Eschatological-apocalyptic expectations and corporate political emphases in the theological-political thought of Pierre Viret (Lyon, 1562-1565)

Abstract

This project has as a point of departure the idea that apocalyptic longings showed, in the Occidental societies of early modern times, an organic character, with roots in convictions and expectations that gave form to those societies.Rooted in three fundamental axes (the existence of an eschatological-apocalyptic language during early modern times; the close connection between apocalyptic expectations and the idea of respublica christiana; and this expectations' expression in a theological-political nexus based in a corporative conception of society that had in high esteem liberties as acquired by multiple social bodies), we aim to study the eschatological-apocalyptic configurations found in the work of the Huguenot reformer Pierre Viret (1511-1571) during his stay as principal pastor of Reformed church of Lyon (1562-1565).This object will be studying in three specific horizons: Viret's prolific work of religious polemics, write during or immediately after the period of Huguenot control in Lyon; the pastoral preoccupations, as shown in treatises, sermons, and Conciliar documents (the consistories' acts), that dealings with discipline as structural element of Christian community as a "godly society"; and the mobilization, by Viret's theological-political thought (and the theological-political thought of others Calvinistic leaders at Lyon), of typical elements of organological-corporative society, an ideological frame that gave form to the respublica christiana as an effective self-comprehension of that society.As a result of this investigation, we hope to reach a more accurate knowledge of the place occupied by apocalyptic expectations in the context of Occidental early modern times: a place, we suppose, less and less related to dynamics considered as unorthodox and disruptive of social ordering, and more and more close to a organic conception of society. (AU)