblical Antiquity and Scriptural Exegesis in the Quest for a Meaningful Past

The core message of the European Reformation belonged to theology rather than history. It comprised a set of theological claims, based on exegesis of controversial passages in scripture. However, it rapidly developed a constructive tradition of historical interpretation. It fashioned itself, over time, as an event in world history. History, of course, was the opposite of neutral: it served to uphold theological and confessional claims about the necessity of the Reformation and the “correctness” of Protestant doctrine. Thus, Robert Barnes wrote a Lives of the Roman Pontiffs which, as Luther observed to his delight, supported with historical evidence the claims that Luther himself had made dogmatically.1 On the other side of orthodoxy and hierarchy, Protestants wrote some of the earliest sympathetic histories of medieval heresy. They focused especially on those heretical movements, like Waldensianism and Hussitism, that could with some plausibility be claimed as antecedents of aspects of the Reformation.2 Over time, the use that the reformers made of the historical record evolved. At first the emphasis had lain on the piety of the persecuted and the cruelty and vice of their persecutors; subsequently the dissidents against the hierarchical Church were invoked to answer the question of where the “true church” was in the time between its alleged degradation around 1000 CE and the Reformation.3 The 1 Robert Barnes, Vitæ Romanorum Pontificum: quos Papas vocamus, diligenter & fideliter collectæ … (Wittenberg: Clug, 1536): Luther’s preface appears on sigs. A iir–A iiiiv. For detailed and sympathetic recent studies of Barnes’s work in polemical religious history, see Korey D. Maas, The Reformation and Robert Barnes: History, Theology and Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2010). 2 See, e. g., Euan Cameron, “Medieval Heretics as Protestant Martyrs” in: Diana Wood, ed., Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers read at the 1992 summer meeting and the 1993 winter meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 30 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 185 – 207; on the Hussites, Phillip Haberkern, “‘After Me There Will Come Braver Men’: Jan Hus and Reformation Polemics in the 1530s,” German History 27:2 (2009), pp. 177 – 195. 3 See, e. g., Euan Cameron, Waldenses: Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), pp. 285 – 91 and references.

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refashioning of heretics as proto-Protestants required reformed historians somewhat to “launder” the beliefs of their alleged antecedents, as Catholic opponents would soon point out. In the hands of a school of historical writing inaugurated by Philip Melanchthon and continued by his pupils and followers, church history was presented as a series of succeeding phases, sometimes of approximately equal lengths (500 years was a popular estimate) and distinguished by the closeness or remoteness of the visible church to the divine plan within those periods. This encapsulating of church history into distinct theological phases reached its fullest embodiment in Caspar Peucer’s continuation of the Chronica of Johann Carion, as reworked in Latin (but left unfinished) by Peucer’s father-in-law Philipp Melanchthon.4 The greater lesson behind these interpretations was that history was not in any way accidental or random: the flow of events demonstrated the provident purposes and controlling hand of God. This belief in the controlling hand of God linked historical analysis with the study and exposition of prophecy, in a way that would prove critical for scriptural exegetes such as Calvin. Prophets showed how God guided the events of history, even – perhaps especially – those events, political systems, and leaders that did not consciously acknowledge the true God. In the early modern period, prophecy was typically read in a “praeterist” fashion. That is to say, past events were studied to show how prophecies had already been fulfilled in what had happened long since. The correct exposition of prophecy required, therefore, an understanding and appreciation of history. Martin Luther offered a classic justification of the praeterist reading of prophetic or apocalyptic writings in his second Preface to Revelation from 1530: Since [the Book of Revelation] is intended as a revelation of things that are to happen in the future, and especially of tribulations and disasters that were to come upon Christendom, we consider that the first and surest step toward finding its interpretation is to take from history the events and disasters that have come upon Christendom till now, and hold them up alongside of these images, and so compare them very carefully. If, then, the two perfectly coincided and squared with one another, we could build on that as a sure, or at least an unobjectionable, interpretation.5 4 Euan Cameron, “Primitivism, Patristics and Polemic in Protestant Visions of Early Christianity” in: Katherine van Liere, Simon Ditchfield, and Howard Louthan, ed., Sacred History : Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 27 – 51, and esp. pp. 42 – 46; [Johannes Carion], Chronicon Carionis expositum et auctum multis et veteribus et recentibus historiis … ab exordio mundi usque ad Carolum Quintum imperatorem, a Philippo Melanthone et Casparo Peucero: Adjecta est narratio historica de electione et coronatione Caroli V imperatoris … (Wittenberg: J. Crato, 1572), pp. 351 f; compare pp. 416 f, 419 f, 421 f, 703. 5 Luther’s second preface to Revelation (1530) is ed. in WA, DB 7, pp. 407 – 421 and trans. in LW 35, pp. 399 – 411: the extract quoted appears on WA, DB 7, p. 408 f and in LW 35, p. 401.

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The praeterist reading of prophecy, when combined with the use of history for exegesis, led to an elliptical or self-reinforcing hermeneutic technique. Obscure or cryptic passages in apocalyptic or prophetic-visionary writings could be interpreted with the aid of historical sources, to make their meaning plainer. Once their meaning was thus made plain, the historically informed reading showed how accurately the prophets had foretold past events! This elliptical logic did not, on the whole, trouble the reformers: though, as will be seen, Calvin would be more conscious of its pitfalls than most. The main point is that the reformers, to a greater or a lesser extent, all allowed historical reading and the interpretation and exposition of prophecy to become deeply entangled and intertwined. The title of this paper, “Calvin the Historian”, might seem ironic. Calvin was many things: but he was not a historian, if by that we mean someone who studied sources and used them in order to write an extended analytical narrative about a past time. Nor does that verdict on Calvin apply equally to all his contemporaries. To be sure, no reformer professed history with the aspiration to detached judgment expressed in post-Enlightenment scholarship. However, by the standards of their age several reformers wrote what can only be called historical works. Melanchthon, as already mentioned, devoted much effort in his closing years to the revision of Carion’s Chronica.6 Heinrich Bullinger wrote a polemical account of the evolution of worship, On the Origin of Error; he also composed a history of the Reformation in his own time in Zurich, although the latter was destined to remain in manuscript for centuries.7 Bullinger’s friend and ally Joachim Vadian wrote manuscript lives of the Abbots of St Gallen, and published a history of the Swiss Confederation with Simon Stumpf.8 Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the merciless and ultimately ill-fated exponent of ultra-Lutheran orthodoxy, also proved himself an indefatigable collector of manuscripts and the author of works of historical controversy, from the Catalogue of Witnesses to the Truth of 1556 to the massive and incomplete Magdeburg Centuries.9 6 See Chronicon Carionis as above, n. 4, and discussion in Cameron, “Primitivism, Patristics and Polemic,” p. 41 f. 7 Heinrich Bullinger, De Origine Erroris Libri Duo … (Zurich: Froschauer, 1539); J.J. Hottinger and H.H. Vögeli, ed., Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichte, 3 vol., (Frauenfeld: C. Beyel, 1838 – 1840). 8 Johann Stumpf and Joachim Vadian, Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft Stetten, Landen vnd Völckeren Chronick (Zurich: Froschauer, 1547 – 1548); Joachim Vadian, Deutsche historische Schriften: Joachim v. Watt (Vadian), ed. Ernst Götzinger, 3 vol. (St. Gallen: Zollikofer’schen Buchdruckerei, 1875 – 1897). 9 On Flacius see Oliver K. Olson, Matthias Flacius and the Survival of Luther’s Reform (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002); Luka Ilic, “Theologian of sin and grace: the process of radicalization in the theology of Matthias Flacius Illyricus” (Ph.D. Thesis, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, 2012).

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Even more reformers chose to engage in an important ancillary discipline related to history: the attempt to perfect biblical chronology. Luther led the way with his Supputation of the Years of the World of 1541, a prodigious vertical timeline extending over many pages and covering the chronology of the world from creation to the present.10 Heinrich Bullinger appended to his enormous exposition of the Book of Daniel, published in 1565, a copious Epitome of world history with chronological tables appended.11 Lesser luminaries also contributed to the genre, such as George Joye in England in 1545/50 (drawing on the Zurich ministers’ work) or the Osiandrian Johann Funck in 1545/52 and the former Philippist David Chytraeus in Germany.12 As the sixteenth century progressed, scholars would propose ever more precise schemes for reconciling biblical and classical concepts of time; eventually a later generation would abandon the attempt, once final agreement on dates proved hopelessly elusive. However, it was the reformers who had initiated this first phase in the quest.13 Calvin never pursued historical research with this degree of single-mindedness. Moreover, he seems actively to have resisted the idea that the events of history had a transparently providential quality. He did not, like the Philippist historians, try to build interpretative schemes that would link the past to the present. By that very fact, Calvin became, in a particular sense, more like a historian than some of his contemporaries, but in a special way. He recognized that Hebrew Scripture referred to a very remote period, and that the past was 10 Martin Luther, Supputatio Annorum Mundi (1541) in WA, vol. 53, pp. 22 – 184. 11 Heinrich Bullinger, Epitome Temporum Et Rerum Ab Orbe Condito, ad primum usque annum Iothan regis Iudae: in qua praecipue attinguntur, quae pertinent ad sacras literas illustrandas, & ad veram antiquamque religionem et eius certitudinem, progressum item, et mutationem, cognoscendam. Una cum vi. Tabulis Chronicis, a temporibus Iothan usque ad Excidivm urbis Hierosolymorum deductis, potissimum pertinentibus ad expositionem Danielis prophetae, auctore Heinrycho Bullingero Tigurinae ecclesiae ministro … (Zurich: C. Froschoverus, 1565). 12 George Joye, The exposicion of Daniel the prophete gathered oute of Philip Melanchton, Iohan Ecolampadius, Chonrade Pellicane and out of Iohan Draconite. & c.: A prophecye diligently to be noted of al emprowrs and kinges in these laste dayes (“Geneue” [i. e. Antwerp]: By the successor of A. Goinus, 1545); A brief and compendiouse table, in a maner of a concordaunce openyng the waye to the principall histories of the whole Bible by Heinrich Bullinger, Leo Jud, and Conrad Pellican (London, 1550); Johann Funck, Chronologia: Hoc est Omnium Temporum Et Annorum Ab Initio Mundi, Usque ad hunc praesentem a nato Christo annum M.D.LXI. computatio (Nuremberg: Wachter, 1545); later edition (Basle, 1561); see also David Chytraeus, Chronologia Historiae Herodoti et Thucydidis: recognita, et additis ecclesiae Christi ac imperii Romani rebus praecipuis, ab initio mundi, vsque ad nostram aetatem contexta (Rostock: Jacobus Lucius, 1573) 13 See esp. Joseph Justus Scaliger, Opus Novum de Emendatione Temporum: in octo libros tributum (Paris: Sebastianus Nivellius, 1583); revisions appeared in 1598 and a final definitive edition in 1629. See discussion in Anthony Grafton, Defenders of the Text: the Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450 – 1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 104 – 144.

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past. Moreover, Calvin showed himself by no means indifferent to historical details. He displayed in his exegetical works a consistent fascination with historical figures. He filled his commentaries – especially the later ones – with far more detail drawn from classical scholarship than was necessary to illuminate the broad moralizing points that the commentaries sought to make. Calvin also held distinct and strong views about politics as manifested in the historical record. Unlike shallower historians then and since, Calvin was no worshipper of raw power, and no flatterer of monarchs. Even the most apparently heroic figures of antiquity he castigated for their vices. He said of Alexander the Great that he obtained his great power through swiftness alone […] the swiftness of Alexander is sufficiently known; but he did not excel in either prudence, or gravity, or judgment, or in any other virtues. Mere rashness seized upon him; and even if he had never tasted wine, his ambition would have intoxicated him. Hence Alexander was drunk for his whole life; because nothing about that man was moderate or contained.14

This passage was typical: elsewhere Calvin remarked that although he was “well acquainted with the keenness of his talents and the superiority of his valour ; yet, such was his unbridled audacity, that his promptness approached rather to rashness than to regal bravery. For he often threw himself with a blind impulse against his foes, and it was not his fault if the Macedonian name was not destroyed ten times over.”15 Calvin was similarly skeptical about Cyrus, another idealized leader-figure of antiquity : Cyrus indeed wished to appear a magnanimous prince, and not a savage; but it is sufficiently evident that he was very cruel, though Xenophon in his Life speaks of him otherwise; but he is not a true historian, for he tells many false things in favor of Cyrus. But when any one reads all that has been recorded, he will readily find out that Cyrus was a barbarian, who delighted in slaughter and carnage.16

Calvin’s reservations about monarchical rule and its effects on the psyche of rulers appear to have influenced him in favor of republics, or at least of a system that gave its people a stake in government: If stability is sought for in any kind of government, it surely ought to shine forth in a republic, or at least in an oligarchy in preference to the rule of one person; because, when all are slaves, the king cannot so confidently trust his subjects that he will not always fear for himself. But when all unite in the government, and even the lowest receive some mutual advantage from their commonwealth, then, as I have said, superior stability ought to be conspicuous.17 14 15 16 17

Calvin on Daniel 7:6: Calvini Opera 41, col. 43 – 4. Calvin on Daniel 8:7: Calvini Opera 41, col. 95. Calvin on Jeremiah 50:42: Calvini Opera 39, col. 432. Calvin on Daniel 2:40 – 43: Calvini Opera 40, col. 600.

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It is hard not to see the signs of Calvin’s mordant suspicion of human pride and unblinking sense of human sinfulness here, translated into the language of political ethics and prudence. The remainder of this paper will explore Calvin’s use of and responses to the historical record in several of his most important commentaries on Old Testament prophecies. The thesis here is that, within the constraints of his time and his age, Calvin displayed both scholarly restraint and intellectual curiosity in his use of historical materials. He understood the concept of historical distance, and appreciated the need to back up the exegesis of antique Hebrew texts with meticulous understanding of their context in near Eastern political history. That he took this view appears all the more remarkable, when we remember that Calvin’s primary goal in his later commentaries was to draw broad moral lessons for his hearers. Calvin’s first exposition of a book of the Old Testament was his commentary on Isaiah, issued in Latin in 1551 and almost immediately translated into French in 1552 by Nicolas des Gallars.18 While Isaiah does not demonstrate Calvin’s historical interests in their most developed form, enough of his characteristic traits are already present to illustrate the way that Calvin read texts in their historical settings. First, one should in no way be surprised that Calvin read Isaiah Christologically. Not only that: he knew some at least of the rabbinic commentators and did not hesitate to defend the Christological readings against them, in such texts as 7:14 “a virgin shall conceive …”, 9:2 “the people who walked in darkness …”, and 11:1 – 2 “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse”.19 On the last of these Calvin wrote simply that [the prophet] “now begins to speak of Christ plainly and without a figure”. However, these Christological readings had long been conventional among Christian exegetes. Calvin made himself far more conspicuous by those traditional Christological readings that he rejected as ill-founded or far-fetched. Even in messianic passages, a Catholic reading that tried to force out of the text a tangential allusion to part of the story of Jesus manifested, for Calvin, the folly of earlier commentators. So, for instance, when the passage in chapter nine, “the government hath been laid upon his shoulder”, was read as containing an allusion to the cross of Christ, Calvin asserted that such a reading was “manifestly 18 [John Calvin], Ioannis Calvini Commentarii in Isaiam prophetam: Ad Eduardum VI. Angliae Regem (Geneva: Ex officina Ioannis Crispini, 1551); Commentaires sur le prophete Isae (Geneve: Par Adam & Iean Riueriz, freres, 1552); the Latin commentaries are ed. in Calvini Opera 36; 37, col. 1 – 454. 19 Calvini Opera 36, col. 154 – 158, 189 – 191, 234 – 237. It has been suggested that Calvin acquired much of his knowledge of the rabbinic commentators at second hand, from Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier (1523 – 1572).

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childish”. He went on, “The government is here said to have been laid on his shoulders in the same sense in which we shall see that the key of the house of David was laid on the shoulders of Eliakim.”20 Similarly, when in chapter 60:6 the text of Isaiah stated, “The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense,”21 Calvin observed that The Papists have also abused this passage, in order to prove that kings came from the East to offer gifts to Christ; and, in so doing, they make themselves exceedingly ridiculous, seeing that the Prophet speaks of all ranks of men. But they heap up, without judgment, all passages of this kind, in which mention is made of “gold” or “frankincense,” as if the prophets meant those gifts which the magi offered. […] But in this passage there is no obscurity ; for it means that everywhere men shall call upon God, and all foreigners shall assemble to worship him.

With similar brusqueness Calvin dismissed the exegesis of Isaiah 22:22 where the text had been applied prophetically to Jesus Christ: for Calvin it was sufficient that it clearly applied to the good royal servant Eliakim, who was not a type of Christ in any sense.22 In rejecting fanciful or gratuitous exegeses of Scripture, Calvin showed conscious respect for the historical “plain sense” of the text. If it did not need to contain a prophetic foreshadowing, he would not allow one to be invented. In other ways Calvin demonstrated his historical credentials in the Isaiah commentary. He applied historical examples alongside the biblical text to illustrate a point by analogy. So, in chapter 32 Calvin cited the reign of the Roman Emperor Nerva as an instance where a good ruler who failed to discipline and control his subordinate governors made the condition of the people as bad as it would have been under an evil emperor.23 He cited Pliny (critically) to discuss the history and connections of the town of Gozan, mentioned in Isaiah 37:11 – 12. At least twice in the commentary Calvin digressed from his exposition to cite classical authorities about the city of Tyre.24 Calvin could also allow himself to make a contemporary analogy to a historical situation, not without a hint of cruelty. In commenting on chapter 22:15 – 17, Calvin reported that the story of Shebna reminded him of Thomas More, who had planned a sumptuous monument for himself and sent his epitaph to Erasmus for printing, only to be accused of treason and executed. “Thus he had a gibbet for his tomb [….] In this 20 21 22 23 24

Calvin on Isaiah 9:6: Calvini Opera 36, col. 195 – 196. Calvin on Isaiah 60:6: Calvini Opera 37, col. 358. Calvin on Isaiah 22:22: Calvini Opera 36, col. 382 – 383. Calvin on Isaiah 32:1: Calvini Opera 36, col. 543. Calvin on Isaiah 37:12, 23:1, 45:4: Calvini Opera 36, col. 625, 386 – 8; Calvini Opera 37, col. 131 – 132.

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inveterate enemy of the people of God, not less than in Shebna, we ought undoubtedly to acknowledge and adore God’s overruling providence.”25 Calvin delivered his commentary on Jeremiah, like his other later commentaries, as a series of daily lectures to the clergy and students of Geneva. The published version appeared with a dedication to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in 1563.26 This commentary demonstrated several aspects of Calvin’s technique. In the first place, he applied knowledge of the historical background to the exposition of a prophetic text, in general much as modern commentators have done since. Calvin frequently talked up the value of historical background for this work. Secondly, he demonstrated awareness that the text itself was a historical artifact, produced at a remote period in circumstances which inhibited moderns from reading it transparently. At rare but significant points he further demonstrated his curiosity about classical history. Finally, Calvin was always ready to enlist historical material in the service of a modern moral application. No reformer could have argued for the moral and exegetical usefulness of history more emphatically than Calvin did at multiple points in the Jeremiah commentary. “Men have been always from the beginning ungrateful to God; for as far as they could, they buried the kind acts of God; nor by this only was their impiety discovered, but because they treated with scorn all ancient histories, which have yet been preserved for us, in order that our salvation might be promoted.”27 “But we must bear in mind the history of that time, that we may understand the meaning of the Prophet: [….]”28 “We must refer to history, and then we shall see what the design of the Holy Spirit was.”29 “We must bear in mind the time – for the meaning of this passage depends on history.”30 More fully, Calvin integrated Jeremiah into the historical and biblical record thus: The Prophet shows here […] the manner of the destruction of Babylon, as it is described by heathen authors. […] as Xenophon relates, the tyrant had slain the son of 25 Calvin on Isaiah 22:15 – 17: Calvini Opera 36, col. 377 – 379. John Knox also likened a political enemy, William Paulet, to Shebna: see Euan Cameron, “Frankfurt and Geneva: the European Context of John Knox’s Reformation”, in Roger A. Mason, ed., John Knox and the British Reformations, St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Aldershot: Ashgate/Scolar Press, 1998), p. 71. 26 [John Calvin], Ioannis Caluini Praelectiones in librum Prophetiarum Jeremiae et Lamentationes (Geneva: Apud Io. Crispinum, 1563). Calvin’s Commentary on Jeremiah is ed. in Calvini Opera 37, col. 469 – 706; Calvini Opera 38; and Calvini Opera 39, col. 1 – 504. On the background to the commentaries see Thomas Henry Louis Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986). 27 Calvin on Jeremiah 31:3: Calvini Opera 38, col. 644. 28 Calvin on Jeremiah 37:1: Calvini Opera 39, col. 140. 29 Calvin on Jeremiah 47:1: Calvini Opera 39, col. 309. 30 Calvin on Jeremiah 50:18: Calvini Opera 39, col. 410.

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one, and by way of disgrace castrated the other. They revolted from him; and Cyrus was instructed by them how he could take the city. […] This also was fulfilled according to the testimony of heathen authors, as well as of Daniel.31

Calvin made conspicuous use from time to time of historical geography, as Joachim Vadian had done more intentionally before him.32 In Chapter 25 he digressed at some length on Tyre and Sidon, Ekron and Ashdod, and other places mentioned in the text.33 In chapter 39 he discussed “Riblah in the land of Hamath”, speculating with the aid of Pliny that this was probably Syrian Antioch.34 He returned to the subject of Syria when expounding “Hamath is confounded, and Arpad” in chapter 49.35 Interesting at a deeper level is Calvin’s awareness of genre, and of the difference between prophetic and historical writings. At the beginning of chapter 35 Calvin analyzed the origins of the latter part of the text thus: It must be first observed, that the order of time in which the prophecies were written has not been retained. In history the regular succession of days and years ought to be preserved, but in prophetic writings this is not so necessary. […] The Prophets, after having been preaching, reduced to a summary what they had spoken; a copy of this was usually affixed to the doors of the Temple, that every one desirous of knowing celestial doctrine might read the copy ; and it was afterwards laid up in the archives. From these were formed the books now extant. […] This passage shows that the prophecy of Jeremiah inserted here did not follow the last discourse, for he relates what he had been commanded to say and to do in the time of Jehoiakim, that is, fifteen years before the destruction of the city. Hence […] Jeremiah did not write the book as it exists now, but his discourses were collected and formed into a volume, without regard to the order of time.36

Historical inconsistency demonstrated the evolution of the prophetic text from an assemblage of summaries, rather than as a continuous work of literature. Similarly, when commenting on 40:1 Calvin observed how a historical narrative was interpolated into the prophecy without the text showing awareness that this 31 Calvin on Jeremiah 51:30 – 1: Calvini Opera 39, col. 468 – 469. 32 See Joachim Vadian, Epitome Trium Terrae Partium, Asiae, Africae et Europae compendiarum locorum descriptionem continens, praecipue autem quorum in Actis Lucas, passim autem Evangelistae et Apostoli meminere … (Zurich: Froschauer, 1534), and discussion in Cameron, “Primitivism, Patristics and Polemic,” pp. 32 – 35. 33 Calvin on Jeremiah 25:20 – 6: Calvini Opera 38, col. 489 – 494. 34 Calvin on Jeremiah 39:5: Calvini Opera 39, col. 183 – 184. 35 Calvin on Jeremiah 49:23: Calvini Opera 39, col.374 – 375. 36 Calvin on Jeremiah 35:1 – 7: Calvini Opera 39, col. 99 – 100. Luther made the same observation in his preface to Jeremiah: “So it seems as though Jeremiah did not compose these books himself, but that the parts were taken piecemeal from his utterances and written into a book. For this reason one must not worry about the order or be hindered by the lack of it.” LW 35, p. 280.

