Jacob Vernet

Jacob Vernet: Dialogues on some important subjects for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha , 1759

Jacobi Verneti: Theologiæ In Academiæ Genevensi Professoris Selecta Opuscula , Geneva 1784

Jacob Vernet (born August 29, 1698 in Geneva , † March 26, 1789 in Geneva) was a Geneva-based Protestant theologian , philosopher and a pioneer of the Enlightenment in Switzerland.

Life

Jacob Vernet grew up as the son of the businessman Isaac Vernet (1664-1706) and Jeanne, nee Richard (1663-1733) in Geneva. The Vernet family emigrated from Provence in the 17th century and his grandfather Jacob became a citizen ( bourgeois ) in 1659. His brother Isaac (1700–1773) was a banker and from 1738 a member of the Council of Two Hundred ( Conseil des Deux-Cents ) and Jacques Necker began his career in his bank Labhard et Vernet in Paris .

When eight-year-old Jacob lost his father, the medical historian Daniel LeClerc (1652–1728) became an important reference person for his early upbringing and education. From 1713 to 1722 Vernet studied humanities, philosophy and theology at the academy there under Jean-Alphonse Turrettini . In addition to his studies, he worked from 1720 to 1722 as a tutor for a wealthy family in Paris . After his ordination in Geneva in 1722, he returned to Paris, where he continued his tutoring until 1728 and came into contact with the French philosophers .

He traveled with his students to Italy in 1728, where they met Lodovico Antonio Muratori , Montesquieu and the economist John Law , and to Holland , where they met various representatives of collegialism (an evangelical theory of canon law about the relationship between church and state, influenced by the enlightened idea of ​​the social contract ) and Jean Barbeyrac visited.

From 1730 to 1731 he was pastor in Jussy , in Le Petit-Saconnex and from 1734 in Geneva. With Turretini's son and as his teacher, he toured Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England and France in 1732, where they were inspired by liberal theological and political developments such as those of Christian Wolff, a natural lawyer in Marburg . Back in Geneva in 1734, Vernet became pastor of St. Pierre Cathedral and St. Gervais Church. From 1739 to 1756 he was professor of literature, from 1756 to 1786 of theology at the Academy in Geneva and from 1737 its rector.

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Enlightenment theology

Vernet, under the influence of Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, represented an enlightening theology that distanced itself from Calvinist orthodoxy . He was friends with several enlighteners, but fell out with Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau because he defended the church as an institution.

He maintained good relations with the highest government circles in Geneva. His book Relation des affaires de Genève , published in 1734, dealt with the regime of the patrician families who ruled the city and whom he praised for their efforts to benefit the common good and their clever financial management. He did not believe that the people had to control the government to be free while the government was in good hands.

Influenced by Descartes' philosophy, English moderation and Arminianism , Vernet sought a middle way between the extremes and called the middle way the true religion. Following Turretini's approach, the defense of reasonable belief, he suggested that no aspect of theology should be objectionable to a deist or an atheist . He refused to speculate on such mysteries as predestination , reprobation or the nature of the Trinity .

His main work was the French edition of Turretini's Latin theses on the Christian religion ( Opera omnia theologica, philosophica et philologica , 3 volumes, 1774–1776), which postulated the correspondence between faith and reason. In 1751 he published posthumously the revolutionary book Principles of Political Law (Principes du droit politique) by his friend Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui , a representative of the French-speaking natural law school .

Vernet believed that a pagan in Africa could be saved by Christ without ever hearing from him if he responded to the revelation that God had given him his nature and conscience. He believed that God wanted people to obey Him and do good willingly and that the path of virtue was open to all.

In his Christian instructions ( Instruction chrétienne ) - intended as a theological basis - he tried to reduce the differences of opinion between the various sects with a simplified representation of the faith. He was against the perfectionism of Reformed scholasticism, which could lead to divisions.

He said that the main goal of the truly religious man is to honor God as the supreme and infinitely wise Master of the universe, and that this religious practice would lead to personal happiness. However, he did not believe that one's choice of religion was unimportant as he believed that only Christianity was based on reasonable foundations.

Voltaire and Rousseau

Vernet first met Voltaire in Paris in 1733 and corresponded with him through the publication of Voltaire's work in Geneva. After Voltaire moved to Geneva in 1754, the two quarreled over various topics. When the controversy became public, the Syndics were called in to arbitrate the dispute. When d'Alembert came to Geneva to gather material for his encyclopedia of information on the city of Geneva, he stayed with Voltaire while Vernet provided him with material on history and government.

In 1754, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote to Vernet in order to be accepted back into the Church of Geneva and Vernet praised Rousseau in 1758 for his realization that all citizens are connected in a national constitution. When d'Alembert asserted in his article on Geneva, Geneva that included pastors Vernet to pure Calvinism Socinianism had changed sides, they were defended by Rousseau. Coming under pressure from the pastors, d'Alembert justified himself by calling all those who would not accept the Roman Church as socianists. When Rousseau published his social contract in 1762 and denounced religion in the book Emile or on education , Vernet - who played a leading role in the condemnation of these works in Geneva - broke off relations with him.

