Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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gave to the Germans, in their own vernacular, a version of the Bible, a
catechism, and a hymn-book. Calvin did not translate the Scriptures
(although from his commentaries a tolerably complete version might be
constructed), and his catechism and a few versified psalms never became
popular; but he wrote classical French as well as classical Latin, and
excelled his contemporaries in both. He was schooled in the Renaissance,
but, instead of running into the pedantic Ciceronianism of Bembo, he made
the old Roman tongue subservient to Christian thought, and raised the
French language to the dignity of one of the chief organs of modern
civilization, distinguished for directness, clearness, precision, vivacity, and
elegance.
The modern French language and literature date from Calvin and his
contemporary, François Rabelais (1483–1553). These two men, so totally
different, reflect the opposite extremes of French character. Calvin was the
most religious, Rabelais the most witty man, of his generation; the one the
greatest divine, the other the greatest humorist, of France; the one a
Christian stoic, the other a heathen Epicurean; the one represented
discipline bordering on tyranny, the other liberty running into license.
Calvin created the theological and polemical French style,—a style which
suits serious discussion, and aims at instruction and conviction. Rabelais
created the secular style, which aims to entertain and to please. f368
Calvin sharpened the weapons with which Bossuet and the great Roman
Catholic divines of the seventeenth century attacked Protestantism, with
which Rousseau and the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked
Christianity, and with which Adolf Monod and Eugène Bersier of the
nineteenth century preached the simple gospel of the New Testament. f369
§ 67. CALVIN’S LITERARY LABORS.
The best edition of Calvin’s Opera by the Strassburg professors,
BAUM, CUNITZ, and REUSS (now all dead), embraces so far 48
quarto vols. (1863–1892); the remaining volumes were prepared
for publication by Dr. Reuss before his death (1891). He wrote to
me from Neuhof, near Strassburg, July 11, 1887: “Alles ist zum
Druck vorbereitet und ganz fertig mit Prolegomenis, etc. Es bleibt
nichts mehr zu thun übrig als die Correctur und die Fortsetzung
des immer à jour gehaltenen Index rerum et nominum, et locorum
S. S., was ein anderer nach meinem Tode besorgen kann. Denn ich