Viret’s Theology

ECCLESIOLOGY

VIRET ON THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

For reasons of practical political expediency, he exhorted his readers not to mock and enrage people needlessly, especially important political officials. Besides, he argued, the way to win people is not to insult and anger them but to show them by good example and all modesty how a Christian ought to live.¹

THE ROLE OF SCRIPTURE

. . . it is necessary to understand that nothing ought to be accepted in matters of religion which has not been taken expressly from the Holy Scriptures.²

ON DIVERSITY WITHIN THE TRUE CHURCH

Viret readily admitted that there were true Christians in a diversity of groups and that not all true believers had to agree in every detail with the Reformed Church. He had a high regard for the Lutheran movement and unhesitatingly included Lutherans in the "true Church."³

ROGER BARILIER WRITES OF VIRET’S FEELINGS ON THE CHURCH

The Church will not be reformed; she shall not truly be the Church until the day when she will be emancipated from the civil power, when the authority of the minister will be recognized, when she will be disciplined according to the Gospel, and when she will clearly confess, by her faith and by her works, the name of the glorious Savior.⁴

ON CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

To be sure, Viret could not conceive of an absolutely pure local assembly even when the strictest entrance requirements were observed, but he felt that the number of hypocrites within the local group could be kept at a minimum by observing rigorous entrance requirements and carefully screening each applicant for church membership. . . . after the individual desiring church membership made a solemn public profession of faith and pledged absolute adherence to Reformed faith and practice, he was required to sign a confession of faith and church discipline. This made him a member in good standing of the local Reformed Church.⁵

ON CHURCH DISCIPLINE

[Viret] advocated a simple representative system with the local church as the fundamental and basic unit in the ecclesiastical machinery of the Reformed Church. If he had had his way, the Discipline of 1559 of the French Reformed Church would have been even more democratic and republican than it was. He had advocated a more local church-centered discipline, but the ecclesiastical regulations which were finally adopted evidently were modified in the years following Viret’s disappearance from the scene. In the end, the "official text" of the Discipline of the Reformed Church of France reflected more the ideas of Calvin and Beza than it did the thinking of Viret.⁶

PETER: Do you think we act in mercy if, after a wolf has eaten the sheep, we have pity and compassion on him, and save him that he might eat still others?

NATHANIEL: It seems to me that this would rather be a great cruelty. For this would be to murder the sheep to save the wolves, and abuse the mercy which it is fitting to exercise toward the sheep.

PETER…. There are many who, in matters of justice, employ such love and forgiveness, in tolerating the wicked who deserve punishment, and leaving them to trample the righteous and innocent, instead of punishing them as the ought. The same also oft times happens in the Church, when we tolerate far too much the scandalous, and pay no heed to the great damage they bring to the entire Church.”

Discipline is thus the line which couples the two poles of Reformed orthodoxy: doctrinal faithfulness and conformity of life to this doctrine. Viret believed that the Church must be purified both of heretics as well as the lecherous and immoral: “The dogs and swine must be cast out of the assemblies of the Church: Those who declare themselves dogs and swine by their life must be treated in the same manner as those who declare themselves such by their doctrine.”

Pierre Viret, Instruction chrestienne en la doctrine de la loi et de l’Evangile… Tome I(Geneva, 1564), 91

PERSECUTORS OF THE CHURCH

I have entitled this dialogue ‘The Persecutors" because in it I show that the true religion and the true Church are never able to be ruined by the force and violence of men nor the persecution of tyrants, as violent and unceasing as they are able to make it; and the persecutors are not gaining anything, but instead of pushing back the course of the Gospel, they are advancing it and instead of destroying the Church, as they claim, they are augmenting it and confirming its advantage.⁷

ON CHURCH GOVERNMENT

Perhaps the reason that Viret was inclined toward the congregational form of church government and discipline was because of his own personal preference for an independent course of action. Years of finding ways and means of ignoring or evading political pressure from Berne designed to make him conform to the Bernese religious settlement for the Pays de Vaud had conditioned him for it. Also, his great personal prestige with the common people, and his intimate friendship with John Calvin and many of the other leaders of the Reformation in western Europe helped win for him a freedom from formal ecclesiastical control that few other Reformed pastors enjoyed. Although he long had adhered to the Calvinist party line theologically, he had never been inclined to follow the strict dictates of Calvinist organization consistently.⁸

CATECHETICAL INSTRUCTION

THE CATECHISM OF PIERRE VIRET

CALVIN & VIRET THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS OF “THE CHIEF END OF MAN”

Within both Calvin’s Geneva catechism of 1536 and Viret’s catechism of 1541 (found in Volume one of his “Christian Instruction”), the concept of man’s chief end is found:

CALVIN’S CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF GENEVA (1536)

Master: What is the chief end of human life?

