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Geneva's “Enlightened Orthodoxy”: The Middle Way of Jacob Vernet (1698–1789)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David Sorkin
David Sorkin
Affiliation:
David Sorkin is the Frances and Laurence Weinstein Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Extract

Jacob Vernet (1698–1789) numbers among those eighteenth-century theologians whose relationships to the philosophes have saved them from being forgotten but at the cost of being misrepresented. Vernet is usually remembered for editing the first edition of Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois, helping to restore Rousseau to Calvinism, and corresponding and then crossing swords with D'Alembert and Voltaire: it is especially the controversy with D'Alembert surrounding the article on “Geneva” in the seventh volume of the Encyclopédie (1757), as well as a sustained conflict with Voltaire over many issues, that have secured him scholarly attention. The scholars who have noticed Vernet have accordingly concentrated on aspects of his person: ascertaining whether he was mendacious, conniving, and hypocritical, as some of the philosophes, especially Voltaire contended, or the figure of impeccable behavior and conscience suggested by his office and his hagiographers. This one-sided emphasis on his person obscures the fact that Vernet wrote a shelf of books and was such an influential figure that he was the representative Genevan theologian of his day. The neglect of his thought is hardly astounding, however, since it is characteristic of the treatment accorded eighteenth-century theology in general. Theologians and students of religion have for long dismissed eighteenth-century theology as derivative; students of the Enlightenment have considered it outside the canon of Enlightenment literature and thus beyond their purview. Both these assumptions should be challenged.

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Articles
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Church History , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 286 - 305
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2005

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References

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11. Falletti, , Jacob Vernet: Théologien genevois, 91.Google Scholar

12. The figures he met in Paris included the famous Jesuit, Jean Hardouin (b. 1646), Noël-Antoine Pluche, 1688–1761, author of a defense of Christianity, as well as many luminaries of the French Enlightenment, including Fontenelle.

13. On the English political system, see his letter to Turretin quoted in Eugene de, Budé, Vie de Jacob Vernet: Théologien Genevois, 1698–1789 (Lausanne: G. Bridel, 1893), 63–64Google Scholar. On his travels, see Gargett, , Jacob Vernet, Geneva and the philosopher, 16–64Google Scholar; Falletti, , Jacob Vernet: Théologien genevois, 23–25Google Scholar. On the impact of Anglican moderation on his theology, see Falletti, ibid., 30, 41, 85. In his controversy with D'Alembert, Vernet chose to use the persona of an English clergyman. See his Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois sur I'article Genève du Dictionnaire encyclopédie, et sur la lettre de Mr. d'Alembert à Mr. Rousseau touchant les spectacles, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Chez C. Philibert, 1766).Google Scholar

14. Falletti, , Jacob Vernet: Théologien genevois, 26.Google Scholar

15. Vernet wrote that the mathematician Cramer found it easy to be a believing Christian because of a “purified, reasonable and tolerant theology such as ours (une Thèologie èpurée, raisonnable and tolèrante comme la nôtre).” See “Eloge historique de Monsieur Cramer, Professeur de Philosophie and de Mathématiques à Genève,” Nouvelle bibliothèque qermanique 10 (1752): 368.Google Scholar

16. For Vernet's consideration of natural religion, see Instruction chrétienne, divisée en cing volumes; seconde edition, Retouchée par I'Auteur and augmentée de quelques Piéces, 5 vols. (Geneva: n.p., 1756), 1:1–57Google Scholar. I have used the augmented second edition of 1756. The work was reprinted in 1771, 1807 (twice), and 1808. One historian called it, “the classic manual of religious instruction for two generations.” See Baron Hermann Freiherr von der, Goltz, Genève religieuse an dix-neuvième siècle: Tableau des faits qui, depuis 1815, ont accompagnè dans cette Ville le développement de l'individualisme eccléssiastique du réveil mis en regard de L'Ancien système théocratique de l'église de Calvin (Geneva: Bale, H. Georg., 1862), 89Google Scholar. I have chosen to concentrate on the Instruction because it was entirely Vernet's; was written at the height of his powers; and did not undergo any revisions after the second edition. Most scholars have focussed on the better known Traité de la Verité de la Religion chrétienne, but that work poses numerous textual problems, that is, distinguishing Vernet's ideas from Turrettin's and making sense of the multiple editions with their myriad substantive revisions over half a century. For example, in an otherwise excellent article Olivier Fatio slips from treating the Traité as a collaboration between Turretin and Vernet to reflecting solely Vernet's ideas. See “Le Christ des liturgies,” in Le Christ entre Orthodoxie et Lumières, ed. Maria-Cristina, Pitassi (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1994), 12–16, 27Google Scholar. On Turretin and natural religion, see Heyd, Michael, “Un Rôle nouveau pour la Science: Jean-Alphonse Turrettini et les Débuts de la Théologie naturelle à Genève,” Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 112 (1980): 25–42.Google Scholar

