Idolatry and Accommodation: "Histoires" and Their Natural-Philosophical Interpretations in Simon Goulart's Commentaires et annotations sur la Sepmaine de Du Bartas (1583

Idolatry and Accommodation: “Histoires” and Their Natural-PhilosophicalInterpretations in Simon Goulart’s Commentaires et annotationssur la Sepmaine de Du Bartas (1583)

Raphaële Garrod

Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 74, Number 3, July 2013, pp.361-380 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania PressDOI: 10.1353/jhi.2013.0023

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Idolatry and Accommodation: ‘‘Histoires’’ andTheir Natural-Philosophical Interpretations in

Simon Goulart’s Commentaires et annotations surla Sepmaine de Du Bartas (1583)

Raphaele Garrod

‘‘Poets feign’’ is a recurring expression in Simon Goulart’s Commentaireson Guillaume Du Bartas’s rewriting of Genesis into a biblical epic in thevernacular, the Sepmaine.1 First published in Paris in 1578, the Sepmaineenjoyed an extraordinary European success: some fifty editions were printedbetween 1578 and 1632.2 Simon Goulart, its commentator, was a Calvinistpreacher, a historian, and a popularizer.3 He published his Commentairesin Geneva in 1581, and he constantly emended them until 1601: twenty-nine editions of this useful critical apparatus to the Sepmaine appearedbetween 1581 and 1628.4 In the preface, Goulart claims that the Comment-aires provide the reader with the knowledge needed to make sense of the

1 Simon Goulart, ‘‘Les Poetes feignent,’’ in Commentaires et Annotations sur la Sepmaine,de la creation du monde de G. de Saluste, seigneur du Bartas (Paris: Abel L’Angelier,1583), 13r, 24r.2 See Guillaume de Saluste, Seigneur du Bartas, La Sepmaine (1581), ed. Yvonne Bellenger(Paris: Nizet, 1981), xxiv–xxv.3 See Leonard Chester Jones, Simon Goulart, 1542–1628, etude biographique et biblio-graphique (Paris: Champion, 1917); and Cecile Huchard, D’encre et de sang: SimonGoulart et la Saint Barthelemy (Paris: Champion, 2007), for Goulart’s historiographicalpractice.4 Jones, Goulart, 576–82.

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Sepmaine.5 In Goulart’s hands, Du Bartas’s poetry becomes similar to adictionary.6

The success of the Commentaires makes a case for the scholarly viewthat the Sepmaine was read as up-to-date popularized knowledge by theearly moderns.7 In this article, I will focus on the interplay between rhetoricand knowledge that is instantiated in Goulart’s unraveling of the naturalphilosophy encapsulated in the ‘‘histoires’’ (history and story) of the Sep-maine, understood both as exemplary images and as narratives.8 This un-raveling sheds light on the role of accommodation in Calvinist hermeneuticsin relation to natural theology, and on its problematic similarities withhermetic interpretations of idolatrous pagan myths. I will pay specific atten-tion to the debates about the definitions of matter—primary, elemental,celestial—that Goulart extracted from classical myths and from Genesis inthe alphabetical entries ‘‘Chaos,’’ ‘‘Matter,’’ and ‘‘Spirit’’ in his commen-tary on the ‘‘First Day’’ of Du Bartas’s poem.

For John Calvin, the term ‘‘histoire’’ or ‘‘histoires’’ refers to the narra-tive itself, which is distinct from the ‘‘doctrine’’ it illustrates and mediates.9

Calvinism defines the two types of narratives instantiated in classical myth

5 ‘‘. . . desirant rendre plus aisee la lecture de ceste Sepmaine a ceux qui n’ont pas encoreattaint la cognoissance des difficultez qui s’y rencontrent en divers endroits, tant es motsqu’es matieres tirees de toutes sciences, & deduites doctement: i’ay dresse en ceste editionplus correcte que nulles des precedentes, un argument general, des sommaires au com-mencement de chaque livre, des annotations en marge, & sur tout un fort ample indice ala fin ou i’esclaircy par ordre Alphabetique les choses qui pourroient retarder les moinsexercez, ausquels principalement i’ay regarde en cela.’’ Goulart, Commentaires, Aii r–v.6 See Jean Ceard, ‘‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’’ in L’Automme de laRenaissance, ed. Jean Lafond and Andre Stegmann (Paris: Vrin, 1981), 101–13.7 On the Sepmaine as a scientific poem, see James Dauphine, Du Bartas, poete scientifique(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1983), reacting to Albert-Marie Schmidt, La poesie scientifiqueen France au XVIeme siecle (Paris: Rencontre, 1970), 247–69. On natural-philosophicaland cosmological disputations in the Sepmaine, see Isabelle Pantin, La poesie du cielen France dans la seconde moitie du seizieme siecle (Geneva: Droz, 1995), 413–22. OnRenaissance encyclopaedism and Ramist logic in the Sepmaine, see Jan Miernowski, Dia-lectique et connaissance dans la Sepmaine du Bartas (Geneva: Droz, 1992). On the cos-mological poetics of the Sepmaine, see Kathryn Banks, Cosmos and Image in theRenaissance: French Love Lyric and Natural Philosophical Poetry (Oxford: Legenda,2008), 30–80. On its theory of elements, see Violaine Giacomotto-Chiara, La forme deschoses: poesie et savoirs dans la Sepmaine de Du Bartas (Toulouse: Presses Universitairesdu Mirail, 2009).8 See the entry ‘‘histoire’’ in Edmond Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue francaise duXVIeme siecle, vol. 4 (Paris: Champion, 1933), 486.9 See Olivier Millet, Calvin ou la dynamique de la parole (Geneva: Slatkine, 1992), 265.On the role of narratives in Reformed exegeses, see Michael Parsons, Luther and Calvinon Old Testament Narratives: Reformation Thought and Narrative Text (Lampeter:Edwin Mellen Press, 2004).

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Garrod ✦ Simon Goulart

and in Genesis by opposing them to each other. Myth epitomizes idolatry:it is a fictitious narrative that deifies nature. By contrast, Genesis illustratesdivine accommodation: it is the true word of God that defines nature asdivine works. Myth promotes esoteric knowledge for a happy few, whereasGenesis reasserts that the world and scripture are the books of the un-learned, accommodated to their understanding.

