On Fish: Natural History as Spiritual materia medica: Calvinist Pastoralism in Pierre Viret's Instruction Chrestienne

Perspectives on Science 20 (2):227-245 (2012)
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Abstract

Pierre Viret (1511–1571), one of the leaders of the Calvinist Reformation, claims that the natural theology of his Instruction Chrestienne (1564) dedicated to the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, is a spiritual medicine. This paper shows that such spiritual medicine amounts to a specific expression of Calvinist pastoralism. Viret's natural theology uses natural-historical data as moral examples, thus transforming them into the material fit for his pastoral cure. This cure consists in exhorting his audience to bear the trials of divine Providence by meditating on their own sinful state: such medicine asserts the limits of human reason.

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10.1162/posc_a_00064

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The Science of Describing. Natural History in Renaissance Europe.Brian W. Ogilvie - 2007 - Journal of the History of Biology 40 (1):190-193.

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