17. Instruction chrétienne, 1:iv, 1:58–64; 2:146. He would reiterate this idea in his Reflexions sur les Moeurs, sur la Religion et sur le Culte (Geneva: Chez Claude Philibert and Part. Chirol., 1769), 17: the “gospel morality… is natural law and the law of mankind brought to all their perfection.”Google Scholar

18. For Jesus as the “restorer of natural religion and sound morals,” see Instruction chrétienne, 1:77. For the dangers of atheism and idolatry, see 1:11–16, 177; 2:35; 3:70. For the same idea, see Abrégé de l'histoire universelle, pour la Direction des Jeunes Gens, 2nd ed. (London: Cadell et Davies, 1801), 12; and Reflexions sur les Mœurs. sur la Religion et sur le Culte, 15 and 76–77.Google Scholar

19. Instruction chrétienne, 1:63. On Adam and Eve, see 1:196.

20. Ibid., 1:59–60, 64, and 172; 2:148; 3:277.

21. Ibid., 1:75, 282–83, 288; 2:249; 5:7. For Turretin's similar views, see Traité de la Verité de la Religion chrétienne, vol. 2.

22. Instruction chrétienne, 2:5é40.

23. Ibid., 1:46, and 194. For man being destined for happiness and perfection, see 1:1–7, 49, 194, 250; 3:229–37. For man as reasonable, see 3:290–94.

24. Ibid., 2:53. Cf. 2:46.

25. Ibid., 1:194–201. Vernet recognizes the hereditary nature of Adam's sin on 1:198. Not surprisingly, Vernet praised Pelagius for finding the “middle way” between Manicheanism's view of man as necessarily sinful and Jovinian's exculpation of man from all sin. See his review of Noris, P., “Histoire du Pélagianisme,” in Bibliothèque italique 5 (05é08, 1729): 88Google Scholar. For these issues, see Falletti, , Jacob Vernet: Théologien genevois, 67–70.Google Scholar

26. Instruction chrétienne, 1:163.

27. Ibid., 2:102–3. See also 2:53, 76, 83.

28. Ibid., 2:388.

29. Ibid., 2:93. For the advantages derived from Jesus' death as a victim, see 2:189–95.

30. Instruction chrétienne, 2:399. Cf. 2:381.

31. Ibid., 3:201.

32. Ibid., 2:4; 1:271, 110; 2:484.

33. Deux Lettres a Monsieur L'Abbe Chanoine de Nôtre Dame de Paris, Sur le Mandement de Monseigneur le Cardinal de Noailles, due 10. Aout 1725, au sujet de la guerison de la Dame La Fosse, femme d'un Ebeniste du Faux-bourg St. Antoine (Cologne: Chez Pierre Martau [sic], 1726), 14Google Scholar. See also Instruction chrétienne, 3:140. Vernet argued that church leaders after the Apostles have no claim to supernatural illumination. See 2:467 and 470. For the Jansenist miracles, see Kreiser, B. Robert, Miracles, Convulsions and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

34. Piéces fugitives sur l'eucharistie (Geneva: Bousquet, 1730), 161.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., vi–vii, 163–73.

36. Ibid., 176: “le juste milieux entre ceux qui énervant le Sacrement, and ceux qui le défigurent à force de l'exalter.”

37. Ibid., 175. Vernet reiterated his acceptance of mysteries in the Lettres critique d'un voyageur anglois, 1:116; 2:261.

38. Instruction chrétienne, 1:71,136–38, 53; 2:12, 54. For these categories, see Traité de la Verité de la Religion chrétienne, 1:236–55.

39. Instruction chrétienne, 1:112. This method of first analyzing a subject using reason and then citing Scripture structures all five volumes of the Instruction.

40. Quotations at ibid., 1:101, and 1:70.

41. Vernet's use of accommodation followed Turretin's. Turrettin, in the tradition of Grotius and the Remonstrants, attributed the obscurity of the Old Testament to its being accommodated to the ancient Israelites, and in consequence made little effort to defend the accuracy of the accounts in Genesis; instead, he vindicated their doctrinal content. In general he dismissed the problem of the errancy of the Old Testament by treating questionable aspects as accommodated. He employed the principle to defend the New Testament's integrity and divine inspiration. See Klauber, Martin I. and Sunshine, Glenn S., “Jean-Alphonse Turrettini on Biblical Accommodation: Calvinist or Socinian?” Calvin Theological Journal 25 (04 1990): 7–27.Google Scholar

42. The Israelites were a rude or primitive people, still in their infancy (Instruction chrétienne, 1:282–83,288); the revelation they were given was “proportional to the[ir] condition and needs” (1:282–83); the “holy writers accommodated themselves to the common language of the people”(1:279). The revelation to the Jews, the mosaic law, was “une excellente Police religieuse” (2:249).

