History of the French Language Through Texts by Ayres-Bennett Wendy;

Author:Ayres-Bennett, Wendy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

23 Jean Calvin, Institution de la Religion Chrestienne (1541)

By the beginning of the sixteenth century there were already calls for the laity to have direct access to the Bible in the vernacular. Olivétan’s translation of the Bible for Protestants (see text 24) and his cousin Jean Calvin’s Institution de la religion chrestienne mark important stages in this process, with Calvin’s work viewed very much as a statement of belief of the reformed Protestantism which centred on Geneva. Calvin’s text represents a number of important features contributing to the development of French in the sixteenth century. It is significant that the work was not originally written in French but in Latin. The translation of classical Greek and Latin texts by such men as Jacques Amyot contributed to the expansion of the lexicon as translators had to seek French means of expressing Latin concepts. Calvin’s work was first published in 1536 as Institutio christianae religionis; the Latin text was then greatly expanded in the second Latin version of 1539. It is this version which Calvin himself translated in 1541, symbolizing the desire to make religious texts more accessible to a greater range of people, but the French text is in no way a slavish translation of the original. It is true that the style is at times latinate, but Calvin’s pedagogical concerns mean that there is also a desire for clarity and simplicity of expression. With its clearer sentence patterns and simpler constructions, Calvin’s prose differs markedly from Rabelais’s usage and has led commentators to call him ‘I’un des principaux artisans du français moderne’ (Benoît 1957: 7), paving the way for the strict demands for unambiguous syntactic structures which typifies the work of many seven- teenth-century grammarians.

II nous fault maintenant examiner la volunté, en laquelle gist la liberie, si aucune y en a en l’homme. Car nous avons veu que l’eslection appartient à icelle plus qu’à l’entendement. Pour le premier, à fin qu’il ne semble que ce qui a esté dict des Philosophes, et receu communément, serve pour approuver quelque droicture estre en la volunté humaine, c’est que toutes choses appètent naturellement le bien, il nous fault notter que la vertu du franc Arbitre ne doibt pas estre considerée en un tel appétit, qui procède plustost d’inclination de nature que de certaine deliberation. Car les théologiens Scolasticques mesmes confessent qu’il n’y a nulle action du franc Arbitre, sinon là où la raison regarde d’une part et d’autre. Par laquelle sentence ilz entendent l’object de l’appétit debvoir estre tel qu’il soit soubzmis à eslection, et la deliberation debvoir precéder, pour donner lieu à l’eslection. Et de faict si nous reputons quel est ce desir naturel de bien en l’homme, nous trouverons qu’il luy est commun avec les bestes brutes. Car elles desirent toutes leur proffit, et quand il y a quelque apparence de bien qui touche leur sens, elles le suyvent. Or l’homme en cest appétit naturel ne discerne point par raison selon l’excellence de sa nature immortelle ce qu’il doibt chercher, et

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