Scholar: To know God by whom men were created.

Master: What reason have you for saying so?

Scholar: Because He created us and placed us in this world to be glorified in us. And it is indeed right that our life, of which He is the beginning, should be devoted to his glory.

VIRET’S CATECHISM (1541)

Viret’s catechetical instruction of doctrinal truth reflects the warmers, pastoral style common in the sixteenth century Continental Reformed catechisms and confessions, compared to the more scholastic and abstract of the following centuries. Viret, in his first question, deals with man’s true issue of life and personal happiness. He responds Biblically. His answer: simply put, happiness is achieved when man glorifies God by making Him his chief end.

THE TRUE WORSHIP OF GOD, AND GOOD INTENTIONS

The chief good of man, and the end for which God created him

MATTHEW: What is it that men naturally desire most in this world?

PETER: To be perfectly happy.

MATTHEW: And what is it to be perfectly happy?

PETER: It is to be delivered and free from all evil, to live in perpetual peace and joy, and to enjoy every good thing.

MATTHEW: And how is man’s true and chief good found, by which he can be happy as you have stated?

PETER: Man’s good is found in the chief reason for which God created him in His image and likeness, and placed him in the world.

MATTHEW: What then is the chief reason for which God created man and placed him in the world?

PETER: To be glorified in him and through him.

MATTHEW: What is the true means by which God can be glorified in and through man?

PETER: By the true knowledge of Him, which leads man to honor Him as his God and Creator with the true honor due Him, which He requires of man.

PREFACE TO VIRET’S CATECHISM IN CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION

For this cause desiring to be accommodating to all, in as much as it has been possible for me, and principally to the most uneducated and untrained, I have labored to bring to light various forms of Christian instruction, which are like various types of Catechisms, by which each one can ascend from level to level, in the school of Christian doctrine which is the Church, as school students climb in school from class to class and lesson to lesson, according to which each one of them have benefited and are found capable of more superior studies. For this reason I have written a very brief summary of the principal points of the Christian doctrine, which I have divided into small chapters, ordering logically the contents contained in it, according to which they are related and joined together, and in which the ones depend on the others and remain connected together. Then, I wrote another one even more concise, composed in the form of a dialogue. Next I added a third one to these, which is like a fuller and more familiar explanation of the first two, by which those who will have already read the two others, will be able to ascend higher, in the knowledge of those subjects which have not been treated in the others, or which have only been treated summarily and in passing. Then there is as a fourth level the large Instruction which had already been printed before all these others which are like small abridgements and summaries of it, in which I expose all the points treated here very thoroughly, according to the aim which I had determined, and the work seemed to me to require. Now by these diverse Treaties, one is able to know how one can limit or expand the same material, and how one can deal with it in various ways without changing either the subject or the substance of it.⁹

THE USEFULNESS OF SMALLER CATECHISMS

First of all, because I treat in this small summary, the foundations of our faith and religion, a little more briefly than they are presented in ordinary Catechisms, I had thought, that it might serve many, as a preparation, and introduction, to the doctrine which is presented more fully, in ordinary Catechisms. Next, I know that there are many excellent people, not only in this country, but also in many others, fulfilling their duties as true fathers of families, teaching their children in the fear and doctrine of the Lord, from the earliest age. These people can also use this labor of mine, to prepare those whom they have to teach, more fully in doctrine, in the manner in which I have stated. I have also thought that there is nothing wrong, with various people treating the same subjects. For some have one manner of teaching, which is more proper to some; and others, a manner which is more appropriate to others. In this way each one can determine for himself, that which is most suitable for him.¹⁰