Accommodation expresses divine incommensurability and the attemptat breaching it.10 Accommodation operates in the world and in scripture.11

Thus God created the world in ways designed to draw us from the spectacleof Creation to the praise of its Creator.12 In this first instance, accommoda-tion defines knowledge of nature as a hermeneutical process through whichman deciphers divine agency in Creation—it justifies the natural theologicalproject of ‘‘reading the book of nature.’’13 The second form of divineaccommodation operates in scripture, where God condescends to ‘‘lisp . . .with us as nurses are accustomed to speak to infants.’’14 This second mean-ing of accommodation labels all descriptions of God in scripture as obliqueand justifies biblical hermeneutics. These two forms of accommodationsupplement each other. Because man’s intellect has been dulled by the Fall,one needs the help of scripture to make sense of nature.15 A recurring Cal-vinist metaphor thus states that we need the spectacles of scripture to readthe book of nature.16 Through accommodation, God has made sure thatscripture would allow man’s fallen understanding to grasp the meaning ofnature. Laying bare the natural philosophy of scripture is thus the only wayto ‘‘read’’ nature properly. The Calvinist language of accommodation and

10 On the signs of divine presence being also signs of divine incommensurability, see JeanCalvin, Institution de la religion chrestienne (Geneva: J. Crespin, 1560), 1.5.1:8.11 On the world as ‘‘ontological image’’ of God, see Banks, Cosmos, 37. On the status oflanguage in Genesis for Calvin, see Randall C. Zachman, ‘‘Calvin as Commentator onGenesis,’’ in Calvin and the Bible, ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 2006), 8–10.12 ‘‘Dieu, qui est autrement invisible . . . s’est comme vestu de l’image du monde, pour semonstrer a nous & se faire aucunement visible . . . que le monde nous soit une escole, sinous desirons de bien cognoistre Dieu.’’ Jean Calvin, Commentaire de M. Iean Calvin surle premier livre de Moyse, dit Genese (Geneva: J. Gerard, 1554), 6.13 Calvin, Genese, 15; Du Bartas in Goulart, Commentaires, 13r: ‘‘Le monde est un grandlivre, ou du souverain maistre / L’admirable artifice on lit en grosse lettre.’’14 ‘‘Dieu begaye, comme par maniere de dire, avec nous, a la facon des nourrices pour seconformer a leurs petits enfans.’’ Calvin, Institution, 1.13.1:39. See John Calvin, Insti-tutes of the Christian Religion, 4th ed., trans. John Allen, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Presby-terian Board of Publication, 1843).15 Calvin, Institution, 1.6.1:71–75.16 ‘‘Il nous a baille l’Ecriture pour guide & maitresse . . . tout ainsi comme si on bailloitdes lunettes . . . a ceux qui ont la veue debile.’’ Calvin, Genese, 7.

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its commonplaces feature in the Sepmaine and were familiar to Goulart.17

His own views on accommodation in scripture appeared in his 1623 Medi-tation chrestienne. Commenting on the phrase ‘‘the face of God’’ from Deu-teronomy 5:5, Goulart defines accommodation as the visual expression ofthe divine and the verbal mediation of such a vision by a prophet aiming ata specific rhetorical effect: both vision and verbal description are adjustedto the audience’s capacity.18

We will see that the rhetorical outlook that characterized Calvinist her-meneutics grounded diverging natural-philosophical interpretations ofscripture for Calvin and for Goulart. Goulart scrutinized the very fabricof ‘‘histoires’’ and interpreted the natural philosophy of classical mythsand of Genesis by means of the same rhetorical structures, namely simili-tude and narrative order.19 These define the functioning of the mistakenidolatrous representation and of the true, ‘‘accommodated’’ one.20 By con-trast, Calvin emphasized the commonsensical obviousness of the natural-philosophical ‘‘doctrine’’ of scripture. Ultimately, and in good Calvinistfashion, Goulart’s natural-philosophical interpretations of classical mythsand of Genesis told his reader more about the limits of human knowledgethan about nature itself.

NATURAL-PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS OFCLASSICAL MYTH: DISMANTLING IDOLATRY

Fable and Idolatry

Glossing Du Bartas’s reference to Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana,Goulart recalls the story of Juno’s wrath against her before concluding:

17 ‘‘Mais celuy qui la foy recoit pour ses lunettes / Passe de part en part les cercles desPlanettes / [. . .] lit bien plus courant dans ces vieux documens.’’ Du Bartas in Goulart,Commentaires, 14r.18 ‘‘Ce fut une vision accommodee a la portee du peuple & a l’intention du legislateurparlant en Maieste redoutable, & dont nul n’a peu recueillir chose qui luy peust donneroccasion de representer Dieu en face d’homme.’’ Simon Goulart, Meditation chrestiennesur les paroles du Seigneur (Geneva: P. Marceau, 1623), 109–11 (on Matthew 18:10).19 On Calvin’s rhetoric, see Francis Higman, The Style of John Calvin in His FrenchPolemical Treatises (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967); and Millet, Calvin.20 Calvinists acknowledged this unbecoming likeness: Goulart’s Meditation warns hisreader against idolatrous, anthropomorphic misinterpretations of the scriptural phrase‘‘the face of God.’’ Goulart, Meditation, 111. The same move from definition of accom-modation to condemnation of idolatry occurs in Calvin, Institution, 1.13.1:39.

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Some key such ridiculous and fabulous discourses, when appliedto the Earth, onto natural Philosophy thus enfolded in fictions byPoets; and the first ones who became aware of this thought theywould uphold the Sciences in greater authority by veiling themthus before the common sort. But Satan has made good use of thisin a striking fashion among Pagans. Therefore they understandLatona to mean the earth, who is ordinarily hindered by Juno—who is air—from seeing Diana and Apollo in all their brightness:that is to say, the Sun and Moon who are called her children,because without her their heat and virtue would remain unprofit-able.21

Classical myths are dangerous fictions epitomizing made-up, esotericknowledge. By hiding natural philosophy from the crowds, classical poetshave contributed to the rise of hermetic sciences, which in turn have be-come the vehicle of evil. Reducing such fables to their original natural-philosophical content means making this content accessible to all by gettingrid of their fictional attire, thus dismantling the idolatry to which it led:‘‘The Ancient have called gods various effects of Nature, or of the stars, orof God Himself. Then, Greek and Latin Poets have confused and coveredwith diverse fables this natural philosophy so that the whole was progres-sively converted into the horrendous idolatry of Pagans.’’22 Unlike Calvin,who denounced Stoic and Epicurean philosophers because ‘‘they consider[nature] as the author of all things, and remove God out of sight,’’23 Goulartdoes not insist on the fact that granting divine status to nature, that is,God’s works, was already idolatrous. For Goulart, the problem of idolatrylay primarily in the making of fables, this messy concealment of truth. Hisunderstanding of classical myth borrowed, and yet remained distinct from,that of the mythographer Natale Conti.24 In his 1567 Mythologiae, Contiadopts a hermetic perspective to describe fabulated concealment as an early

21 Goulart, Commentaires, 13r–v.22 ‘‘Les anciens ont appelle dieux divers effets de nature, ou des estoilles, ou de Dieumesmes. Puis les poetes Grecs et Latins ont brouille & couvert de diverses fables cestephilosophie naturelle, tellement que peu a peu le tout fut converti en l’horrible idolatriedes Payens.’’ Goulart, Commentaires, 62r. On the Calvinist condemnation of philosophi-cal idolatrous pantheism, see Calvin, Institution, 1.5:58–71.23 ‘‘. . . en pretendant un voile de nature, laquelle ils font ouvriere & maistresse de touteschoses, ils mettent Dieu a l’escart.’’ Calvin, Institution, 1.5.4:9.24 Goulart explicitly refers to Conti (or Noel des Contes in French). His other explicitsource on mythography is Lilio Giraldi’s De deis gentium historia (1548). See Goulart,Commentaires, 13v, 35r.