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had been done.37 In general, as a meticulous exegete Calvin expressed no hesitation in admitting when a passage was obscure, or where the text appeared to have been corrupted in translation such that it could only be recovered in a speculative form.38 Calvin’s taste for historical erudition manifested itself in chapter 46, when he discoursed about the Battle of Carchemish and the subsequent history of the regions where it took place. Again in chapter 49, he expatiated somewhat on the ancient Parthians, who (Calvin believed) were the “Elamites” mentioned in 49:34 – 5. In chapter 51 he went beyond the immediate needs of exegesis to discuss the later history of Babylon up to the time of Cyrus.39 Yet as always, Calvin’s exegesis, no matter how scholarly by the standards of its time, served a pastoral and at times a polemical point. When discussing the denunciation of false prophets and ignorant priests in chapter 27, he remarked that with this testimony We may not at this day be too much disturbed, when we see the pastoral office assumed by ignorant asses, and that those who are called, and wish to be thought ministers, are so inexperienced in Scripture that they are deficient as to the first elements of religion. And we see the very thing happening at this day especially under the Papacy, as existed among the ancient people; for the Papal bishops are for the most part extremely stupid and presumptuous.40

These reflections bring us to Calvin’s commentary on Daniel, the most complex case-study in the use of historical sources in all of Calvin’s writings.41 Daniel, it should be noted first, was an extraordinary and puzzling book, which occupied a far more prominent place in Protestant theories of biblical history than it has deserved since then. In Hebrew Scripture it is classed as one of the “writings” and not as a prophetic text at all. However, for Protestant exegetes Daniel was not only one of the prophets but arguably, as Bullinger described him, the wisest and farthest seeing of them all.42 The book divides into two distinct parts: the first six chapters consist of a narrative of Daniel’s experiences in the kingdom of Babylon; the remaining chapters transmit a series of cryptic visions. The text in its 37 Calvin on Jeremiah 40:1: Calvini Opera 39, col. 194. 38 E.g., Calvin on Jeremiah 26:20: Calvini Opera 38, col. 534. Many other examples could be cited. 39 Calvin on Jeremiah 46:1 – 2, 49:34, 51:25 – 28: Calvini Opera 39, col. 282 – 284, 384 – 386, 462 – 467. 40 Calvin on Jeremiah 27:16: Calvini Opera 38, col. 557 – 558. 41 [John Calvin], Praelectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis (Geneva: I. Laonius, 1561). Calvin’s Commentary on Daniel is ed. in Calvini Opera 40, col. 529 – 722; Calvini Opera 41, col. 1 – 304. 42 Heinrich Bullinger, Daniel Sapientissimus Dei Propheta, qui a vetustis polyhistor, id est, multiscius est dictus, expositus homiliis LXVI … Accessit … epitome temporum et rerum ab orbe condito ad excidium … ultimum urbis Hierosolymorum sub Imperatore Vespasiano … (Tiguri: C. Froschoverus, 1565).

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present form survives partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic.43 Medieval and early modern commentators believed (as did Calvin) that the entire text dated from the time of the Babylonian exile, and that its “foretelling” in the latter chapters indeed represented a miraculous anticipation of subsequent events in the Hellenistic world of late antiquity. However, late antique pagan writer Porphyry had claimed in his (mostly lost) Against the Christians, book 12, that the latter parts of Daniel were merely the work of an anonymous writer in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175 – 164 BCE) in the second century, and therefore a classic instance of the vaticinium post eventum, the prophecy written after the events that it “foretold”. Porphyry’s claim was passed on through Jerome’s commentary on Daniel and appears to have caused little anxiety to medieval writers.44 Nevertheless, modern Hebrew Bible scholarship largely agrees that Daniel, in the form in which it now exists, is much the latest of the works included within the canon of Hebrew Scripture and in the (non-apocryphal) books of the Christian Old Testament.45 It takes an effort of the historical imagination to realize the dominant role which the book of Daniel played in Protestant exegetical efforts and, in connection with that, in the historical self-understanding of early modern Christianity. Nearly all the major Protestant reformers, and many minor ones, devoted extraordinary exegetical and critical effort to this cryptic text. Martin Luther published a translation of the book as a separate volume in 1530, with an extended prefatory commentary and interpretation.46 Philipp Melanchthon, Joannes Oecolampadius, and Heinrich Bullinger all wrote commentaries on the text alongside Calvin.47 However, more important even than the exegetical commentaries were the historical works that deployed Daniel as a means to 43 See, e. g., Klaus Koch, “Das aramäisch-hebräische Danielbuch. Konfrontation zwischen Weltmacht und monotheistischer Religionsgemeinschaft in universalgeschichtlicher Perspektive” in: Katharina Bracht and David S. Du Toit, ed., Die Geschichte der Daniel-Auslegung in Judentum, Christentum und Islam: Studien zur Kommentierung des Danielbuches in Literatur und Kunst, BZAW 371 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 3 – 27. 44 Jerome refers to the work by Porphyry in the prologue to his commentary on Daniel: see Migne, PL 25, col. 491. 45 On dating see, e. g., John J. Collins, A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) pp. 278 – 288. 46 See LW 35, pp. 293 – 316 [and original editions: full bibliographic description of this first edition in WA DB 2 484 – 5]. 47 Philipp Melanchthon, In Danielem prophetam commentarius (Leipzig: Nicolaus Wolrab, 1543); Joannes Oecolampadius, Commentariorum Ioannis Oecolampadii in Danielem prophetam libri duo, abstrusiore tum Hebraeorum tum Graecorum scriptorum doctrina referti (Geneva: Ioannes Crispinus, 1553); Bullinger, Daniel … expositus homiliis LXVI (as above, note 42). Note also George Joye (above, n. 12) and Hugh Broughton, Daniel his Chaldie visions and his Ebrevv : both translated after the original: and expounded … (London: Richard Field [and Gabriel Simson], for William Young, 1596); Commentarius in Danielem (Basle: Per Sebastianum Henricpetri, 1599).

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unlock the ever-complex puzzle of biblical chronology. Of all people, it was the Strasbourg humanist Johannes Sleidan who set the tone in this respect. Sleidan’s often-reprinted and widely translated textbook, Three Books on the Four Great Empires, encapsulated for school instruction an approach to world history that took the four-monarchies structure for ancient history, derived from Daniel 2 and 7, for granted. Through various editions and translations this approach lasted for more than a century.48 Even the typically trenchant scepticism of a Jean Bodin could not discredit the approach for many years.49 Moreover, the timescale allegedly covered by these prophecies extended beyond the epochs covered in the historical books of canonical Scripture. The Hellenistic and early Roman monarchies belonged to the time between the two Testaments. This period required historians to integrate prophecies with classical histories of the same events, and to treat the Bible and classical historians as fundamentally comparable, in order to establish a single chronological sequence.50 Daniel’s “foretelling” of the Hellenistic period provided a unique bridge from the post-exile to the Maccabean period. Historians found these links invaluable. To take a late example, and a relatively secular-minded one at that, the fourth and fifth books of Walter Raleigh’s History of the World reviewed the history of the Hellenistic monarchies from the time of Philip of Macedon to the Roman conquest of Asia (at which point the work gave out); tables at the end of the work offered a detailed reconciliation of the various schemes for the chronology of the dynasties of the world since the creation.51 At the other extreme, Daniel was read for what appeared to be some of the most explicit and compelling foretelling of the coming of Christ as the fulfilment of messianic prophecies. In particular, the “seventy weeks” appointed for the time until the coming of the Messiah, in chapter 9:24 – 27, were believed to offer a precise and calculable proof of the chronological relationship between the return of the people of Judah from exile and the ministry of Jesus Christ. So, in expounding Daniel, Calvin was stepping into a well-populated field of 48 Joannes Sleidanus, De quatuor summis imperiis libri tres, In gratiam iuventutis confecti …. ([Strasbourg]: [Rihel], 1557); Beschreibung der vier Monarcheyen oder höchsten Regimenten, so Gott allein in der wält verordnet (Basel: Niclaus Brylinger, 1557); The key of historie: Or, A most methodical abridgement of the foure chiefe monarchies, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, third ed. (London: W. Sheares, 1635). 49 Jean Bodin, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem ([Heidelberg]: Heredes Ioannis Mareschalli Lugdunensis, 1591), ch. 7, p. 416ff; discussion in Anthony Grafton, What was history? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 167 – 173. 50 See, e. g., Chytraeus, Chronologia, as above n. 12. 51 Sir Walter Raleigh, (1552?–1618), The historie of the vvorld: In fiue bookes. 1 Intreating of the beginning and first ages of the same from the Creation vnto Abraham. … 5 From the settled rule of Alexanders successours in the East, vntill the Romans (preuailing ouer all) made conquest of Asia and Macedon (London: H. Lownes, G. Lathum, and R. Young, 1628).

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theological-historical activity. He approached the text in a way that was at one and the same time conventional and also distinctive. First, Calvin brought a clearly, explicitly, and at times aggressively Christological read to the text. He believed that the prophecies of Daniel foretold Christ as clearly, and in places more precisely, than the other prophetic writings. Although (as observed earlier) Calvin could be more economical and more restrained in discerning foretelling of Christ than many medieval or even contemporary exegetes, he would still make the case assertively where he believed in it.52 In a lengthy exposition of Daniel 9:24 – 25, which spread over several days of lectures, Calvin reviewed previous analyses of the text in considerable detail. He was especially concerned to refute the interpretation of the late medieval Rabbi Isaac ben Judah Abravanel (1437 – 1508). Abravanel, Calvin argued, had dated the end of “seventy weeks” with the destruction of the Herodian temple, and thus rejected any association between the text and the Messiah. Calvin also criticized both ancient and contemporary exegetes on the text. He concluded that the “seventy weeks” ran from the end of the captivity to the baptism of Christ, though he acknowledged that there were slight uncertainties in the computation.53 Secondly, Calvin believed as resolutely as anyone else in the conventional reading of the four monarchies as an exposition of the statue in Daniel 2 and the four beasts in Daniel 7.54 Calvin was quite content to defend this by now very conventional reading of the text against potential rivals. However, as Barbara Pitkin has already pointed out, Calvin took a somewhat distinctive – and distinctly historicist – view of how the four monarchies should be read. He believed that Daniel 2 should be read as arguing that the Roman Empire collapsed – morally if not politically – with the coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the entire scope of the prophecy referred to antiquity: nothing about it should be read as saying anything at all about the years that had passed since the coming of Christ.55 Calvin insisted on this point, in large measure, because it was necessary to show that with the coming of Christ the last of the four monarchies perished: if 52 See above and also G. Sujin Pak, The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 53 Calvin on Daniel 9:24 – 25: Calvini Opera 41, col. 167 – 184. 54 Calvin on Daniel 2:31 – 35 and 7:4: Calvini Opera 40, col. 588 – 596; Calvini Opera 41, col. 40 – 42. 55 Calvin on Daniel 2:44 – 45: Calvini Opera 40, col. 603 – 610, and see esp. col. 606: “From the time when the Gospel began to be promulgated, we know the Roman monarchy to have been dissipated and at length to vanish away. Hence the empire did not endure through Constantine or other emperors, since their state was different; and we know that neither Constantine nor the other Caesars were Romans. From the time of Trajan the empire began to be transferred to strangers, and foreigners reigned at Rome.” On Calvin and Daniel see also Barbara Pitkin, “Prophecy and History in Calvin’s Lectures on Daniel (1561)” in: Bracht and du Toit, ed., Geschichte der Daniel-Auslegung, pp. 323 – 345; Barbara Pitkin, “Calvin, Theology, and History,” Seminary Ridge Review (Spring 2010), pp. 1 – 16.

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it had continued, that would have left space for Jewish and other exegetes to claim that the Messiah had not yet come.56 As a Frenchman, Calvin did not share the German preoccupation with the translatio imperii, the historical theory that the Roman Empire had been transferred from the Italians to the Germans and now continued within the archaic and ungovernable confederation known as the Holy Roman Empire.57 Moreover, Calvin, as though anticipating Bodin’s critique, recognized that the four-empires scheme ought to be read in the historical and literary context of the prophetic writings, not as a perspective on the whole of world history. The prophecy discussed the rise of an empire only when it became known to the Jewish people, not when it arose in some remote part of the world that was entirely unknown to the prophetic author : The Prophet is not here describing what should happen through all the ages of the world, but only what the Jews should see. For the Romans were the lords of many regions before they passed over into Greece; we know they had two provinces in Spain, and after the close of the second Punic war were masters of that upper sea, and held undisputed possession of all the islands, as well as of Cisalpine Gaul and other regions. No notice is taken of this empire, till it was made known to the Jews […].58

So the text existed for a pastoral and homiletic purpose: it was there to console the Jewish people in their sufferings and hold out the promise of hope for the future. It was not intended to provide a God’s-eye-view of world history, nor to foretell events beyond the coming of Christ. Consequently, and quite unlike most other Protestant exegetes, Calvin denied that Daniel should be read as an apocalyptic prediction of current (or even future) events. Calvin would end his commentary with a warning against trying to foretell the end of history.59 Many, if not most reformed commentators up to that point had read the reference to a “little horn” in Daniel 7:8 as referring to the Antichrist, meaning either or both of the papacy (chiefly following Oecolampadius) or the Ottoman Empire (following Luther and Melanchthon).60 Calvin rather grandly dismissed his fellow-reformers thus: “Here interpreters begin to vary ; some twist this to mean the Pope, and others the Turk; but neither opinion seems to me probable; they are both wrong, since they think the whole course of Christ’s kingdom is here described, while God wished only to declare to his Prophet what should happen up to the first advent of Christ.” Calvin, by contrast, chose to read the two 56 57 58 59 60

Calvin on Daniel 2:39, 2:44: Calvini Opera 40, col. 597 – 598, 603 – 604. Calvin on Daniel 7:11: Calvini Opera 41, col. 57 – 58. Calvin on Daniel 2:40 – 43: Calvini Opera 40, col. 601. Calvin on Daniel 12:12 – 13: Calvini Opera 41, col. 303 – 304. Oecolampadius, Commentariorum … in Danielem prophetam (1553), pp. 89 – 92; for Luther identifying the little horn with the power of Islam, see LW 35, p. 299; Melanchthon, In Danielem prophetam commentaries (1543), pp. 112 f, 139 – 146.

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references to a “little horn” in different ways, though both prophecies, he believed, referred to a time well after the historical Daniel. In 7:8 he read the “little horn” as a reference to “Julius Caesar and the other Caesars who succeeded him, namely, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and others”.61 On the other hand, on 8:9 Calvin wrote: When the Prophet says, “Out of one of those four horns a little horn arose”, Antiochus Epiphanes is most distinctly pointed out. As he had nothing royal or heroic in his feelings, but was simply remarkable for cunning, the Prophet is justified in calling him the little horn […] the horn is called little, not in comparison with the kingdoms of either Egypt, or Asia, or Macedon, but because no one supposed he would ever be king and succeed his father.62

In deducing that “Daniel” here referred to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Calvin anticipated much modern scholarship, though he considered the entire text to be a foretelling written centuries earlier. In either case, Calvin adhered firmly to his principle that all the prophecies referred only to the period before the coming of Christ. However, Calvin’s historical handling of the prophetic material manifested itself in other ways than just in his economical reading of the symbolism of the text. Calvin demonstrated in his commentary a profound fascination with the details of the story of the Hellenistic-Maccabean period in Jewish history. He regarded the (alleged) close correspondence between the cryptic stories of rams and goats in the second part of Daniel and the historical record as proof that the prophecy was indeed inspired. Nevertheless, Calvin dwelt far more fully on the details of late antique history than seemed necessary to make a purely homiletic or exegetical point. So, for example, on 7:8 Calvin explained the deceptive manner in which the Caesars left the historic republican constitution, the consuls and other magistrates, in place in Rome, while they gradually accrued to themselves all real power.63 When discussing Antiochus Epiphanes’s second attempt to seize Egypt, Calvin twice alluded in some detail to the celebrated encounter reported by Livy between Antiochus and the Roman representative Gaius Popilius Laenas. When demanding that Antiochus withdraw, the latter drew a circle in the sand around Antiochus, and insisted on an answer from him before he stepped outside the circle.64 Calvin digressed from the biblical text to discuss the political histories of the Hellenistic period: as when he summarized 61 62 63 64

Calvin on Daniel 7:8: Calvini Opera 41, col. 50. Calvin on Daniel 8:9: Calvini Opera 41, col. 98. Calvin on Daniel 7:8: Calvini Opera 41, col. 50 – 51. Livy, History of Rome, vol. xiii, ed. A. C. Schlesinger (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1951), pp. 280 – 283, based on Polybius, The Histories, vol. 6, ed. W. R. Paton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1927), pp. 88 – 93; Calvin on Daniel 8:9 and 11:29 – 30: Calvini Opera 41, col. 99, 251 – 252.

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the division of Alexander’s kingdom,65 narrated the dynastic successions of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies,66 or commented on the behavior of the Romans towards the temples of the peoples of Asia after they had conquered the regional powers.67 A few examples will suffice to further illustrate this trait: Alexander’s monarchy was at length divided into four parts. Cassander, the son of Antipater, obtained the kingdom of Macedon, after slaying Olympias, the mother of Alexander, his sister, his sons, and his wife Rexaria. […] But omitting details, four kingdoms were at last left after such remarkable devastations. For Cassander, the son of Antipater, obtained Macedon and some part of Thrace, together with the cities of Greece. Seleucus became master in Syria; Antigonus in Asia Minor, joining Phrygia, Paphlagonia, and all other Asiatic regions, after five or six generals were slain. Ptolemy became prefect of Egypt.68

Again, when discussing the intricate matrimonial politics of the Seleucids: Antiochus repudiated his wife Laodice, who was the mother of two sons whom she had born to Antiochus; namely, Seleucus Callinicus, and Antiochus the younger, named Hierax, a hawk, on account of his rapacity. We perceive, then, how he contracted a second marriage, after an unjust and illegal divorce of his first wife. Hence it is not surprising if this alliance was cursed by the Almighty. It turned out unhappily for both the kings of Egypt and Syria. Ptolemy ought not to have thrust his daughter upon Antiochus, who was already married, nor yet to have allowed her to become a second wife, while the king’s real wife was divorced.69

One might speculate on why Calvin pursued so much detail in an exegetical lecture, delivered in a semi-public forum to a mostly non-scholarly audience. Certainly the fractious and immoral goings-on between Hellenistic rulers and their fratricidal and incestuous families will have confirmed him in his firm prejudice against dynastic monarchies. The perceived moral degeneracy of late antiquity strengthened another of Calvin’s (and others’) beliefs, that the world tended to become worse and more sinful as time passed. Ultimately all historical explanation served a pastoral purpose – but that did not mean that it should be cut short. Calvin took a distinctive stance towards the use of historical prophecies in his own age. On one hand, he repeatedly stressed that the prophets of ancient Israel spoke and wrote to foretell the purposes of God in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, 65 66 67 68 69

Calvin on Daniel 8:8 and 8:24 – 25: Calvini Opera 41, col. 95 – 97, 116 – 118. Calvin on Daniel 11:6 and 11:10 – 11: Calvini Opera 41, col. 224 – 228, 230 – 232. Calvin on Daniel 11:38 – 39: Calvini Opera 41, col. 271 – 278. Calvin on Daniel 8:8: Calvini Opera 41, col. 97. Calvin on Daniel 11:6: Calvini Opera 41, col. 226.

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and therefore no prophecy was intended to reach beyond the era of the incarnation. So prophecy was to be read in a praeterist fashion, as illuminating the divine hand in events already past and gone, rather than predictively, as a guide to events yet to take place. Calvin was not reading scripture to decode the plans of God for his own future. However, in a quite different sense he clearly believed that the stories recounted in prophecy taught moral lessons. First, prophecy reinforced Calvin’s theodicy, where a truly sovereign God was nevertheless not the cause of evil. As Calvin wrote in 1552, “Those things which are vainly or unrighteously done by man are, rightly and righteously, the works of God.”70 Those who acted from their own malice found that, helplessly, they furthered the good purposes of God through the evil acts that they committed. As Calvin remarked in his commentary on Jeremiah, evildoers serve the purposes of God, but are nevertheless justly judged for what they do: “Though, then, the Lord employs the ungodly in executing his judgments, yet their guilt is not on this account lessened; they are still exposed to God’s judgment […] the devil and all the ungodly serve God, though not of their own accord, but whenever he draws them by his hidden power, and they are still justly punished, even when they have served God.”71 No more telling example of evil-doing could be cited than the fratricidal and internecine struggles of the kingdoms of the ancient Near East. And yet all the rise and fall of all these ungodly kingdoms was, undoubtedly, in the hands of God: “As, then, the life of every individual has its fixed limits, so God has determined with regard to the empires of the whole earth; thus the life and death of every kingdom and nation are in the hand and at the will of God.”72 History was a theater of the providence of God at work even through unworthy instruments. In another sense, prophetic history was instructive for the present not because of the specific predictions that it made, but because of the general moral lessons to be drawn. Calvin published his commentary on Daniel in 1561, at a moment when the reformed churches of France were facing the threat of persecution. The ensuing tensions would, in the following year, break out into the first War of Religion. On one hand, the steadfastness of the ancient Hebrew people served as a moral guide to the persecuted: “God proves the faith of his people in these days by various trials.” On the other, ancient history teaches that all monarchies, no matter how splendid, lie under the judgment of God. “God shows how all earthy power which is not founded on Christ must fall; and he threatens speedy destruction to all Kingdoms which obscure Christ’s glory by extending themselves too much. And those Kings whose sway is most extended 70 John Calvin, De Providentia, in Calvini Opera 8, col. 353. 71 Calvin on Jeremiah 25:12: Calvini Opera 38, col. 481. 72 Calvin on Jeremiah 27:6 – 7: Calvini Opera 38, col. 544 – 545.

