Calvin: Tracts Relating to the Reformation, Vol. 3

The Fourth and concluding Tract has the somewhat singular title of PsYCHOPANNYCHiA, derived from Greek words which signify " the sleep of the soul ;" the object of the Tract being to shew, partly from reason, but more especially

from Scripture, that there is no such sleep. It was published in 1534, when Calvin was twenty-five years of age, and is, consequently, with the exception of the Commentary on the dementia of Seneca, published in 1532, the earliest of all his writings, and two years earlier than the Institutes, the first known edition of which appeared in 1536. It thus possesses, esj)ecially to those who delight to trace the progress of a master mind, an interest additional to that which its merit gives it.

The figment which it refutes is said by Calvin to be of Arabian origin, but was first brought prominently into notice by some of the wildest fanatics among the Anabaptists, for whom everything new and monstrous appears to have had an irresistible attraction. In more modern times, attempts have been made to give it a philosophical shape, as a necessary corollary from the dogma of Materialism advocated by Priestley and others.

It would seem that the figment, wild and irrational though it is, had made considerable progress at an early period of the Reformation, and counted numerous converts, not merely among the fanatics who had revived it, but in more respectable quarters, where better things might have been expected.

One is puzzled to understand why it should have been received with so much favour; for the idea which it suggests, so far from being attractive, is naturally revolting. It was probably welcomed, not so much for its own sake, as for the great assistance which it was supposed capable of giving in THE Popish Controversy. Were it once established that the soul falls asleep at death, and will not awake to consciousness till again united to the body at the resurrection, the Pope would forthwith be excluded from the larger half of his domain, and deprived of the most lucrative branches of his trade! There would neither be Saints to whom divine honours could be paid, nor Purgatory out of which poor souls might be delivered with more or less expedition, according to the number of well-paid masses that were said for them! >

If the cordial reception given to the dogma was owing to the collateral benefit thus supposed to be derived from it, it