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form of natural-philosophical wisdom inherited by the Greeks from theEgyptians. This concealment was intended to prevent anyone but a selectfew from investigating nature, lest it lead to impiety and moral corruption.Regarding Calvinist attitudes towards hermetism and hermeticism, Goulartserved as a middle ground between Calvin’s condemnation and Pierre deLa Primaudaye’s endorsement. Goulart did not refer to the corpus hermet-icum. He mentions Horappollo’s Hieroglyphica and Bolzani’s Hieroglyph-ica when commenting on Du Bartas’s reference to hieroglyphics, but hedoes not gloss over these texts’ hermetic and mystical undertones.25 As forCalvin, he condemned Plato, the Stoics, and the Egyptian ‘‘secret’’ theologyfor their idolatrous worship of nature.26 Similarly, Pierre Viret discarded thePlatonic and Pythagorean philosophers in his Metamorphose chrestienne.27

However, the Huguenot Pierre de La Primaudaye, a member of Henri III’spalace academy sympathetic to Platonism and hermeticism, praised Tris-megistus and stated that the Pimander adumbrated the truths of scripture.He also celebrated Plato for teaching the ‘‘sacred mysteries’’ of Creationunder the (Pythagorean) veil of cosmic harmony.28 Goulart dismissedConti’s justification of the hermetic nature of fabulous ancient natural-philosophical wisdom. For Goulart, the fabulated concealment of natural-philosophical truth already denotes the corruption of knowledge intoidolatry, whereas Conti blamed the corruption of this hermetic ancient wis-dom on the rise of the open method of philosophizing advocated by Platoand Aristotle. The keys for the proper interpretation of the original her-metic stories were then lost, and these stories became either pure fictionsand folklore (Conti labels them ‘‘the useless fabrication of lying poets,’’‘‘old women’s trifles’’),29 or the receptacle of shallow superstition in the

25 Goulart, Commentaires, 14r; Horapollo, Hori Apollinis selectae hieroglyphicae, ed. J.Franceschini (Roma: A. Zannetti, 1597), Greek text with Latin translation; and G. P.Valeriano Bolzani, Hieroglyphica sive de sacris Aegyptiorum literis commentarii (Basel,1556), in French as Les hieroglyphes de Jan Pierre Valerian, trans. J. de Montlyart (Lyon:P. Frellon, 1615).26 Calvin, Institution, 1.5.11:13.27 ‘‘. . . plusieurs ont escrit des Metamorphoses pleines d’erreurs & de mensonges, entrelesquels nous avons les philosophes Pythagoriques et Platoniques.’’ Pierre Viret, Meta-morphose chrestienne (Geneva: J. Bres, 1592), Aii r.28 P. de La Primaudaye, Le Troisieme tome de l’Academie Francoise (Lyon: M. Reimond,1596), 10, 42. On the palace academy, see Robert J. Sealy, The Palace Academy of HenryIII (Geneva: Droz, 1981); and Frances Yates, The French Academies of the SixteenthCentury (London: Warburg Institute, 1947).29 Natale Conti, Mythologiae: Volume 1, Books I–V, ed. and trans. John Mulryan andSteven Brown (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), 1–2,based on the 1581 Venitian edition.

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guise of idolatry, ‘‘the meaningless theology of fools’’ which ‘‘diverted wor-ship’’ to ‘‘the physical world and to ancient fictions.’’30 Despite these diver-gences, both Conti and Goulart thought that they could extract and retrievethe natural-philosophical knowledge hidden in the matrix of, or disfiguredby, idolatrous fables.

Fables as Allegory: Similitude and Narrative Order

Such extraction relies on the identification of the trope structuring the natu-ral philosophy into a fable. Conti calls this identification ‘‘allegory’’: ‘‘Thestories that . . . poets like to use to decorate their poems . . . cover thegeneration of the elements, or the hidden things of nature, or the motionand power of the planets. Each one has a rather complex narrative struc-ture. Since it is our practice to extract the essential meaning from a story,we should give that interpretation a descriptive term of its own. At presentthere is no such term, unless we want to call it allegory.’’31 His definition fitperfectly Du Bartas’s ornamental use of classical myths and their interpreta-tion by Goulart. The poet faced serious criticisms for his recourse to Paganfables.32 Conti also emphasized the ‘‘complex narrative structure’’ of classi-cal myths, which played an important part in the allegorical decoding oftheir natural-philosophical content.

Allegory is well defined in early modern rhetorical treatises. For Mel-anchthon, it is similar to a trope: it modifies the meaning of words. Moreprecisely, it is an extended metaphor.33 A metaphor is a word that does notdenote its proper referent but is applied to a similar one instead. Thus the‘‘brood of vipers’’ in Matthew 12:34–35 does not denote serpents but refersto hypocrites.34 Allegorical interpretation implies reading such metaphori-cal transfers in reverse. One does so by finding the proper meaning origi-nally denoted in the sentence for Melanchthon, or in the complex narrativestructure for Conti. Ultimately, allegorical interpretation implies the identi-fication of similitudes. For Melanchthon, similitude as a rhetorical trope

30 Conti, Mythologiae, 2.31 Ibid., 9.32 See Marianne Fraimout, ‘‘De l’utilisation de la mythologie dans la Premiere Sepmainede Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas,’’ in Du Bartas, 1590–1990, actes du colloque interna-tional d’Auch-Le Bartas-Pau, ed. James Dauphine (Mont de Marsan: Editions InterUni-versitaires, 1992), 349–64. Yet, for Du Bartas too, classical myths ‘‘were ‘lies’ whichbetray the divine function of poetry.’’ Banks, Cosmos, 33, n. 5.33 Philip Melanchthon, Institutiones rhetoricae (Nuremberg: s.n., 1529), 17v.34 Ibid., 15r, 16v.

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subsumes allegory, and it is a specific instance of the dialectical locus ‘‘fromexample.’’35 Melanchthon’s biblical illustrations in his definitions of alle-gory testify to the rhetorical turn in Reformed biblical hermeneutics.36

Allegory therefore consists of the identification of similitudes allowingfor a transfer of meaning at the scale of the sentence (Melanchthon) orthe story (Conti). In Goulart’s interpretation of the myth of Latona, thesesimilitudes are purely relational and allow for their metaphorical formula-tion into a narrative. Similarly, Calvin grounded the usefulness of similitudeas a didactic form of argument not in its status of image, but in the relationof similarity or dissimilarity it postulates between the comparing terms andthe compared ones.37 The allegory of Latona encodes the spatial situationsand causal relations of cosmology in narrative and dramatic terms. Juno,who prevents Latona from seeing her children Apollo and Diana, is thedramatic expression of the cosmological situations of the sphere of air,located between the sphere of the earth and the planetary spheres of themoon and of the sun.38 Similarly, the motherhood of Latona, which impliesthe cognate idea of fertility, encodes the astronomical influences of the sunand the moon on earthly processes of growth. This Ptolemaic commonplacepervades scholastic textbooks and can be found in Melanchthon’s 1549Initia doctrinae physicae; he further identified the power of the sun withthe ability to generate heat and dryness, and the power of the moon withthe ability to generate moisture.39 In the Latona myth, the allegory thereforeconsists in the very fabulation or mise en recit of relations between com-pared terms and comparing ones: the metaphorical transfer associatingJuno with the air and Latona with the earth is not explicitly grounded inany identification of similarities between intrinsic features of the mythical