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shall feel by sorrowful experience how horrible a judgment will fall upon them, unless they willingly submit themselves to the sway of Christ!”73 The lesson for the Valois monarchs was there for them to read. Calvin did not transcend the received perspective of his time, nor should we expect him to have done. He believed that the prophets were divinely inspired to predict events centuries after they wrote. He regarded the Christological reading of prophecy as the true literal sense intended by the Spirit of God, even though he applied some critical restraint as to where he discerned such foreshadowing of Christ. However, with his critical acumen, Calvin came closer than most to recognizing that the prophets wrote for their own times and not for ours. He found the untidy details of history fascinating. He saw that political history was messy and unedifying. It was not the transparent working out of an easily comprehensible divine plan, but the manifestation of an inscrutable though ultimately benign providence. One could not see the sense in history ; but armed with the right perspective, one could draw moral lessons from it, whether of comfort or of judgment.

73 Calvin, Praelectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis (n. p.: Bartholomaeus Vincentius, 1581), preface dated August 19, 1561 sig. * iii verso. Preface omitted from the Calvini Opera edition.

Bruce Gordon

Chapter Five: Creating a Reformed Book of Knowledge: Immanuel Tremellius, Franciscus Junius, and Their Latin Bible, 1580 – 1590

In his Religio Laici of 1682, John Dryden alludes to a recent English translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire critique du Vieux Testament as “a treasure, which if country curates buy, they Junius and Tremellius may defy”.1 Dryden’s lines were a compliment to the controversial French scholar who scandalized Catholics and Protestants alike with his denial of the historical authenticity of the Hebrew scriptures.2 Simon was especially damning of the Tremellius/Junius Testamenti veteris biblia sacra, a Latin translation of the Old Testament prepared in Heidelberg more than a hundred years earlier. That Bible enjoyed widespread popularity in the fragmented religious world of the seventeenth century, in particular within a diverse collection of educated British churchmen that included Puritans, Laudians, and Scots Presbyterians. John Milton, who read Hebrew well, greatly esteemed the translation and its accompanying annotations.3 The Tremellius/Junius Old Testament emerged in print during the 1570s, first appearing in a complete Bible in 1579 (paired with Tremellius’ Syriac New Testament) to immediate acclaim. A London reprint the following year retained the Syriac, but in 1581 it was replaced by Beza’s New Testament to create the 1 On the English translation of Simon in the seventeenth century, see Justin A. I. Champion, “Pere Richard Simon and English Biblical Criticism, 1680 – 1700” in: James E. Force and David S. Katz, ed., Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin: Essays in His Honor (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 39 – 61. A good review of Simon’s arguments is Martine Pecharman, “The Rules of Critique. Richard Simon and Antoine Arnauld” in: Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn, ed., The Making of the Humanities I – Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), pp. 327 – 347. Simon’s commentary on the New Testament, published in 1705, has been recently translated: Richard Simon. Critical History of the Text of the New Testament. Wherein is Established the Truth of the Acts on which the Christian Religion is Based, trans., introduced, and annotated by Andrew Hunwick (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 2 Oscar Kenshur, Dilemmas of the Enlightenment: Studies in the Rhetoric and Logic of Ideology (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1993). See his chapter on Dryden, pp. 49 – 76. I am, however, broadly sympathetic to large parts of his interpretation of the Religo Laici, though I think he does not sufficiently understand Simon. 3 Jeffrey Einboden, “Towards a Judaic Milton: Translating Samson Agonistes into Hebrew,” Literature and Theology 22 (2008), pp. 135 – 150.

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preeminent Protestant Latin Bible, an icon of Reformed learning. How this prominence was achieved is an investigation beyond the scope of this essay and the subject of a forthcoming book. What follows is a consideration of the dynamic character of this remarkable Bible, and how Franciscus Junius’ revisions took this book into the intellectual and ecclesiastical culture of post-Reformation Reformed Christianity.4 The Tremellius/Junius Old Testament is generally regarded as a fixed text that sprang from the heads of its creators, as Philip Schaff once imagined Calvin’s Institutes. In truth, however, the Testamenti veteris evolved as a book, and possessed a Janus-like quality, looking to two generations of the Reformation, or, perhaps more accurately, to the transition to post-Reformation Protestantism. Immanuel Tremellius (1510 – 1580) and Franciscus Junius (1545 – 1602) collaborated closely yet belonged to different eras of scholarship and ecclesiastical politics. Tremellius, an Italian Jewish convert and exact contemporary of John Calvin, had fled his native land to the Protestant churches of the north, where he played a crucial role in the development of Hebrew learning.5 In exile Tremellius was courted by various churches and held chairs of Hebrew in the Empire, England, and France. Taciturn and self-effacing by nature, Tremellius remains for historians an elusive figure, and with good reason. During his rise to prominence he witnessed the emergence of Reformed academies and universities; in their lecture halls and libraries, and from his writing desk, his contributions to the Reformation were considerable. Yet, in his scholarly publications Tremellius retained a certain reticence about committing his theological views to print, a reluctance surely owing to early experiences of dissembling in Italy and his problematic status as a “Jewish Christian”.6 In the eyes of sixteenth-century churches Jewish converts were never entirely converted. Franciscus Junius, in contrast, was a robust exponent of Calvinist doctrine. He came from an established Reformed family and had been trained in law and theology ; he experienced the religious wars of France and the theological challenge of Tridentine Catholicism.7 He belonged to the emerging intellectual 4 The research for this essay was supported by a major grant from the AHRC of the United Kingdom. A full study of these Bibles is forthcoming in Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean, Protestant Jerome. Reformed Latin Bibles of the Reformation, in the series Library of the Written Word (Leiden: Brill). 5 The authoritative account of Tremellius’ life is Kenneth Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius (1510 – 1580) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 6 Kenneth Austin, “Immanuel Tremellius (1510 – 1580), the Jews and Christian Hebraica” in: Achim Detmers and J. Marius J. Lange van Ravenwaay, ed., Bundeseinheit und Gottesvolk. Reformierter Protestantismus und Judentum im Europa des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Wuppertal: Foedus, 2005), pp. 71 – 88. 7 The literature on Junius is limited. For biographical information see: Christiaan de Jonge, De irenische ecclesiologie van Franciscus Junius (1545 – 1602) (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden,

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culture of Reformed scholasticism, the revival of Aristotle, and the burgeoning fascination with natural science. As Tobias Sarx has recently and persuasively argued, Junius was no commonplace polemicist. He was driven by an irenic spirit and sought to reconcile a fragmented church through scholarship and the harmony of biblical, classical, and contemporary learning.8 His desire to demonstrate the unity of knowledge is evident in the revisions he made to the Old Testament translation. The brief yet richly productive collaboration between Tremellius, a man who lived only to see the first complete edition in 1579, and Junius, to whom remained almost a quarter century of prodigious scholarship, resulted in an astonishing achievement of philological, literary, and theological craftsmanship, rightly praised in its day as a brilliant ornament of the Reformed churches. It was not, however, a monument hewn in stone. It lived, vivified by the best scholarship and open to further discoveries and insights, a labile text. The translators were unapologetically Reformed in their confession, and their Bible was unquestionably intended to serve and nurture the Calvinist churches, but as the best Latin Bible to be found. Time, the authors understood, would bring new learning, greater understanding of Semitic languages and their history, and enhanced theological clarity. The chief virtue of their Testamenti veteris biblia sacra was its progressive character; it explained in detail what was known and, like Calvin’s Institutes (a book with which the Tremellius/Junius Bible can be compared in various respects), pointed to the future. To achieve this, Junius believed, the scholar must never lay down his pen, for the Bible in translation was a book of adaptation and growth. Such was the labor into which he threw himself with furious energy, although his aspirations were only partially realized. In the end, Junius’ revision of the translation was limited to the first 25 chapters of Genesis, but his interpretation of creation and the patriarchs reveals his intention. The revisions of Genesis for the 1590 Geneva edition of the Testamenti veteris belonged to a broader effort to adapt Reformed scholarship to the scholastic methods of their academies and the needs of students, who required enhanced textual apparati. To meet this need, summaries, marginal notes, and doctrinal 1980); Biografisch Leixkon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederalandse protestantisme (Kampen: Kok, 1978), 2:275 – 278. More recent work on Junius is found in W. J. van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology : Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-century Reformed Thought,” Westminster Theological Journal 64 (2002), pp. 319 – 335; and Roelf Theodoor te Velde, “Eloquent Silence: The Doctrine of God in the Synopsis of Purer Theology,” Church History and Religious Culture 92 (2012), pp. 581 – 608. 8 Tobias Sarx, Franciscus Junius d.Ä. (1545 – 1602): Ein reformierter Theologe im Spannungsfeld zwischen späthumanistischer Irenik und reformierter Konfessionalisierung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007).

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loci were provided to assist readers.9 It is no coincidence that in the same year the Tremellius/Junius Bible was printed in Geneva the definitive edition of Calvin’s Institutes appeared from the press of Le Preux. Nicholas Collodan, Edmund Bunny, Caspar Olevianus, and William Delaune (and others) labored to provide Calvin’s bulky 1559 Institutes with a critical apparatus that would assist readers while remaining faithful to the Frenchman’s words and arguments.

Protestant Latin Bibles For Reformed Protestants of the sixteenth century, Latin translations of the Bible were essential to the theological and pedagogical needs of their emerging churches.10 The case for scripture in the vernacular had been emphatically made from the earliest days of the Reformation – Luther and Zwingli had won that battle – but the necessity of Latin is perhaps less obvious to our modern eyes.11 Protestant reformers, however, knew exactly what was needed. Latin was a sacred tongue – but not of equal status with Hebrew and Greek – as well as the international language of learning and theology.12 The Latin Bibles Reformed churchmen labored to produce over the sixteenth century had several concurrent purposes. Scholarship of the highest order, these translations were deeply indebted to medieval, humanist, and rabbinic conceptions of the relationship of text and commentary. Yet they were very much products of their age as early modern books, reflecting both philological and theological develop9 The work on Calvin’s Institutes is examined in Olivier Fatio, “Pr¦sence de Calvin — l’¦poque de l’orthodoxie r¦form¦e. Les abr¦g¦s de Calvin — la fin du 16e et au 17 siÀcle” in: W. H. Neuser, ed., Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor (Kampan: Kok, 1980), pp. 171 – 207. See also: Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 64 – 68. 10 Josef Eskhult, “Latin Bible Translations in the Protestant Reformation: Historical Contexts, Philological Justification, and the Impact of Classical Rhetoric on the Conception of Translation Methods” in: Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation. Books, Scholars and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 167 – 185; and Bruce Gordon, “The Authority of Antiquity : England and the Protestant Latin Bible” in: Polly Ha and Patrick Collinson, ed., The Reception of the Continental Reformation in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 1 – 22. 11 Johann Anselm Steiger, Philologia Sacra: zur Exegese der Heiligen Schrift im Protestantismus des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2011). The literature on Latin translation is vast, but recommended is Paul Botley Aarhus, Latin Translation in the Renaissance: The Theory and Practice of Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti and Desiderius Erasmus, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 184 – 187. 12 Peter Stolz, “Heinrich Bullinger (1504 – 1575) and the Ancient Languages” in: Emidio Campi, et al., ed., Scholarly Knowledge: Textbooks in Early Modern Europe (Geneva: Droz, 2008), pp. 113 – 138.

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ments, and intended as paths to the Hebrew and Greek originals, compendia of learning, and tools of confessional argument.13 As finely produced volumes, the best work of Basel, Zurich, Geneva, and London printers, these handsome Latin Bibles were ambassadors of their churches to the wider European world, evidence of the scholarly acumen, piety, and historical legitimacy of Reformed Christianity in the polemical maelstrom of the Reformation. Konrad Pellikan remarked in his autobiography that the Bible in German was to build the church and in Latin was to defend it. Exactly how, it must be added, was hotly disputed. The Old Testament, written in a language in which only a small number of Christian scholars were competent, presented the most formidable challenge and formed the frontier of biblical translation.14 As the Renaissance world became more familiar with Hebrew, a language often dismissed by humanists as barbaric, a problem emerged that would long remain unresolved. In an age when humanists were consumed with the vexed matter of Ciceronianism, it became apparent that a literal translation of the language of Moses produced dreadful Latin.15 As Jerome had fully recognized, whatever the difficulties of providing good Latin translations of Greek literature, philosophy, and history, they paled in comparison to doing justice to the patriarchs, psalmist, and prophets.16 Hebrew was a language of many mysteries, one of which was how to make its rich vocabulary, syntax, and meaning read in Latin without sounding like a Reformation version of Google Translate. The first significant Reformed translation of the whole Old Testament was the Biblia Hebraica (1534/35) of Sebastian Münster in Basel.17 His efforts were celebrated and criticized in equal measure, though even his critics regarded his work as indispensible – John Calvin likely heard Münster lecture in Basel, and 13 See Urs Leu, “The Book- and Reading-Culture in Basle and Zurich During the Sixteenth Century” in: Malcolm Walsby and Graeme Kemp, ed., The Book Triumphant. Print in Transition in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 295 – 319. 14 Essential reading is Stephen G. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500 – 1660): Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning (Leiden: Brill, 2012), esp. pp. 11 – 47, “Birth of a Christian Hebrew Reading Public”. 15 Münster makes this point, Hebraica Biblia, sigs a5v and b6r. 16 On Jerome, see Michael Graves, Jerome’s Hebrew Philology : A Study Based on His Commentary on Jeremiah (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Andrew Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 17 Sebastian Münster, En tibi lector Hebraica Biblia Latina planeque noua Sebast. Munsteri tralatione, post omneis omnium hactenus ubiuis gentium aeditiones euulgata, & quoad fieri potuit, hebraicae ueritati conformata : adiectis insuper À Rabinorum co[m]mentarijs annotationibus haud poenitendis, pulchre & uoces ambiguas & obscuriora quaeq[ue] elucidantibus … Basileae : Ex officina Bebeliana, impendiis Michaelis Isingrinii et Henrici Petri, 1534[–1535].

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the Frenchman’s commentaries suggest the presence of the Biblia Hebraica on his desk.18 However, we should neither overestimate Münster’s capabilities nor be censorious of a Christian scholar working in the 1520s and early 1530s. Even brief perusal by a modern scholar of biblical Hebrew exposes rudimentary grammatical errors in the preface to the Biblia Hebraica as well as in the first lines of his translation of Genesis – errors no educated Jew would have made.19 One will also notice that his Hebrew is medieval rather than biblical. Münster’s extensive uses of rabbinic writings in his notes are also not what they might appear at first sight. Although he read Rashi and Kimchi, among others, often quoting them at length on matters of philology and etymology, they were cited from the second edition of Daniel Bomberg’s Hebrew Bible, and not the originals.20 The Biblia Hebraica was a path-breaking achievement of Christian Hebraism whose strengths and limitations reflected a discipline in adolescence.21 Despite the Christian humanist creed of ad fontes, Hebrew scholarship was not in agreement as to what constituted original sources or what was divinely inspired, and the consequences were conflicting philological, ecclesiastical, and theological interests. Many Protestant churchmen remained wedded to the Septuagint and Vulgate as the sacred books of the Church.22 Anti-Semitism further infected the debate as some reformers, including Huldrych Zwingli, in yet another form of conspiracy thinking, believed the Masoretic text to have been intended by canny Jews to mislead unsuspecting Christians.23 Martin Luther was a competent reader of Hebrew, able with assistance to complete 18 Max Engammare, “Joannes Calvinus Trium Linguarum Peritus? La Question de l’Hebreu,” BibliothÀque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 58 (1996), pp. 35 – 60. 19 I am grateful to my colleague Joel Baden at the Yale Divinity School for his expert reading of the Hebrew. 20 Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, “Sebastian Münster’s Knowledge of and Use of Jewish Exegesis” in: Id., ed., Studia Semitica, vol. 1: Jewish Themes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 127 – 145. Stephen G. Burnett, “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, pp. 63 – 84, esp. 74 – 77. See also: David Stern, “The Rabbinic Bible in its Sixteenth Century Context” in: Adam Shear and Joseph Hacker, ed., The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 76 – 108. 21 See Matthew McLean, “‘Praeceptor amicissimus’: Konrad Pellikan, and Models of Teacher, Student and the Ideal of Scholarship” in: Luca Baschera, Bruce Gordon, and Christian Moser, ed., Following Zwingli. Applying History in Reformation Zurich (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 233 – 256. On the influence of Jerome as a model of scholarship, see Hilmar M. Pabel, Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome’s Letters in the Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 175 – 248. 22 Abraham Wasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 23 On Zwingli’s attitude to the Septuagint and his translation methods, see Peter Opitz, “Zwingli’s Exegesis of the Old Testament” in: Magne Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, vol. 2: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), pp. 419 – 428.

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translations of Old Testament books, but he shared Zwingli’s reservations about engagement with Jewish scholarship.24 Reliance on the rabbis, he feared, bore the risk of “Judaizing”, an acceptance of their teaching and a denial of the Gospel, above all the triune nature of God. Translation of the Hebrew, often assumed by historians of the Reformation as a natural consequence of sola scriptura, was not for all Protestants a self-evident virtue. Virtually every aspect of Hebrew scholarship was contested, yet, curiously, the exclusivity of its guild proved beneficial. The halting advances in Hebrew studies during the sixteenth century among Protestants and Catholics took place within a scholarly culture somewhat immune to the harsh polemic of the wider Reformation.25 The number of churchmen with even rudimentary comprehension of the language was remarkably small, and those wishing to advance in Hebrew could not afford to ignore the work of other scholars, regardless of confession. Translations, grammars, and lexica passed across national and linguistic boundaries to be read by a latinate sodality.26 Further, despite their denigration of the rabbis in print, pretty much a requirement for those studying Hebrew, some Christian scholars clearly understood that daily contact with learned Jews was essential for accurate reading of the Old Testament.27 Perhaps the best early example of cross-confessional texts was the translation of the Bible into Latin by the Dominican Sanctes Pagninus that appeared in Lyon in 1528 and was extensively used by scholars across the religious divide, including in Calvin’s Geneva, where Stephanus printed Pagninus’ Old Testament in the 1550s.28 Pagninus’ Latin Old Testament was regarded by Jews as the best done by a Christian, largely on account of his reliance on rabbinic material.29 In 24 On Luther as translator, see Siegfried Raeder, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, esp. pp. 395 – 406; see also: Eric W. Gritsch, “Luther as Bible Translator” in: Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 62 – 72. 25 See Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, “I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue”: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), esp. ch. 1 – 2. 26 Burnett, “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica” covers this subject well. See also: William McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists (rpt Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 27 On the complex responses to Jewish-Christian pedagogical relations, see Stephen G. Burnett, “A Dialogue of the Deaf: Hebrew Pedagogy and Anti-Jewish Polemic in Sebastian Münster’s Messiahs of the Christians and the Jews (1529/39),” Archive for Reformation History 91 (2000), pp. 168 – 190. 28 Biblia: habes in hoc libro prudens lector vtriusq[ue] instrumenti nouam tran[s]latione[m] æditum / — reuerendo sacr[a]e theologiae doctore Sancte Pagnino Luce[n]si concionatore apostolico prædcatorii, ordinis, necnon & librum de interpretamentis Hebraicorum Aram[a] eoru[m] Græcorumq[ue] nominum, sacris in literis contentoru[m], in quo iuxta idioma cuiuscu[m]q[ue] linguæ…. [Lugduni: Per Antonium du Ry], 1528. 29 Arjo Vanderjagt, “Sanctes Pagninus,” in Sæbø, ed., Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, p. 186.

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his preface, Pagninus roundly attacked Luther, whom he did not name, and the Protestant culture of biblical interpretation, in particular sola scriptura.30 While Pagninus’ Bible was criticized as overly literal, disfigured by clumsy Latin, generations of Hebrew scholars through to the end of the seventeenth century remained indebted to the Dominican’s careful reading of the language.31 His craftsmanship found many Protestant admirers, including those who worked on the King James Bible.32 Another example of unacknowledged or unconscious text sharing takes us in the opposite direction. The so-called Vatable Bible produced in Paris in 1545 was a Latin translation with notes reputedly drawn from the lectures of FranÅois Vatable, who was already dead when Stephanus produced the book. It was the work of his students, and although his humanist interpretations riled the Sorbonne, the source of the Latin text of the Old Testament eluded detection. The Parisian doctors would have been enraged to learn that it was the translation prepared by Leo Jud for the Zurich Latin Bible of 1543.33 The same translation appeared thirty years later in Salamanca without any indication of its Protestant origins.

