Calvin’s sermons had been forgotten for a long time. During his lifetime and shortly after they were highly regarded. They appeared in print, were translated and distributed in (protestant) Europe. Gradually, however, they disappeared from the center of attention. In 1805 virtually all the manuscripts of his sermons in the Bibliothèque Publique of Geneva were sold to a local bookseller. The arguments for doing so, were apparently that the manuscripts weren’t written in Calvin’s own hand. Moreover, they were difficult, if not impossible to decipher. And besides, the library still preserved one of those manuscripts. So, who cared?
In the years that followed some of the manuscript volumes were returned to the library, but they remained forgotten sermons. That changed from 1928, when Hanns Rückert – then young professor in Leipzig – discovered the 14 manuscript volumes in the Genevan public library. Moreover, he uncovered the existence of three sermons in the Parisian library as well. He started with the edition of Calvin’s sermons, to begin with his sermons on the second book of Samuel. The first partial edition was launched in 1936, but it took until 1961 for the release was completed in the first edition of the Supplementa Calviniana. In the meantime, the project had become a joint effort, supported by the World Reformed Alliance under the chairmanship of Dr. James I. McCord. The project is still in progress.
The appearance of the successive Supplementa Calviniana volumes sparkled the interest of Calvin researchers for his sermons. Admittedly, that also took a long time. Still in 1994 William Naphy could write: “The sad truth is that his sermons are so often ignored, that there is no discussion of their content as it relates to the political, social, and ecclesiastical situation in Geneva”. Besides these freshly edited sermons from manuscripts, the sermons that were edited in the 16th century and collected in the Corpus Reformatorum met a similar fate, in which attention for them grew. It is within these sermons that I want to draw attention to a small group of sermons that often seem to be forgotten.
The editors of the Corpus Reformatorum chose for the principle of recording Calvin’s sermons on a particular Bible book after his commentary. So, we find his ‘sermons sur divers passages de la Génèse’ after his exposition of the first book of the Bible (CR 51 | CO 23). Intriguingly, in the last (double) volume of the Calvini Opera we find another group of sermons on Genesis, the ‘treize sermons’. As the editors of Corpus Reformatorum explain, these sermons were included in the edition at the last minute, together with the ‘Traité de la predestination eternelle de Dieu’. Together they formed one book that was discovered by M. J. Vielles, the director of the protestant seminary of Montauban. Almost forgotten sermons then!
Still today, these sermons seem to be somewhat forgotten in comparison with Calvin’s other sermons. In Dutch they were translated in 1992 by professor S. van der Linde. But in theological literature and discussions about Calvin, references to the treize sermons are very few. My hope is that a fresh edition of these sermons in the Ioannis Calvini Opera Omnia Denuo will change this forgetfulness. Calvin’s sermons in general, and these in particular, deserve it!
Qualitative Theology 