35 ‘‘Exempla sunt facta similia, quae in aliqua specie congruunt, de quibus propter simili-tudinem idem iudicatur, ut: Theodosius recte fecit claudens templa idolorum / Ergo piiprincipes qui idolorum cultus prohibent, recte faciunt. / Valet consequentia, quia ratiosimilis est, Nam utrumque factum congruit ad legem: Debent obedentiam primo prae-cepto omnes homines, suo quisque loco. . . . Ad locum exemplorum pertinent et alle-goriae, quae sunt imagines rerum similium, ut Daniel sedens inter leones, est imago piidoctoris inter hostes docentis Ecclesiam.’’ Philip Melanchthon, Erotomata dialectices(Wittenberg: J. Craton, 1550), 329, 331.36 On the similarities between Melanchthon’s and Calvin’s rhetorical understandings ofallegory, see Millet, Calvin, 289–97.37 Ibid., 612.38 See figure 1.39 ‘‘. . . dictum est a Ptolemeo Solem esse fontem vitalis potentiae, Lunam vero esse fontempotentiae naturalis, quod in rebus nascentibus ex terra magis conspicitur.’’ Philip Mel-anchthon, Initia doctrinae physicae (Wittenberg: Johannes Lufft, 1549), 63v. See Clau-dius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, ed. and trans. Frank Egleston Robbins (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1940), 36–39.

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characters and the elements they impersonate. For Brian Vickers, the veryarbitrariness of such similitudes determines the heuristic and epistemologi-cal sterility of the vast systems of correspondences that characterize hermet-icism.40 In this respect, the recovery of any long-lost natural-philosophicalwisdom in classical myths remained a precarious exercise: ‘‘One does notdraw solid arguments from allegories alone,’’ Melanchthon warned.41

Goulart agreed with this caveat: however systematic his natural-philosophicalinterpretations of the classical myths Du Bartas alludes to, he does not referto them as knowledge, but as poetical fictions. In dismantling such fic-tions, Goulart did not intend to recover some lost natural-philosophicalteachings—the interpretation of the Latona myth merely unearthes natural-philosophical commonplaces—rather, he waged war on the disastrous con-sequences of such allegories, namely idolatry and occultism. His ownnatural-philosophical interpretation of the ‘‘histoire’’ of Genesis in theCommentaires opposes such idolatrous deification of nature and hermeticconception of natural knowledge.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN GENESIS: ACCOMMODATION

Calvinist Natural Theologies

The Calvinist interpretation of nature makes sense within the natural-theological project suggested in the first book of Calvin’s Institution de lareligion chrestienne (final text of 1560). For Calvin, the magnificent orderof the world leads everyone, not only the happy few, to witness the divineworkmanship.42 We should therefore study nature as God’s works—not forits own sake—in order to celebrate its Creator. In this respect, the natural-theological project justifies natural-philosophical learning, as Calvin statesin Institution 1.5.2.43 Although, strictly speaking, this text asserts that one

40 Brian Vickers, ‘‘On the Function of Analogy in the Occult,’’ in Hermeticicism and theRenaissance, ed. Ingrid. Merkel and Andre G. Debus (London: Associated UniversityPress, 1988), 265–92.41 ‘‘Nec ducuntur a solis allegoriis firmae probationes.’’ Melanchthon, Erotomata dialec-tices, 331.42 ‘‘. . . le bastiment d’iceluy tant bien digere & ordonne nous sert de miroir pour contem-pler Dieu, qui autrement est invisible.’’ Calvin, Institution, 1.5.1:8.43 ‘‘Il y a des enseignements infinis tant au ciel qu’en la terre pour nous testifier sa puis-sance admirable. Ie ne dy pas seulement des secrets de nature qui requierent estude speci-ale, & savoir d’Astrologie, de Medecine, & de toute la Physique, mais i’enten de ceux quisont si apparens que les plus rudes & idiots y cognoissent assez: en sorte qu’ils ne peuventouvrir les yeux qu’ils n’en soyent tesmoins. Ie confesse bien que ceux qui sont entendus &expers en science, ou les ont aucunement goustees, sont aidez par ce moyen & avancezpour comprendre de plus pres les secrets de Dieu.’’ Calvin, Institution, 1.5.2:8.

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can discover God the Creator in the universe without learning, it does alsoacknowledge the usefulness of such learning. The final sentence might seemreminiscent of Conti’s definition of ‘‘ancient hidden wisdom.’’ Yet Calvin’slexicon is biblical and not hermetic: in scripture, the ‘‘divine wisdom’’means the workmanship of God in nature and features as such in Goulart’sdefinition of nature.44 The divine wisdom to be studied by natural philoso-phy is therefore the opposite of the deified nature of idolatry.45

Since the Fall, our understanding has become dull: the contemplationof nature will not suffice to lead us to God. We cannot achieve the natural-theological project without the help of scripture. In this respect, Calvinistnatural theology limited the claims of more rationalist natural theologicalattempts such as Raymond of Sabunde’s Theologia naturalis sive libercreaturarum (written 1433–36), translated and criticized by Montaigne.46

However, Calvin’s praise of learning may also have left open the possibilityof a variety of learned Calvinist natural theologies: what does readingnature through the spectacles of scripture really mean?

‘‘Waters Above the Heavens’’: Various AllegoricalInterpretations and Natural Philosophies

The natural theology that discloses divine wisdom is a Mosaic philosophy.Mosaic philosophy deems that Moses was the first natural philosopher, andthat Genesis reveals the principles governing our visible, sensible world.47

Irrespective of confessional divisions, early modern scholasticisms alreadymade use of the Bible to support the fundamental tenets of natural-philosophical orthodoxy. Scholastic textbooks often reminded their readers

44 ‘‘Ce mot se prend en diverses significations entre les Theologiens, Medecins & Philo-sophes. Par fois il se rapporte a la sagesse de Dieu, qui a donne estre a toutes choses & lesconserve, comme on dit, les oeuvres de Nature, Nature ne fait rien sans cause.’’ Goulart,Commentaires, 21r.45 For later developments on this issue, see Martin Mulsow, ‘‘Idolatry and Science:Against Nature Worship from Boyle to Rudiger, 1680–1720,’’ Journal of the History ofIdeas 67, no. 4 (2006): 697–712.46 See Raymond of Sabunde, La Theologie naturelle de Raymon Sebon, trans. M. deMontaigne (Paris: M. Sonnius, 1569); and Michel de Montaigne, ‘‘Apologie de RaimondSebond,’’ in Les Essais, ed. Villey-Saulnier (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2004),439. On the ‘‘Apologie’’ and its relationship to the Theologia, see Claude Blum, ed.,Montaigne, Apologie de Raimond Sebond: de la ‘Theologia’ a la theologie (Paris: Cham-pion, 1990).47 See Ann Blair, ‘‘Mosaic Physics and the Search for Pious Natural Philosophy in the LateRenaissance,’’ Isis 91, no. 1 (2000): 32–58.

