Waldensian with Taboritic tendencies; b. at Tolkemit (50 m. s.w. of Königsberg), probably about 1390; executed at Speyer probably in Apr., 1426. Of his early life nothing is known, but about 1415 he was in Prague. Henceforth his fortunes were closely connected with those of Johannes Drändorf, and somewhat later he apparently visited Greece. A few years before his death he was rector of a school in Speyer, where, together with Drändorf, he began a series of attacks on the clergy of the city. He sought in vain to keep his friend from his own negotiations with Weinsberg, Heilbronn, and Wimpfen, and the pair were involved in common ruin. Besides his attacks on the secular power of the clergy, Turnow is said to have held that general councils could err, that the Eucharist must be administered under both kinds, the priest teaching or acting to the contrary being doomed to eternal punishment at the last day.
Bibliography: M. Flacius, Catalogus testium veritatis, Frankfort, 1666; C. D. d'Argentre, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus, vol. ii., Paris, 1728; J. E. Kapp, Nachlese Einiger . . . zur Erläuterung der Reformations-Geschichte nützlicher Urkunden, part iii., Leipsic, 1730; H. Haupt, Die religiösen Sekten in Franken vor der Reformation, Würzburg, 1882; idem, in Historisches Taschenbuch, VI., vii. 233 sqq.; idem, Waldensertum und Inquisition im südöstlichen Deutschland, Freiburg, 1890; L. Seller, Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipsic, 1885.
A family of Geneva theologians, whose founder, Francesco Turrettini, left his native Lucca in 1574 and settled in Geneva in 1592.
Son of Francesco; b. in Zurich 1588; d. at Geneva Mar. 4, 1631. He became pastor and professor of theology at Geneva in 1612. In 1620 he was a delegate to the national synod of Alais, which introduced the results of the Synod of Dort into France. In the following year he was
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Son of the preceding; b. at Geneva Oct. 17, 1623; d. there Sept. 28, 1687. He was educated at Geneva, Leyden, Utrecht, Paris, Saumur, Montauban, and Nimes. Returning to his native city, he was made pastor of the Italian church there in 1648, and professor of theology in 1653. He is especially known as a zealous opponent of the theology of Saumur (see Amyraut, Moise), as an earnest defender of the orthodoxy represented by the Synod of Dort, and as one of the authors of the Helvetic Consensus (q.v.). Among his writings, which are chiefly dogmatic in character, special mention should be made of his Institutio theologise elenotide (3 parts, Geneva, 1679-85). A complete new edition of his works with his life by B. Pictet was issued at Edinburgh (4 vols., 1847-48).
Son of the preceding, and the most important member of the family; b. at Geneva Aug. 24, 1671; d. there May 1, 1737. He was educated at Geneva and at Leyden. Destined to depart from his father's defense of rigid Calvinism, and to seek to reunite all Protestants on the basis of a few fundamental doctrines, freeing the church of Geneva from the domination of the Synod of Dort, he began his activity as an author with his Pyrrhonismus pontifccius sine theses theologico-historito do variationibus pontificiorum circa ecclesice infallibalitatem (Leyden, 1692) which was practically a refutation of Bossuet's Variations des 4glises protestantes (2 vols., Paris, 1688). From Leyden he went to England and France, and on his return to his native city in 1693 was made a member of the Venerable compagnie des pasteurs. In 1697 he was appointed professor of church history, and from 1701 to 1711 was rector of the academy of Geneva, his rectorial addresses being later collected under the title of Orationes academicae (Geneva, 1737).
Turrettini was especially important for his part in the abolition in 1725 of the Helvetic Consensus, of which his father had been one of the chief authors, but which was felt to be a burden in Geneva, as well as in other parts of Switzerland. The struggle over this commenced in 1706, over the promise of a young clergyman named Vial to refrain from teaching contrary to the Consensus, a promise not agreeable to the strict minority which had the council of state cancel Vial's inclusion in the Compagnie. The matter was further considered by the latter and recommendations made to the council of state, the general result of which was that the Compagnie, in its session of June 15, resolved to drop the formula of 1706, and to retain only the requirements of belief in the teaching of the prophets and apostles as contained in the Old and New Testaments and as summarized in the catechism. Thus not only the Helvetic Consensus, but the canons of Dort and even the Second Helvetic Confession were
deprived of their binding force upon the clergy, while a sort of symbolic authority was accorded only to Calvin's catechism. The government was evidently in sympathy with the results, though, in accord with eighteenth-century .usage, it desired the affair to be kept as quiet as possible. Turrettini, however, was not content with the abolition of the Consensus in Geneva, but desired that it be abrogated throughout Switzerland. To this end he communicated with Archbishop Wake, of Canterbury, whereupon the primate, later followed by the king of England, wrote the Swiss cantons urging them to dispense with the Helvetic Consensus.
