Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation. Week 3. Calvin's Ethics Sequence 8. Calvin and the French Language Welcome to today's sequence, in which we'll be discussing Calvin and the French language. In your study materials, you'll find a text taken from the 1541 version of the "Institutes of the Christian Religion." It is important that you study this text for a while before listening to the rest of this sequence. If you can, please print it out. We've seen that Calvin was trained as a jurist. We know that he was also an eminent theologian. You've learned that he was a minister, a preacher, a man of the Church. But what I'd like to focus on today is Calvin as a writer. Calvin was bilingual: he was able to think and write both in Latin and French. While many of his works were written in Latin, others were written in French. Calvin was a humanist: he always wrote in Latin to his correspondents in Germany and elsewhere. Yet unlike most humanists, Calvin also wished to communicate with those who didn't speak Latin. As a result, Calvin developed his own style in French -- a very interesting style, in fact. Here I am basing myself on the work of several historians of language, in particular the works of Olivier Millet and Francis Higman (the references of which are supplied
in your study materials). The single most important thing I'd like you to retain from this sequence is that Calvin's writing, to use Francis Higman's memorable phrase, represents the "triumph of the short sentence." When we study Calvin's texts today, they may seem somewhat complicated to us -- but let's not forget they were written some 400 years ago (almost 500 for some of them). To properly assess these texts in the context of the historical development of the French language, we must compare them to other contemporary writings. For example, take the writings of authors Calvin knew well, like Guillaume Farel or Pierre Viret. They are filled with highly complex syntactic structures. Many sentences seem endless; Francis Higman describes them as "steamroller sentences." The reader struggles, in the works of Viret or Farel, simply to find the sentence's main verb. The first thing that strikes the reader in Viret's "Dialogue on the Present Disorder in the World"
-- and perhaps I am being a little harsh -- is the complex, almost cryptic nature of his syntax. Quite the opposite with Calvin. The principles of literary expression employed by Calvin can be summarized as follows: 1) Short sentences: each sentence corresponds with a single notion. In the words of Francis Higman, this can be referred to as the "linearity" of Calvin's expression. 2) Calvin's mode of expression is perfectly coherent and structured. This is probably something he acquired from his training in law. Whenever you see "on the one hand" in one of Calvin's texts, you can be sure it will be followed, a few sentences later, by "on the other hand," ensuring the reader can clearly
grasp the argument's structure. Similarly, a "firstly" is always followed by a "secondly," and so on. 3) In structuring his thought, Calvin always goes from the general to the particular (we'll study an example of this shortly). 4) Calvin's writings reflect a highly pedagogical approach: he always takes the time to summarize for the reader the argument or notion just presented, and
announce what is coming next. All of that, I'm aware, is very theoretical -- so let's read together a few sentences taken from Calvin's "Institutes." I've selected these examples from the 1541 version of the "Institutes," rather than the 1560 French translation, because the 1541 version ranks, from a linguistic point of view, among the masterpieces
of 16th century French. It is likely that the 1560 translation of the "Institutes" was not entirely written by Calvin himself -- there remains a bit of mystery on the matter. We know for sure, however, that Calvin was the author of the French translation for the 1541 version. In chapter 8, which covers predestination and divine providence -- notions you've been introduced to in prior sequences --, Calvin writes about the fragility of human life. Let's read the text. You won't fail to notice the extent to which his sentences are short and his mode of expression is linear. First sentence: "Yet in this respect there is a singular happiness among the faithful." This is an introductory statement: the faithful, the believers, are particularly happy. The second sentence immediately presents us with a paradox, in fact a total reversal, since it reads: "Human life is surrounded and practically besieged by countless miseries." Calvin then proceeds to list all the dangers that threaten us, beginning with internal threats, namely, disease. From an early age, man is aware of being mortal: "Man carries several
kinds of death within himself." Then come the dangers that threaten us from without. As I was saying a short while ago, Calvin goes from the general to the particular. Particulars take the form of specific examples, which Calvin uses to make his demonstrations as lively and relevant as possible for the reader. Whenever you board a ship, there is always the risk of being shipwrecked. Whenever you climb onto a horse, you run of risk of being mangled or killed if it happens to trip and fall. Even walking down the street is not risk-free since, as Calvin puts it, "every tile on every roof is a potential danger to us." Even in a place of apparent safety -- imagine a peaceful garden full of flowers -- a snake may be lying in wait. Our possessions are also at risk: your house could crumble to the ground, your crops could be ruined. Having listed all these dangers, Calvin quickly puts his preacher hat back on, asking the reader a question (in sentence 15) as if he were sitting right across from him. Calvin then answers his own question in sentence 16, using a phrase designed to be eye-opening: "man is only half alive." An objection immediately comes to mind, which he addresses pre-emptively in sentence 17: these dangers don't always come true, nor do they happen to everyone. Granted, answers Calvin, but the fact that they are possible, and that no one can deny that they are possible, produces in man a constant state of anxiety. Thus we see the steps through which Calvin takes his reader. First, making him realize that he is under threat; then, presenting anxiety as man's response to these threats; and, finally,
pronouncing faith in God's providence as the solution to this problem --
as announced at the very beginning of the text. The happiness, the joy of the believer is not to be sought in material things, which always represent a source of danger for man, but in God's providence, God's concern for us. One of Calvin's great accomplishments was not in convincing all of his opponents of the correctness of his ideas, but in showing them a more effective method of expression. As Francis Higman has shown, many Catholic polemicists, writing around the end of the 16th / beginning of the 17th century, borrowed heavily from Calvin, adopting, if not his
ideas, at the very least his style. Millet and Higman have both pointed out that Calvin, in his time, was already using the French that would become the classical French of the 17th century. In many respects, his use of the French language is similar to that of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). As a writer, then, Calvin was truly ahead of his time. Alongside Rabelais, the great inventor of new words, Montaigne, the eminent philosopher, and Ronsard, the great poet (who, as a matter of fact, hated Geneva and Calvin), Calvin can considered one of the founding fathers of the French language as we know it today. Thus it would be mistake to focus strictly on Calvin's contributions as a theologian and ignore his influence as a writer -- something I hope I've been able to impress upon you
during this short sequence. We've reached the end of today's sequence. Thank you for your attention.
