266 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
popular; but lie wrote classical French as well as classical Latin, and excelled his contemporaries in both. He was schooled in the Renaissance, but, instead of running into the pedantic Ciceronianism of Bembo, he made the old Roman tongue subservient to Christian thought, and raised the French language to the dignity of one of the chief organs of modern civilization, distinguished for directness, clearness, precision, vivacity, and elegance.
The modern French language and literature date from Calvin and his contemporary, Fran9ois Rabelais (1483-1553). These two men, so totally different, reflect the opposite extremes of French character. Calvin was the most religious, Rabelais the most witty man, of his generation; the one the greatest divine, the other the greatest humorist, of France ; the one a Christian stoic, the other a heathen Epicurean ; the one represented discipline bordering on tyranny, the other liberty running into license. Calvin created the theological and polemical French style, — a style which suits serious discussion, and aims at instruction and conviction. Rabelais created the secular style, which aims to entertain and to please. 1
Calvin sharpened the weapons with which Bossuet and the great Roman Catholic divines of the seventeenth century attacked Protestantism, with which Rousseau and the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked Christianity, and with which Adolf Monod and Eugene Bersier of the nineteenth century preached the simple gospel of the New Testament.2
1 Calvin alludes once (in a letter of 1553) to the Pantagrml of Rabelais, which was condemned as an obscene book.
2 Bossuet (in his Histoire des Variations) says: " Rien ne flattait davantage Calvin que la gloire de bien e'crire. Donnons lui done, puisqu'il le veut tant cette gloire, d 'avoir aussi bien €crit qu'homme de son siecle. . . . Sa plume e'tait plus correcte, surtout en latin, que celle de Luther; et son style, qui e'tait plus triste, e'tait aussi plus suivi et plus chatie. lis excellaient Vun et I'autre a purler la langue de leur pays." Martin, in his Histoire de France (Tom. VIII. 185 sq.), discusses at some length the merits of Calvin for French prose, and calls hira the first
§ 67. CALVIN'S LITERARY LABORS. 267
§ 67. Calvin s Literary Labors.
The best edition of Calvin's Opera by the Strassburg professors, Baum, CuNiTz, and Reuss (now all dead), embraces so far 48 quarto vols. (1863-1892) ; the remaining volumes were prepared for publication by Dr. Reuss before his death (1891). He wrote to me from Neuhof, near Strassburg, July 11, 1887 : '' Alles ist zum Druck vorbereitet und ganz fertig mit Prolegomenis, etc. Es bleiht nlchts mein- zu thun iibrig als die Correctur und die Fortsetzung des immer a jour gehaltenen Index rerum et nominum, et locorum S. S., loas ein anderer nach meinem Tode besorgen Icann. Denn ich werde die Vollendung nicht erlcben. Fur den Schluss habe ich sogar noch ein Supplement ausgearbeitet, ndmlich eine franzosische Bibel, extrahirt aus den franzosischen Commentaren und Predigten, nebst alien Varianten der zu Calvin's Zeiten in Genf gedruckten Bibeln." Vol. 45 sqq. are edited by Erichson.
Older editions appeared at Geneva, 1617, in 7 vols., in 15 fol., and at Amsterdam, 1667-1671, in 9 vols. fol. The English translation, Edinburgh, 1843-1854, has 52 vols. 8°. Several works have been separately published in Latin, French, German, Dutch, English, and other languages. See a chronological list in Henry: Das Leben Joh. Calvins, vol. III. Bellagen, 175-252, and in La France Prot. III. 545-636 (2d ed.).
The literary activit}^ of Calvin, whether we look at the number or at the importance of works, is not surpassed by any ecclesiastical writer, aiicient or modern, and excites double astonishment when we take into consideration the shortness of his life, the frailty of his health, and the multiplicity of his other labors as a teacher, preacher, church ruler, and correspondent. Augustin among the Fathers, Thomas Aquinas among the Schoolmen, Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, were equally fruitful ; but they lived longer, with the exception of Thomas Aquinas. Calvin, moreover, wrote in two languages with equal clearness, force, and elegance ; while Augustin and Thomas Aquinas wrote only in Latin ; Luther was a master of German ; and Melanchthon, a master of Latin and Greek, but his German is as indifferent as Luther's Latin.
Calvin's works may be divided into ten classes.
writer of the sixteenth century "par la duree et I'influence de sa langue, de son style." Pierre Larousse, in his Grand Dictionnaire (Tom. III. 186), calls Calvin "fondateur de la Peforme en France et un des peres de notre langue." Equally favorable are the judgments of Sayous, Lacroix, Nisard, and Marc-Monnier.