ON THE USE OF CLARITY IN CATECHIZING

Inasmuch as the method of teaching by dialogues, is more familiar than any other, I made use of this method in all these forms of instruction, except in the first summary. It is true that this method is a little longer because many times it is necessary to use as a result of it countless words, which are seemingly lost, for the simple reason that they do not belong properly speaking to the substance of the subject being treated. Yet they are not lost at all, because they serve not only to clarify the material, but also to distinguish and expose it more fully, and more familiarly. And when it is a question of teaching the most simple, it is better to be a little longer and clearer, than to be too brief and more obscure.¹¹

ON THE NECESSITY OF CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION

Our Lord Jesus Christ states succinctly the basis both of salvation and damnation for all men, when he says in the prayer offered to God his Father on behalf of his disciples: This is eternal life: That they know that you are the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn.17:3). Since it is this way that the knowledge of God, such as it is manifested in Jesus Christ, brings eternal life and salvation to men, it follows, at the same time, that ignorance of salvation, contrary to this knowledge, brings them damnation and eternal death. If there is, therefore, any knowledge which is seen as desirable among men, and which should be held as costly and precious, it is this knowledge, without which men not only are unable to be happy, but in contrast are more miserable than brute beasts, and more worthy to be regarded as beasts than men. For this reason there is nothing that they should fear more than ignorance of that celestial and Divine knowledge, by which they are deprived of any true understanding, and of any certain assurance, and hope of their own salvation, and of the greatest good for which they could wish, and which they could receive.¹²

LAW OF GOD

PREFACE TO CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

My aim in this volume has been to produce an exposition of the Law of God, Law which must be regarded as the rule for every other law through which men are to be directed and governed.¹³

Thus God has included in this Law every aspect of that moral doctrine by which men may live well. For in these Laws he has done infinitely better than the Philosophers and all their books, whether they deal with Ethics, Economics or Politics. This Law stands far above all human legislation, whether past, present or future and is above all laws and statutes edicted by men. It follows that whatever good men may put forward has previously been included in this law, and whatever is contrary to it is of necessity evil. . . . This law, if it is rightly understood, will furnish us with true Ethics, Economics and Politics. It is incomparably superior to what we find in the teachings of Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Cicero and the like thinkers who have taken such pains to fashion the customs of men.¹⁴

For as it can only be God Himself who is able to give us such a perfect Law by which we are truly enabled to govern ourselves, likewise it is only He who can provide us with Princes and Magistrates, Pastors and Ministers gifted with the capacity of applying this Law. Further, He is fully able to shape such men into adequate instruments for His service and to grant them the authority necessary for the accomplishment of the duties of their office. Thus armed they are enabled by God to maintain those over whom they rule (and of whose welfare they are accountable to God) in a spirit of due subjection. For, just as He has granted us this Law in order that we might clearly know what we lack, so He likewise grants us, through Jesus Christ His Son, the Holy Ghost by whom our hearts are renewed and through whom we receive those gifts and graces so necessary for the accomplishment of our vocation.¹⁵

THE LAW OF GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL OTHER LAWS

There is not any law which could be considered just or holy, except in as far as it is conformed to the Law of God, and based on it. For it is the fountain from which all other laws must flow, like streams flowing from it as their source. Because God who gave it, is the Law himself, according to whose will is the only rule of justice.¹⁶

PURPOSE OF THE LAW

Consequently, in order that men do not undertake anything according to their own caprices, concerning such subjects, God himself has desired to give them a Law and standard, by which he has shown them, how they should regulate all their affections, and all their words, and all their works, in order to conform them to his will. For this same reason, he has declared to them in the Law, which things are right or wrong, and how they please or displease him, and how he can be honored or dishonored by them.¹⁷

. . . he felt that "good laws" in a truly Christian state always would be based upon the Ten Commandments of God found in the Holy Scriptures.¹⁸

THE LAW OF GOD THE ONLY FOUNDATION FOR ANY TRUE KINGDOM

Viret could conceive of no civil government except by law. Furthermore, he differentiated a "true kingdom" from a spurious one on the basis of whether or not the civil laws of the realm followed the written Law of God found in the Scriptures.

