Jean-Alphonse Turrettini (1671–1737): les temps et la culture intellectuelle d’un théologien éclairé par Maria-Cristina Pitassi (review)

This volume brings together thirteen articles published between 1988 and 2009 in different journals and collections of essays. Besides their eminent author, Maria-Cristina Pitassi, professeure honoraire at the University of Geneva and former director of its Institut de l’histoire de la Réformation, these articles share a focus on a particular figure — Protestant theologian Jean-Alphonse Turrettini — and a particular city — Turrettini’s hometown of Geneva — both of which played an influential role in the religious and intellectual culture of Protestant Europe at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. The articles have been slightly reworked and updated for this new publication. Grouped into three sections highlighting different overarching themes and each preceded by a general introduction, these former ‘instantanés’ (p. 15) thus reappear in the form of a coherent and multifaceted overall study. Part One, ‘Regards philosophiques: entre cartésianisme et anti-spinozisme’, examines Turrettini’s relation to philosophy as well as the broader context of the Genevan reception of Cartesianism and Spinozism. The image of Turrettini that emerges from this section is that of a theologian interested in philosophy as a means to free theological discourse from its scholastic aberrations and to build an effective apologetics against scepticism and other contemporary systems of thought that undermined the basis of Christian faith. Part Two, ‘Un laboratoire théologique? Idées, conflits, pratiques’, addresses the question of how Geneva, the capital of Calvinist Protestantism, handled its religious heritage in the face of the difficulties raised, on the one hand, by the changing intellectual, social, and cultural climate and, on the other hand, by the attitudes of contemporary Christians in search of new forms of spirituality. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, such as letters, sermons, dissertations, and church council minutes, the articles in this section meticulously analyse the ways in which religious doctrine and practice were affected by the preoccupations and the tensions that arose in this context. They also demonstrate that, by elaborating an apologetic theology centred around the ‘reasonableness’ and the moral aspects of the Christian faith and by promoting an intra- and interconfessional Protestant dialogue focused on its main substance and not on questions of secondary importance, Turrettini played a key role in the process of defining a new, modern, Protestant identity. Part Three, ‘De Genève à l’Europe et retour’, takes a more international perspective and further develops the subjects discussed in the first two sections from the angle of Turrettini’s voluminous correspondence. Most notably, it sheds ample light on his engagement in international networks of theologians, ministers, scholars, and political and social elites who shared and helped shape his post-orthodox ideas and his irenic ideals. Methodically composed and written in a clear and confident style, the articles in this stimulating book leave nothing more to be desired — except, perhaps, for a translation of the quotations in Latin and, more importantly, the launch of the electronic edition of the inventory of Turrettini’s correspondence, including digital reproductions of the manuscript letters, announced by the author.