Part II begins with Chapters 3 and 4 offering a study of the first printed vernacular translations of Plutarch’s work in French with special attention to political thought. After an initial discussion of the 1530 translation of Plutarch’s essay “Precepts of Statecraft” by the Royal Printer Geoffroy Tory (c. 1480–1533), a translation which invokes the French term of la chose publique in relation to Plutarch’s idea of politics, I explore Plutarch translations in the French context by scholars who went on to draft important treatises in political theory, namely Claude de Seyssel (1450–1520) and Guillaume Budé (1467–1540). I also explore some of Antoine du Saix’s (c. 1504–1579) translations of Erasmus’s (1466–1536) Latin translations of Plutarch’s Apophthegmata (or Sayings of Kings and Commanders), here shedding light on an important dialogue among these thinkers regarding the specific and unique nature of public life in reference to Plutarch’s work.

This chapter focuses on the central question: what is the role of Greek thinking in the development of Christianity? This question is shaped by a judgment about how profoundly the revolutionary Greek texts of incipient Christianity were influenced by the Greek language and culture in which they were produced. The chapter explores three key moments in the history of Catholic engagement with the philology of Hellenization. The first is Guillaume Budé’s De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum, written amid the religious violence and intense arguments of the Reformation. The second is Festugière’s Observations stylistiques sur l’Évangile de Saint Jean: this is explored in relation to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century arguments about how Greek philosophy added a distorting corruption to Christianity. Third is the Regensburg Address, delivered by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Recalled mainly for its apparent attack on Islam, the text is more remarkable for its reversal of centuries of Catholic theology about Hellenization.

The reign of Francis I (1515–1547) created a cultural shift in France, caused by the importation and adaptation of the humanist tradition, a tradition of Italian origin. The reasons for this were political.1 The French monarchy aimed to claim for itself the prestige associated with Italian Renaissance culture (in the artistic realm, but also in the scholarly and literary realms) and to strengthen its ties with Italy, a region in which France had important interests. These priorities complemented the concordat between the monarchy and the papacy (1516), which granted the king the right to name bishops and abbots and thus negated any political or financial gains the Protestant Reformation might have offered France. This milieu also produced the social context in which the young Calvin evolved. We will first examine a few stages of his education before offering an assessment of the years 1530–1534, centered around King Francis I’s creation of the first royal chairs.