The Reformed Latin Bible and Tradition Zeal for a new Latin translation of the Bible, primarily of the Old Testament, was almost exclusively a Reformed obsession during the sixteenth century. The major editions appeared in Basel (Sebastian Münster, 1534/35), Zurich (Leo Jud, 1543), Basel (Sebastian Castellio, 1551 and following), and Frankfurt, London, and Geneva (Tremellius/Junius), all centers of printing with sufficient resources for such expensive folio books. The principal New Testament Latin translation, as noted, was the work of Theodore Beza that first appeared in Geneva in 1556.34 30 Biblia, sig D4r. 31 Frank Rosenthal, “The Study of the Hebrew Bible in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Studies in the Renaissance 1 (1954), p. 90 f. 32 David Norton, The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 6. 33 In the “Vatable Bible” of 1545 the Zurich Latin text appears in parallel columns with the Vulgate. It is designated as “N” for “nova translatio”. Along with the text are notes from Vatable’s lectures. The “Compendium et scopus totius sacrae scripturae…” from the Zurich Bible is reprinted under the revised title of “Summa totius sacrae scripturae”. Christian Moser, Theodor Bibliander (1505 – 1564). Annotierte Bibliographie der gedruckten Werke (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), p. 89. Alice Phelena Hubbard, “The Bible of Vatable,” Journal of Biblical Literature 66 (1947), pp. 197 – 209. 34 The five major sixteenth-century editions of the New Testament are 1556/7, 1565, 1582, 1588/9 and 1598. See Jan Krans, Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 202 – 206. The 1556 contains Stephanus’ Vulgate

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The Castellio, Beza, and Tremellius/Junius versions went through further editions with varying degrees of revision.35 Lutherans on the whole, beginning with a partial Latin Bible printed in Wittenberg in 1529, preferred to remain with the Vulgate, of which they issued numerous revised versions during the sixteenth century.36 How do we account for the path travelled by the Reformed? The answer is not straightforward and involved several related factors. From the mid-1520s the translation of individual books (notably Isaiah) of the Old Testament into Latin was a priority in Basel and Zurich.37 The most significant figures were Johannes Oecolampadius and Huldrych Zwingli, although both men worked with colleagues proficient in the ancient languages. Almost all of these Christian humanists emerged from the circle around Erasmus in Basel, inspired by his Novum instrumentum of 1516 and its successive editions.38 Erasmus more than any other figure instilled in these reform-minded scholars a passion for Greek and Hebrew (although he did not have Hebrew) and his influence, together with the enmity arising from his dispute with Luther, played an important role in creating a distinct lineage of Protestant thought.39 In numerous and diverse ways the shadow of Erasmus lay across Reformed biblical scholarship of the Reformation.40

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and Beza’s Latin translation, while the 1565 contains the Vulgate, the Greek, and Beza’s revised Latin translation with annotations. This was reprinted in 1582 and 1598. See Irena Backus, “Moses, Plato and Flavius Josephus. Castellio’s Conceptions of Sacred and Profane in His Latin Versions of the Bible” in: Gordon and McLean, Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, pp. 143 – 166; Marie-Christine Gomez-Giraud and Olivier Millet, “La rh¦torique de la Bible chez BÀze et Castellion d’aprÀs leur controverse en matiÀre de la traduction biblique” in: Irena Backus, ed., Th¦odore de BÀze (1519 – 1605). Actes du Colloque de GenÀve (septembre 2005) (Geneva: Droz, 2007), pp. 429 – 448. The 1529 Wittenberg Latin Old Testament, the work of a team that included Luther and Melanchthon, was only a partial translation: Pentatevchus: Liber Iosve; Liber Ivdicvm; Liber Regvm; Novum Testamentvm. Vvitembergae [Nicolaus Schirleitz, 1529]. Peter Opitz, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of John Oecolampadius, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, pp. 408 – 413, 422 – 428. Erasmus’ biblical scholarship has been extensively studied. Krans, Beyond What is Written, esp. pp. 9 – 90, is an excellent survey that engages with the most important literature. Several helpful essays are to be found in the collection Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus, ed. Erika Rummel (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Also excellent are Erika Rummel, “The Textual and Hermeneutical Work of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, pp. 215 – 230, and Henk Jan de Jonge, “The Novum Testamentum a nobis versum: The Essence of Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament,” Journal of Theological Studies 35 (1984), pp. 394 – 413. For the case of Zurich, see Christine Christ-von Wedel, “Erasmus und die Zürcher Reformatoren: Huldrich Zwingli, Leo Jud, Konrad Pellikan, Heinrich Bullinger und Theodor Bibliander” in: Christine Christ-von Wedel and Urs Leu, ed., Erasmus in Zürich: Eine verschwiegene Autorität (Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2007), pp. 167 – 176. See Krans, Beyond What is Written.

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There were, however, also other influences. Luther’s hostility to rabbinic scholarship and his persuasion that it presented the Reformation with a poisoned chalice left a legacy of suspicion among those who claimed his name.41 That is not to say there were not important Lutheran scholars of Hebrew, or that the language was not taught in their universities, but the engagement with the Talmud, Targum, and other texts was not of the same order as among Reformed scholars such as the remarkable Paul Fagius, who in the preface to his Sententiae vere elegantes, piae, mireque wrote, “Only a few men speak well, but to live well is everyone’s concern; therefore I think Hebrew wise men should be held in greater esteem, for they prescribed the rules and precepts of a virtuous life to their people.”42 Fagius collaborated with the great Jewish scholar Elias Levita, who travelled from Venice to Isny for their collaboration.43 No single reason explains the enthusiasm of the age, but the intense interest of Reformed theologians in a thoroughly Christological reading of Hebrew scripture ineluctably fed interest in the language. Theodor Bibliander in Zurich, who wrote extensively on the history of languages, argued that Hebrew was the source of all human written and oral communication. It was the language spoken by God at creation to Adam and Eve.44 The place of the Vulgate in Protestant biblical culture of the sixteenth century was decisive.45 Most reformers – some more explicitly than others – held the Vulgate in high esteem as the Bible of the Church, although belief that the received text was entirely the work of Jerome quickly receded during the six41 On Luther and Hebrew, see Siegfried Raeder, Das Hebräische bei Luther untersucht bis zum Ende der ersten Psalmenvorlesung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1961), and his Die Benutzung des masoretischen Textes bei Luther in der Zeit zwischen der ersten und der zweiten Psalmenvorlesung (1515 – 1518) (Tübingen: Mohr, 1967). 42 Fagius, Sententiae … 1541, preface: “bene dicere ad paucos pertinet, bene autem vivere ad omnes, ita et in maiori praetio habendos esse arbitror Hebraeorum sapientes, qui genti suae dogmata et praecepta recte vivendi praescripsere.” I am grateful to my former student Jamie Gabbarelli for bringing this quotation to my attention in a paper on Fagius in 2010. 43 Eric Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration in Sixteenth Century Germany,” Jewish Quarterly Review 71 (1980), pp. 69 – 89. On Fagius, see: Richard Raubenheimer, Paul Fagius aus Bergzabern: sein Leben und Wirken als Reformator und Gelehrter (Grünstadt: Verein für pfälzische Kirchengeschichte, 1957). 44 Bruce Gordon, “‘Christo Testimonium reddunt omnes scripturae’: Theodor Bibliander’s Oration on Isaiah (1532) and Commentary on Nahum (1534)” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, pp. 107 – 142. 45 A full study of Protestant attitudes to the Vulgate is still to be written. For the case of Zurich, see Bruce Gordon, “‘Christo Testimonium reddunt omnes scripturae’”. On the Vulgate in the Renaissance more generally : Ronald K. Delph, “Emending and Defending the Vulgate Old Testament” in: Erika Rummel, ed., Biblical Humanism, pp. 297 – 318; Robert Coogan, Erasmus, Lee and the Correction of the Vulgate: The Shaking of the Foundations (Geneva: Droz, 1992); Christopher Celenza, “Renaissance Humanism and the New Testament: Lorenzo Valla’s Annotations to the Vulgate,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994), pp. 33 – 52; Pabel, Herculean Labours.

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teenth century. Protestant scholars were aware of the various textual strands of medieval Latin Bibles and the problems created by scribal error. The Latin of Jerome’s commentaries was regarded as sufficient proof that the errors of the Vulgate could not be attributed to the church father. Textual problems, however, were not alone in determining Protestant attitudes towards the Vulgate. Whatever the corruptions of the medieval church, there was no dispute that faithful Christians had known and worshiped with the words of the Latin Bible, largely through the missal and other liturgical and devotional books.46 The connection with Jerome (however problematic), the use of Latin in worship and theological debate, and the pastoral importance of a well-known version constituted a tradition Protestants were not prepared to jettison. Visibly and invisibly the Vulgate lived on among the Reformed and Lutherans. It does not follow, therefore, that use of the Vulgate divided the two largest Protestant confessions. Their differences were a matter of degree. Lutherans explicitly retained the Vulgate, which they revised heavily in light of Hebrew and Greek scholarship precisely because it was the Bible of the Church, as Luther had explicitly stated in his preface to the 1529 Wittenberg Latin edition.47 His argument for the legitimacy of the Vulgate and its continuing role in the Church was not, however, based on respect for the authority of the medieval ecclesiastical hierarchy, but primarily a pastoral consideration in defending and preserving the faith of the people. Comparative examination of the Reformed Latin Bibles reveals that while translations differed in places, at times significantly, their linguistic proximity is striking. The similarities of syntax and vocabulary reflected the methods employed. With the exception of Sebastian Castellio, each of the Protestant translators worked closely with previous editions, re-working, correcting, and emending as necessary. Collectively, the translations formed a community of Bibles. It was an approach attributed to Jerome’s Hebraica veritas.48 However, there was more. The closeness of the translations points to a concern of Reformed scholars to remain as close to the Vulgate as the Hebrew permitted. They were not, in short, inclined to provide willfully fresh translations in wholly unfamiliar words. Certainly, their efforts went far beyond the revisions to the Vulgate that contented Lutherans, and the Reformed did pronounce their Bibles better readings of the Hebrew, but they retained a veneration of the traditional 46 Josef Eskult, “Latin Bible Versions in the Age of Reformation and Post-Reformation: On the Development of New Latin Versions of the Old Testament in Hebrew and on the Vulgate as Revised and Evaluated among the Protestants,” Kyrkohistorisk ærsskrift (2006), p. 36. 47 Luther’s remarks are found in the preface to the 1529 Wittenberg Latin Bible, Pentatevchvs; Liber Iosve, sig Avr-v. 48 The preface to the Pentateuch of the Testamenti veteris treats in some detail Jerome’s approach to the Bible, (1590) sig A2v.

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text. Translation was not a purely philological endeavor: it was enveloped by theological, historical, and ecclesiastical beliefs. What, we might ask, were the purposes of these Latin translations, and, crucially, what was their authority within the churches?49 In one significant manner the Reformed Latin Bibles differed from the Vulgate. They had no liturgical role. Although Bibles had little place in medieval worship as books, the people heard the words of scripture through liturgical volumes such as the missal. The Protestant Latin Bibles were not read in churches either directly or mediated through some other form of literature; they were never intended for contact with the faithful. Their place was in the lecture hall, the scholar’s and pastor’s study, and as part of early modern gift culture, where they served as rather heavy calling cards. As products of both Christian humanism and the Reformation, Protestant Latin Bibles were a new genre of book somewhere between traditional translations and commentaries. They were study Bibles in which learning, whether linguistic, theological, or historical, was compiled around the sacred text as the heart and soul of the church. Like Calvin’s Institutes from 1539, these new Latin Bibles were tools in the creation of an educated clergy, but not just that. Increasingly, as we shall explore, they became compendia of knowledge, encyclopedic in nature: books that contained all that an educated, latinate cleric or lay person needed know. Protestant attitudes towards the biblical text were heavily influenced by the movement in late-medieval scriptural interpretation towards the literal sense. As Christopher Ocker has persuasively argued, allegorical and anagogical readings of the Bible were increasingly borne by the literal, a development reflected in the hermeneutical approaches of the reformers.50 With respect to the Latin Bibles, the embracing of the historical and figurative by the literal was integral to the emerging Protestant position on the comparative value of translations. Such an expansive understanding of the literal enabled reformers to reject the idea of one authoritative translation. The issue was far from abstract. The Council of Trent’s decree on the Vulgate had pushed the status of the Vulgate to the fore. In response to the unequivocal position taken by the Tridentine fathers, Reformed theologians required a different model for grounding the authority of the Bible as text. It was at this point that Jerome and Augustine entered the fray as interlocutors in a dialogue over the status of sacred texts, translation, and ecclesiastical authority. 49 See Matthew McLean’s introduction to Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation. 50 Christopher Ocker, Biblical Poetics before Humanism and Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

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The clearest framing of the discussion between Jerome and Augustine is found in Heinrich Bullinger’s preface to the 1543 Zurich Bible, although it was neither the first nor final appearance of the matter.51 At issue was Augustine’s resistance to Jerome’s translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew as unnecessary given the inspired status of the Septuagint. The bishop of Hippo, who had neither Hebrew nor Greek, was content with the vetus latina, a diverse body of vernacular translations made from the Septuagint. In these Bibles the Word of God was known to the people, and philological precision, Augustine argued, should not overshadow pastoral concerns. Further, the church had been, and should remain, content with these multiple translations without demanding one “correct” authoritative translation. Jerome, as Bullinger and others framed the story, argued for the necessity of learning the original languages, above all Hebrew, to produce the best possible version of the Bible. For him, sacred languages should prevail in order to prevent the church from lapsing into error. In the Protestant narrative, Augustine and Jerome embodied the tension of bishop and scholar, of pastoral and humanist concern, and the reformers sought to establish their historical, theological, and scholarly legitimacy by demonstrating the harmony of their positions. In a brilliant work of synthesis, Bullinger drew together the rhetorical figures of Augustine and Jerome to argue that both were correct and incorrect. Jerome was right to return to the Masoretic text and not trust the flawed Septuagint. It was essential to the life of the church that the original languages be studied to understand scripture. This teaching was not, Bullinger was clear, at odds with the virtue of multiple translations. If the recent acquisition of Greek and Hebrew had demonstrated anything, it was the contingent nature of the pursuit of the accurate Word of God. The 1543 preface opened with a passage from Jerome’s letter to Pope Damasus in which he quoted scripture to describe translation as a shared endeavor to which different persons brought their particular skills.52 For Bullinger, this was support for a collective approach to scholarship in which a community of texts could be in dialogue. Each translation would make its contribution, and together the truth would be best expressed. For Protestants this argument meant that truth could be linked not to any one text but to the on51 Biblia sacrosancta Testame[n]ti Veteris & Noui: À sacra Hebraeorum lingua Graecorumque fontibus, consultis simul orthodoxis interpretib. religiosissime translata in sermonem Latinum : authores omnemq[ue] totius operis rationem ex subiecta intelliges praefatione. Tigvri: Excvdebat C. Froschovervs, Anno M. D. XLIII. [1543], sig 3v. The argument is found in the preface to the 1531 Zurich Bible by Zwingli: Die gantze Bibel der ursprünglichen Ebraischen und Griechischen waarheyt nach auffs aller treüwlichest verteütschet (Zurich: Christoffel Froschouer, 1531). 52 Biblia sacrosancta Testame[n]ti Veteris & Noui: À sacra Hebraeorum lingua Graecorumque fontibus, consultis simul orthodoxis interpretib. religiosissime translata in sermonem Latinum…. Tigvri: Excvdebat C. Froschovervs, Anno M. D. XLIII. [1543], sig A2r.

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going process of translation and interpretation. Jerome and Augustine were, therefore, harmonized in a belief in the necessity of work with the Hebrew and Greek to produce ever better translations under the guidance of the Spirit.

The Tremellius/Junius Latin Bible The Testamenti veteris biblia sacra of Immanuel Tremellius and Franciscus Junius appeared as a complete volume in 1579 from the press of Andreas Wechel in Frankfurt, although it had already been printed in five parts from 1575.53 Tremellius was a figure of considerable renown, having held the regius chair of Hebrew at Oxford during the short reign of Edward VI.54 Calvin had sought to bring him to Geneva, but Elector Frederick of the Palatinate succeeded in luring the eminent scholar to a chair at the newly Reformed University of Heidelberg. Tremellius was widely regarded as a leading Hebraist. Born in Ferrara, he was a Jewish convert associated with the household of Cardinal Reginald Pole before fleeing north on account of his growing Protestant sympathies, fostered through contact with Peter Martyr Vermigli. Tremellius’ knowledge of biblical Hebrew and training in the rabbinic tradition placed him above contemporary Christian Hebraists, making him invaluable to the Reformed churches. Junius, a Huguenot jurist and theologian, was himself an excellent linguist whose scholarly reputation precipitated an invitation to Heidelberg in 1573 from the Elector Palatine Frederick III to work with Tremellius on a Latin translation of the Old Testament. Indeed, a distinguishing quality of Junius’ revisions to the Testamenti veteris was the elegance of his Latin. Tremellius’ knowledge of Semitic languages had been impressively displayed in his 1569 edition and translation of the Syriac New Testament, which he dedicated to Elizabeth of England.55 Syriac was virtually unknown in sixteenth-

53 Testamenti Veteris Biblia Sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi: Latini recens ex Hebraeo facti, breuibusq[ue] scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio: accesservnt libri qvi vvlgo dicuntur Apocryphi, Latine redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio. Francofvrti ad Moenvm: Ex officina typographica And. Wecheli, M. D. LXXIX. [1579]. The translation was printed in five folio volumes by Andreas Wechel in Frankfurt between 1575 and 1579. The complete Bible of 1579 was a quarto edition. Subsequent editions appeared in London in 1581 and 1585. Junius reworked the translation and greatly expanded the notes for 1590 (Geneva) and 1593 (London). The Bible was printed in Hanau in 1596 and 1602, before Junius’ death. 54 The standard intellectual biography of Tremellius is Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism. See also his “‘Epitome of the Old Testament, Mirror of God’s Grace, and Complete Anatomy of Man’: Immanuel Tremellius and the Psalms” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, pp. 217 – 235. 55 Robert Wilkinson, “Immanuel Tremellius’ 1569 Edition of the Syriac New Testament,”

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century Europe, and although Tremellius possessed no formal training in the language, his knowledge of Aramaic dialects enabled him to identify correctly its lineage. The Palatine library in Heidelberg had acquired five Syriac manuscripts from Guillaume Postel, and the Elector was eager for Tremellius to edit his recent acquisition. Frederick’s zeal for a fresh translation of the Old Testament likewise arose from a recent arrival of manuscripts, this time Masoretic texts from suppressed monastic libraries in the Palatinate. In Frederick, Tremellius and Junius were supported by a patron whose authentic devotion to the Reformed faith fired a desire to make Heidelberg a center of learning, and Frederick’s ambitious plan for a new translation of the Old Testament formed part of a consolidation of Reformed theology begun with the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563.56 Sadly for both men, the elector did not live to see the complete edition of his commission. The precise nature of the working relationship between Tremellius and Junius is difficult to determine, though we possess a few suggestive tidbits. Tremellius had begun the project some years before Junius’ arrival in Heidelberg, and from a later account, written after the Italian’s death in 1580, the Frenchman appears in some respects to have been the junior partner. Junius wrote in his preface to the Apocrypha that when Tremellius was forced to leave Heidelberg in 1577 after the death of Frederick, it was extremely difficult to continue with the translation.57 Such lamentation may have been in part rhetorical, intended to affirm translational authority, but Junius’ devotion to his elder partner was real and his loyalty to Tremellius’ memory deep. Junius’ suggestion that Tremellius was the senior figure seems plausible. Tremellius was thirty-five years older and held a chair at Heidelberg, while Junius was not given an academic position. Tremellius had received the original commission and had been working on the Old Testament for some time before Junius’ arrival. In addition, there are textual clues, largely from the style of Junius’ refinement of the translation, that strongly support the argument that the first printed text was primarily the work of Tremellius. Tremellius’ Latin was by no means poor, but the 1579 Bible is workmanlike, while later changes reveal a heightened literary sensibility. If Tremellius led the translation, no doubt with Journal of Ecclesiastical History 58 (2007), pp. 9 – 25. On Tremellius’ earlier time in England, see Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism, pp. 63 – 75. 56 Owen Chadwick, “The Making of a Reforming Prince: Frederick III, Elector Palatine” in: Robert Buick Knox, ed., Reformation, Conformity and Dissent (London: Epworth, 1977). On the introduction of Reformed doctrine in Heidelberg, see Charles D. Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus in the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 51 – 83. 57 (1590) sig A2r. Junius provides a moving tribute to Tremellius in the preface to the ecclesiastical books, (1590) sig A2r-v.

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Junius’ collaboration, there is reason to believe that the extensive prefaces were primarily by the younger Frenchman. The prefaces were in the name of both men, but their heavily theological character closely resembles Junius’ arguments found in his subsequent writing, a similarity that extends to the use of the same metaphors and biblical passages. Further, unlike the translation and notes for Genesis, the prefaces were never revised, suggesting that Junius felt there was no need. Finally, in the revisions made by Junius for the 1590 Geneva edition, a good deal of the doctrinal points made in the prefaces was moved into the annotations, placing doctrine and text in direct contact – a position consistent with Junius’ argument about the connection between knowledge of languages and doctrine. The evidence for the manner of their partnership provided by the printed texts is circumstantial, but still possibly illuminating. As originally conceived and printed in 1579, the Tremellius/Junius Bible divided the prefaces and annotations to serve distinct though related purposes. The prefaces provided the theological, historical, and methodological material, while the annotations were primarily to enable the reader to understand the Hebrew. Philology and interpretation were physically separated in the book, with only a few exceptions when some doctrinal points were briefly mentioned in the notes. Where did this structure place the Heidelberg Bible on the map of Protestant scholarship? The sparing references to theology in the annotations and the focus on rendering the Hebrew accessible take us back to Sebastian Münster’s Biblia Hebraica of 1534/35, but only superficially. Münster’s reluctance to engage in theological debate arose from an Erasmian concern not to conflate philological explanation with confessional argument. Münster had sought to present in his notes a broad range of linguistic interpretations in order to allow the reader to make informed choices.58 The Zurich Bible of 1543 made a clear move away from this sense of open text towards a more framed reading of scripture, with the marginal notes providing unambiguous theological guidance. Theological explanation in the Zurich Bible was carefully worked out, with a detailed system of common places that linked the text with the prefatory material. Theodore Beza’s 1556 New Testament, with its Latin translation, was laden with theological commentary more extensive than that done in Zurich. The Tremellius/Junius Bible of 1579/80, however, worked with a different model. The reader came to the translation already well instructed in the literary genre of the text, its historical development, and the crucial doctrinal arguments. The prefaces, with their treatment of scripture and doctrine, served as texts akin to Calvin’s Institutes or the Heidelberg Catechism. They instructed the reader on 58 Münster’s approach will be thoroughly treated in my forthcoming book with Matthew McLean.

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the nature of scripture, how it was to be read, and provided summaries of doctrine in order that one might understand the Bible. The marginalia and annotations focused on facilitating reading of the text, although some theological commentary is to be found, often relating to the triune nature of God. To understand what takes place in the prefaces, we need to attend to Junius’ other writings. For example, in his Oratio de linguae Hebraeae antiquitate praestantiaque the Frenchman wrote on the theological importance of biblical languages.59 There could be no serious theological discussion, he argued, without recourse to Hebrew and Greek. And in a statement revealing of his attitude towards Latin as a sacred language, Junius declared translation helpful and necessary but ancillary, not to be confused with original languages. A Latin Bible is like a hesitant captain on a stormy sea, for it is unable to provide the certainty of Hebrew and Greek. In the Oratio Junius is clear that doctrinal debate cannot be separated from biblical exegesis, and the 1590 revisions bear out this position. The annotations, illuminating as they do the original languages, he regarded as the proper place for doctrinal instruction.

