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John Calvin and the Rhetorical Tradition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Quirinus Breen
Quirinus Breen
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Extract

The purpose of this essay is to bring another candle to an understanding of John Calvin as a theologian, by way of a look at some rhetorical traits in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. That Calvin was an eminent theologian or that the Institutes is a classic of theological literature is not examined, for neither is generally disputed. Our specific concern is with the question of what happens to theological subject matter when it is put in rhetorical form. Accordingly, this essay is divided into three parts: I—The proper marks of a style suitable to theology, and how the humanists, including Calvin, felt about this; II—A look at some rhetorical traits in the Institutes; and III—Some conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1957 , pp. 3 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1957

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References

1. The word traits is used so as to cover the genres of rhetorical discourse, the nature of proof, and the style. Style, used strictly, is called elocutio; it is also used loosely, to cover genres and proof. It is largely used more or less loosely in this essay; when used strictly it will be made clear that elocutio is meant.

2. That Calvin might not say this is of no moment here.

3. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 2 vols. Harvard University Press, 1947. I defer to Professor Wolfson in much, because of his long and comprehensive interest in the style of philosophical discourse.

4. See Wolfson, H. A., The Philosophy of Spinoza, Harvard University Press, 1934, Vol I, p. 39.Google Scholar Attentive reading of Chapters I “Behind the Geometric Method” and II “The Geometric Method” is rewarding for our subject.

5. Ibid., p. 54.

6. Ibid., 40–43; see also 46–53. Mates, Benson, Stoic Logic, University of California Press, 1953, passim.Google Scholar

7. Cicero, De Oratore, III, 14, 54–22, 85; III, 35, 141–143.Google Scholar

8. The reaction was not universal, not even among humanists. This is clear from Pico's famous letter to Barbaro. See Garin, E., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola a Ermolao Barbaro,” Prosatori latini del quattrocento, Milano, Napoli, pp. 805–823, 844–863;Google Scholar Q. Breen's translations of the same things and also of Melanchthon's Reply to Pico in Behalf of Barbaro, in Journal of the History of Ideas, XIII (1952), pp. 384–426;Google Scholar and “The Subordination of Philosophy to Rhetoric in Melanchthon.” Archiv fuer Reformationsgeschichte, Jahrgang 43 (1952) Heft 1, pp. 13–28.Google Scholar See also Kristeller, Paul Oskar, The Classics and Renaissance Thought, Harvard University Press, 1955, pp. 11–13;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Harbison, E. Harris, The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Renaissance, New York, 1956, pp. 34–37, and 49–54.Google Scholar

9. Wolfson, H. A., Spinoza, I, 56–57.Google Scholar

10. Grands, Abel Lefrancécrivains français de la Renaissance, Paris, 1914, pp. 350–357, “Le style de Calvin.”Google Scholar

11. Bishop Bossuet gave currency to the characterization of Calvin's style as “triste;” see his “Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes,” “Oeuvres complètes de Bossuet … par F. Lachet, Paris, 1863, p. 389, par. lxxxi.

12. Breen, Q., Nizolio, Mario: “De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos,” libri IV, 2 vols.Google ScholarRoma, (Fratelli Bocca Editori), 1956. Introduction in English, pp. xvlxxiv.Google ScholarSee particularly pp. lxiii–lxx;Google Scholar“Marius Nizolius: Ciceronian Lexicographer and Philosopher,” Archiv fuer Reformationsgeschichte, XLVI (1955), 69–87.Google Scholar

13. While I know of no documented influence of the Institutes on Peter Ramus the Institutes does in ways practice what Ramus expounds.

14. See Note 8 above.

15. Inst. I, v. 9; CR II, 47.

16. CR II, 41–47.

17. Paragraphs 1–8 established by epideictic the premises laid down in par. 9 just quoted.

18. Aristotle (Rhet. I, iii, 3) says that the persons sitting in judgment on epideictic are the mere spectators of the speaker's ability; on forensic they are the judge in the court; on deliberative they are the members of a general assembly, and as such also judges of the discourse.

