§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO. 623
title Dialogi sacri, which passed througli several editions in Latin and French from 1540 to 1731. He wrote a Latin epic on the prophecies of Jonah ; a Greek epic on John the Baptist, which greatly delighted Melanchthon ; two versions of the Pentateuch, with a view to exhibit Moses as a master in all the arts and sciences ; a translation of the Psalms, and other poetic portions of the Old Testament.
These works were preparator}^ to a complete Latin translation of the Bible, which he begun at Geneva, 1542, and finished at Basel, 1551. It was dedicated to King Edward VI. of England, and often republished with various improvements. He showed some specimens in manuscript to Calvin, who disapproved of the style. His object was to present the Bible in classical Latinity according to the taste of the later humanists and the pedantic Ciceronianism of Cardinal Bembo. He substituted classical for biblical terms ; as lotio for baj^tisnuis, genius for angelus^ respublica for ecclesia, collegium for synagoge^ senatus iov j^reshyterium, furiosi for dcemoniaci. He sacrificed the contents to style, obliterated the Hebraisms, and weakened the realistic force, the simplicity and grandeur of the biblical writers. His translation was severely criticised by Calvin and Beza as tending to secularize and profane the sacred book, but it was commended as a meritorious work by such competent judges as Melanchthon and Richard Simon. Castellio published also a French version of the Bible with notes (1555), but his French was not nearly as pure and elegant as his Latin, and was severely criticised by Beza. He translated portions of Homer, Xenophon, the Dialogues of Ochino, and also two mystical books, the Theologia Grermmiiea (1557), and, in the last year of his life, the Imitatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis, — "e latino in latinum,'' that is, from monkish into classical Latin, — omitting, however, the fourth book.
Castellio was a philologist and critic, an orator and poet, but not a theologian, and unable to rise to the lofty height
624 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
of Calvin's views and mission. His controversial tracts are full of bitterness. He combined a mystical with a sceptical tendency-^ He was an anachronism ; a rationalist before Rationalism, an advocate of religious toleration in an age of intolerance.
Castellio became acquainted with Calvin at Strassburg, and lived with him in the same house (1540). Calvin appreciated his genius, scholarship, and literary industry, and, on his return to Geneva, he secured for him a call as rector of the Latin school at a salary of four hundred and fifty florins (November, 1541), in the place of his old teacher, Maturin Cordier. He treated him at first with marked kindness and forbearance. In 1542, when the pestilence raged, Castellio offered to go to the hospital, but he was either rejected as not qualihed, not being a minister, or he changed his mind Avhen the lot fell on him.^
Early in the year 1544, Castellio took offence at some of Calvin's theological opinions, especially his doctrine of predestination. He disliked his severe discipline and the oneman-power. He anticipated the rationalistic opinion on the Song of Solomon, and described it as an obscene, erotic poem, which should be stricken out of the canon.^ He also objected to the clause of Christ's descent into Hades in the Apostles' Creed, or rather to Calvin's figurative explanation of it, as being a vicarious foretaste of eternal pain by Christ on the cross.* For these reasons Calvin opposed his ordination,
^ Stiihelin (II. 303) calls him " ein rationalistischer Gefiihlstheologe mit ausgeprdc/t (Esthetischem AnstricJi."
2 The latter is Beza's explanation, Vita Calv. in Annal., Opera, XXI. 134.
3 " Carmen obscoenum et lascivuin, quo Salomo impudicos siws amoves descrlpserit." Comp. Reg. du Conseil, Jan. 28, 1544, in Annal. 329.
* Calvin, in his catechism, explains the descensus ad inferos to mean the suffering of the " dolores mortis" (Acts 2:24) or " horribiles angustias" on the cross in behalf of the elect. This unhistorical exposition passed into the Heidelberg Catechism, Quasst. 44: "Christ, my Lord, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, and terrors, which he suffered in liis soul on the cross and before, has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell." The true meaning of the clause is, that the descent was an event which took place between the death and the resurrection of Clirist. Comp. 1 Pet. 3 : 19 ; 4:6; Eph. 4 : 9.