. . . In discussing this topic, he cited Plato who had pointed out that a city in which the law dominated the magistracy was politically sound but that a city in which the magistrates managed the law was headed for ruin. Viret’s great emphasis was upon government under civil law, and particularly under civil law derived, as fully as possible within a given political context, from the moral law of God. In this manner the civil magistrate operated indirectly under Divine Law and, to a certain extent, became an agent of God’s will.¹⁹

ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE LAW OVER THE STATE

Viret, unlike Calvin, was ready to extend openly the authority of the Bible over the state.

. . . In so doing he made it clear that the authority of the Bible when it shed light on political matters always superseded the authority of the ruler, and the authority of God’s moral law with all its political implications took precedence over any codified civil laws. In fact, Viret taught that the only legitimate kingdoms with valid laws were those which had a legal code based upon the Ten Commandments of God.²⁰

. . . it should be noted that Viret believed that every secular ruler should be subject to a well-defined and codified set of civil laws and that these civil statutes should rest squarely on God’s laws. He conceived of every civil authority being bound by theses laws and of every individual being equal before them.²¹

ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Viret’s rule for interpreting the Ten Commandments, and thus for explaining all similar seeming contradictions in Scripture based upon them, was that Table One always took precedence over Table Two, and man’s relationship to God always came before his obligations to his fellow-man. Thus, if the second table commanded honor to fathers, mothers and all superiors, and those superiors ordered disobedience to God, then the requirement to honor them based on Table Two was abrogated by the enjoinder of Table One to have no other gods before the Almighty. In this manner Viret was able to explain away every Biblical command to obey the civil magistrates when those officials legislated or acted in a manner contrary to the first four of the Ten Commandments.²²

POLITICAL THEORY

PRINCES AND MAGISTRATES SUBJECT TO THE LAW

For prince and magistrate must be subject to the laws of the land and conform their rule to them. For they are not rulers of the law but servants thereof, as they are servants of God from whom all good laws proceed.²³

AUTHORITIES GIVEN BY GOD

For as it can only be God himself who is able to give us such a perfect Law by which we are truly enabled to govern ourselves, likewise, it is only He who can provide us with Princes and Magistrates, Pastors and Ministers gifted with the capacity of applying this Law. Further, He is fully able to shape such men into adequate instruments for his service and to grant them the authority necessary for the accomplishment of the duties of their office. Thus armed they are enabled by God to maintain those over whom they rule (and of whose welfare they are accountable to God) in a spirit of due subjection.²⁴

ROBERT LINDER ON THE PERTINENCE OF VIRET’S POLITICAL THEORY

Viret deserves a far more prominent place in the story of the Reformation than he has been accorded thus far, especially by historians in the English-speaking world. His political theory alone recommends him as one of the most important of the early leaders of historic Calvinism. It is difficult to see how future Reformation historians in general and prospective students of sixteenth-century political thought in particular will be able to ignore an individual of such significant stature and historical importance as Pierre Viret. . . . many of his political ideas appear to be of greater importance and seem to hold more significance for the development of modern democratic thought than do those of either Calvin or Beza. Viret’s concepts of democratic ecclesiastical polity, government under the law, equal justice before the law, the right of political resistance and religious toleration make him a thinker of great importance to the Calvinist movement.²⁵

STATE GOVERNED BY GOD THROUGH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

The Scriptures also contained statements concerning the state and, insofar as they applied to secular government, they represented God’s will for that institution. Thus the secular state was seen by Viret as a de facto creation derived directly from God himself but governed in the harmony with the rules and precepts contained in the Holy Scriptures.²⁶

The secular state was a direct creation of God and because of this was delegated a certain amount of authority directly from God himself. However, according to Viret, the Holy Scriptures were not only described and confirmed temporal authority but also defined and limited it.²⁷

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE

the church has its ministers and leaders, not for meddling with those things belonging to the office of the civil magistrates, but only those things which concern the church’s ministry and discipline. For the power which the Lord Himself has provided, of which the symbol is the power of the keys, is confined within its own limits. . . . there is not one prince who has the authority to make laws for the religion and divine service of God. . . . If there is found a presumptuous prince who would obstruct the service of God, one is not obligated to obey him under the same penalty of obeying the devil.²⁸