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of the theological principles relevant to natural philosophy, for example ofthe role of God as Creator against the Aristotelian thesis of the eternity ofthe world. Thus the first book of Melanchthon’s Initia refutes this thesis byreferring to scripture.48 The Jesuit Benito Pereira also dedicated a wholefinal section of his De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis etaffectionibus to the refutation of the eternity of the world thesis: he refersto scripture, but scarcely so in comparison to the bulk of philosophical andtheological authorities he summons—Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Henry ofGhent, among others. Moreover, for Pereira, these scriptural references areoften intended to ‘‘clarify’’ the meaning of scripture against possible ‘‘liter-alist’’ destructive arguments; thus the use of ‘‘non posse’’ in Marc 6 andMatthew 9 does not literally express a divine impotency.49 Yet it is this veryclaim of literalism that characterized Mosaic philosophy.

Calvin’s literalism dismissed ‘‘allegory.’’ The allegory he condemned isdifferent from the one defined by Melanchthon and mentioned above. Cal-vin’s literalist, or historical, reading of the Bible welcomed the Melanch-thonian allegorical reading of events in the Old Testament as prefigurationsof events in the New Testament: such allegory demands that one reads theBible as a succession of events in time, that is, elucidates its ‘‘histoire,’’ itsnarrative structure. Thus Calvin’s literalism did not exclude figural reading,which to him was ‘‘literal’’ when it contributed to the clarification of themessage of God in the world and in scripture.50 However, Calvin rejectedthe far-fetched, esoteric allegories of patristic or scholastic exegeses, which‘‘imagine’’ a fictional meaning.51

Calvin’s own gloss on the meaning of the ‘‘waters above the heavens’’of Genesis 1:7 in his Commentaire sur la Genese illustrates what he meantby a ‘‘fictional’’ allegory by opposition to a ‘‘literalist’’ one, and providesthe reader with the scriptural spectacles needed to read nature.52 Literalism

48 On Melanchthon’s natural philosophy, see Sachiko Kusukawa, The Transformation ofNatural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995).49 ‘‘An sit aeternus mundus, an vero ceperit, & an sit corruptibilis.’’ Melanchthon, Initiae,53r-55r; Benito Pereira, ‘‘De motus et mundi aeternitate,’’ in De communibus omniumrerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus (Rome: V. Tramezini, 1576), 460–512. Seep. 510 for the discussion of the meaning of ‘‘non posse’’ in Matthew 9 and Mark 6.50 For a recent survey on Calvin’s biblical hermeneutics, see Kim, ed., Calvin and theBible. On rhetorical (Melanchthonian) allegory as instrumental to literalism, see Millet,Calvin, 289–97.51 See ibid., 290.52 ‘‘Moyse (en) exprime l’usage special, Afin de separer les eaux des eaux: dont sourd unegrande difficulte. Car cela est estrange au sens commun, et du tout incroyable, qu’il y aitqueles eaux par dessus les cieux. Pour ceste cause il y en a d’aucuns qui ont recours aux

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is not a blind acceptance of scripture. Literalism first means acknowledgingthe problem raised by the ‘‘waters above the heavens’’: such waters arecontrary to common sense, this knowledge of the visible world shared byall. Calvin then rejects the allegorical interpretation of the waters above theheavens as angels: he may be referring to Origen’s mystical exegesis. In hisHomilies on Genesis, Origen identifies the ‘‘waters above the heavens’’ withthe ‘‘spiritual waters’’ one should thrive to participate in; a further referenceto the ‘‘rivers of living water’’ of John 7:38 has the ‘‘waters above the heav-ens’’ connote the beatitude and eternal life of the elect, by opposition to the‘‘abysmal’’ waters of the corrupt world of the flesh.53 Origen repeats thisdistinction in his Homilies on the Psalms. Commenting on Psalm 36, heidentifies the spiritual waters above the heavens with the dwelling-place ofangels.54 Calvin condemned such patristic allegorical fictions, but also theastronomical and cosmological interpretation of the ‘‘waters above theheavens.’’ This interpretation states that they constitute a ninth crystallinesphere. The issue of the number of the celestial spheres was hotly debated.Johannes Velcurio, one of Goulart’s sources, summarizes this debate in histextbook: natural philosophers hold that eight celestial spheres are visible;theologians add three more on top of these, namely the crystalline sphereof the ‘‘waters above the heavens,’’ the primum mobile, and the Empyreanheaven. Astronomers do not acknowledge the existence of the Empyreanheaven. Their system includes ten spheres: a primum mobile, a secundummobile (which could easily be identified with the theological ‘‘waters abovethe heavens’’), and the eighth sphere of the firmament.55 This astronomical

allegories, & philosophent icy des anges. Mais c’est hors de propos; Car ie tiens ce prin-cipe pour certain: qu’il n’est icy traite que de la forme visible du monde. celuy qui voudraapprendre l’Astrologie & autres arts exquises et cachees, les cerche ailleurs; Car l’Espritde Dieu a voulu icy enseigner toute sorte de gens ensemble sans exception. . . . il [Moses]entend icy les eaux, que les plus rudes et ignorans voyent. Car ce qu’aucuns disent; qu’ilsembrassent par foy ce qu’ils lisent icy des eaux qui sont par dessus les cieux, encores qu’ilsne les cognoissent pas, ne convient point a ce que Moyse pretent. . . . Nous voyons queles nuees suspendues en l’air nous menassent, comme si elles devoient tomber sur nostestes: & toutesfois elles nous laissent icy lieu pour respirer. . . . Nous savons bien queles pluyes sont crees naturellement, mais le deluge monstre assez comment nous serionssoudainement accablez de la cheute impetueuse des nuees, si les ventailles du ciel n’es-toient encloses en la main de Dieu.’’ Calvin, Genese, 15–16.53 Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.:Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 49–50.54 Origen, Exegetica in Psalsmos (Paris: Migne, 1862), PG 12:1334.55 ‘‘Quia ipsa sensuum experientia docet esse plures sphaeras, tametsi de numero acordine sit aliqua inter veteres Philosophos atque Mathematicos dissentio. Siquidem exsententia Aristotelis & Platonis octo sunt tantum sphaerae visibiles & sensibiles. . . .Theologi recentiores huic numero superaddunt adhuc tres orbes supra firmamentum, sci-licet nonum, coelum aquaeum vel Cristallinum. Et decimum, primum Mobile. Et undeci-

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ten-sphere system had been successfully promoted by Georg Peurbach’sTheoricae novae planetarum (1472).56 In his 1561 edition of Johannes deSacrobosco’s De sphaera, the standard textbook on astronomy, the human-ist teacher at the College de Guyenne Elie Vinet gave the reason for thissuccess, namely that ‘‘more recent astronomers have added a tenth sphere,because of the third, contrary motion in the eighth sphere, which they havecalled motion of trepidation.’’57 Thus the crystalline ninth sphere of the‘‘waters above the heavens’’ provides an explanation to the astronomicalmotion of trepidation that complies with Aristotelian kinetic principles. ForAristotle, every simple or elemental body has a simple motion.58 If a naturalbody is moved by a complex motion, this motion must be analysed intosimple motions, which in turn must be attributed to the simple bodies towhich they belong.59 The eighth sphere of the fixed stars or firmamentappears to be moved by three motions: daily motion, trepidation, and retro-grade motion; yet, as a celestial sphere, it is a simple body. Therefore onlyone motion belongs proprie to the firmament, namely retrograde motion,and two more spheres are required above the firmament in order to accountfor the remaining two motions of trepidation (secundum mobile) and dailymotion (primum mobile). For Calvin, this scholastic interpretation of scrip-ture is as reprehensible as the patristic abuses of mystical allegory. Under-lying his rejection is the assertion that the teachings of scripture, andparticularly of Genesis, are about the visible world and must be accessibleto all. The idolatrous deification of nature and hermetic knowledge, thesepaired evils, may well lurk behind the astronomers’ recondite concerns withcelestial motions. Calvin finally opposes the astronomical interpretationwith a meteorological one: the waters above the heavens are clouds. Hisinterpretation is supported by the commonsensical experience of rain and