The 1580 and 1590 Editions: Genesis 1 – 25 To illustrate the extent and character of the revised annotations for the 1590 Testamenti veteris, we turn to Junius’ work on Genesis 1 – 25, with particular attention to the first two chapters, which were almost entirely rewritten. With reference to the 1580 edition, it is possible to see how Junius reworked the annotations through expansion of theological argument, the addition of classical and patristic references, and attention to historical and geographical matters.60 59 Sarx, Franciscus Junius D.ä.(1545 – 1602), p. 192 f. 60 The editions used for this comparison are: 1) Testamenti Veteris Biblia sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi, latini recens ex hebraeo facti, brevibfflsque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio: accesservnt libri qvi vvlgo dicuntur Apocryphi, LatinÀ redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio, mvlto omnes qvam ante emendativs editi, numeris locisq´, citatis omnibus capitum destincioni quam haec editio sequitur exacti¾s respondentibus: quibus etiam adjunximus Novi Testamenti libros ex sermone syriaco abeodem Tremellio in Latinum conversos. Londini, Excudebat Henricus Middletonus, impensis W.N., 1580. 2) Testamenti Veteris Biblia sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi, latini recens ex hebraeo facti, brevibfflsque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio. Accesserunt libri qui vulgo dicuntur Apocryphi, LatinÀ redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio, multo omnes qvam ante emendativs editi, numeris locisq´, citatis omnibus capitum destincioni quam haec editio sequitur exacti¾s respondentibus: quibus etiam adjunximus Novi Testamenti libros ex sermone Syro ab eodem Tremellio, & ex sermone graeco a Theodoro Beza in latinum versos … Secunda cura Francisci Junii. Genevae, Apud I. Tornaesium, impensis And. Wecheli haeredum, Claudii Marnii, & Ioannis Aubrii, 1590.

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For comparison I have used the 1580 Bible published by a consortium of five English stationers, which included the Queen’s Printer, Christopher Barker, and the Genevan 1590 Bible from Ioannis Tornaesium.61 Junius only revised the first twenty-five chapters of Genesis. I have yet to determine why he broke off, but the sudden halt suggests a project interrupted. It remains unclear whether Junius intended to pursue work on the annotations. What is certain, however, was the importance attached by Junius to Genesis, on which he lavished enormous energy. Following Calvin, he regarded Genesis as one of the pillars of scripture, and his treatment of creation and patriarchs casts light on his understanding of scripture and theological method.62 The breadth of the changes to the annotations is immediately apparent when one places the two editions side by side. Both are in quarto, but the density of the 1590 textual apparatus strikes the eye, especially for those chapter annotations that doubled in length. The 1590 Testamenti veteris reflects years in which Junius was intensively engaged with scripture through lecturing on the Old Testament from 1584 in Heidelberg and the preparation of a set of doctoral theses on the doctrine of justification.63 Junius’ theological and exegetical work converged in the annotations, where doctrinal instruction and translation were closely linked in the expansion of the notes. As we shall see, the reworked notes were not only more theological, for Junius also introduced a whole new level of humanist scholarship with a vast body of historical, geographical, literary, and natural scientific knowledge. This carefully constructed infrastructure of learning was created not only by transferring material from the prefaces to the annotations (which was done), but also through the addition of a great deal of new information. In general, the 1590 revisions were expansions of the 1580 texts rather than retractions or corrections. Comparison of the 1580 and 1590 Testamenti veteris reveals Junius’ respect for the first edition as well as his principal intention either to provide further explanation of subjects briefly noted in the first edition or to introduce new interpretive material where previously there had been no annotation. This approach was most radically undertaken for the first two chapters. For the following chapters Junius was selective, often content with the earlier material. Where he did not rewrite the annotation, the most notable 61 In terms of the order of the printing, it should be noted that parts 2 – 5 of the Old Testament (so, everything after the general title and before the New Testament) have individual imprints dated 1579, indicating pretty clearly that the project took some time to complete, but was underway not too long after the Frankfurt edition came off the press that year. I am grateful to Aaron Pratt for this information. 62 As does Calvin, Junius uses the first two chapters of Genesis to offer a full explication of God, creation, humanity, etc. Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 154 f. 63 Michael Plathow, “Junius, Franz (du Jon) der Ältere,” Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 3 (1992), pp. 885 – 888.

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changes were the introduction of classical and patristic sources, which were not limited to references but often quoted at some length. Junius went to considerable pains to ensure that the reader was given precise references in order that the texts could be readily consulted. By contrast, in the 1580 edition few ancient authors or their works were named. As with the compendia and epitome of Calvin’s Institutes, the enhanced number of citations and marginal notes in the 1590 Bible not only brought clarity, but were also to serve pastors and others engaged in doctrinal disputes. When the Tremellius/Junius translation was first printed, in 1579, the notes served specific purposes in clarifying the sense of Hebrew words and phrases to avoid ambiguity or confusion. Rhetorical devices were identified, but generally only to explain the sense of the passage. In addition, with occasional and brief doctrinal references, the tone of 1580 was more pastoral, providing assistance to pastors in preparing sermons. By 1590 the audience had changed. Doctrine and perspicuity were joined to instruct students and to serve as apologia for the Palatinate church. Junius worked through the translation, perhaps in response to criticism, although as far as I can detect the changes were generally minor matters of style rather than substantive alterations of the text. I have not found any place where a change of translation has led to a different interpretation. Nevertheless, the Latin is more elegant and marked by an economy of language that makes the translation pleasing to read and very clear – ideal for students of theology. We begin with the beginning. Genesis 1:1 famously opens with “In principio creavit Deus, caelum & terram.” The note for 1580 argues that the sense of the passage is that God, about to make heaven and earth, created rough chaos that afterwards furnished the matter for forming heavenly and terrestrial bodies. (“Sensus est, Deus principio facturus caelum et terram, creavit impolitum chao, quod postea suppeditavit caelestibus terrestribusque coporibus formandis materiam.”) Ten years later, Junius added a great deal. I quote the Latin to give a sense of the extent of his changes: Puta universitatis rerum: id est, ut Basilius optime interpretatur. Infra 2.4. Ps 33.6 & 136.5. Jerme 10.12 & 51.15. Act 14.15 & 17.24. Hebr 11.3. nihilo fecit & quid e potenissime ac magnificentissime: nam haec propria est Hebrei verbi signification. Unus essential, personae tres, Pater, Filius, & Spiritus sanctus: ut Hebraea voce ostenditur. Sic deinceps in creationis historia oportet accipi, nis quum adhibetur aliqua determination ad personarum relationem inter se pertinent. i. tum extimum illum hujus universitatis ambitum, cum supercaelestibus incolis illius & spiritalibus formis atque intelligentiis, infra 2.1 Iob. 38.7. Johannis 1.3. Colos. 1.16. tum materiam illam primam, ex qua terra, & resomnes caelestes ac terrestres factae sunt. Quamobrem caeli & terrae nominibus articulus Hebraeus praefixus legitur.64 64 1590 Fol 3. I quote this first reference in Latin to provide a sense of Junius’ style.

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The reader immediately encounters a good example of the changed approach when he/she is referred to Basil’s homilies on Genesis, known as the Hexaemeron, for a full explication of Genesis 1:1.65 The nine sermons delivered in 378 have been read as Basil’s attack on allegorical biblical interpretation.66 Not only is the Cappadocian father named along with his text in order for the reader to find the precise passage, but Junius establishes a method of reading found throughout his revised passages. Church fathers, philosophers, and geographers are enlisted as authorities to be read alongside the Bible. Theological and humanist learning are not confined to the annotations. Rather, they are the beginning point to propel the reader into a world of learning in which the biblical text is fons (a word favored by Tremellius and Junius to describe scripture). What is provided in the annotations suffices for that which a reader needs to know, but the references also direct the reader to further study. For Junius the Bible was both a book of learning in which the truth is revealed, and also the entry point to a world of sacred and profane knowledge, a community of disciplines such as natural science, geography, and history, all unified by God’s wisdom. The 1590 annotation to Genesis 1:1 is not only a complete re-write of 1580 in the manner found throughout the first two chapters, but the changes exemplify Junius’ intentions. Whereas in 1580 the marginal notes are almost exclusively references to Hebrew words, in 1590 not only has the number of references increased, but they are also supplemented by numerous references to relevant Old and New Testament passages crucial to the theological argument. The biblical cross-references that crowd the margins of the 1590 Bible enable the reader to move easily between the Latin text and the annotations, providing the reader with illustrative passages from the Old Testament as well as explicitly Christological references from the New. Further, they served as visual markers of a developing doctrinal argument unfolding through the unity of text, marginalia, and notes. Thus, in several respects the relation of the reader to the printed page was reimagined in 1590. Following Calvin and others, Junius understands Genesis’ account of creation as the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom, and this explains his complete rewrite of the annotations. The words of Moses in the opening chapters are the key to all that follows, and Junius examines at length the nature of creation, God, and the universe. He returns to Basil to refer to his teaching that creation took place in time, and that “beginning” refers to time. In interpreting “ex nihilo creavit” Junius presents an argument found at the opening of his preface to the 65 An English translation of Basil’s Hexaemeron is available online at http://www.newadvent. org/fathers/3201.htm. 66 George D. Dragas, “La doctrine de la cr¦ation d’aprÀs l’Hexa¦m¦ron de saint Basile le Grand,” Istina 28 (1983), pp. 282 – 308; Richard Lim, “The Politics of Interpretation in Basil of Caesarea’s Hexaemeron,” Vigiliae christianae 44 (1990), pp. 351 – 370.

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Pentateuch, that the Hebrew name for God being plural is a direct reference to the Trinity (“unus essentia, tres personae, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus sanctus: ut Hebrae voce ostenditur”).67 The argument itself was by no means new, but its appearance in Junius’ interpretation of the moment of creation is significant. At the beginning of his preface to the Pentateuch, Junius argued that God as Trinity was the author of scripture.68 Beginning with “caelum” and “terram” Junius discusses the universe and natural order to demonstrate the harmony of biblical and classical thought. Both the heavens and the earth are the outermost bounds of the universe, with the heavenly inhabitants above, along with the spiritual forms and intelligences. Below is matter, from which the earth and sky are made.69 The readers are referred to Colossians 1:16, “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him”, and Job 38:7, “when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy”. The argument is intended to support Junius’ position, repeatedly stressed in the creation story, of the harmony between the biblical account and ancient science. With Genesis 1:2 Junius explains “terra res informis & inanis” in terms of Aristotle’s Physics, as well as the correlation between Greek and Hebrew terms. Junius is particularly interested in describing the physical nature of the “abyssi”, the dark deep, by referring his readers to Psalm 104:6, where they will find the image: “You cover it [the earth] with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.” The “wind from God”, translated in 1580 as “Spiritus Dei” (the wording was retained in 1590), Junius explains to be the third person of the Trinity, reiterating the brief comment from the 1580 Bible that the Holy Spirit is neither wind nor air in any natural sense.70 The 1590 annotation on the passage stresses the Trinitarian nature of creation and refutes the Pythagorean idea of a spirit of the world (“non ille mundi spiritus quem non finxerunt Pythagorei”). The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, unlike any natural force. Of particular interest to Junius is the identification of specific rhetorical forms found in the Hebrew scriptures, such as in Genesis 1:8 where the birds, clouds, and rain are interpreted as a synecdoche for the heavens, such as is to be 67 The preface to the Pentateuch clearly argues for the Trinitarian authorship of scripture, (1590) sig A3r. 68 In the preface to the Pentateuch, the Trinity as author of the Bible is clearly stated: “At huis legis auctor est Deus Pater in Filio per Spiritum sanctum: ad cujus praesentiam caelum exarsit, intremuit terra, Mosche exhorruit, Israelitae perterrefacti sunt, dejecta denique; omnia quae suas vires cum huius viribus ausa unquam sunt committere.” sig Aiiiir. 69 (1590), sig A1v. 70 Ibid.

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found in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, Pliny’s Natural History (Bk 2, chap 38), and Aristotle’s Physics.71 Once again, the references are not decorous; the reader is positively encouraged to read Cicero, Pliny, and Aristotle. The discussion of nature and language is continued with “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’” In an extensive comment, Junius argues that “confluant aquae istae” must be understood in terms of “confluere”, meaning to flow together in a right and equitable course, as a verb used only for water. Further, Junius argues that grammarians such as Marcus Terentius Varro (116 – 127 BCE) believed that there was an etymological link between “aqua” and “aequa” (level, equal), and he makes use of this argument to press his case. He identifies other rhetorical devices such as sylleptic forms, as in Genesis 1:9, where God names water and land. Unlike the 1580, where parallels between the Bible and classical forms are occasionally observed, Junius demonstrates how the Bible embraces and perfects grammar and rhetoric. This close attention to literary forms reinforces his overarching argument that the Bible is the source of all knowledge. The analysis of rhetorical constructions is a significant part of Junius’ work on the annotations. We encounter this concern again with the vegetation of verse 11, where Junius uses rhetorical and grammatical terminology to make distinctions of natural science. “Herbascat”, he argues, means by synecdoche “to produce”, adding that thus far the reader has heard only of the creation of simple bodies (viz., the elements). Now comes the creation of composite bodies (“de compositis”); first the inanimate and then the animate. The terrestrial inanimate forms were created prior to the heavenly, an order that displays the marvelous power of God – who makes things without any medium (i. e., the sun) – just as the light without its instruments was made on the first day.72 Junius renders “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it,’ and it was done” as “Iterum dixit Deus, herbascat terra herbulas, herbas sementanteis semen, arbores fructiferas edentes fructum in species suas, in quibus suum sit semen super terram: & fuit ita.” In his annotations he elaborates on the scientific distinctions carried by the words. “Herbulas” are unplanted plants placed by God that they might be ready for the animals. “Herbas sementanteis semen”, however, are plants that come forth by cultivation. “Fructiferas”, he explains, is the natural potency for producing fruit, and in “edentes fructum in species suas, in quibus suum sit semen super terram” Junius sees the bringing forth, begetting of fruit conveyed by the Latin “edo” as akin to the spread of the Word of God in the world. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid.

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At the crucial moment when God creates humanity in his image, both the 1580 and 1590 annotations argue for Genesis 1:26 as textual support for the doctrine of the Trinity. In discussing “faciamus”, the 1580 annotations are explicitly theological, stating that the plural does not refer to the angels or the elements but to God, who preserves the glory of creation for himself alone.73 The plurals “faciamus” and “nostra” are not some form of reverential language applied to the deity, but indicate God’s triune nature. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one God, three distinct persons. In speaking (“dixit”) he deliberates with himself. In sum, this passage in which God creates humanity in his image is, in Tremellius’ words, clear witness to the Holy Trinity. Junius’ extensive treatment of creation takes us to further elaboration. Genesis 2:3 tells of God’s blessing of the Sabbath, and the 1580 discussion of “sanctificavit” refers to the fourth commandment, providing the reader with a cross-reference to Exodus 20:8. Junius provides a strikingly different approach. “Benedixit”, he writes, means that this day was already equally blessed by the law of nature. God conferred on it a singular blessing above all others, which is explained by that agreement by which he established the whole creation. Thus, “sanctificavit” indicates how God endowed the peculiar sanctity of the Sabbath over other days by his institution and power. He wants it to be holy and to be taken up with holy things alone. There are two further reasons for its particular status. The first is civil and pertains to humanity : one’s servant and maidservant should have the same rest as their master (Deut 5:20). The second reason is ceremonial, for the day was a solemn commemoration of the marvelous liberation from Egypt. The addition of these arguments relating to natural, civil, and ceremonial laws in 1590 is a direct connection of the annotation with the arguments on this subject in the Pentateuch preface. The extensive rewriting of the annotations to Genesis 1 and 2 permits some preliminary observations. Most of the 1580 material was retained in some form: sometimes reprinted verbatim without revision (rarely the case), other times verbatim with elaboration (most common). Where 1580 provided complex explanations of Hebrew grammar and words (such as the etymology of the word “rock” in Gen 2:12), these explanations survived untouched, though in 1590 they were often accompanied by many more such explanatory notes. The marginalia of 1590 supplies numerous cross-references to New Testament passages, an interpretive structure almost entirely absent from the first translation. Most striking, without doubt, is the manner in which Junius structures the annotations in terms of philosophical and theological argument. Not only does Aristotle’s natural philosophy provide the lens through which creation is explained, but the rhetorical structure of the text is carefully revealed, together 73 Ibid.

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with the scriptural basis for Reformed scholastic theology. In short, Junius transforms the discursive character of the 1580 annotations, which largely follow the grain of the biblical text to provide linguistic aid, into a theological textbook, a rigorous study of Hebrew and Latin, literary forms, and explanation of the harmony between scripture and natural science.74 Theological, philosophical, and literary concerns, although extensively explained, do not exhaust the range of Junius’ interests. A seemingly harmless passage, Genesis 2:14, receives the most extensive treatment of any part of the chapter : “The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” In 1580 Tremellius/Junius made the following comment: “Chiddekel] the superior part of the Tigris from its source up to its confluence: this name was distortedly received by the inhabitants as Diglito – see Pliny, Natural History 6.27.”75 The annotation is one of the few places where an ancient author is named in the 1580 edition. In 1590 the annotation has been wholly re-written to run to two full quarto pages! Junius writes: Chiddekel] The superior river Euphrates flows into the Tigris at the Seleucia and Ctesiphontes (which the ancients considered to be made by hand) and reaching as far as Apamea, where we have said the river Tigris once had lost its name. These things demonstrate both that it has the name Diglito corruptly in place of Hidelito (as Pliny attests – Nat Hist 6.27) together with the following words of Moses, because he says that it flows from the Orient across Assyria. The Tigris having been borne along flows into the Euphrates and Apamea. Euphrates] the middle river of it, which crosses Babylon and Otris. Since in the explanation of this place interpreters exert themselves greatly and differ on this point, it will not be un-useful, I hope, if we also without any prejudice whatsoever, briefly offer our opinion, which we believe corresponds to the truth.76

What follows is an extraordinarily lengthy and dense treatment in which Junius attempts to sort out the geography of Eden. He frequently cites his sources, largely Pliny and the Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia. In brief, Junius addresses a series of issues identified as most significant for the reader. The biblical geography was true, and not, following the Origenists, to be read as allegory. The Bible is a historical document and source of factual knowledge, but the question remains of how it is to be understood when the information is so confusing. Junius rejects the views of those who sought to make the garden huge, almost the whole of Asia and Africa (or at least of Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia). Further, he rejects the opinion of those who think Eden was the region of Damascus in Syria, for their argument does not agree 74 Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. pp. 64 – 120. 75 1580 “Chiddekel] superior Tygrides pars, a loco ubi oratur usque ad confluensem: hinc nomen depravatum Diglito incolis reeptum, Plinio 6.17,” sig A2v. 76 1590 sig A3r-v.

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with Moses. Another misreading, according to Junius, was by those who thought Eden was in Babylonia or Chaldea but that this region had been drastically changed by the flood. The argument he found most persuasive is that the garden was located between the Tigris and Euphrates, but he was prepared to modify his view to preserve the four rivers mentioned by Moses in 2:10. We might wonder why an annotation on biblical geography wholly out of proportion to the others should appear. In comparison to questions of the Trinity or the nature of creation, do such complexities concerning rivers matter so greatly? The answer is no and yes. In his last sentence about the location of the garden, Junius writes, “[…] but because the place of the garden, its location, was not further defined by Moses; for this reason we certainly do not want, nor are we able, to divine it: but voluntarily, and religiously, we remain within the ‘limits’ (as they are called) of Scripture.” The annotation on Genesis 2:14 goes to the heart of Junius’ project. He wanted to demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between classical and biblical learning. The ancient geographers were able to throw light on Moses’ account of Eden and the rivers because they ultimately came from the same source of truth. Junius’ annotations were to demonstrate the unity of learning while properly acknowledging its discrete parts, in this case geography. The Bible contains the whole of knowledge, but in particular forms, as his preface to the translation sets out in detail. Truth is indivisible, but in the biblical text it is expressed through law, history, prophecy, and poetry. They are different, but not contradictory. One needs to understand their character, rules, and style. Similarly, ancient geographers and Mosaic accounts of the land are closely related yet ultimately distinguished by the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch. When differences appear, one must defer to scripture, but only on account of our flawed understanding of the truth. Knowledge advances through deeper understanding of holy writ, the book of knowledge at the center of a web of knowledge (that is, for example, classical, legal, and scientific). Under the guidance of the Spirit, scripture is a guide to all learning; it is the unity of all wisdom. I limit myself to a few illustrative examples from the following chapters, which were not reworked to the same degree as chapters one and two, although the changes are both significant and consistent with Junius’ purpose. We continue to find 1580 treated with great respect, with alterations or emendations made with discretion. With Genesis 3:22, however, we come across a rare example of open disagreement. The annotation in 1580 refers to the language of the serpent as “ironic”, while ten years later Junius writes that it was certainly not irony, but a scolding. Such differences are almost never flagged. A more usual form of disagreement is found in 4:12, where Junius reworks punishment to mean more than exile (1580). It refers, he adds, to instability of body and mind (“you will be wandering and disturbed by agitations”).

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For Genesis 3 – 25 Junius continues to add classical and patristic, as well some rabbinic and contemporary authors. Usually the references to authorities establish doctrinal argument or contribute historical and geographical information. The tone of the annotations stresses that classical and patristic authors support the argument being offered; they are witnesses to its verity. The argument is not, however, based on their teaching. Typical is Junius’ contribution to the Noah story in Genesis 6:4, where the reading of 1580 is largely retained with the addition of references to the interpretations of Josephus, Jerome, Cyril, and Epiphanius. At certain points, however, the reasons for the choice of references are somewhat opaque. For Genesis 4:23, in the midst of a long annotation the reader encounters four lines of Euripides in Greek followed by a passage from Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus. The quotations are not explained other than as classical analogues to the Lamech story. It must be said that some classical references seem so pointless that one suspects Junius was simply showing off his prodigious knowledge of ancient literature. Without doubt, one of Junius’ passions was geography, and some of the most extensively supplemented annotations concern the physical locations of biblical stories, as we have seen in the example of Eden and the four rivers. In yet another expansive geographical explanation, about one quarter of a page in length, Junius treats Genesis 8:4 and assembles evidence from classical and patristic sources to determine the precise location of Mount Ararat. Cited authorities include Quintus Curtius Rufus, Ptolemy, Epiphanius, Josephus, Tertullian, Arnobius, Prudentius, Eusebius, and Sozemon. The direction of this interest is signaled in the 1580 Testamenti veteris, which has an uncharacteristically long note on chapter ten, well over a page. The 1580 annotation for chapter ten is one of the few places where a classical author is named, in this case Pliny. The 1590, however, greatly exceeds the enthusiasm of 1580 by providing a great deal more commentary. The revised annotation begins with an explanatory section of Tolstoyesque proportions before proceeding to an elucidation of each of the names of the people and places mentioned and sifting through the body of classical authorities/patristic evidence. Although somewhat exhausting (even mind-numbing) to read, a clear purpose emerges. Junius’ attention to detail demonstrates the veracity and consistency of the biblical account. As noted above, the witness of classical writers only confirms what is found, albeit obliquely, in the Bible. The Bible is a wholly consistent body of knowledge that yields its wisdom to those of learning who are guided by the Spirit. It is no coincidence that the Testamenti veteris was printed in Geneva in 1590, the same year as the critical edition of Calvin’s Institutes. When Junius came to Heidelberg in 1573 to work with Tremellius on the Latin translation of the Old Testament, it was clear that the Italian was the senior partner. By 1590 Junius had

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become a prominent figure in the Reformed churches, having taught in the Palatinate and published extensively on various theological questions. The revisions to Genesis demonstrate how he intended to take the Bible forward into a new age of Reformed orthodoxy in which he was a leading theological voice. Although limited in scope, the changes concerned one of the key passages of scripture concerning the nature of God and creation. The 1590 Old Testament is a Reformed book in transition, a book of two generations of the Reformation. From Tremellius’ birth to Junius’ death was a span of almost one hundred years. Junius created a book of knowledge, encyclopedic in character and astonishing in scope. To turn the pages of the Testamenti veteris is to be invited into a world that envisaged the divine source of all learning, and the unity of wisdom. Although he died in 1603, Franciscus Junius gave the seventeenth century a Bible that would be widely read and cited, as Dryden poetically observed.

