|
|
Article: Geneva's "enlightened orthodoxy": the middle way of Jacob Vernet (1698-1789).
- Article from:
- Church History
- Article date:
- June 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 American Society of Church History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Jacob Vernet (1698-1789) numbers among those eighteenth-century theologians whose relationships to the philosophes have saved them from being forgotten but at the cost of being misrepresented. Vernet is usually remembered for editing the first edition of Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois, helping to restore Rousseau to Calvinism, and corresponding and then crossing swords with D'Alembert and Voltaire: it is especially the controversy with D'Alembert surrounding the article on "Geneva" in the seventh volume of the Encyclopedie (1757), as well as a sustained conflict with Voltaire over many issues, that have secured him scholarly attention. The scholars who have noticed ...