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

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Simon greatly underrates Calvin’s knowledge of Hebrew when he says that
he knew not much more than the Hebrew letters. Dr. Diestel (Geschichte
des Alten Test. in der christl. Kirche, 1869, p. 267) justly pronounces this
a slander which is refuted by every page of Calvin’s commentaries. He
ascribes to him a very good knowledge of Hebrew: “ausgewählt mit einer
sehr tüchtigen hebräischen Sprachkenntniss.”
Pierre Bayle (1647–1706).
Son of a Reformed minister, educated by the Jesuits of Toulouse,
converted to Romanism, returned to Protestantism, skeptical, the author of
a Dictionnaire historique et critique.
“That a man who had acquired so great a reputation and so great
an authority should have had only a hundred crowns of salary, and
have desired no more, and that after having lived fifty-five years
with every sort of frugality, he left to his heirs only the value of
three hundred crowns, including his library, is a circumstance so
heroical, that one must be devoid of feeling not to admire it, and
one of the most singular victories which virtue and greatness of
soul have been able to achieve over nature, even among ministers
of the gospel. Calvin has left imitators in so far as regards activity
of life, zeal and affection for the interest of his party; they employ
their eloquence, their pens, their endeavors, their solicitations in the
advancement of the kingdom of God; but they do not forget
themselves, and they are, generally speaking, an exemplification of
the maxim that the Church is a good mother, in whose service
nothing is lost.
“The Catholics have been at last obliged to dismiss to the region of
fable the atrocious calumnies (les calomnies atroces) which they
had uttered against the moral character of Calvin; their best authors
now restrict themselves to stating that if he was exempt from the
vices of the body, he has not been so from those of the mind, such
as pride, passion, and slander. I know that the Cardinal de
Richelieu, or that dexterous writer who has published under his
name ‘The Method of Conversation,’ had adopted the absurdities
of Bolsec. But in general, eminent authors speak no more of that.
The mob of authors will never renounce it. These calumnies are to
be found in the ‘Systema decretorum dogmaticorum,’ published at
Avignon in 1693, by Francis Porter. Thus the work of Bolsec will