William Dyrness

Chapter Six: God’s Play: Calvin, Theatre, and the Rise of the Book1

In the second decade of the sixteenth century, everything changed for the book. This is the claim of Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin. They note, “Religious issues swiftly became questions of the foremost importance and unleashed the strongest passions.”2 Commentaries on Scriptures, versions of the Bible in the vernacular, pamphlets of sermons, and posters of various kinds proliferated after 1517. Karl Schottenloher notes, in the hands of Luther and the other reformers, these became “forms of summons”.3 In what would become the first propaganda campaign carried on in the press, Febvre and Martin tell us, “all Germany caught fire”.4 It took the rest of that century for rising literacy rates to allow the ordinary person to profit from this campaign,5 but we today still live in the shadow of these developments. We all know, of course, that books in themselves are powerless to change us. In fact study of the early history of the book has shown that, initially, books served to reinforce existing social norms.6 But we still believe our English teachers when they tell us that books can change our life!7 I want to ask today : Why do we believe this? What was the strength

1 I want to thank the Calvin Studies Society Colloquium, where this was first presented, for their hospitality and interaction with the paper, especially Elsie McKee, Karen Spierling, and Randall Zachman. 2 Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450 – 1800, ed. and trans. David Gerard (London: NLB, 1976), p. 288. 3 Karl Schottenloher, Books and the Western World: A Cultural History, ed. and trans. W. D. Boyd and I. H. Wolfe (London: McFarland and Co, 1968), p 287. 4 Febvre and Martin, The Coming of the Book, p. 291. 5 Febvre and Martin note all these materials “scarcely circulated outside the relatively restricted circles of educated clerics and of humanists” until the 1520s. The Coming of the Book, p. 288. 6 See Jonathan Green, Printing and Prophecy : Prognostication and Media Change 1450 – 1550 (Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2011). “During the first century after Gutenberg […] a print history of prophetic works [is…] largely the story of the printing press as an agent of the status quo,” p. 69. Cf. p. 136 f. 7 They would endorse critic Julian Barnes’ recent claim: “Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and

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behind this Reformation “summons”? I think the answer to this question lies in a larger story that I want to try to outline. To do so I will focus on John Calvin’s use of theatre and the influence of this both on his theology and on these cultural developments. First, I will sketch in some significant medieval developments and then suggest how Calvin made use of these in some cases, and parted company with them in others. It is well known that the theatre played a significant role in Calvin’s theological reflection. Using the search function on my Kindle I came up with 79 references to theatre in the Commentaries and seven in the Institutes – in addition to instances of related words like “spectator” and “spectacle”. Many scholars have called attention to this – Michael Horton, Susan Schreiner, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Denis Crouzet, most prominently.8 Calvin’s use of theatre and human participation in the theatre of the world had a long pre-history and by the time of the Renaissance it had become a dominant trope.9 But what exactly did “theatre” mean at the time Calvin was writing and what did he intend it to mean? Drama and theatre in the Renaissance reflect a recovery of classical drama on the one hand, and a development of medieval traditions deriving from the Mass and Mystery Plays on the other – both provide the context in which Calvin reflected on drama. Classical ideas of theatre recovered in the Renaissance owe a debt to Aristotle’s classic Poetics, where he develops the three part drama – protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe (or introduction, rising tension, and denouement). Although classical plays were performed – Calvin approved of a performance of Terence in Geneva, and Bucer acknowledged the value of classical dramatists – classical drama was not really recovered until the second half of the sixteenth century.10 And there are important reasons why classical sources were not definitive for Calvin. First, when it came to theatricality, Calvin was working with wholly different premises. His debt was to biblical categories and his own humanist heritage, remains one perfect symbol: the printed book.” Barnes, “My life as a bibliophile,” The Guardian Weekly 187:6 (July 7, 2012), p. 27. 8 Michael Horton, Covenant and Eschatology : The Divine Drama (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002); Susan Schreiner, The Theatre of His Glory (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991/5); Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005); Denis Crouzet, Jean Calvin: Vies ParallÀls (Paris: Foyard, 2000). Cf. John Piper and David Mathis, ed., With Calvin in the Theatre of God: The Glory of Christ and Everyday Life (Wheaton: Crossways, 2010). 9 See William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). 10 Ruth Blackburn, Biblical Drama under the Tudors (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), p. 42; Howard B. Norland, Drama in Early Tudor Britain: 1485 – 1558 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 142. See also David Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston: Hougton-Mifflin, 1975), p. 96: “Nowhere in humanist drama before 1550 do we find classical five act structure, or the unities of time, place and action.”

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rather than the classical poets. Erich Auerbach, in his classic study of western literature, has contrasted the classical notion of drama with that of the New Testament. He notes that the Greek storytellers look down from above on the drama they are portraying; the Gospel writers are at the center of what is going on. Everything for them is related effortlessly to Christ’s presence. For Mark, Auerbach says, “the story becomes visually concrete. And the story speaks to everybody ; everybody is urged and indeed required to take sides for or against it.”11 In this story the high and the low, which had been strictly separated in classical drama, are merged.12 Auerbach stipulates, though, in a reference directly applicable to Calvin’s usage, that for the gospel writers the categories of humble and sublime are theologico-ethical categories rather than aesthetic ones.13 But the second reason why the classical theatre could not serve as a source for Calvin’s understanding of drama is the history of dramatic performance that he would have inherited, especially as this was mediated through the humanist tradition. By the early Middle Ages classical drama had been supplanted by the rise of the medieval liturgy. O. B. Hardison concluded that “religious ritual was the drama of the early Middle Ages, and had been ever since the decline of the classical theatre.” Already in the ninth century, he notes, the Mass “was consciously interpreted as drama.”14 Hardison, in his classic treatment of these things, ascribes the ultimate source of this dramatic sensitivity to Pope Gregory the Great, who in the early seventh century articulated what became the dominant interpretation of the Mass. I want to quote Gregory’s description in full, not only because of its influence on the Middle Ages, but also because it bears centrally on Calvin’s very different understanding of drama. Gregory writes in his Dialogues: Let us meditate, what manner of sacrifice this is, ordained for us, which for our absolution doth always represent the passion of the only son of God: for what believing Christian can doubt that in the very hour of the sacrifice, at the words of the Priest, the heavens opened, and the choirs of angels are present in the mystery of Jesus Christ; that high things are accomplished with low, and earthly joined to heavenly, and the one thing is made of visible and invisible.15

11 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, ed. and trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), pp. 46, 48, here at p. 48. 12 Ibid., p. 151. 13 Ibid., p. 153. 14 Osborne Bennett Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965), p. viii. Subsequent pages in the text are to this source. 15 Dialogues IV, ET E. Gardner, quoted in Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama, p. 36.

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The Mass, then, in the medieval period became a symbolic representation and an elaborate drama of the renewal of redemption through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. That drama, embodied by the movement and words of the liturgy, became the focus of the attention, and the emotions, of the medieval worshiper ; it is in the liturgical drama itself that the high is merged with the humble. As Hardison describes this: “The elevation, which unites the role of the celebrant with the symbolism of the sacrament as Corpus Christi, provided a focus for the emotions of the medieval congregation. During the elevation, the body of the Savior was visibly suspended on the cross.”16 There are significant aspects of the space of this performance and its time to which I want to call attention. First consider the location of this drama. Initially it was circumscribed within the space of the Churches. But as early as the tenth century, representational plays began to break away from this, and cycles of Saints Plays, and later Mystery Plays were developed out of this liturgy – as in the “MystÀre d’Adam” and “Resurrecion”.17 But, Hardison stresses, in these representational plays (and later in the more secularized plays), the “ritual structure characteristic of the Mass […] carries over unchanged”.18 But note that the drama was now spilling out from the space of the church, where that Mass was performed, out into the streets of the city. Here players mixed in with the people as ritual was elaborated before them – the ritual had become drama.19 The object of these Saints Plays, as of the Mass, was to call observers to participate in the recurring drama of redemption as this was described in Scripture and presented in the Mass. Here the significance of time becomes clear. The dramatic structure of the Mass and these plays reflected a view of history as a timeless pattern of generation and return. As St Bonaventure wrote in comparing art and Scripture: the aim of both is the same, to show “the eternal generation and Incarnation of the Word, the pattern of human life and the union of the soul with God”.20 Every generation was believed to participate in this great recurring pattern; in this one historia.21 16 Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama, p. 65. 17 James H. Forse argues that development of Saints Plays was associated with a desire to reform the church. “Religious Drama and Ecclesiastical Reform in the Tenth Century,” Early Theatre 5:2 (2002), pp. 47 – 70. 18 Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama, p. 284. Hardison’s argument that in Shakespeare we have a secular equivalent to religious ritual has been subsequently much debated. See the discussion in Regina Mara Schwartz, Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism: When God left the World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), chapter 3, “Shakespeare’s Tragic Mass: Craving Justice.” 19 See Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 69: “The Corpus Christi feast became one the most important occasions for the transformation of ritual into drama.” 20 Bonaventure, De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam, ed. and trans. Sister Emma Therese

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As this was impacted by the Franciscan focus on emotional identification and later by the humanist movement, the observer was increasingly asked to participate in the dramatic action performed. Scholars have recently pointed out that the early modern period involved a process of subjectification that conferred agency on the viewer, who could become an initiator of action rather than a passive observer.22 Kent Cartwright describes this audience engagement of humanist theatre as it developed in the sixteenth century : “Humanist theatre draws spectators inside [the self-contained world it evokes] as participants, respondents, and even fellow creators who incriminate themselves emotionally or imaginatively in the illusion.”23 This notion of participation was very different from the way audiences were asked to participate in classical theatre, and, when combined with the very different view of history that developed during the Reformation, it led Calvin to a new understanding of drama.

Calvin and theatricality When the reformers suppressed the Mass and medieval plays,24 they were certainly not taking issue with the drama of redemption these claimed to embody. What they opposed was the restriction of this story, and the ensuing drama, to the Mass. In this paper I want to underline two critical differences between Calvin and medieval drama. One has to do with the location, or space, of the dramatic events, the other with what we might call the direction of the dramatic movement and the impact this had on the sense of time. First, with respect to the location of the drama: Calvin moved the spectacle beyond the liturgy and into the city of Geneva and its world, even as he transferred the dramatic performance from the priest to the congregation. Indeed, the play in a real sense encompassed the whole world. We are to contemplate creation, as Calvin liked to say, as a marvelous theatre for the glory of God. Consider for example the first appearance of “theatre” in the Institutes. Calvin is describing the knowledge of God visible in creation and in God’s governance, and the Psalmist’s description of the many ways God “wonderfully and beyond all

21 22 23 24

Healy, quoted in David L. Jeffrey “English Saints Plays” in: Neville Denny, ed., Medieval Drama (London: Edward Arnold, 1973), p. 89. David Jeffrey points out that refusal of real presence had as much to do with a denial of this view of history as of a different metaphysic. Jeffrey, “English Saints Plays,” p. 72 f. See Viviana Comensoli, et al., “Subjectivity, Theory and Early Modern Drama,” Early Theatre 7:2 (2004), p. 89. The key influence on this was the work of Louis Montrose. Kent Cartwright, Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the 16th century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 20. Hardison claims these plays were suppressed by the reformers (Hardison, Christian Rite, p. 290). But as we have seen this was not uniformly true.

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hope succors the poor and almost lost”. Calvin goes on: “But because most people, immersed in their own errors, are struck blind in such dazzling theatre, [the Psalmist] exclaims that to weigh those works of God wisely is a matter of rare and singular wisdom.”25 Already it is clear that mankind, incited by God’s works, is called to play a central role in this drama. Kevin Vanhoozer, who has given the clearest exposition of Calvin’s dramatic intentions, describes this as Calvin’s theo-drama: “God and humanity are alternately actor and audience. Better, life is divine-human interactive theatre, and theology involves both what God has said and done for the world and what we must say and do in grateful response.”26 The emotional and dramatic response that medieval worshipers found in the elevation of the host, Calvin finds, in the first instance, in humankind’s response to the wonders of the theatre of creation. Significantly, this divinely created beauty has supplanted the need for the images and ceremonies that accompanied the medieval drama of the Mass. In fact in his commentary on Genesis 1:6, Calvin specifically contrasts the role the images of creation play with that of man-made images and statues. He writes: “What Gregory declares falsely and in vain respecting statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned.”27 So that the things described in the creation account, Calvin goes on, “serve as the garniture of that theatre which he places before our eyes”. And this spectacle calls everyone, as he says: “Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception.”28 Though Calvin will later draw attention to the limitations of this exposure to God’s wisdom, one should not underestimate the importance of this dramatic situation – it is basic to all that will follow in Calvin’s dramatic scheme. The encounter with God, Calvin will say in another place, is a manifestation that the person cannot evade, since the basis for it is “engraven on his own heart” – that is, built into the structure of creation. Calvin argues, in his comments on Romans 1:19: “By saying, that God has made it manifest, he means, that man was created to be a spectator of this formed world, and that eyes were given him, that he might by looking on so beautiful a picture, be led up to the Author himself.”29

25 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), I.v.8. Subsequent references in the text are to this edition. 26 Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, p. 37 f. 27 John Calvin, The Harmony of the Law: Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses, ed. and trans. C. W. Bingham, Electronic version, Genesis 1:6, in loc. 28 Ibid. 29 Romans 1:19, ed. and trans. John Owen, Comm. in loc. Randall Zachman underlines the importance of this late (1556) insistence on the role of the spectator and the potential of contemplation of so beautiful an image to lead one to God. See Randall Zachmann, Image

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So the world as it exists presses mankind for a response, and this is the initial stage on which the drama is carried out. But we soon learn there are things that we cannot know from observing creation as it is: that God is Father, for example, or that God calls us, specially, in the work of Christ. At the beginning of Book II of the Institutes, Calvin again celebrates the wonders of creation. Referring to Paul’s reference to wisdom in Corinthians 1, Calvin says: This magnificent theatre of heaven and earth, crammed with innumerable miracles, Paul calls “the wisdom of God.” Contemplating it, we ought in wisdom to have known God. But because we have profited so little by it, he calls us to the faith of Christ, which, because it appears foolish, the unbelievers despise.30

Like a well-wrought play, the clue that ought to provide insight has been missed by the players, and they must suffer the consequences. Notice that here sight and contemplation are given a special place, though, again, their limits are soon apparent. And Calvin will come to highlight the alternate way to God, through the hearing of the word. This contrast – between seeing and hearing – central to Calvin, is already evident at the very beginning of the Institutes. In discussing the visions and oracles that find their “public tablets” within the Old Testament, Calvin concludes: “Therefore, however fitting it may be for man seriously to turn his eyes to contemplate God’s works, since he has been placed in this most glorious theatre to be a spectator of them, it is fitting that he prick up his ears to the Word, the better to profit.”31 For Calvin the special privilege accorded to the ear does not derive from any special insight that organ provides in itself, but from the fact that it is by the hearing of the word, as this is preached and heard, and as this is enlivened by the Spirit, that believers are persuaded of God’s mercy in Christ. But this focus on preaching and hearing would clearly impact the developing notion of drama. So a vital part of the drama is not visible by even a careful examination of the theatre of creation. Randall Zachman points out that, for Calvin, humans are not able truly to behold God until they have been humbled by the preaching of Christ crucified.32 So there is a deeper dramatic encounter that Calvin’s view of theatre entails, and here the location of the drama becomes more complex: for while the drama is displayed throughout the entire order of creation, it is seen more particularly within specific events where God provides a remedy for human incapacity. For Calvin, creation from the beginning has a particular dramatic shape. But and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2007), p. 33. 30 Calvin, Institutes, II.vi.1. 31 Calvin, Institutes, I.vi.2. 32 Zachman, Image and Word, p. 35.

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as God’s work in creation continues, there are particular places where this drama becomes especially visible: one of these is God’s calling of Israel, another is in the Church, but centrally it is seen in the life and work of Christ.33 In Book II of the Institutes, Calvin develops at length the solution that Christ provides. Humans cannot see their way to God clearly in creation. In fact, Calvin says, “No one can descend into himself, and seriously consider what he is without feeling God’s wrath and hostility toward him. Accordingly, he must anxiously seek ways and means to appease God.”34 For this God provides a solution, in the savior who is Christ. Though the whole of Christ’s life is important, the climax of his life and of this theatre comes at the cross. As Calvin goes on to say in this same chapter, though redemption follows from the whole course of Christ’s obedience, it is “peculiar and proper” to his death – and it is here that Calvin uses his most dramatic language. The cross provides a blessing through what is cursed – “as if the cross, which was full of shame, had been changed into a triumphal chariot!”35 It provides a satisfaction for sin, he goes on, a laver for washing, it delivers from death, and it is an instrument of mortification of our flesh. The cross, then, is the climax of the drama. For in this single event God provides a remedy for all that keeps humans from seeing God, and its dramatic quality is underlined by Calvin: high and low are overturned, through what should be ignominious, God is glorified. The clearest expression of this comes in his commentary on John (13:31), and it must be read in its entirety : For in the cross of Christ, as in a magnificent theatre, the inestimable goodness of God is displayed before the whole world. In all the creatures, indeed both high and low, the glory of God shines, but nowhere has it shone more brightly than in the cross, in which there has been an astonishing change of things, the condemnation of all man has been manifested, sin has been blotted out, a salvation has been restored to men; and, in short, the whole world has been renewed, and everything restored to good order.36

Note how this dramatic moment fulfills and elaborates the glory that is visible in the created order ; indeed, it is the climax of that same drama. Note also that it is in this moment that high things and low are together made vehicles of God’s glory. At the very moment of this awful death, insists John – and Calvin after him – the glory of God is seen most clearly. 33 Vanhoozer argues that the drama comprises five acts: Creation, call and response of Israel, Christ’s words and actions, Christ sending the Spirit and the Eschaton. See Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, p. 2 f. 34 Calvin, Institutes, II.xvi.1. 35 Ibid., II, xvi, 6. 36 John Calvin, Calvin Commentaries: 7. The Gospels (Grand Rapids: Associated Publishers: ND), p. 829 f. Here may be an indirect reference to Aristotle’s formulation in the phrase “change of things” (“changement des choses”), which may refer to Aristotle’s change of the situation into its opposite in Poetics, 11.

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What is striking to someone reading Calvin after some exposure to medieval (and Renaissance) spirituality is the absence of any focus on the narrative of the cross and the details of Christ’s final hours. Barely a page in the Institutes makes any specific reference to the actual event; entire chapters which follow describe what this death should mean for us: we too will take up our cross, we should not expect that the world will deal kindly with us, and so on. In other words, the drama becomes visible not in the actual details of that death – indeed, for those standing around, these details contrived to hide the true event. The drama is seen, rather, in the theatre of the creation that has now been overturned (that is, made right), and in Christ’s followers who are enlisted into God’s spectacle. The purpose of this drama was to hold up a mirror to the spectator, and in this respect it reflected Renaissance drama. As Regina Schwartz notes, “The most common Renaissance theory of drama was that it offered an image of actual life: ‘the purpose of playing […] was and is to hold as ’twere a mirror up to nature.’”37 But it does more than this: as this drama is brought to life by the Spirit, it is meant to effect the transformation in the hearer that it represents, and in this way supplants the work of the Mass. In one sense Calvin continues here the focus of western Christianity on the sacrifice of Christ’s death – he is less interested, for example, in the saving potential of the incarnation, as in the Eastern Church. It is the cross that represents the dramatic moment. But there is an important difference from the medieval drama: the drama not only extends beyond the liturgy into the city, as in the medieval mystery plays, but it takes up the city and its people into its dramatic scope. I have argued that Calvin re-locates the dramatic events outside the liturgy, and this is certainly true. But I do not want to give the impression that the liturgy – the sacraments, the preaching and singing of praise – played no role in this drama. Indeed in one sense they played a critical role. I will not rehearse here how Calvin did or did not follow the structure of the mass in his discussion of worship. What I do want to emphasize is the central role played by preaching in Calvin’s dramatic sense. Both the performance and the substance of preaching mattered to Calvin – that is, both the summons and the response this called for. But I think it is critical to understand precisely the role of preaching in Calvin’s drama. On the one hand, one of the surprises I encountered was to discover the complete absence of the language of drama and theater in relation to the actual event of preaching, or indeed to the administration of the sacraments, in the congregation. Calvin famously portrays worship (and our participation in the 37 Schwartz, Sacramental Poetics, p. 43. The last phrase is quoted from Hamlet, 3.2.21, though it ultimately derives from Cicero.