Fonts

• Le Livre du Recteur de l'Académie de Genève 1559–1878. T. VI, Notices biographiques des étudiants, Livre du Recteur 6, 143 f., Droz publishing house, Geneva 1959, ISBN 9781160741675 .
• Défense des deux lettres adressées à Mr. *** chanoine de Notre Dame ... sur le mandement de Monseigr. the cardinal de Noailles, au sujet de la guérison de la dame de la Fosse: against the Réponse d'un docteur de Sorbone du diocèse d'Annecy. 1727.
• Nicolas Malebranche, Jacob Vernet, Pierre Varignon: Pièces fugitives sur l'Eucharistie. 1730.
• Relation des affaires de Geneve. 1734.
• Pietro Giannone, Jacob Vernet: Anecdotes Ecclesiastiques: La Police and La Discipline de L'Église Chretienne. 1738.
• Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, Jacob Vernet: Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne. Part 4. Chez Henri-Albert Gosse & Companie, 1740.
• De humaniorum literarum amoenitate et usu oratio inaug. 1740.
• Charles-Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu, Jacob Vernet: De l'esprit des loix: ou du rapport que les loix doivent avoir avec la constitution de chaque gouvernement, les moeurs, le climat, la religion, le commerce, etc. Chez Barrillot et fils, 1748.
• Principles of political law (Principes du droit politique). By Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, 1751. (As editor).
• Lettres sur la coutume modern d'employer le «vous» au lieu du «tu»: et sur cette question: doit-on bannir le «tutoyement» de nos versions, particulièrement de celles de la Bible? 1752.
• Instruction chrétienne. Aux dépens d'une Société de Gens de Lettres, 1754.
• Dialogues socratiques ou entretiens sur divers sujets de morale. 1756.
• Dialogues on some important subjects: drawn up after the manner of Socrates, for the use of His Serene Highness the prince of Saxegotha. 1759.
• Lettres critiques d'un voyageur anglois sur l'article Genève du Dictionnaire encyclopédique, et sur la lettre de Mr d'Alembert à Mr Rousseau touchant les spectacles. A l'enseigne de la Vérité, 1766.
• Louis Jean, Lévesque de Pouilly, Jacob Vernet: The theory of agreeable sensations: In which, after the laws observed by nature in the distribution of pleasure are discovered, he principles of natural theology, and moral philosophy are established. To which is subjoined, relative to the same subject, a dissertation upon harmony of style. Printed for J. Dickson, 1766.
• Jacob Vernet, Voltaire: Mémoire présenté à Mr le premier sindic par Jacob Vernet sur un libelle qui le concerne: avec la lettre curieuse de Robert Covelle ... à la louange de MV ... à laquelle le mémoire sert de réponse. J. Bosch, 1767.
• Reflections on the moeurs, religion and culte. Chez Claude Philibert & Bart. Chirol., 1769.
• 7 theses seu Commentationes theologicae. 1770.
• Opera omnia theologica, philosophica et philologica. From Turretini. As a translator into French and editor. 3 volumes. 1774-1776.
• Jacob Vernet, N. Cheveniere: Commentatio ... in totum caput Paulinum 1 Corinth. XV. Maxime autem circa introitum mortis in mundum. 1784.
• Jacobi Verneti, Theologiae In Academia Genevensi Professoris Selecta Opuscula. 1784.

literature

• Nathaniel Smith Richardson: The Church review , Volume 10. GB Bassett, 1858.
• Graham Gargett: Jacob Vernet, Geneva, and the Philosophes. Voltaire Foundation Oxford, 1994, ISBN 0-7294-0483-8 .
• John B. Roney, Martin I. Klauber (Eds.): The identity of Geneva: the Christian commonwealth, 1564-1864. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998, ISBN 0-313-29868-8 .
• Helena Rosenblatt: Rousseau and Geneva: from the first discourse to the social contract, 1749-1762. Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-57004-2 .
• David Jan Sorkin: "Introduction". The religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-691-13502-9 .
• David Jan Sorkin: Geneva: Jacob Vernet's “Middle Way”. The religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna. Princeton University Press, 2008, ISBN 0-691-13502-9 .
• Maria-Cristina Pitassi: Entre nécessité et utilité: the statut de la révélation dans l'apologétique de Jacob Vernet. In: N. Bruckner (Ed.): Apologétique 1650–1802. Verlag Peter Lang, Bern 2010, ISBN 978-3-0343-0380-4 . Pp. 151-165.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacob Vernet in the catalog of the German National Library
• Maria-Cristina Pitassi: Vernet, Jacob. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pirmin Meier : The loneliness of the state prisoner Micheli du Crest . Pendo, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-85842-357-2 .