ON RESISTING TYRANTS

For just as He [Jesus] did not wish to overthrow the yoke of princes and lords under the title of service to God and Christian liberty, He also did not desire, under the cover of service to Kings and earthly princes, to relinquish His service to God.²⁹

Moreover, I confess to you that is it always necessary to give honor and reverence to princes and that it is necessary to obey them in all things which relate solely to the body and to goods, and which do not effect adversely or infringe in any way upon one’s salvation or the glory of God, even when they are tyrants and maddening their subjects by great extortion and violence.³⁰

But if there is a people who had their laws, their liberties, and their Magistrates, and who keep their duty towards those who can claim some domain over them and yet, in spite of this, some tyrant comes who, instead of watching over them, which he had promised and vowed to them, and instead of doing his duty as his office required, he wished to tyrannize those to whom he should give salvation, this is another matter. For such a people have an honest means by which they can resist the tyranny of such tyrants by their legitimate Magistrates, and can by this means avoid servitude; they can follow the counsel of St. Paul, of whom we have already spoken before, who said: “Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. [I Corinthians 7:21]³¹

If it happens thus, that a Prince of whom by right they be not his subjects, converted into a tyrant, and does not at all content himself with that which is his due and right pay, but desires by tyranny, force, and violence to ruin the Gospel, the religion, and the liberty of the country, and seeks to destroy, as a Turk, those whom he should protect as his children; they must then seek to defend themselves against his tyranny by the best means which God has given. There is no doubt that in such a case the Princes and Magistrates who are there must not be faint in defending their people and the country which God gave into their charge against such tyranny and violence. And if they do not, they are traitors and unfaithful to God, their country, and the people who have been committed to them.³²

The Church has her ministers and conductors, not to engage in things pertaining to the office of the civil magistrates, but solely over those things which concern her ministry and her discipline. For the power which the Lord has given her (which sign is the power of the keys) is confined within these limits. Thus, if she overstep, and if her ministers usurp in any way the office of the magistrates, they abuse their office and are not true ministers but tyrants who usurp that which does not in any way belong to them.³³

There is no prince who has the right to give the laws of religion and service of God. . . . If a presumptuous prince be found who desires to stop serving God, none should obey him, under pain of obeying the devil.³⁴

VIRET’S BALANCE ON SEPARTE JURISDICTION OF CHURCH AND STATE

The pastor remembers that he is a minister of God and not of men; he faithfully discharges his offices which have been confided to him, he endeavors to obtain justice from the magistrates and the Church. That which he cannot obtain he returns to God and occupies himself solely with doing that which is his duty. He will right gladly suffer to be deposed and driven from his ministry and will expose his own life rather than act against his conscience and lose the Church in confirming impiety and tyranny.

. . . they want a liberty which is an unrestrained license . . . They want to take under their paw the poor ministers and preachers, as their valets, to make them scurry about and go under their hand as they please. If the ministers do not wish to do this, . . . they will immediately cry that such ministers are ambitious and rebels and that they wish to set aside the magistrate.

. . . matters are diverse. For this reason it is necessary that the offices pertaining to the Church and its administration and government be distinguished from those which pertain to the civil government and the republic. For otherwise there would be confusion if temporal and spiritual things were all put together.

If the complete-power of the Church is within the hands of the magistrates, they can cut it up and sew it back together as they please. They have no need to borrow the sword which they have beside them. They give and take away ministers as it seems good to them. They treat them as their valets. When they be drunk and angry, they give them leave, as the fancy takes them. And in this way the wolves will receive their fill in the Church, and the true pastors will be cast out. For the tyrants will never allow anyone to tell them the truth.³⁵

MAGISTRATES AS NURSING FATHERS

Viret told his hearers that the office of those princes and magistrates who bore the name Christian was not to persecute the Gospel but

. . . to sustain the truth of God and to be foster-fathers (literally, ‘nursing fathers’) of his Church.