The abolition of this Consensus was closely connected with another interest which assumed an important place in Turettini's life--the union between the Lutherans and the Reformed. In 1707 he learned, through a Prussian deputy at Neuch5,te1, that Frederick L, who was deeply interested in the union, desired to know the opinion of the church and academy of Geneva on the matter. On Apr. 22, 1707, the Compagnie gave the king the desired information in a letter prepared by Turrettini, in which the utmost readiness for interdenominational comity was expressed. Frederick showed his deep pleasure in a reply read by the Compagnie on July 1, in which he urged the Genevan Church to enter into negotiations with his clergy and theologians in the cause of union. Turrettini himself was rewarded with a gold medal from the king and appointment to membership in the royal academy of Berlin.
The chief source for a knowledge of the theological tendency of Turrettini is his Nubes testium pro moderato et pacifico de rebus theologicis judicio et instituenda inter Protestantes concordia (Geneva, 1719; Eng. transl., A Discourse concerning Fundamental Articles in Religion, London, 1720), a work inspired by the letter of Archbishop Wake already mentioned. From the preface it appears that Turrettini had corresponded with Leibnitz concerning Protestant union as early as 1707. The work includes a treatise on the fundamental articles of faith, prepared at the request of two Lutheran nobles and first printed before the appearance of the Nubes. Here the author maintains that only those are fundamental articles "whose knowledge and faith are necessary for obtaining the grace and salvation of God." Of these there are but few, only those which have been believed by all Christians at all times. He even asserts that the sole doctrines in question are obedience to the commands of God and faith in the promises of the Gospel; though he admits that the Apostles' Creed is the "criterion and standard of fundamentals." His final conclusion is that God alone knows what beliefs are necessary to salvation, and he closes by declaring that union is impossible where there is lack of agreement concerning the basal truths of the Gospel, as between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but that such union should be effected where the divergencies concern mere accessories, as between Lutherans and Reformed.
Another work of importance for Turrettini's theology was his Cogitationes et dissertaGiones theologiew
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In Geneva Turrettini gradually became an ecclesiastical primate, and as such, for example, he introduced the custom of public confirmation. He received repeated requests from abroad for opinions and interventions, but the closing years of his life were deeply troubled by the disturbances in Geneva in 1734. After his death appeared his Commentarius theoretico-practicus in epistolam Sancti Pauli ad Thessalonicos (Basel, 1739); his lectures on Rom. xi. (Geneva, 1741); and his treatise on Biblical exegesis (Berlin, 1766). His Opera omnia appeared at Leuwarden (3 vols., 1774-76).
Bibliography: F. Turrettini, Notice biographique sur Bénédict Turrettini, Geneva, 1871; E. de Bude, Vie de Francois Turrettini, Geneva, 1871; idem, Vie de J. Alphonse Turrettini, 2 vols., ib. 1880; G. Keizer, Francois Turrettini, Paris, 1900; J. Senebier, Hist. littéraire de Genève, 3 vols., Geneva, 1706; F. Schaller, Easai scar J. A. Turretini, Colmar, 1561; J. Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, vol. iii., Geneva, 1862; H. von der Goltz, Die reformierte Kirche Genfs im 19. Jahrhundert, Basel, 1862; H. Heyer, Catalogue des thèses soutenues à l'académie de Genève, Geneva, 1898; C. Borgeaud, L'AcadEmiedeCalvin, IS691798, Geneva, 1900; T. Heyer, in Mémoires de la socikt§ d'hist. et archeologie de Genive, vol. xiii.; Lichtenberger, ESR, xii. 249-251.
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