mum, coelum Empyreum. Mathematici quoque non omnino conveniunt de numero &ordine. Quidam omittunt Empyreumm coelum, & ponunt Decimum, quod vocant pri-mum mobile. Et Nonum quod vocant secundum mobile. Octavum deinde firmamentum.’’Johannes Velcurio, Commentarii in universam physicam Aristotelis libri quatuor (Tub-ingen: Ulrich Mohard, 1540), 85r-v.56 See Michel-Pierre Lerner, Le monde des spheres, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1996),1:121–30.57 ‘‘Recentiores astrologi decimam sphaeram addiderunt, propter tertium in octavasphaera animadversum motum, quam dixerunt motum trepidationis.’’ Johannes de Sacro-bosco, Sphaera Johannis de Sacrobosco emendata, ed. Elie Vinet (Paris: Guillaume Cavel-lat, 1561), 10v.58 Aristotle, De caelo, 268B11–269A19, in On the Heavens, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), 8–13.59 On Aristotelian kinetics in relation to Aristotelian physics and cosmology, see Lerner,Monde des spheres, 1:41–54.

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by the more dramatic scriptural account of the Flood. Calvinist literalismtherefore promoted a natural philosophy for the unlearned, based on theeveryday experience of the visible world. This commonsensical experiencewelcomed the natural-philosophical doxa when the two agreed with eachother.60 Thus in his commentary on Genesis 2:9, Calvin calls the emergenceof dry land a miracle because it contradicts the natural-philosophical doxaof the elemental spheres.61

Goulart’s survey of the various interpretations of the ‘‘waters abovethe heavens’’ was more attuned to an ‘‘educated’’ doxa. His commentaryinstantiates one ‘‘learned’’ variety of natural theology whose possibilityCalvin’s praise of learning mentioned above had left open; contemporaryscholars have even argued that Calvin’s own natural philosophical state-ments epitomize such learning.62 While it seems to me that learning remainsin check in Calvin’s own literalist exegesis, some of his successors did readnature not only through the spectacles of scripture alone, but through thelenses of sophisticated scholarly traditions.63 An extreme case can be foundin the third, natural-theological volume of La Primaudaye’s Academiefrancoise (first published in 1590). La Primaudaye’s cosmos is structuredby an intricate analogical division into three realms: a theological one, acelestial one, and a physical one. Each of these is itself divided into ninespheres, and each sphere of each realm is the cause of motion in the corre-sponding sphere of the inferior realm. Thus the ‘‘physical water’’ of theelemental world is moved by the ‘‘celestial water’’ of the sphere of themoon, which is itself set in motion by the ‘‘water above the heavens’’ ofthe theological sphere of cherubims.64 La Primaudaye grounds his views in acosmological interpretation of the Trinity and of the Covenant of Exodus.65

60 On common sense as doxical knowledge, see Higman, Style, 20–28; confirmed by Mil-let, Calvin, 596–97.61 ‘‘Soyent assemblees. Ce miracle aussi est grand & excellent, que les eaux en se despar-tant ont donne lieu aux hommes pour habiter. Car les philosophes accorderont que lasituation de l’eau est naturelle, comme Moyse enseigne qu’elle a este au commencement,de sorte qu’elle enveloppe toute la terre. Premierement, pource que c’est un element, ilfaut qu’elle soit ronde. Et pource que c’est un element plus pesant que l’air, & plus legierque la terre, elle la devoit couvrir tout a l’environ.’’ Calvin, Genese, 16.62 Susan E. Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in theThought of John Calvin (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth Press, 1995); and Davis A. Young,John Calvin and the Natural World (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2007).63 On the variety of Calvinist attitudes to natural theology, and on the difference betweenCalvin and Du Bartas on this issue, see Banks, Cosmos, 38–41.64 Pierre de la Primaudaye, Troisieme tome de l’academie francoise (Lyon: M. Reimond,1596), 108–9, 112.65 La Primaudaye, Academie, 108, 142.

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His hermeneutical cosmology devolves ontological and epistemologicalroles to allegorical interpretation; it is very remote from Calvin’s Genese.

Goulart’s natural-philosophical hermeneutics stood midway betweenthese two extremes, as his entry ‘‘Eaux celestes’’ shows.66 First, Goulartsummarizes Du Bartas’s own view. Against the astronomers, Du Bartasstates that the ninth sphere is made of elemental water. Du Bartas thuscontributed his own answer to the dispute regarding the nature of celestialmatter rekindled by Tycho Brahe’s 1573 Stella nova. A longstanding tradi-tion running from Albert the Great to the Jesuits of Coımbra had cometo define Aristotelian ether in terms of crystalline solidity. This view wasreasserted against the disturbing cosmological consequences of Brahe’sobservations in the 1593 commented edition of Aristotle’s De caelo by theConimbricenses.67 Du Bartas’s answer is more akin to the patristic cosmol-ogy of Ambrose’s Hexameron, which states that the elements also consti-tute the matter of the celestial world.68 Like Calvin, he supports his thesiswith a reference to the Flood. Unlike Calvin’s, however, his interpretationremains an astronomical one—the waters are the ninth sphere—rather thana meteorological one. The meteorological view is finally stated by Goulart,who formulates it in the scholastic lexis of ‘‘exhalation.’’ This overall moresophisticated account was closer to a learned natural philosophy than tothe common-sense natural philosophy of the unlearned. While his conceptof natural theology justified the learned investigation of nature as divinewisdom, Calvin’s literalist reading of Genesis favoured a more commonsen-sical natural philosophy defined by the visible experience of the world andby scripture. However, this unlearned natural philosophy welcomed thebasics, as it were, of the Aristotelian natural-philosophical doxa. Readingnature through the spectacle of scripture thus allowed for a variety of naturalphilosophies. These remained a means to an end, namely the glorification ofGod. If pious natural philosophy involves delving into divine wisdom, then

66 ‘‘Eaux celestes. . . . aucuns ont considere un ciel de chrystal qui est au dessus de deceluy des estoilles . . . Le Poete maintient qu’il y a des eaux en ce neufieme ciel, ou ilsdemeurent suspendues (sic) & soustenues par la mesme puissance qui tient tout l’Universsuspendu & retenu seulement de son vouloir. Il produit cinq raisons pour preuve de sondire, & pour conclusion met en avant le deluge universel, en la description duquel est ditpar Moyse que les les bondes du ciel furent laschees. Il y a des repliques au contraire deceux qui par les eaux du ciel entendent les exhalaisons amassees en la basse & moyenneregion de l’air.’’ Goulart, Commentaires, 101v-102r.67 ‘‘. . . coelum non est naturae fluidae, sed consistensis et solidae.’’ Aristotle, Comment-arii in quatuor libros ‘‘De coelo,’’ ‘‘Meteorologicos’’ et ‘‘Parva naturalia’’ (Cologne: Laza-rus Zetner, 1600), 72. This is the fourth edition of the 1593 text. This ‘‘solid heavens’’tradition is identified in Lerner, Monde des spheres, 1:150–64.68 Ambrose, Hexameron libri sex (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1882), PL 14:143.