He went on to explain that what he meant here was that Christian magistrates would

. . . occupy themselves diligently with maintaining the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, pure doctrine in his Church and the true discipline.³⁶

GOD’S LAW IS THE BASIS FOR ALL OTHER LAWS

Viret felt that all laws affecting public morals and related to spiritual values should be drawn directly from the moral law of God. However, he believed that these absolute and eternal laws of God had to be geared to the time in which people lived and the national temperament of the country to which the laws were to be applied.³⁷

Viret made it plain that civil laws could be both good and bad. He believed that men had a certain amount of freedom in choosing the legal codes under which they live. Nevertheless, he felt that ‘good laws’ in a truly Christian state always would be based on the Ten Commandments of God found in the Holy Scriptures. According to Viret, unless human laws were built upon God’s moral law, men could not expect for them to be just and equitable. In this sense, all ‘good laws’ come from God himself for they are derived from God’s word which is the written record of his will for mankind. […]Viret’s great emphasis was upon government under civil law, and particularly under civil law derived as fully as possible within a given political context, from the moral law of God.³⁸

Viret stressed that in every instance the true Christian should subjugate the Justinian Code and all Roman Law to the Word of God.³⁹

THE LEGISLATION OF MORALS

Viret’s pattern of thought led him to advocate what would be called today the legislation of morals. For example, he favored the adoption of civil statues against adultery, blasphemy and idolatry, and was a proponent of regulating certain economic activities on Sunday. In addition, he linked true Christianity with the support of such laws as those controlling public corruption and the purchase of public offices, against usury, against the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and legislation fixing ceiling prices and land purchases.⁴⁰

From all this it is clear that Viret’s great friendship for Calvin (his elder by only two years) in no way prevented him from, on occasion, expressing divergent theological views whilst, of course, sharing on all fundamental points of doctrine, the same reformed convictions. The Reformation thus gives us a striking example of the way basic doctrinal unity is in no way exclusive of a certain theological diversity. It is the mechanical conformism of an effeminate age which cannot stomach disagreements on secondary matters in the Church. Thus, on the question of the extent of the application of the detail of the Mosaic Law to our present situation, Viret held a significantly different position from that of Calvin. This is how Linder defines this difference:

Viret, unlike Calvin, was ready to extend openly the authority of the Bible over the state.⁴¹

ECONOMICS

ALL ASPECTS OF GOD’S CREATION ARE RELATED

[Viret] thus combines theological, moral, philosophical, sociological, economic, literary and historical analysis in an astonishingly unified and differentiated system of thought. He thus refuses all gnostic dualism, every kind of that binary opposition, so common today in Christian and secular thinking, between creation and redemption, between theology and culture, between morality and economics, between society and God, between grace and law, and so forth. Where we often think exclusively in binary termes, his thought functions both in an antithetical (good versus evil, truth against error) and in a complementary manner (all aspects of created reality are related, are interconnected). It is this balance between unity and diversity in his thinking which makes his writings, after more than four hundred years, so refeshingly actual.⁴²

ON POLITICAL THIEVES AND BANDITS

The greatest evil that can be imagined is when the public purse is impoverished and individual men wealthy. This is an evident sign that the commonwealth is in an unhealthy condition, that public policy is in weak and incapable hands and that the state is under the domination of thieves and bandits who make of it their prey.⁴³

ON THE LEGALITY OF VALUE ADDED TAXES

What we must first discuss is the following question: Are such increases in gabelles and tailles [that is, in "value added taxes"] in the first place legitimate? This question I raise not only from the perspective of God’s Law, but from that of ordinary civil legislation. For no human law worthy of the name can free Princes from themselves submitting to the rule of law and justify their enacting whatever law they please, thus laying on the backs of their subjects whatever burden they wish. For even if their subjects were nothing more than chattel-slaves, some kind of equity must even then regulate the relation between such serfs and their lord. . . . Since the beginning, this tyrannical system of universal taxation has never decreased but has rather constantly grown. For princes and nobility alike never consider the ordinary revenues and taxes at their disposal as a necessary limitation to their style of life, to their projects and to their ambitions. Rather they only consider the fulfillment of the ambition they cherish, not examining whether their actual revenues are able to sustain such utopian dreams.… To satisfy their excessive ambitions they then look to ways of increasing their taxes and revenues.⁴⁴

