276 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
mentaries are filled with references skilfully drawn from the text — which are capable of prepossessing tiie minds of those readers who are not profoundly acquainted with religion."
Simon greatly underrates Calvin's knowledge of Hebrew when he says that he knew not much more than the Hebrew letters. Dr. Diestel (Geschichie des Alten Test, in der christl. Kirche, 1869, p. 267) justly pronounces this a slander which is refuted by every page of Calvin's commentaries. He ascribes to him a very good knowledge of Hebrew: " ausgewdhlt mit einer sehr tiichtigen hebrdischen Sprachkenntniss."
Pierre Bayle (1647-1706).
Son of a Reformed minister, educated by the Jesuits of Toulouse, converted to Romanism, returned to Protestantism, skeptical, the author of a Dictionnaire historique et critique.
"That a man who had acquired so great a reputation and so great an authority should have had only a hundred crowns of salary, and have desired no more, and that after having lived fifty-five years with every sort of frugality, he left to his heirs only the value of three hundred crowns, including his library, is a circumstance so heroical, that one must be devoid of feeling not to admire it, and one of the most singular victories which virtue and greatness of soul have been able to achieve over nature, even among ministers of the gospel. Calvin has left imitators in so far as regards activity of life, zeal and affection for the interest of his party; they employ their eloquence, their pens, their endeavors, their solicitations in the advancement of the kingdom of God ; but they do not forget themselves, and they are, generally speaking, an exemplification of the maxim that the Church is a good mother, in wliose service nothing is lost.
" The Catholics have been at last obliged to dismiss to the region of fable the atrocious calumnies (Jes calomnies atroces) which they had uttered against the moral character of Calvin ; their best authors now restrict themselves to stating that if he was exempt from the vices of the body, he has not been so from those of the mind, such as pride, passion, and slander. I know that the Cardinal de Richelieu, or that dexterous writer who has published under his name ' The Method of Conversation,' had adopted the absurdities of Bolsec. But in general, eminent authors speak no more of that. The mob of authors will never renounce it. These calumnies are to be found in the ' Systema decretoruin doymaticorum,' published at Avignon in 1693, by Francis Porter. Thus the work of Bolsec will always be cited as long as the Calvinists have adversaries, but it will be sufficient to brand it eternally with calumny that there is among Catholics a certain number of serious authors who will not adopt its fables."
Jean Alphonse Turretin (1617-1737).
Professor of theology of Geneva and representative of a moderate Calvinism. The most distinguished theologian of his name, also called Turretin the younger, to distinguish him from his father Francois.
"John Calvin was a man whose memory will be blessed to the latest age (vir bene.dictce in omne cevum memorice). . . . He has by his immense labors in-
§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 277
structed and adorned not only the Church of Geneva, but the whole Reformed world, so that not unfrequently all the Reformed Churches are in the gross called after his name."
Montesquieu (1689-1755). Author of De l' esprit des lots (the oracle of the friends of moderate freedom). "The Genevese should bless the birthday of Calvin."
Voltaire (169-1-1778).
" Essai sur les moeiirs et I'esprit des nations."
"The famous Calvin, whom we regard as the Apostle of Geneva, raised himself up to the rank of Pope of the Protestants {s'e'rigea en pape des Protestants). He was acquainted with Latin and Greek, and the bad philosophy of his time. He wrote better than Luther, and spoke worse ; both were laborious and austere, but hard and violent (dtu-s et emporte's). . . . Calvinism conforms to the republican spirit, and yet Calvin had a tyrannical spirit. . . . He demanded the toleration which he needed for himself in France, and he armed himself with intolerance at Geneva. . . . The severity of Calvin was united with the greatest disinterestedness (aw plus grand de'sinte'ressement) ."
Jean Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778).
A native of Geneva. The apostle of the French Revolution, as Calvin was the apostle of the French Reformation.
From Lettres e'crites de la montagne.
" Quel homme fat jamais plus tranchant, plus impe'rieux, plus decisif, plus divinement infaillible a son gr€ que Calvin, pour qui la moindre opposition . . . e'tait toujours une oeuvre de Satan, un crime digne dufeu ! "
D'Alembert (1717-1783).
"Calvin justly enjoyed a great reputation — a literary man of the first rank (homme de leltre du premier ordre) — writing in Latin as well as one could do in a dead language, and in French with singular purity for his time (at'ec une pur ete' sing uliere pour son temps). This purity, which our able grammarians admire even at this day, renders his writings far superior to almost all those of the same age, as the works of the Port-Royalists are distinguished even at the present day, for the same reason, from the barbarous rhapsodies of their opponents and contemporaries.
Frederic Ancillon (1767-1837).
Tableau des Re'volutions du Si/sti-me Politique de VEurope.
" Calvin was not only a profound theologian, but likewise an able legislator; the share which he had in the framing of the civil and religious laws which have produced for several centuries the liappiness of the Genevan republic, is perhaps a fairer title to renown than his theological works; and