43. Instruction chrétienne, 2:57, 82–83; 1:90; 2:152, 257. Vernet also used accommodation in regard to the early church. The early councils of apostles did not make dogmatic judgments or pronouncements of faith but rather regulated matters of discipline or “ecclesiastical police” as a form of accommodation to their congregation. See ibid., 2:469–70.

44. Ibid., 1:v, and 93; 3:5. Cf. 2:396.

45. Ibid., 3:312 and 132.

46. Ibid., 4:17.

47. Quotations at ibid., 4:8–9, 29–44, and 4:69, 234, 137, 211, and 19; 4:252.

48. ibid., 4:17.

49. ibid., 4:2.

50. ibid., 5:3–4.

51. Relation des Affaires de Genève (Geneva: n.p., 1734), 15.Google Scholar

52. For a Dutch Huguenot republican (Jean Luzac, 1746–1807) with similar views, see Popkin, Jeremy, News and Politics in the Age of Revolution: jean Luzac's Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. In general see Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

53. Instruction chrétienne, 4:256.

54. ibid. 2:462.

55. Quotations at ibid., 5:16é20. For an application of the law (1731é35) that shocked contemporaries, see Walker, Mack, The Salzburg Transaction: Expulsion and Redemption in Eighteenth-century Germany (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

56. Instruction chrétienne, 5:80, 83; 2:474.

57. Burlamaqui, J. J., The Principles of Natural and Politic Law, trans. Nugent, Thomas, 3rd ed., 2 vols, (London: C. Nourse, 1784), 2:70, 87–88, 93–96Google Scholar. For Vernet's, views, see “Eloges historique de Monsieur Burlamaqui,” Mercure suisse (04 1748): 307–31.Google Scholar

58. “Description abrégée du gouvernement de Genève,” in Oeuvres de D'Alembert, 5 vols. (Paris: A. Belin, 1822), 4:419–22Google Scholar. For a recent discussion of the accuracy of these charges, see Fatio, , “Le Christ des liturgies,” 11–30.Google Scholar

59. Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois, iv–v.

60. Ibid., 1:7–10, 16–17, 81, 87, 182–85. Quotation at 2:259. A motif in Vernet's controversy with Voltaire and D'Alembert is the conflict of Switzerland versus France: an affirmation of Swiss intellectual independence as well as a critique of French luxury and morals. Both of these ideas were characteristic of the Swiss Enlightenment. See Francillon, Roger, “The Enlightenment in Switzerland,” in Reconceptualizing Nature, Science and Aesthetics: Contribution à une nouvelle approche des Lumières helvétiques, ed. Patrick, Coleman, Anne, Hofmann, Simone, Zurbuchen (Geneva: Slatkine, 1998), 13–27.Google Scholar

61. Lettres critiques d'un voyngeur anglois, 1:17, 116–17, 129, 169, 218–19, 261–62. Quotation at 1:198. Vernet analyzed D'Alembert's vindication of the Geneva article as well.

62. Ibid., 2:119–20.

63. Ibid., 1:58–60. Quotation at 60.

64. Ibid., 1:40–42. Here Vernet refers to D'Alembert's “Lettre a J. J. Rousseau,” in which he wrote that the heresy “which began by attacking indulgences ended by abolishing the mass.” See 1:433.

65. Ibid., 1:249–61.

66. Ibid., 1:268–69. Vernet thought D'Alembert's understanding of Protestantism resembled such seventeenth-century polemical works as Aubert de Verse, Nouvelle apologie de la foi Catholique contre les Sociniens and les Calvinistes (1692). For Voltaire's attitude to Protestantism, see André, Delattre, “Voltaire and the Ministers of Geneva,” Church History 13 (1944): 243–54.Google Scholar

67. Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois, 1:65. Cf., 2:130.

68. Ibid., 1:276. For the same point, see Gaberel, , Historie de l'Eglise de Genève, 3:192.Google Scholar

69. Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois, 2:124–25.

70. Ibid., 1:65.

71. Quotations at ibid., 2:149, 157–58, 154.

72. Reflexions sur les Moeurs, sur la Religion et sur le Culte, 41é46.

73. Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois, 2:119é43.