APOLOGETICS

VIRET, THE GREAT APOLOGIST OF THE REFORMATION

Viret is the major ethician and apologist of the Reformation by his attachment to the authority and significance of every aspect of God’s written Revelation as well as by his great skill in relating the teachings of the Bible to the reality of Creation, of History and of everyday life. Not only is his position basically presuppositionalist (in the sense that the written Word of God is for him the basic presupposition of all fruitful thought), but he has a wonderful understanding of the fact that the meaning of every aspect of the ordered reality of creation, of history and of culture, is given by God and finds its basic reference point and meaning in the Scriptures. This leads him to make use of any and every aspect of material and cultural reality as a springboard full of God’s meaning from which to bring to the attention of his contemporaries the great truths of God’s Revelation.⁴⁵

BIBLICALLY-BASED APOLOGETICS

Viret thus has the considerable advantage over us by not standing historically in our post-rationalist, post-idealist, post-dialectical and post-modern epistemological climate where the philosophical obstacles to the understanding of the God-given meaning of reality are immeasurably greater than they were in the middle of the Sixteenth Century. He can thus, more easily than we, make use of every aspect of the reality of his time to lead his readers and listeners to understand that the Scriptures, in the final account, reveal the ultimate God-given meaning of whatever matter may be under consideration. The knowledge of all reality is not to be found in Scripture alone but inheres in the God-given meaningful facts (the substantial forms) of the creation and of history where they may be clearly and truly discerned though, in the final account, only by the Biblically centered reflection of a Christian apologist and historian, like Pierre Viret. Let me insist, knowledge, not meaning, for meaning comes from God’s written revelation alone. Viret’s terminology may sometimes sound as if his position were a purely rational one. But for him human reason and the Bible are not at opposite poles, at war with each other. No, for him as for Van Til, the Word of God is the very foundation of a correctly functioning human reason.⁴⁶

VIRET BRINGS ‘EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE’ IN APOLOGETICS

In a long section on the misery of man, for example, Viret starts off with a series of careful anatomical and physiological observations relative to the wretched condition of man’s life in comparison with that of other animals (thus reaching the scientists of his time); then he quotes on this topic the remarks of the philosophers, historians and poets of antiquity (in this instance Plato, Pliny and Ovid), thus attracting the attention of the literary humanists of the Renaissance. Only then, having thus carefully prepared his reader, does Viret go on to show the true meaning of the misery of man by introducing the one whom he calls ‘the greatest of all philosophers,’ Job. It is striking that he speaks here, not of the inspired character of the book of Job, but of Job as the prince of philosophers. He is, in fact, so confident in the truth of Scripture for every aspect of reality, and so filled with the wisdom of God, that he does not hesitate to make use of all aspects of man’s intellectual and cultural activities to reach, in a very concrete and practical fashion, the interests of his contemporaries. But his starting point is always fully Biblical and Creational, never an imaginary common intellectual ground shared in dialogue with the adversaries of the Christian faith. Thus he labors to bring every lost and deformed human thought captive to the obedience of Christ.⁴⁷

VIRET IS ‘ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN’

Like the apostle Paul, Viret makes himself all to all, interests himself in every aspect of contemporary life in order to win at least some of his contemporaries to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The appropriation of the various aspects of this apologetic method could bring a very useful corrective to the pragmatism of a rationalistic defense of Christianity current in many Evangelical circles and to the theological and philosophical abstractionism of much, even of the best, present reformed apologetics.⁴⁸

GENERAL

GOD AND MAN

No, I will not believe because of Tertullian or Cyprian, or Origen, or Chrysostom, or Peter Lombard, or Thomas Aquinas, not even because of Erasmus or Luther. . . . If I did so, I should be the disciple of men. . . . I will believe only Jesus Christ my Shepherd.⁴⁹

ON THE NECESSARY WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Faith and religious belief cannot be forced but must proceed from a free and sincere heart. This, men cannot communicate, but it is God alone who can accomplish it. For He is the one who illuminates the heart and intelligence of such as He chooses to call by His Holy Spirit and without whom none can have true knowledge of true religion nor practice it as one should. For it is an utter waste of time to attempt to force a man to follow a religion of which he has no true understanding or to which he has not given his heart or affection […] For one does not make good Christians by the sword, by fire, or by faggots […] but by good example, good doctrine and a good life.⁵⁰

THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

For the faith of true believers is not founded on their particular opinions, nor on the opinions of men, but on the pure and explicit Word of God. And on this believers are established, not by opinion, but by certain faith, which is as different from mere opinion as the latter is from the sure knowledge of solid science.⁵¹

CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO OPPOSITION

For true believers always are better able to gain friendship and vanquish their enemies by combating them with good doctrine, faith, charity, steadfastness, patience, prayers, and by all good works rather than by fire, swords, force and violence.⁵²

ON ROMAN CATHOLICISM

Viret looked upon Roman Catholicism in his time as little more than an international political movement and considered the Pope to be as much a secular lord as a spiritual leader. . . . He considered the papal court the most cruel and vicious in all the world.⁵³

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¹ Robert Linder, The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret (Geneva, 1964), page 115

² Ibid., page 55

³ Ibid., page 65

⁴ Jean-Marc Berthoud, Des Actes de L’Eglise (L’Age d’Homme, 1993), page 50

⁵ Ibid., pages 67, 72-73

⁶ Ibid., page 69

⁷ Ibid., page 150

⁸ Ibid., page 80

⁹ Pierre Viret, Instruction Chretienne (L’Age d’Homme, Lausanne, 2008), pages 176-177

¹⁰ Ibid., pages 141-142

¹¹ Ibid., page 177

¹² Ibid., pages 97-98

¹³ Jean-Marc Berthoud, "Pierre Viret and the Sovereignty of the Word of God Over Every Aspect of Life," A Comprehensive Faith (Friends of Chalcedon, San Jose, CA), page 98

¹⁴ Ibid., page 98

¹⁵ Ibid., pages 98-99

¹⁶ Viret, Instruction Chretienne, page 91

¹⁷ Ibid., page 121

¹⁸ Linder, The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret, page 58

¹⁹ Ibid., page 59

²⁰ Ibid., page 63

²¹ Ibid., pages 63-64

²² Ibid., page 135

²³ Berthoud, A Comprehensive Faith, page 101

²⁴ Viret, Instruction Chrestienne, pages 225-256

²⁵ Linder, The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret, page 179

²⁶ Ibid., page 55

²⁷ Ibid., page 57

²⁸ Viret, Instruction Chretienne, page 27

²⁹ L’Interim fait par dialogues, (Lyon, 1565), page 98

³⁰ Le monde a l’empire et le monde demoniacle, fait par Dialoges (Vincent Bres, Geneva, 1561), page 288

³¹ Remonstrances aux fideles qui conversant entre les Papistes (Geneva, 1547), page 334

³² Remonstrances aux fideles qui conversant entre les Papistes (Geneva, 1547), page 337

³³ Traite des vrais et faux pasteurs et des leurs disciples. . . (1564), page 32

³⁴ Sommaire des principaux points de la foy et religion chrestienne. . . (Lausanne, 1558), chapter 32

³⁵ Jean-Marc Berthoud, Des Actes de L’Eglise (L’Age d’Homme, 1993), pages 52-53

³⁶ Linder, The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret, page 118

³⁷ Ibid., page 29

³⁸ Ibid., pages 58-59

³⁹ Ibid., page 61

⁴⁰ Ibid., page 61

⁴¹ Jean-Marc Berthoud, Pierre Viret: A Forgotten Giant of the Reformation

⁴² Ibid., page 33

⁴³ Berthoud, A Comprehensive Faith, page 104

⁴⁴ Pierre Viret, Le monde à l’empire et le monde démoniacle fait par dialogues, p. 277

⁴⁵ Berthoud, Pierre Viret: A Forgotten Giant of the Reformation, page 22

⁴⁶ Ibid., page 26

⁴⁷ Ibid., page 27

⁴⁸ Ibid., page 28

⁴⁹ As quoted in J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, D.D., History of the Reformation in Europe (Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, VA, 2000), page 223

⁵⁰ Pierre Viret, L’Interim fait par dialogues,page 135 and 137

⁵¹ Ibid., page 247

⁵² As quoted in Linder, The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret, page 151

⁵³ Ibid., page 108