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sacrament of communion) as our being lifted by the Spirit out of this world into heaven. In his comments on Psalm 138:1, he notes: “Believers in drawing near to God are withdrawn from the world, and rise to heaven in the enjoyment of fellowship with angels.”38 That is certainly a dramatic reality! But with the medieval abuse of such language in mind, Calvin pointedly refrains from using dramatic language when describing the performance of these liturgical acts. He does refer to Church as theatre on numerous occasions, but an examination of these passages show that it is not the spectacle of the liturgy he has in mind, but the response to Christ’s righteousness in the people who compose the Church – and the evidence of this in their lives in the world, what he often calls the Christian’s warfare. On the other hand, I am convinced there is more to be said about both preaching and communion as well as the singing of Psalms that Calvin instituted. With respect to preaching, Regina Schwartz has argued that while the Reformers opposed the re-enactment of Christ’s death in the liturgy, they came to believe that language—first in preaching and later in Reformation poetry – could “carry the mystical force of sacramental re-enactment”.39 Calvin saw communion as a sign and seal of this preached word, and further as an act of God, who alone can cause “such great mysteries of God to be concealed under such humble things”.40 But it is in the act of preaching that these mysteries and the summons entailed in them are made clear, and to which the worshiper is meant to respond in faith. Here the corporate singing of Psalms becomes a critical element in the drama, where the congregation together participates in the ritual of worship. So Calvin refocuses the drama within the liturgy in a way that embraces the congregation and includes their life in the world. But the real contrast between Calvin’s sense of drama and that of the medieval Mass is made clear in the second distinctive, which can be dealt with more briefly : in the direction of the drama and the impact of this on the sense of time. We noted that the central moment of the medieval drama was the elevation of the host, which united “the role of the 38 John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, ed. and trans. James Anderson, Electronic Version, Psalm 138:1 in loc. This passage comes the closest to describing these events as theatre. Here he calls David’s public solemn assembly as “so to speak, a heavenly theatre, graced by presence of attending angels”. But he will go on to stress the goodness of God that is evident in the mercy and truth of the word spiritually apprehended, over against “those outward symbols which were the means then appointed […]”. Believers in Christ had no need of these outward symbols, and thus of that theatre. For a recent discussion of the issues surrounding this question see Julie Canlis, “Calvin, Osiander and Participation in God,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6:2 (April 2004), pp. 169 – 184. 39 Schwartz, Sacramental Poetics, p 120. Schwartz emphasizes here Calvin’s focus on the sacraments as “acts”. 40 Calvin, Institutes, IV.xix.2.

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celebrant with the symbolism of the sacrament as Corpus Christi”41 in the timeless experience of redemption. All the focus was to draw attention to this event and the redemptive reality of which it spoke. Indeed, the entire arrangement of the cathedral, as well as the structure of actions of the mass, and even the images of the altarpieces – everything was designed to draw attention (and focus the emotions) on this liturgical event. Worship was to exert its centripetal pull, drawing the worshipers into the reality of this event. This focus was so pronounced that it led to the notion of ocular communion, whose effect involved simply the sight of the raised host. And the understanding of contemplation that developed from this became the basis of many medieval practices like praying over the rosary or before devotional images (developed in the fifteenth century) and, later, the Ignatian exercises.42 But the orientation of Calvin’s drama is exactly reversed. The dramatic movement is not toward the raising of the host as a symbol of the cross, but from the substance of that “astonishing change of things” outward, into the lives of the believers – who, in Calvin’s dramatic language, are called to play their own role in the theatre of the Church. The movement was to be centrifugal. While I cannot develop this here, I believe that this movement illumines the mutual relationship between Renaissance theatre and Protestant worship. While the Reformers’ insistence that the sacrifice of Christ was represented rather than repeated made the liturgy itself less dramatic, it gave to Renaissance theatre a new dramatic structure. As Regina Schwartz notes, even if “the theater cannot do anything to other humans, [or] offer anything to God”, it can awaken our longing for redemption and forgiveness.43 Notice the significance of this for time. The central focus of the transformation of things, Aristotle’s change of something into its opposite (Poetics 11), was transferred from a timeless and eternal recurrence into a particular event in the past. As Calvin’s preference for specific prayer services and performances of penance indicates, this opened the way for the present and ongoing time to have new dramatic meaning.44 The drama of God’s great work in Christ has transformed the way both space and time can be understood. Rather than being absorbed into the space and time of the ritual, for Calvin the drama 41 Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama, p. 65. 42 See Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 43 Schwartz, Sacramental Poetics, p. 42. Her emphasis. Her argument is that the very elimination of the transformative work of the sacrament opened the way for later playwrights and poets to develop what she terms a sacramental poetics. Interestingly these influences coincided with the progressive narrowing of the space of performance into specific theatrical spaces. Cf. Serene Jones, “Calvin’s Common Reader,” Lecture, April 6, 2013, Calvin Studies Society, Princeton Theological Seminary. 44 See the discussion in Zachman, Image and Word, pp. 355 – 367.

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extends itself out into the city and its particular time. This difference, I have argued elsewhere, has played an important role in the development of the very different Protestant and Catholic imaginations.45 The Reformers are often accused of reducing the liturgy to language and song, but if what I am saying is true, one can also argue that they expanded greatly the dramatic potential of language, with great effect not only on theology, but also on subsequent literary culture – not only playwriting and poetry, but also on attitudes toward the book in general.

Calvin, theatre and the book So now in this last section I want to ask: What has this to do with the book? And with literacy? It turns out quite a lot. Early in Book I (in chapter six) of the Institutes, when Calvin has demonstrated the limitation of the human response to creation, he introduces his discussion of Scripture as God’s provision for the dimness of human vision. Throughout this discussion the focus is on what one sees and does not see, and the language is dramatic. He begins chapter six: That brightness which is borne in upon the eyes of all men both in the heaven and on the earth is more than enough to withdraw all support from men’s ingratitude – just as God, to involve the human race in the same guilt, sets forth to all without exception his presence portrayed in his creatures. Despite this, it is needful that another and better help be added to direct us aright to the very Creator of the universe. It is not in vain, then, that he added the light of his Word by which to become known unto salvation.46

Calvin then illustrates our situation with his famous simile: Like an aged man with defective sight can only dimly make out what is written in any book, but when given glasses to read can see clearly, “so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God”.47 The clarity of sight needed for the manifestation of the true God to whom worship is due is owed entirely to this gift to the Church, which is a book. Calvin clarifies the role played by this gift in his very extensive treatment of II Timothy 3:15 – 17. That Timothy had been instructed from his infancy in Scripture “strongly fortified [him] against every kind of deception”. This is because Scriptures, as the Letter to Timothy says, “direct us to the faith of Christ as the design, and therefore the sum of the Scriptures”. The commentary goes on 45 See William Dyrness, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 46 Calvin, Institutes, I.vi.1. 47 Ibid., I.vi.1.

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to affirm Scripture on account of its authority and also because of its utility, asserting, Calvin says, “absolutely, that the Scripture is sufficient for perfection”.48 Scriptures, in the hands of the Spirit, are that which do the believers good, fitting them to play their roles in the theatre of creation. The clarity needed for players in this drama is found in a book; not just any book of course, but this book in particular. Calvin places the Scriptures squarely in the center of the dramatic action that God is directing. Denis Crouzet emphasizes that Calvin saw his own role as an actor in God’s theatre piece that he was to play with humility and sincerity, as a man of a book. At his conversion, Crouzet says, “another system of language is inaugurated, in which the man is thought (est pens¦) by the words of the book, and does not speak or act except by this book.”49 This book is something like the Greek chorus that addresses the audience in Greek drama, or the oracle that players consult. Yet it is something more than these because in the hands of the Holy Spirit it can accomplish what it calls for – in its deployment in the Church it is taken up into that divine human drama around which everything else is played out. Kevin Vanhoozer describes Scripture as a kind of script for the theo-drama that God directs, calling it the Christian’s “fiduciary framework”.50 This is helpful because in a sense it is not the script of the drama, it is rather, as Vanhoozer also notes, theatrical directions and a description of the previous acts. It pointedly contains no lines for contemporary believers to read; rather, it inaugurates a drama that continues and that contemporary believers, in their place and time, are called to play out. So the drama includes a book, but more than this, a book that encapsulates the substance of this drama. When read, heard, tasted, contemplated, or memorized, Scripture becomes light and life. As Eric Auerbach noted, in contrast to the Greek dramas, it combines the high and the low, and places the writer and reader in the midst of the action – we are required to take a position. And here the relevance to our initial question becomes clear. For the progress of this book, from the first English translation by William Tyndale (begun in 1521), through the Coverdale Bible (1535) and the Geneva Bible (1553ff) to the greatest book in the English language, the King James Version (1611), becomes itself part of the drama the Scriptures embody. Its course incarnates the paradoxical overturning of high and low that rests on Paul’s preaching and in turn on the transformation of things brought about by the cross. 48 John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, ed. and trans. John King (1844 – 1856), Electronic version, II Timothy, 3:15 – 17, in loc. 49 Crouzet, Jean Calvin: Vies parallÀls, p. 112 f. Emphasis in the original. For Calvin’s sense of being an actor in God’s drama, see p. 22. 50 Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, p. 259.

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In a long review of books published for the recent 400-year anniversary of that great King James Version, Robert Pogue Harrison rehearses the incredible influence this book has had on subsequent culture and its literature. This influence, he stresses, rests heavily on Paul’s aggressive overturning of hierarchical standards, his exalting of the simple over the sublime, the humble over the noble. Harrison’s review quotes at length from I Corinthians 1:17 – 21 (KJV), beginning with Paul’s own dramatic confession: “For Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.” And concluding with Paul’s vivid summary : “For that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This language, Harrison goes on, “turns the cross into an agent of contradiction. In Paul’s proclamation, ‘this world’ is a topsy-turvy one that Christ has turned upside down […]. Such is the effect of the cross – it converts the entire order of things, so that high now become low, wisdom becomes foolish and foolishness becomes wise.”51 The book itself, this Bible, has been taken up into the drama it recounts – its translators and publishers, many exiled, some burned at the stake, seeking to make the Bible accessible to the plough boy, themselves confound the wisdom (and the power) of the wise – they become things that are not, reducing to nothing the things that are. This, then, I argue, is the source of our lingering sense that “books can change our life”. Buried in our western consciousness, sometimes too deeply to be an operative part of our lives, is a sense that there is a story, a drama that can bring us life. Our English teachers were right: reading might just help us discover that story. But I believe that sense is present in our consciousness because there is such a book, and such a story.

51 Robert Pogue Harrison, “The Book from which our Literature Springs,” New York Review of Books, February 9, 2012, pp. 40 – 45, here at p. 41.

Matthew Myer Boulton

Chapter Seven: “Even More Deeply Moved”: Calvin on the Rhetorical, Formational Function of Scripture and Doctrine

Let me open with two caveats, and then begin in earnest with what Calvin calls a “contradiction”. The first caveat is that this will be a somewhat unusual paper in this colloquium, devoted as it is almost exclusively to a close, constructive reading of a brief passage in the 1559 Institutio Christianae Religionis.1 As we move along, we will not spend much time in the labyrinth of Calvinian secondary literature, nor will we explore the historical context of Calvin’s argument, the theological opponents lurking in the text’s background, or the ways in which the text has been received and appropriated over the centuries. Instead, we will seek to approach this provocative little passage the way Calvin likely expected most of his readers to approach it: as a set of theological claims about the way in which Christ’s death relates to human salvation, and by extension, about the proper role of Scripture and doctrine in Christian life. This is by no means to disparage historical and text-critical approaches to Calvin’s work, of course; on the contrary, such methods have been, and continue to be, abundant sources of insight and understanding. I only want to signal that the primary modes of analysis in this paper will be theological and constructive. So much for the first caveat. The second is that, though I will be approaching Calvin’s writing theologically, I want to bracket the question of whether the particular scriptural and doctrinal positions he takes in this particular passage are persuasive, and instead focus on what his argument reveals about his views on Scripture and doctrine more generally. Satisfaction atonement theory is the substantive issue in play here, and for my purposes in this paper, I will set aside the important matter of the extent to which Calvin’s version of that theory has merit. Rather, my subject is what Calvin has to say about how Scripture and doctrine properly operate. His satisfaction theory will thus serve as a kind of case study or window into this larger theme. 1 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960), II.xvi.1 – 3, pp. 503 – 505.

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And that brings us to the “contradiction” with which I want to begin. The brief passage at issue is in Book II of the Institutio, in a chapter entitled, “How Christ Has Fulfilled the Function of Redeemer to Acquire Salvation for Us”. Calvin first describes the contradiction, and then announces that he will dispose of it (literally, “dispose of this knot”). And so he does, to his own satisfaction at least, over the next couple of pages – and along the way, he makes a series of theological moves that together comprise what I argue is a crucial key for understanding not only his Christology, and not only his soteriology more generally, but also his understanding of Christian doctrine itself: how it works, and what it is for. Moreover, and in keeping with our theme for this colloquium, this passage throws an intriguing light on Calvin’s understanding of how Scripture (the Book) works and how the Institutio (the book) works – the latter being, by its final edition, conceived by its author as a guide toward properly reading and expounding the former. The “contradiction” runs as follows. Calvin has just declared, “Here we must earnestly ponder how [Christ] accomplishes salvation for us. This we must do not only to be persuaded that he is its author, but to gain a sufficient and stable support for our faith.” To be persuaded that Christ is the author of our salvation, and to support our faith: that’s the twofold point of the pondering, Calvin contends, and so even at the outset, he frames the whole question in rhetorical terms – that is, in terms of the art of persuasion. His next move is to briefly rehearse some groundwork for a version of a “satisfaction” theory of salvation: “No one can descend into himself and seriously consider what he is without feeling God’s wrath and hostility toward him. Accordingly, he must anxiously seek ways and means to appease God – and this demands satisfaction.”2 So far, so familiar. We are coming around a theological bend expecting to see Christ on the cross, and to hear about how Christ’s sacrifice of himself provides the only adequate “satisfaction” available, thus appeasing God and transforming God’s wrath and hostility into fatherly love, acceptance, and therefore salvation. But Calvin cannot take this step – not yet. For here arises the “contradiction”, the difficulty, the knot: “Before we go any farther”, Calvin writes, “we must see in passing how fitting it was that God, who anticipates us by his mercy, should have been our enemy until he was reconciled to us through Christ.” Exactly how this is “fitting”, however, is not immediately clear : “For how could God have given in his only-begotten Son a singular pledge of his love to us if he had not already embraced us with his free favor?”3 In other words, if God’s love for us is only possible via the “satisfaction” provided by Christ’s sacrificial death; if prior to that death God is wrathful and hostile toward humanity; in short, if God is “our 2 Calvin, Institutes, II.xvi.1. 3 Ibid., II.xvi.2.

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enemy until he was reconciled to us through Christ” – then how is it that God so loved us in the first place that God sent the savior to dwell among us? The love, the embrace, the reconciliation would seem to already be operative at Christmas, long before Good Friday. Conversely, if God’s saving love, out of which God sends Jesus Christ, is antecedent to Christ’s death on the cross, then what sense can it make to interpret that death as providing some essential “satisfaction” without which God’s saving love for us is not possible? If the love, the embrace, the reconciliation is already in place at Christmas, how can we interpret Good Friday as a day of expiation and satisfaction in any meaningful sense? “Since some sort of contradiction arises here”, Calvin writes, “I shall dispose of this difficulty.” Calvin is not the first, of course, to notice this potential objection, and there is a range of options that theologians over the centuries have put forward in order to address it. Calvin’s answer takes two pages, and these pages are where I want to focus for the balance of this essay. His argument is revealing, and it goes like this: The difficulty’s disposal, Calvin contends, turns on properly understanding the formative, rhetorical function of the Holy Spirit’s instruction in and through biblical texts: “The Spirit usually speaks in this way in the Scriptures” – and here Calvin paraphrases his own (contested and contestable) interpretations of passages from Romans, Galatians, and Colossians, to the effect of, “God was our enemy until we were reconciled to grace by Christ’s death”4 – in order to fit the lesson to the learner. Calvin puts it this way : “Expressions of this sort have been accommodated to our capacity [ad sensum nostrum, literally ‘to our sense’] that we may better understand how miserable and ruinous our condition is apart from Christ.”5 Now this should catch our attention. Calvin does not say, “that we may better understand God’s disposition toward us and our sin,” nor does he say, “that we may better understand the objective dynamics that constitute our relationship with God before and after Christ’s death on the cross” – even though these things seem to be, on the surface at least, what Calvin is interpreting these scriptural verses to be about (“God was our enemy until we were reconciled to grace by Christ’s death”). No – instead Calvin teaches that the Holy Spirit speaks this way “that we may better understand how miserable and ruinous our condition is apart from Christ”. These scriptural locutions, in other words, are rhetorically intended by the Spirit to help us understand something (1) distinct from the 4 Ibid., II.xvi.2: Here Calvin interprets and paraphrases Romans 5:10, Galatians 3:10 – 13, and Colossians 1:21 – 22. The matter of whether the “enemy” identified in these verses is God vis-—vis humanity or, rather, humanity vis-—-vis God is a crucial exegetical question in its own right. I bracket this question here, however, since my focus is instead on what this passage reveals about how Calvin conceives the proper role of Scripture and doctrine in Christian life. 5 Ibid.

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ostensible subject matter of the locutions themselves, and yet (2) which at the same time is best communicated by way of those very locutions – for otherwise, presumably, the Spirit would choose other terms in order to accommodate our sensum, our capacity, our sense, our sensibility. Indeed, this is an example of Calvin’s so-called doctrine of accommodation, though in this context that accommodation takes a particular shape. Here Calvin argues that the Holy Spirit speaks this way – that is, speaks of God as our “enemy” prior to Christ’s death – for the sake of our grasping not God’s actual bearing toward us prior to the cross, but rather “how miserable and ruinous our condition is apart from Christ”. Calvin continues: “For if it had not been clearly stated that the wrath and vengeance of God and eternal death rested upon us, we would scarcely have recognized how miserable we would have been without God’s mercy, and we would have underestimated the benefit of liberation” (emphasis mine).6 The accent, then, is on human beings appropriately recognizing and appreciating salvation’s benefits. That’s the telos that determines the Spirit’s way of speaking: if the wrath and vengeance of God had not been “clearly stated”, Calvin insists, then we would underestimate God’s kindness and favor, and so would not be as grateful as we should be. Referring to God as our “enemy”, then, serves as a kind of heuristic shorthand, a figure functioning not to describe an actual state of affairs in any conventional way, but rather to help properly form our outlook and disposition. In this sense, Calvin effectively casts the “enemy” formulations in what we might call a heuristic, figurative, formative rhetorical mode. It is as if he inserts scare quotes, or the clause “so to speak”, beside any reference, scriptural or otherwise, to God being our “enemy” prior to Christ’s death. His synthetic summary of the passages in Romans, Galatians, and Colossians, then, may be glossed: “God was our enemy, so to speak, until we were reconciled to grace by Christ’s death.” That is, Calvin signals that the term “enemy” here functions in a different rhetorical register than it typically does in human conversation. The music is modulated; we might say the term is now in a “poetic” rhetorical register, as opposed to a prosaic one. And then Calvin does something truly remarkable. To illustrate everything we have covered thus far, he provides an example of what he has in mind about the heuristic, figurative, formative rhetorical power of the Spirit’s speech, that is, God’s aim to shape our understanding and our dispositions in particular ways. Calvin writes: For example, suppose someone is told: “If God hated you while you were still a sinner, and cast you off, as you deserved, a terrible destruction would have awaited you. But 6 Ibid.

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because he kept you in grace voluntarily, and of his own free favor, and did not allow you to be estranged from him, he thus delivered you from that peril.” This man then will surely experience and feel something of what he owes to God’s mercy. On the other hand, suppose he learns, as Scripture teaches, that he was estranged from God through sin, is an heir of wrath, subject to the curse of eternal death, excluded from all hope of salvation, beyond every blessing of God, the slave of Satan, captive under the yoke of sin, destined finally for a dreadful destruction and already involved in it; and that at this point Christ interceded as his advocate, took upon himself and suffered the punishment that, from God’s righteous judgment, threatened all sinners; that he purged with his blood those evils which had rendered sinners hateful to God; that by this expiation he made satisfaction and sacrifice duly to God the Father ; that as intercessor he has appeased God’s wrath; that on this foundation rests the peace of God with men; that by this bond his benevolence is maintained toward them. Will the man not then be even more deeply moved by all these things, which so vividly portray the greatness of the calamity from which he has been rescued?7

Now let’s unpack this passage a bit. Calvin here articulates two alternative versions, two accounts of salvation. The gist of his overall argument is that the two accounts are roughly equivalent in terms of fundamentals; the contrast he draws between them is not that the first one is incorrect or theologically mistaken, but rather that the second one is a more “vivid portrayal”, more likely to “deeply move” human beings, that is, more likely to allow a disciple viscerally to “experience and feel something of what he owes to God’s mercy”. The first version, then, is fine as far as it goes. The basics are there (human sin, divine forgiveness freely given) – but rhetorically, it does not go far enough, in Calvin’s view. It is not vivid enough. It is not visceral enough. And so the Spirit speaks in other ways. The first version lacks a radiant rhetorical quality, we might say a kerygmatic quality (the homiletic cascade and crescendo is unmistakable as the passage unfolds), and so it lacks sufficient power to move human hearts and minds toward pietas, that is, toward gratitude to God, love of God, and willingness to serve. Calvin critiques it not as incorrect, but as ineffective. And yet, please note, the first version contains nothing in the way of satisfaction atonement theory generally, or penal substitutionary atonement theory in particular – or indeed any mention of Jesus Christ at all. This last feature of the first version is particularly revealing, since it indirectly indicates something crucial about Calvin’s Christology. Christ is central to the second version precisely as a protagonist in the sacred drama that helps strengthen the extent to which a human being might 7 Ibid. Ford Lewis Battles translates the key Latin term in this last sentence, permoveo, as “to move” (“even more moved by all these things […].”). But in this context, permoveo is better translated “to deeply move” – and so I have made this amendment, both here and throughout this essay.

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be “even more deeply moved by all these things which so vividly portray the greatness of calamity from which he has been rescued”. In short, this is Christ as kerygma. Here, we might say, is Calvin’s answer to Anselm’s question, Cur Deus Homo? Why did God become human? In order that we might be “even more deeply moved by all these things”. At just this point in the passage, Ford Lewis Battles, in his widely read English translation of the Institutio, inserts an uneasy footnote. The key culminating sentence – “Will the man not then be even more deeply moved by all these things which so vividly portray the greatness of the calamity from which he has been rescued?” – strikes Battles, as he puts it, as “momentarily suggesting” the “conception of the atonement as effectual through man’s response to God’s love revealed in Christ’s death (a view usually associated with Abailard’s name)”. Battles adds: “But Calvin’s thought is not Abailard’s. E. Brunner has justly stressed Calvin’s adherence to the substitutionary doctrine of Anselm.”8 But this comment overlooks what Calvin is actually up to here. It is quite true, of course, that substitutionary atonement theory is woven throughout Calvin’s work, including in this very passage, and so the sentence in question should by no means be read as a sudden detour into Abailard’s thought over against Anselm’s. But what Calvin is doing is framing and characterizing substitutionary atonement theory by clarifying its purpose. The passage is a kind of aside, we might say, an excursus on how we should understand the Spirit’s rhetoric, and in particular the rhetoric Calvin reads as consistent with substitutionary atonement theory. Calvin is arguing, in effect, that we can come to terms with the apparent contradiction that arises from speaking of God as our “enemy” prior to Christ’s death by understanding such speech as heuristically, figuratively, formatively designed and delivered by the Spirit precisely in order to form us toward pietas, that is, toward gratitude to God, love of God, and willingness to serve. It is speech above all meant to deeply move human beings, and so it should be received, understood, and expounded accordingly. Calvin is not discarding or retreating from substitutionary theory ; rather, he is specifying and illuminating it, filling out its purpose, function, and character, clarifying what it is for. What is it for? It is for moving us deeply, forming us deeply, persuading us deeply, as only the most vivid, visceral rhetoric can do. Whether it actually does so is a separate question; the point here is that, for Calvin, this is how the doctrine is supposed to work. “To sum up”, Calvin writes, concluding the excursus, since our hearts cannot, in God’s mercy, either seize upon life ardently enough or accept it with the gratefulness we owe, unless our minds are first struck and over8 See Calvin, Institutes, p. 505.

