THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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prete du N. T., Paris, 1897; A. Riiegg, A. Vinet, Gedanken und Betrachtungen, Heilbronn, 1897; A. Schumann, Vinet, sein Leben, seine Gedankenwelt, seine Bedeutung, Leipsic, 1907.
VINSON, JOHN: Elder and founder of the Church of the Living God (see Livine Gop, CouRCH OF THE); born on his father’s farm in Madison Co., Ind., July 9, 1851. He was educated at the normal school at Alexandria, and was subsequently a teacher in the public schools of his state, completing his education by private reading. He was converted in 1885, and began his public ministry as an exhorter, later receiving ordination and serving as pastor and evangelist in different parts of Indiana. His further work is bound up in that of his denomination.
VINTON, ALEXANDER HAMILTON: Protestant Episcopal bishop; b. in Brooklyn Mar. 30, 1852; d. at Springfield, Mass., Jan. 19, 1911. He was educated at St. Stephen’s College, Annandale, N. Y. (A.B., 1873), General Theological Seminary (graduated, 1876), and the University of Leipsic. He was ordained priest in 1877; was curate of the Church of the Holy Communion, Norwood, N. J. (1878-79), and the Holy Comforter Memorial, Philadelphia (1879-84); rector of All Saints’, Worcester, Mass. (1884-1902). In 1902 he was consecrated first bishop of the diocese of Western Massachusetts.
VIRET, vi’’ré’, PIERRE: Swiss Reformer; b. at Orbe (15 m. n. of Lausanne), Switzerland, May 4, 1511; d. at Orthez (90 m. s. of Bordeaux), France, Apr. 4, 1571. He began to study at Paris for the priesthood, but renounced the Roman Catholic faith and returned to his native town. He was ordained by Farel in 1531, and preached in Orbe and elsewhere. In 1533 he went to Geneva as assistant to Farel, and after the introduction of the Reformation in that city to Neufchatel, and thence to Lausanne, where his work led to the definite introduction of the Reformation. After the fall of the party hostile to the Reformation at Geneva, Viret labored there until the return of Calvin in 1541. At Lausanne, besides preaching, he lectured on the New Testament in the seminary founded by the citizens of Bern in 1537.
Viret began his literary activity with the Epistre consolatoire (Geneva, 1541). He made several journeys in the interests of the Reformation, and in 1549 he received a close friend in Beza (q.v.), who was then appointed professor at Lausanne. To this period belong some of his chief works: Dw devoir et du besoing qu’ont les hommes a s’enquérir de la volonté de Dieu par sa parolle (Geneva, 1551; against the newly opened Council of Trent); two treatises on clerical duties and the Lord’s Supper: De vero verbi Det, sacramentorum et ecclesie ministerio (1553), and De origine, continuatione, auctoritate atque prestantia ministeria verbt Der et sacramentorum, ete. (1554); the historical Des Actes des vrais successeurs de Jésus- Christ et de ses apostres et des apostats de UV église papale, etc. (1544); and two letters to Frenchmen condemned by the Inquisition, one at Lyons and the other at Chambery. Viret was involved in many troubles with the government of Bern, and it was only in 1549 that he was confirmed in his position
after clearing himself of the charge of holding Butzer’s eucharistic doctrines. Matters were brought to a climax by Viret’s refusal to celebrate the Lord’s Supper without excluding all those who were recognized as unworthy to communicate, and in 1559 he and his colleague Jacques Valier were suspended. Viret was then appointed preacher at Geneva, and during this period wrote Du vray ministére de la vraye église de JKésus Christ, et de vrais sacremens d’icelle, et des faus sacremens de V église de V Antichrist (Geneva, 1560); Familiére et ample instruction en la doctrine chrestienne, et principalement touchant la divine providence et prédestination (1559); and La Metamorphose chrestienne (1561). In 1561 he was called to Nimes, but in the following year the French Reformed were obliged to surrender their church to the Roman Catholics, and Viret retired td Montpellier. Thence he was called to Lyons, and on Aug. 19, 1563, he presided over the fourth French national synod as head of the consistory of Lyons. He carried on many controversies with monks and Italian antitrinitarians, and developed an extensive literary activity, publishing no less than nine works between 1563 and 1565, among them his chief work, Instruction chrestienne en la doctrine de la loy et deVévangile, . . . (3 vols., Geneva, 1564), containing a system of morals and politics. In 1565 he was obliged to leave Lyons, whereupon he went to Orange, and after 1566 presided over the academy established by Jeanne d’Albret (q.v.) at Orthez. In the war of 1569 he was taken prisoner by the Roman Catholics, but was soon released.
Viret was highly esteemed by his contemporaries for his preaching. He left also an instructive and interesting body of correspondence, covering the period 1532-67. (C. SCHNETZLER.)
BrstiocrapHy: T. Beza, Icones, Geneva, 1580; J. Scott, Calvin and the Swiss Reformation, pp. 312-317 et passim, London, 1833; C. Chenevitre, Farel, Froment, Viret, Geneva, 1835; A. Sayous, Htudes littéraires sur les écrivains francais de la réformation, i. 181-241, Paris, 1841; E. and EK. Haag, La France protestante, vol. ix., Paris, 1859; C. Schmidt, Leben und ausgewiihlte Schriften der Vater . . . der reformierten Kirche, ix. 39-71, Elberfeld, 1861; J. Cart, Pierre Viret, Lausanne, 1864; P. Godet, P. Viret, Lausanne, 1892; Cambridge Modern History, li. 293, 368, New York, 1904; C. Schnetzler and J. Barnaud, Notice bibliographique sur P. Viret, Lausanne, 1905; Pierre Vinet d’aprés lui-méme. EHxtraiits de ses euvres, Lausanne, 1911; T. Barnaud, P. Viret, sa vie et son ewuvre, St. Amans, 1911; H. Vuilleumier, Notre Pierre Viret, Lausanne, 1911; Schaff, Christian Church, vii. 250-252; Lichtenberger, HSR, xii. 402-408.
VIRGIL, ver’jil: Bishop of Salzburg; b. in Ireland, probably in the first or second decade of the eighth century; d. at Salzburg Nov. 27, 784. After having risen to be abbot of the monastery of Aghaboe (in the modern County Queens), he joined the court of Pippin in 743, who sent him to Odilo, duke of Bavaria, in 745. Between 746 and 748 he was appointed bishop of Salzburg, but having scruples about receiving consecration, he administered only the temporal affairs of the diocese. Virgil’s relations with his archbishop, the famous Boniface, soon became strained. Boniface directed Virgil and his colleague Sidonius, later bishop of Passau, to rebaptize all who had been baptized by a Bavarian priest because the latter had been un-