19. See Harbison, E. Harris, op. cit., pp. 152, esp. 158–164.Google Scholar

20. See note 16 above.

21. See Section III below.

22. CR II, 455–470.

23. Inst., III, iv, 7; CR II, 461–2. The chapter also deals with confession and satisfaction.

24. This is lofty humanistic scorn, and hardly pertinent to the argument. The intention of Innocent's law is not in doubt.

25. CR II, 9–30.

26. It may be suggested that much in the Institutes can be called both epideictic and forensic. Even “publishing of a confession (action) in the presence (in the court) of King Francis (as judge)” is not a real suit at law but a show-piece (as rhetoricians say, meaning no disrespect). The Antidosis of Isocrates was such a show-piece; very likely also the defense of latinizing his name, by Majoragius (a contemporary of Calvin). See Taylor, A. and Mosher, F. J.: Bibliographical History of Anomyma and Pseudonyma. Chicago, 1951, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

27. Aristotle, Rhetoric I, ii, 3; in II, i-xviii there is very much suggestion. See also Quintilian, Institutio oratoria XII, i.

28. Op. cit. II iv, 25–30. No one believed the king had even read Calvin's Letter, much less the Institutes. The Letter makes much of condemnation of the doctrine without a hearing, and the reprinting of it in front of each new edition kept reminding people of that. This, too, could add to the esteem for Calvin as a man of worth.

29. CR II, 462, “conductitii papae rabulae.”

30. CR II, 491, “a papa et suis bulligerulis … quaestuosas nundinationes … exerceri.”

31. It may be suggestive to see an application of ethical proof in Calvin's argument for the truth of Scripture from the testimony of the Holy Spirit. See Inst. I, vii, 4; C.R. II, 58.

32. Life, December 26, 1955, pp. 41–42.

33. Calvin idealized brevity: “Brevitati studeo (Inst. II, iii, 2; CR II, 210); “Pudet me in re tam clara tantum verborum consumere” (Inst. III, xxv, 8; CR II, 738); See also “Argument du Present Livre,” CR III, xxv. See Howell, W. S., Logic and Rhetoric in England 1500–1700, Princeton University Press, 1956, p. 293.Google Scholar The brief, undecorated style is by Zeno called one suited to dialectic or logic, and is like the closed fist. Opposite to the dialectical style is that which is copious and ornamented, suited to rhetoric; it is like the open hand.

34. See Wendel, F., Calvin: Sources et évolution de sa pensée religieuse, Paris, 1950, pp. 273–4Google Scholar, who disputes the notion that Calvin has a closed logical system. See also Harbison, op. cit., pp. 156–7. Joseph Bohatec Budé und Calvin: Studien zur Gedankenwelt des französischen frühumanismus, Graz, 1950, says that Calvin's organization of the subject matter belongs to a true rhetoric; also, that his concept of the harmony of Scripture derives from Budé's influence.

35. There is much literature on the enthymeme, and there has been diversity of view about its precise meaning. I follow the prevailing view that it is a syllogism with only two members.

36. CR II, 211–213.

37. For some assumptions that needed examination, see Battenhouse, Roy W., “The Doctrine of Man in Calvin and in Renaissance Platonism,” Journal of the History of Ideas, IX (1948), esp. pp. 469–470.Google Scholar

38. Lefranc, Abel, op. cit., 356–7.Google Scholar

39. My version is not intended as a guide to those who are now translating the Institutes for the Library of Christian Classics. For the true savor of an author's style there is no substitute for the original language. The translation by Thomas Norton (1574) catches Calvin's quality much better than that of either Allen or Beveridge.

40. Inst. I, i, 2; C.R. II, 32.

41. Inst. I, v, ii, CR II, 49.

42. Inst. I, v, 12; C.R., 50.

43. Inst. I, V, 14; C.R., 51.

44. Wolfson, H. A., Spinoza, I, 57.Google Scholar

45. See Leibniz, , “De stilo philosophico Nizolii,” Erdmann, J. E. (ed.), G. C. Leibnitii Opera Philosophica, pars prior, Berolini, 1840, p. 62.Google Scholar

46. This tends to sublimate the function of syllogistic, the hard work of specially trained experts in logic. Yet its turn must come, for the owl of Minerva wakes up after the shade of night has fallen.