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divine accommodation proves central to the natural-theological project,since it is by accommodating Himself, that is, ‘‘translating’’ Himself in theworld and in the words of scripture, that God makes himself accessible tohuman understanding.

Accommodation: Similitude and Narrative Orderin Explanations of Chaos as Prime Matter

Calvinist accommodation is both an ontological and a linguistic process.God makes himself ‘‘visible’’ to man in the world and ‘‘lisps’’ to him inscripture. This divine ‘‘clothing’’ and ‘‘lisping’’ is informed by two struc-tures, namely similitude and narrative order. The natural theologian mustrely on both in order to interpret correctly the divine presence in the worldand in scripture.

Through accommodation, God provides signs—seals, marks—of Him-self. The nature of these divine seals was spelled out in Calvin’s discussionof the Eucharist, which is also a form of accommodation.69 The Eucharistrelies on a functional analogy: the bread feeds our body in the corporealrealm, just as the body of Christ feeds our soul in the spiritual realm. Thissimilitude only teaches us something about Christ in relation to us, notabout the divine essence of Christ per se. Calvinist accommodation appealsto similitude not so much to disclose the essence of its divine referent, butrather to translate into visible and understandable signs the inexpressiblenature of the divine. Goulart’s entry ‘‘God’’ expresses the same view.70

Thus, in scripture, there are images showing God’s concealment and meta-phors expressing his divine incommensurability, like the clouds and smokeof Deuteronomy 4:11.71 These similitudes have a didactic purpose: they

69 ‘‘. . . pource que ce mystere de communiquer a Iesus Christ est incomprehensible denature, il nous en monste la figure & image en signes visibles fort propres a nostrepetitesse. . . . Il nous le rend aussi asseure que si nous le voyons a l’oeil, d’autant que cettesimilitude tant familiere entre iusques aux esprits les plus lourds, & grossiers: c’est quetout ainsi que le pain & le vin soustiennent noz corps en ceste vie transitoire, ausi nosames sont nourries du Christ.’’ Calvin, Institution, 4.17.1:613.70 ‘‘Dieu . . . nous disons aussi que c’est par similitude &convenance, pource qu’a la veritela sagesse & bonte que l’on considere en Dieu ne nous peut estre communiquee pourdire que nous soyons bons de ceste mesme bonte de laquelle Dieu est bon.’’ Goulart,Commentaires, 4r. On the status of ontological images and linguistic images for Calvinand the Genevan Reformers, and on Du Bartas’s original stance regarding these twotypes of images, see Banks, Cosmos, 44–47. On didactic images expressing ontologicaldifference between the human and the divine, see Higman, Style, 140–42.71 Calvin, Institution, 1.11.3:30.

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‘‘translate’’ mysteries in the familiar terms of visible experience. In thisrespect, Calvinist similitude stand opposite to the hermetic similitudes ofmythological allegories: they provide for all an equivalent of what humanunderstanding cannot grasp directly.

This didactic function of similitude also informed the natural-philosophical interpretation of scripture. Genesis 1 particularly welcomessuch analogical reformulations, because there the biblical text describes astate of the world that is hard for the human intellect to understand. Goul-art’s entry ‘‘Matter’’ is telling in this respect.72 This text ‘‘translates’’ the‘‘Tohu veBohu’’ of biblical Creation into the ‘‘learned’’ concept of Aristote-lian prime matter, itself reformulated into the similitude of the chancellor’ssealing wax. The reference to the Aristotelian teaching on this issue justifiesthe similitude of the wax, because Aristotle himself states that we need toconceive of prime matter analogically. For Aristotle, our intellect cannotstraightforwardly apprehend matter dissociated from form, because suchmatter would be pure potentiality and indeterminacy, that is, a nothingness.However, we need the concept of prime matter in order to account forchange from one contrary to another in the same body. Such change wouldnot be possible if we did not postulate the existence of an underlying mate-rial substrate. Our intellect can grasp this concept analogically. Aristotleuses the analogy of craftsmanship: bronze is to the statue what prime mat-ter is to any body with a form.73 The craftsmanship analogy easily lendsitself to the natural-theological interpretation of Genesis because it involvesan intention (the craftsman, or Creator), which was not Aristotle’s mainfocus in his own argument but became central in early modern variations.Thus Goulart emphasized the action of the divine chancellor imposing hisseals—the variety of creatures—onto the shapeless wax of Chaos. Goulart’sentry is exemplary of the didactic function of Calvinist accommodation: the

72 ‘‘Les Philosophes considerent la matiere en deux esgards. Car ils nomment l’une,matiere premiere commune, comprenable par l’imagination seulement, comme le Chaosou matiere premiere dont le Poete fait mention ne se void point . . . Au reste, Aristotledisant que la premiere matiere ne se peut voir ny cognoistre, & que ce qu’on en cognoistest par analogie, c’est a dire par exemples prins des arts ou des accidens: souvenons-nousde celuy que le Poete propose du Chancelier, lequel ayant une grosse masse de cire,informe & confuse, en prend tels morceaux qu’il luy plaist, sur lesquels il imprime telscachets que bon luy semble, & donne a la matiere telle forme que bon luy semble. AinsiDieu ayant pour chancellerie ce grand monde, la premiere nature comme une masse decire . . . grave es parcelles de ceste masse ses grands & petits seaux, & ainsi prennentforme les plantes, metaux, animaux, &c.’’ Goulart, Commentaires, 52v.73 See Aristotle, Physics, I.7.190A33ff, 191A6–9 for knowledge from analogy, in ThePhysics, trans. Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford, 2 vols. (London: W. Heine-mann, 1963), 1:72–81.

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first, ‘‘learned’’ translation offers a natural philosophical account of Chaosby identifying it with prime matter, in accordance with the Calvinist preceptthat learning will allow one to dive into the secrets of divine wisdom. Thesecond, commonsensical similitude renders this divine wisdom accessible tothe unlearned, and refocuses the interpretation of Genesis and its corollaryinvestigation of the principles of nature onto the praise of the Creator. Thisis orthodox Calvinist natural theology.

Another form of accommodation of particular significance to the natu-ral interpretation of Genesis is the temporal order of Creation and its narra-tive expression. In his Genese, Calvin refutes the idea that the six days ofCreation are a narrative device, meant by Moses to ‘‘unpack’’ an instanta-neous Creation of the world to the benefit of man’s understanding.74 ForCalvin, the narrative order of Genesis reflects accurately the temporal orderand length of Creation itself: this very length is where divine accommoda-tion resides. God created the world in six days in order to compel man topause and ponder on each day of Creation.

