226 THE KEFOKMATION IN FKENCH SWITZEKLANI).
The extensive correspondence of Calvin was first edited in part by Beza and JoNViLLiEKS (Calvin's secretary), Geneva;, 1575, and other editions ; then hy Bketsciineider (the Gotha Letters), Lips. 1835 ; by A. Ckottet, Geneve, 1850; much more completely by Jules Bonnet, Lettres Francoises, Paris, 1854, 2 vols.; an English translation (from the French and Latin) by D. CoNSTAHLE and M. K. Gi-lchrist, Edinburgh and Philadelphia (Presbyterian Board of Publication), 1855 sqq., in 4 vols, (the fourth with an index), giving the letters in chronological order (till 1558). The last and best edition is by the Strassburg Professors in Caloini Opera, vol. X. Part II. to vol. XX., with ample Prolegomena on the various editions of Calvin's Letters and the manuscript sources. His letters down to 1542 are also given by Herminjard, vols. VI. and YIL, quoted above.
V. BiOGRAruiES OF Cala'in :
♦Theodor Beza (d. 1004) : Johaimis Calvini Vita. First published with Calvin's posthumous Commentary on Joshua, in the year of his death. It is reprinted in all editions of Calvin's works, and in Tholuck's edition of Calvin's Commentary on the Gospels. In the same year Beza published a French edition under the title, L'llistoire de la vie et murt de Maistre Jean Calvin avec le testament et derniere volonte dudit Calvin : et le catalogue des liv7-es par lay composez. Geneve, 1564 ; second French edition, enlarged and improved by his friend and colleague, Nic. Colladon, 15G5 ; best edition, Geneva, 1657 (very rare, 204 pp.), which has been carefully republished from a copy in the Mazarin library, with an introduction and notes by Alfred Franklin, Paris, 1869 (pp. Ixi and 2114). This edition should be consulted. The three biographies of Beza (two French and one Latin) are reprinted in the Brunswick edition of Calvin's Opera with a notice litteraire, Tom. XXI. pp. 6-172, to which are added the Epitaphia in lo. Calvinum scripta (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French). There are also German, English, and Italian translations of this biography. An English translation by Francis Sibson of Trinity College, Dublin, reprinted in Philadelphia, 1836; another by Beveridge, Edinburgh, 1843.
The biography of Beza as enlarged by Colladon, though somewhat eulogistic, and especially Calvin's letters and works, and the letters of his friends who knew him best, furnish the chief material for an authentic biography.
HiEROSME Hermes Bolsec : Histoire de la vie, jiiceurs, actes, doctrine, Constance et mart de Jean Calvin, jadis ministre de Geneve, dedie au Heverendissime archeuesque, conte de I'Eglise de Lyon, et Primat de France, Lyon, 1577 (26 chs. and 143 pp.) ; republished at Paris, 1582; and with an introduction and notes hy L. Fr. Chastel, Lyon, 1875 (pp. xxxi and 328). I have used Chastel's edition. A Latin translation, De J. Calvini magni quondam Genevensium ministri vita, moribus, rebus gestis, studiis ac denique morte, appeared in Paris, 1577, also at Cologne, 1580; a German translation at Cologne, 1581. Bolsec was a Carmelite monk, then physician at Geneva, expelled on account of Pelagian views and opposition to Calvin, 1551 ; returned to the Roman Church; d. at Annecy about 1584. His book is a mean and unscrupulous libel, inspired by feelings of hatred and revenge ;
§ 58. LlTERATUItE ON CALVm, ETC. 227
but some of his facts are true, and have been confirmed by the documents published by Galiffe. Bolsec wrote a simihar biography of Beza : Histoire de la vie, inmtrs, doctrine ct deportments de Th. de Bize dit le Spectable, 1582. A Erencli writer says, " Ces biographies sont un tissu de calomnies qu' aucun historien se'rieu.v, pas rneme le P. Maimhourg, n'a os€ admettre et dont plus recemment M. Mignet a fait bonne justice." (A. Re'ville in Lichtcnberger's " Encycl.," II. 343.) Comp. the article " Bolsec " in La France Protestante, 2d ed. (1879), II. 745-776.
Antibolseccics. Cleve, 1622. Of this book I find only the title.
Jacques Le Vasseur (canon and dean of the Church of Noyon) : Annales de I'e'gllse cathedrale de JVoi/on. Paris, 1633, 2 vols. 4°. Contains some notices on the birth and relations of Calvin.
Jacques Desmay (R. C.) : Remarques sur la vie de J. Calvin he're'siarque tir€es des Reglstres de Noyon. Rouen, 1621 and 1657.
Charles Drelixcourt (pastor at Charenton) : La defense de Calvin contre r outrage fait a sa me'molre. Geneve, 1667; in German, Hanau, 1671. A refutation of the slanders of Bolsec and a posthumous book of Cardinal Richelieu on the easiest and surest method of conversion of those who separated themselves from the Roman Church. Bayle gives an epitome in his Dictionnaire.
Melchior Adaji : Vita Calvlnl, in his Vita' Theologorum, etc, 3d ed. Francof., 1705 (Part II., Decades date, etc., pp. 32-55). Chiefly from Beza.
Elijah Waterjia.v (pastor of the Presbj-terian Church in Bridgeport, Conn.) : Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Calvin: together ivlth a selection of Letters written by him and other distinguished Reformers. Hartford, 1813.
Vincent Audin (R. C, 1793-1851) : Histoire de la vie, des ouvrages et des doctrines de Calvin. Paris, 1841, 2 vols.; 5t]i ed. 1851 ; 6th ed. 1873. English translation by John McGill ; German translation, 1843. .Written like a novel, with a deceptive mixture of truth and falsehood. It is a Bolsec redivivus. Audin says that he first cast away the book of Bolsec " as a shameful libel. All testimony was against Bolsec : Catholics and Protestants equally accused him. But, after a patient study of the reformer, we are now compelled to admit, in part, the recital of the physician of Lyon. Time has declared for Bolsec ; each day gives the lie to the apologists of Calvin." He boasts of having consulted more than a thousand volumes on Calvin, but betrays his polemical bias by confessing that he "desired to prove that the refugee of Noyon was fatal to civilization, to the arts, and to civil and religious liberty." Audin wrote in the same spirit the history of Luther (18-39, 3 vols.), Henry VIII. (1847), and Leo X. (1851). His work is disowned and virtually refuted by fairminded Catholics like Ivampschulte, Corne'lius, and Funk.
* Paul Henry, D.D. (pastor of a French Reformed Church in Berlin) : Das Leben Johann Calvlns des grossen Refirinutors, etc. (dedicated to Neander). Hamburg, 1835-44, 3 vols. Englisli translation (but without the notes and appendices, and differing from the author on the case of Servetus) by Henry Stebbing, London and New York, 1851, in 2 vols. This large