Predestination and the Ethos of Disinheritance in Sixteenth-Century Calvinist Theater
This paper, by using several polemical plays written by Calvinist authors in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, seeks to examine how the doctrine of predestination was presented to and understood by the Calvinist faithful in France and Switzerland. Calvinist playwrights consistently used O...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.
1992
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| In: |
The sixteenth century journal
Year: 1992, Volume: 23, Issue: 2, Pages: 303-323 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
Non-electronic |
| Summary: | This paper, by using several polemical plays written by Calvinist authors in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, seeks to examine how the doctrine of predestination was presented to and understood by the Calvinist faithful in France and Switzerland. Calvinist playwrights consistently used Old Testament images to represent predestination in terms of blood descent and inheritance. The pattern of inheritance evoked, moreover, bears certain resemblances to the secular practice of primogeniture, a practice whereby the bulk of the estate descends to the eldest son, and daughters and cadets are disinherited. Calvinist playwrights depicted Catholics as members of cadet and therefore disinherited bloodlines, thereby reserving the inheritance, the Promised Land, entirely for the Calvinist faithful. This imagery would have resonated with the social experience of the audience, since the sixteenth century was a time in which concerns for the purity and security of the bloodline were at a peak. Calvinist predestination, seen this way, was the religious distillation of a disinheriting trend characteristic of society as a whole. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-0726 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/2541892 |