In Goulart’s entry ‘‘Spirit’’ in his Commentaires, the Calvinist emphasison the narrative order of Creation reflecting its real length, and on the sim-plicity of the biblical language in which God accommodates Himself to theunlearned, determines an eclectic and anti-Aristotelian natural-philosophicalinterpretation of Genesis 2:1: ‘‘And the earth was without form, and void;and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God movedupon the face of the waters.’’ Goulart first states that the thesis equatingChaos with a created Aristotelian prime matter, onto which the Holy Spiritimposed the forms of creatures, raises issues. Some criticized this interpreta-tion in the name of divine accommodation: prime matter is not an easy con-cept to understand, and it is therefore unlikely to be what is meant in Genesis.Goulart goes on to say that the elements are a more commonsensical choice:unlike the ‘‘prime matter’’ interpretation, the elemental one acknowledgesthe significance of this other form of divine accommodation, namely the tem-poral order of Creation equated with the narrative succession of verses inGenesis. Thus the creation of water, earth, and fire occurred on the first day(Gen. 1:1–5). Air is created on the second day (Gen. 1:6, ‘‘Let there be afirmament in the midst of the water,’’ consistent with the meteorologicalinterpretation of the ‘‘waters above the heavens’’ of Gen. 1:7), while waterand earth are distinguished on the third day (Gen. 1:9: ‘‘Let the dry landappear’’). This interpretation also entails an elemental understanding of the‘‘Spirit of God,’’ equated with the pure virtue, or active principle of elemental

74 Calvin, Genese, 15.

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fire, namely heat; this definition of ‘‘Spirit’’ has alchemical echoes.75 Divineaccommodation in the ‘‘simple language’’ and temporal order of Genesis ulti-mately justifies this alternative, elemental interpretation of Creation. Its‘‘commonsensical’’ character is debatable: Goulart concludes his entry byreferring his reader to his source, the erudite edition of Plato’s completeworks by Jean de Serre and Henri Estienne (1578). For many Reformers andCatholics alike, the Platonic ‘‘Creation’’ of Timaeus offered a more accept-able cosmogenic alternative to the disturbing Aristotelian thesis of the eter-nity of the world.76 Calvin acknowledged that there was some truth in Plato’sTimaeus, but ultimately he dismissed Plato for corrupting such truth with hismistakes.77 By contrast, Pierre de La Primaudaye embraced it unreservedly.78

Hermeneutical uses of Timaeus were all the more suspicious to Calvin sincehe condemned the very type of allegorical exegesis such hermeneutics rely onin the commentary of their most illustrious representative, Philo of Alexan-dria (c. 20 b.c. to 40 a.d.).79

‘‘HISTOIRES’’ AND THE LIMITSOF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

For Calvin, fiction characterizes idolatry: it testifies to a natural tendency inman, whose corrupted, sinful nature is prone to the elaboration of figments,inventions, and symbolical lies.80 The narrative, hermetic encoding of natural-philosophical knowledge in classical myth is was one such expression of sin-ful corruption. Allegory, that is, the narrative expression of similitude, struc-tures this idolatrous practice. Fighting idolatry therefore implied interpretingallegory in order to reduce classical myths back to their natural-philosophicalcontent, thus making this content accessible to all.

Making God understandable is central to the Calvinist notion of divine

75 Goulart, Commentaires, 19r-20v.76 See the critical addendum on this issue by the Catholic Francois de Belleforest (1530–83) in his translation of Sebastian Munster’s Cosmographia universalis (internationalLatin text of 1550): La Cosmographie universelle de tout le monde, trans. Belleforest, 2vols. (Paris: M. Sonnius, 1575), 1:7.77 ‘‘. . . combien que . . . Platon ait . . . monstre bien avoir este abbreve de quelque goustde plus vraye cognoissance: toutesfois il corrompt si peu de principes qu’il attouche, &les mesle de . . . bourdes.’’ Calvin, Genese, Aii v.78 La Primaudaye, Academie, 10.79 Philo of Alexandria, On the Account of the World’s Creation Given by Moses, trans.F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (London: W. Heinemann, 1929).80 Calvin, Institution, 1.11.8:33.

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accommodation, by means of which God ‘‘translates’’ his incommensurabil-ity for the human intellect through ‘‘certain signs’’ in the world and in theBible. At the heart of this translation process one finds, once again, similitudeand narrative order. These two rhetorical structures prove fundamental to thenatural-philosophical interpretations of Genesis in Goulart’s Commentaires.Reading nature through the spectacles of scripture involves sophisticated andsometimes conflicting natural-philosophical interpretations relying on a doxi-cal ‘‘common sense,’’ but maybe even more so on the variety of ‘‘learned’’natural philosophies available on the early modern intellectual market.

Ultimately, therefore, the interpretation of rhetorical processes of didac-tic similitude and narrative order—that is, ‘‘histoires’’ in the equivocalperiod sense—remain central to the type of Calvinist natural theologyinstantiated in the Commentaires. Because they are the structures of divineaccommodation, such ‘‘histoires’’ also mediate the true knowledge ofnature, which itself mediates the human understanding of God. While theymaintain the possibility of such knowledge, ‘‘histoires’’ also testify to thelimits of the human intellect. The Calvinist dismantling of classical myth, aswell as its interpretation of divine accommodation in the joint reading ofGenesis and nature, contribute to a pessimistic anthropology highlightingthe finitude of human understanding and the corruption of mankind. Thescriptural and natural-philosophical ‘‘histoires’’ translating God in Genesisand in nature remain empty fables without the ‘‘doctrine’’ they are meant toillustrate. Without the definite criterion of truth that faith is, interpretationsof nature are mere sophistical fictions which have us halt in ‘‘the bare knowl-edge or appearance,’’ to quote Calvin denouncing a faithless understandingof the Eucharist.81 For Goulart, Daedalus is the very symbol of these fablesof understanding alone: ‘‘Maze . . . men have called Daedalus all profoundinventions whose parts one cannot easily fathom. . . . Our poet learnedlyapplies this invention of ancient times to the true labyrinth of the humanmind, that is, the enquiry into things which are infinitely beyond its ken.’’82

University of Western Australia.

81 ‘‘. . . ie n’accepte point ceste cavillation, de dire que nous recevons Iesus Christ seule-ment par intelligence & pensee, quand il est dit que nous le recevons par foy, car lespromesses nous le offrent, non par pour le nous faire seulement regarder en nous amusanta une simple contemplation & nue, mais pour nous faire iouir vrayement de sa commu-nion.’’ Calvin, Institution, 4.17.11:618.82 ‘‘. . . depuis l’on a appelez Daedales, toutes inventions profondes, & dont on ne peutaisement discerner les parties. . . . Nostre poete applique doctement ceste invention del’antiquite au vray labyrinthe de l’esprit humain, a scavoir a la recherche des choses quisurpassent infiniment sa portee.’’ Goulart, Commentaires, 11r; and ‘‘L’esprit d’un chacuny est comme un labyrinthe, tellement qu’il ne se faut esbahir si les nations ont este dis-traites en diverses resveries.’’ Calvin, Institution, 1.5.11:13.

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Documents

Idolatry and Accommodation: "Histoires" and Their Natural-Philosophical Interpretations in Simon Goulart's Commentaires et annotations sur la Sepmaine de Du Bartas (1583