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whelmed by fear of God’s wrath and by dread of eternal death, we are taught by Scripture [instituimur sacra doctrina] to perceive that apart from Christ, God is, so to speak [quodammodo, “in a certain way”], hostile to us, and his hand is armed for our destruction; [thus we are taught] to embrace his benevolence and fatherly love in Christ alone.9

If this is Christ as kerygma, it is just as surely Scripture as kerygma, and this kerygma is meant above all to educate us in a deeply formative sense – which is, after all, the best translation of Calvin’s title term, Institutio: “deeply formative education”. Note, too, that in this concluding summary Calvin explicitly identifies the malformation that puts us in urgent need of God’s formative kerygma: namely, even though we are already “in God’s mercy”, our hearts are so malformed as to be incapable of “seizing upon life ardently enough” and receiving it gratefully enough. Precisely because we lack these capabilities or skills, precisely because we are too often ungrateful and dull, we require God’s instructive, formative, edifying rhetoric, the institutio we may receive from sacra doctrina. This pedagogical choreography is part and parcel of what Calvin means, in this context, by God’s “accommodating to our capacity that we may better understand”. Significantly, Calvin opens the very next subsection of Chapter XVI by clarifying that, though speaking of God as our “enemy” is a way of speaking quodammodo and accommodated to our capacity, “it is not said falsely”.10 In short: it is figurative, but not false. For Calvin, God speaks this way in order to move us, but this primarily rhetorical role does not mean that we can ignore these formulations, or jettison them, or translate them into other, less vivid and visceral versions of the Christian Gospel. On the other hand, however, if we take Calvin’s argument seriously here, we misunderstand the “enemy” formulations if we lose sight of their heuristic, figurative, formative function. God is never our “enemy” simpliciter, or in any standard, conventional sense. Indeed, misunderstanding God in this way is what gives rise to the contradiction in the first place. Rather, God is only our “enemy” quodammodo, only “hostile” to us quodammodo, and so only in need of appeasement or satisfaction quodammodo. By extension, it follows that Christ’s death is only expiatory and reconciling quodammodo. Calvin is quite clear, here and elsewhere in the Institutio, that speaking of Christ’s work as expiatory in character is fitting, proper, and necessary. But here, in this excursus, he pulls back the curtain with respect to why it is fitting and necessary, in his view: namely, because the Holy Spirit uses this kind of rhetoric to move and form us deeply toward pietas. And this reflection on the purpose

9 Calvin, Institutes, II.xvi.2. 10 Calvin, Institutes, II.xvi.3.

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and nature of the doctrine should orient us toward the doctrine itself in a particular way. Responding to the question, “Why does the Holy Spirit put things in these terms?” Calvin does not say, “Because these terms accurately describe matters of straightforward fact,” or “Because God designed creation such that sin requires expiation.” That is not Calvin’s answer here, and this alone is striking. Indeed, elsewhere in the Institutio Calvin does speak in something like this way – but not here in this passage. Here he steps back from the doctrinal register in which he typically operates, instead taking up a kind of meta-doctrinal vantage point, and from there, he does not say, “The Holy Spirit puts things in these terms because these terms correspond to what is actually the case.” On the contrary, he says, in effect, “The Holy Spirit puts things in these terms because these terms correspond to our need to be rhetorically persuaded into seizing life more fervently and gratefully – in short, to be deeply moved and formed toward pietas.” Put another way : “The Holy Spirit puts things in these terms in order to accommodate to our capacity, our sense, our sensibility – the better to move and form us into the people God created us to be.” Now this kind of answer, this meta-doctrinal construal of the doctrine’s character and purposes, puts the status of the doctrinal claims themselves in an interesting light. The “enemy” formulations, and with them the whole satisfaction atonement theory Calvin has in mind, in effect function as a kind of poetic distillation, a vivid rhetorical icon meant to instruct and persuade, and ultimately to form and sanctify. Their propriety is cast heuristically and pragmatically – that is, their truth is cast in terms of their pedagogical and passionate effects on human beings, their ability to render us “even more deeply moved”. In this way, Calvin shifts the whole discussion into a rhetorical-pragmatic, aesthetic-formative frame of reference, the realm of poetics in the ancient sense; and taking this seriously allows for a reappraisal of everything Calvin writes on the subject. Indeed, if we bear this passage in mind, when Calvin moves back into a more direct exposition of satisfaction theory, his words ring differently, subtly but decisively. It is as if a great musician or poet has let us in on how she understands her work, on what she is trying to do with her work – and as a result, we cannot help but experience that work in a different way. For Calvin, the Holy Spirit is the great Artist here, of course, speaking through Christian Scripture; Calvin himself is merely a docent commenting on the Artist’s virtuosity. And the underlying logic of the docent’s commentary in this case – the way in which Calvin disposes of the apparent contradiction, the “knot” in satisfaction theory – is to affirm (1) that prior to Christ’s death, God is by no means our “enemy” in any conventional sense, and (2) that the Spirit’s use of the term “enemy” quodammodo is nonetheless fitting precisely because of its heuristic, figurative, formative power to strikingly portray the stakes involved in

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human salvation, so that a disciple may better “experience and feel something of what he owes to God’s mercy”. Given our sensum, Calvin contends, there are no better rhetorical terms available; if there were, the Spirit would use them. And at the same time, in order for us to interpret the Spirit wisely and well, thereby avoiding such incoherence as the idea that God is – actually and conventionally – our “enemy” prior to Christ’s death (for how then would we make sense of the gift of Jesus Christ in the first place?), we have to understand the Spirit quodammodo. We have to have an ear for the music, so to speak, an eye for the icon. That is, we have to receive and understand divine rhetoric, in this instance and no doubt in others, as designed primarily to move us deeply, fashioning and refashioning us toward genuine pietas. Finally, pursuing this line of thought will have profound implications for how we understand Calvin to conceive “the Book”. What is the Bible for John Calvin? It is not merely a collection of right opinion, much less merely a sourcebook of moral instruction. At the end of the day, for Calvin, the Bible is at once a kind of gallery and a kind of gymnasium, a place in which disciples may be deeply moved and formed, edified and sanctified. It is a sphere in which, by the Spirit’s rhetorical engagement, disciples are cultivated, dispositionally and spiritually, into human beings fully alive and fittingly grateful. And if Scripture is a gallery and a gym, then the Institutio, in Calvin’s view, is a kind of handbook for docents and personal trainers, a program for cultivating them so they might more gracefully guide others in their own exercise, all for the sake of getting into better, stronger shape, ever more reflective of the glory of God. In a way, this rhetorical, formative approach to Calvin’s work is a kind of postEnlightenment corrective, an attempt to recover a very different mindset more consistent, I contend, with Calvin’s own, in which not only the realms of the true and the good receive ample attention, but also the realm of the beautiful, i. e., of poetics, rhetorical formation, and so on. Of course this kind of retrieval has been going on for some time now; there are many papers in this very colloquium that provide ample evidence of that. But additional progress along these lines may open up at least two encouraging avenues for further work. The first is an opportunity to engage afresh with scholars in other disciplines, including the arts, philosophy, linguistics, and ritual studies, many of whom relatively recently have turned in various ways toward practical and rhetorical formation. And the second is an opportunity to deepen our appreciation of Calvin the French humanist: the lawyer, yes, but also the poet; the intellectual but also the preacher ; the man whose first published work, after all, was on Seneca; and the skilled untier of knots, not only with rigors of logic, but also with his finely-tuned ear for the poetics of redemption.

About the Authors

Matthew Myer Boulton is the sixth president of Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, and Professor of Theology. His teaching and research explore the connections between Christian worship and Christian life more broadly. He is the author of God against Religion: Rethinking Christian Theology Through Worship (William B. Eerdmans, 2008) and Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation, and the Future of Protestant Theology (William B. Eerdmans, 2011), and a co-editor and contributor to the volume Doing Justice to Mercy: Religion, Law, and Criminal Justice (University of Virginia Press, 2007). Euan K. Cameron is Henry Luce III Professor of Reformation Church History at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, and a member of the departments of History and Religion at Columbia University. He writes on the history of Christianity in the late Middle Ages and Reformation eras, focusing on the relationship between beliefs and cultures. His publications include The European Reformation (1991, 2nd edition 2012), Waldenses (2000), Interpreting Christian History (2005), and Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason and Religion 1250–1750 (2010). He is the volume editor for volume 3 of the New Cambridge History of the Bible, forthcoming later in 2015. Bruce Gordon is the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School and Yale University. His research focuses on European religious cultures of the late-medieval and early modern periods, with a particular interest in the Reformation in German-speaking lands. His publications include Calvin, 1509–1564 (Yale University Press, 2009) and The Swiss Reformation (Manchester University Press, 2002), as well as Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: Books, Scholars and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century, co-edited with Matthew McLean (Brill, 2012). His current projects include a study of the reception of Calvin’s Institutes from the Reformation to the modern world to be published with Princeton University Press.

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About the Authors

William Dyrness is Professor of Theology and Culture and a founding member of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. His teaching and research interests have focused on art in worship, global theology, and most recently interfaith aesthetics. His publications include Reformed Theology and Visual Culture (Cambridge, 2004), Poetic Theology : God and the Poetics of Everyday Life (William B. Eerdman’s, 2011), Senses of Devotion: Interfaith Aesthetics in Buddhist and Muslim Communities (Cascade, 2013) and (with Oscar Garcia Johnson) Theology without Borders (Baker, forthcoming). Jennifer Powell McNutt is Associate Professor of Theology and History of Christianity at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Her research explores the history of the clergy and the contextual transformations of the doctrine, practices, and institutional organization of the church from the Reformation through the Enlightenment periods. She is the author of Calvin Meets Voltaire: The Clergy of Geneva in the Age of Enlightenment, 1685–1798 (Ashgate, 2013). Currently, she is conducting archival research on the history of the French Bible and co-editing The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and the Reformation. Andrew Pettegree is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews, and the Founding Director of the St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. Among his books are Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge University Press, 2005), The Early Reformation in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1992), and, most recently, The Book in the Renaissance (Yale University Press, 2010) and The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know about Itself (Yale University Press, 2014). Brand Luther (Penguin USA) will be published in October 2015. Karen Spierling is Associate Professor of History at Denison University, where she serves as the Early Modern Europeanist in the History Department. Her research examines the dynamics of putting religious reforming ideas into practice, particularly in sixteenth-century Geneva. Her publications include Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community, 1536–1564 (Ashgate, 2005; Westminster John Knox, 2009) and, co-edited with Michael Halvorson, Defining Community in Early Modern Europe (Ashgate, 2008). Her current book project examines the development and impacts of competing and coexisting definitions of scandal in the Reformation period. Margo Todd is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she specializes in early modern English and Scottish history and in the culture of Reformed Protestantism in Britain and early America.

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Among her books is The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale, 2002), and she has recently published an annotated edition of sixteenthcentury Perth Kirk Session minutes for the Scottish History Society (Boydell & Brewer, 2012). Her current project focuses on British urban history in the postReformation period.

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Index

Abravanel, Isaac ben Judah 89 accommodation (divine) 16, 139 f, 143 f Adamson, Henry 44–48, 51 adultery 34–39, 41–43, 45 f, 48, 52, 54 Alexander the Great 81, 92 Antiochus IV Epiphanes 87, 91 f Antwerp 20, 80 Aristotle 97, 115–117, 124, 130, 133 atonement theory 15, 137, 141 f, 144 audience 11, 13, 15 f, 22 f, 32, 51, 69 f, 73, 92, 113, 127 f, 135 Augustine 16, 106–108 Babylon 25, 84, 86–88, 118 f baptism 35, 37, 41, 44, 89, 136 Barnes, Robert 77 Basel 20–23, 25, 27 f, 31 f, 88, 99, 102 f Beza, Theodore 33, 95, 102 f, 110 f Bible 9, 13–15, 80, 87 f, 95–116, 118–121, 123, 135 f, 145 branding (of author) 11, 24–6, 30, 32 Bullinger, Heinrich 13, 33, 79 f, 86 f, 107 Calvin, John 9–19, 26–34, 37, 48, 54, 59, 63 f, 68–75, 78–94, 96–101, 106, 108, 110, 112–114, 124 f, 127–135, 137–145 catechism – in Geneva 12, 57–76 – Heidelberg 109 f Catholicism 61, 82, 96, 134 Catholics (Roman) 49 f, 53, 58, 61, 69, 73 f, 78, 95, 101 see also papists

children 26, 47, 53, 59, 61, 66–69, 72, 75 Christ 13, 15 f, 33, 37, 82 f, 88–94, 125 f, 129–134, 136–145 Christology 138, 141 Chytraeus, David 80, 88 Colossians 115, 139 f Communion 41, 49 f, 66–68, 132 f Company of Pastors (Geneva) 33–36, 40, 60–75 Consistory (Geneva) 33–37, 39 f, 55, 59, 64 f, 73 Corinthians 17, 29, 129, 136 Cranach, Lucas 24–26 creation (divine) 80, 88, 97, 104, 112–117, 119, 121, 127–131, 134 f, 144 cross (of Christ) 82, 114, 126, 130 f, 133, 135 f, 138–140 Cyrus (King of Persia) 81, 85 f Daniel (book of the Bible) 80 f, 85–94 discipline (moral) 9, 11 f, 16, 33–55, 83 divorce 34–36, 92 doctrine 62 f, 77, 85, 96 f, 109–114, 117, 124, 128, 130, 135, 137–145 double standard (sexual) 11, 34 f, 38 f, 41 f, 48 drama (sacred) 15, 124–136, 141 Du Bois, Michel 28 elders 35, 37, 40–53 Elector Palatine 84, 108 f Encyclop¦die 63 f Enlightenment 57–59, 64 f, 70 f, 74–76, 79, 95, 145

168 Erasmus, Desiderius 18, 26, 30 f, 83, 103 evil 49, 54, 83, 93, 141 excommunication 35, 40, 46–48, 50 f, 54 exegesis 9, 13, 16, 77–79, 81–84, 89–92, 111 f, 139 Exodus 61, 117 Fagius, Paul 104 families 35, 44, 47, 50 f, 54, 60, 76, 92, 96, fines (disciplinary) 34, 36, 50–52, 55, 64 First Book of Discipline (Scots) 11, 33, 36 f, 54 Flugschriften 25 f, 32 Formula Consensus 62 f fornication 34–36, 41–43, 48–54 see also sexual offense France 29 f, 32, 60 f, 93, 96 Frankfurt fair 11, 27, 30 f French (publications in) 10 f, 28–30, 35, 64 f, 70, 75, 82 Froben, Johann 31 Funck, Johann 80 Galatians 139 f gender 12, 35, 37, 47, 53 Genesis 97, 100, 110–121, 128 Geneva 9, 11 f, 16, 18 f, 27–40, 43, 53–55, 57–76, 84, 97–99, 101 f, 108, 110, 112, 120, 124, 127, 135 geography 16, 20, 26, 85, 111 f, 114, 118–120 German-speaking lands 21–26, 28–30, 80, 123 Girard, Jean 28 f God 15 f, 43, 46 f, 52, 54, 58, 60 f, 78, 83 f, 90, 92–94, 101, 104, 107, 111–117, 121, 125–136, 138–145 Gray, David 42 f Greek 98 f, 103, 105, 107 f, 111, 115, 120, 125, 135 Hebrew 80, 82, 86 f, 93, 95 f, 98–105, 107 f, 110 f, 113–115, 117 f Heidelberg 21, 95, 108–110, 112, 120 history (Reformation uses of) 77–80,

Index

82–86, 88, 90 f, 93 f, 97, 99 f, 104, 114, 116, 118 f, humanism 15, 18 f, 88, 98–100, 102–104, 106 f, 112, 114, 123–125, 127, 145 Illyricus, Matthias Flacius 79 images 24 f, 58, 78, 115, 117, 128, 131, 133 indulgence (papal) 19, 21–23 Institutes 9, 11, 15, 27–29, 33 f, 96–98, 106, 110, 113, 120, 124, 127–132, 134, 137 f, 142–145 Isaiah (book of the Bible) 82–84, 103 f Jeremiah (book of the Bible) 81, 84–86, 93, 99 Jerome 87, 99 f, 104–108, 120 Jewish converts (to Protestantism) 96, 108 Jewish people (biblical) 90 f, 100 f Jewish scholarship 82, 90 f, 98–101, 104, 108, 120 John (book of the Bible) 130 Junius, Franciscus 14, 95–98, 102 f, 108–121 kerygma 141–143 kirk sessions (Scots) 11 f, 33, 36–55 Knox, John 11, 33 f, 36 f, 48, 84 laity 47 f, 60 f Latin publications 13 f, 22 f, 27–29, 31–33, 70, 78, 82, 95–121 Leipzig 20, 22–25, 62 literacy 40 liturgical calendar 37, 65–67 liturgy 73, 105 f, 125–127, 131–134 London 20, 95, 99, 102, 108 Lotter, Melchior 22, 24 Luther, Martin 11, 17–19, 21–26, 28–32, 57, 77 f, 80, 85, 87, 90, 98, 100–105, 123 Lutherans 62, 71, 79, 103–105 Lyon 20, 28, 32, 101 Mallet, G¦d¦on 66, 72 f manuscripts 17, 19–21, 72, 79, 109

Index

marriage 34, 44, 46, 49, 92 Mass (Roman Catholic) 15, 124–128, 131–133 Melanchthon, Philipp 32, 78–80, 87, 90, 103 ministers 33, 35–37, 39 f, 44–48, 50 f, 54, 68 f, 71 f, 80, 86 Moulin¦, Charles-Etienne-FranÅois 72 Mu¨ nster, Sebastian 99–102, 110 mystery plays 15, 124–126, 131 New Testament 24, 66, 68, 70, 88, 95, 102–104, 108, 110–112, 114, 117, 125 Nuremberg 20, 22–24 Oecolampadius, Joannes 87, 90, 103 Old Testament 13 f, 82, 84, 87 f, 95–97, 99–105, 107–109, 111 f, 114, 120 f, 129 Ordinances of 1541 (Genevan) 11, 33 f, 36, 63 Ostervald, Jean-Fr¦d¦ric 66, 71, 74 Pagninus, Sanctes 101 f papists 50 f, 61, 83 see also Catholicism, Catholics (Roman) Paris 20, 26–28, 65, 102 patristics 111, 113, 120, Paul (book of the Bible) 129, 135 f Peblis, Oliver 44 f, 47 Perth 11 f, 33, 36 f, 39–54 Pictet, Benedict 61, Pliny 83, 85, 116, 118, 120 Porphyry 87 praeterist (reading of prophecy) 78 f, 93 preaching 22 f, 29, 33, 37, 61, 65, 85, 129, 131 f, 135 f, 145 pregnancy 41, 46, 49, 53 presbytery 33, 36, 40 f, 45–47, 49–51, 53 f print 11, 17–23, 25, 65, 95 f, 101 printers 9–11, 17–31, 64, 71 f, 99, 112, printing press 19 f, 28, 123 prophecy (biblical) 13, 78 f, 82–91, 93 f, 99, 119, 123 Psalms 48, 66, 70, 89, 99, 115, 127 f, 132

169 publishing 14, 18 f, 21–28, 30–32, 37, 64, 71 f, 84, 93, 112, 121, 136 puritans 38 f, 95 rabbinic scholarship see Jewish scholarship rabbis 89, 101 Raleigh, Sir Walter 88 rape 43, 48, 53–55 reputation 18, 27, 39, 43 f, 64, 108 Rhau-Grunenberg, Johann 23, 26 rhetoric 15 f, 18 f, 23, 107, 109, 113, 115–117, 137–145 Rihel, Wendelin 17, 27, 29, 88 ritual 125 f, 132 f Romans book of the Bible 128, 139 f – historical people 88–90, 92 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 65 Row, John 33, 37 Sadoleto (Cardinal) 28 salvation 84, 130, 134, 137 f, 140 f, 145 Scholasticism (Reformed) 97, 103, 118, Scripture 9 f, 13–16, 60, 62 f, 66, 71, 73, 77 f, 80, 83, 86–88, 93, 95, 98, 101, 104, 106 f, 110–112, 114 f, 118 f, 121, 123, 126, 134 f, 137–145 Seneca 26 f, 120, 145 Septuagint 100, 107 sermons 9, 11, 22 f, 35, 37, 46, 48 f, 51, 61, 67, 113 f, 123 sexual offense 34, 38, 41–44, 47 f Sleidan, Johannes 88 Society of Catechumens (Geneva) 65 f, 68 f, 73 f Strasbourg 17, 20, 24 f, 27–30, 88 theatre 124–135 Thornton, Jean 44–47, 51 Timothy (book of the Bible) 134 f title pages (design of) 11, 25–27, 30 trade (book and print) 9, 11 19–21, 30–32 translations (of printed texts) 13 f, 16, 22, 24, 28, 33, 82, 86–88, 95, 97–103, 105–120, 135 f, 141–143

170 Tremellius, Immanuel 14, 95–98, 102 f, 108–110, 113 f, 117 f, 120 f Vadian, Joachim 79, 85 Vatable Bible 102 Vernes, Jacob 71 f Vernet, Jacob 63 f, 74 Voltaire 63–65, 74 Vulgate 13, 100, 102–106

Index

Watson, Helen 42 f, 48, 53 Wittenberg 18–26, 28 f, 31 f, 103, 105 women 31, 34–36, 38 f,, 41 f, 44–48, 50, 52–55, 69, 92 woodcuts 25 f Zurich 33, 79 f, 99, 102–104, 107, 110 Zwingli, Huldrych 98, 100 f, 103, 107