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Institutes Of the Christian Religion
By John Calvin
Edited by John T. McNeill, Translated by Ford Lewis Battles
Two Volumes. Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1960. $12.50.
(Library of Christian Classics, XX-XXI).

The new English translation of Calvin's Institutes in the "Library of Christian Classics" was copyrighted in 1960, and two years will have passed when this review will be published. The delay is due partly to the tardiness of the reviewer, partly to his conviction that this type of book demands something else than an impressionistic judgment, and that its qualities and defects may not rightly be appraised, nor even detected, until it has been perused for some time.

We may first go through the substantial Introduction by John McNeill. It begins with a comprehensive, reasonably up-to-date history of the Institutes, their successive Latin and French editions, and the current English Versions from Norton to Beveridge, with a discrete evaluation of each.

The second part of the Introduction is devoted to an analysis of the Institutes and a theological evaluation of the same, which at times turn to the panegyric, and would call for serious reservations, especially when Calvin's doctrinal statements are pitched against other theological systems. Comparisons between the theology of the Institutes and Medieval doctrines are painfully unfair to the latter, either because the editor bears a positive grudge against Scholasticism, or because he is not quite familiar with it. At any rate, some distinction ought to be made among the Schoolmen, whom it is misleading to take to task as a homogeneous group. As it reads, the summary of Calvin's doctrine in the Introduction will prove particularly valuable for general readers and theological students, who will appreciate being briefed by a senior theologian, prior to their venturing into the text itself. More advanced scholars, who do not have the same need for a formal ushering, would have liked to find in the Introduction, instead of McNeill's summary of Calvin's theology, or rather in addition to it, a synthetic presentation of the literary or doctrinal sources of the Institutes, which would make more meaningful individual references to authors or works actually or presumably used by Calvin, as such references are given in the footnotes to the text.

The translation from the Latin is the work of Ford Lewis Battles, in collaboration with the editor and a committee of advisers-so reads the title-page. It compares most favorably with Allen's translation, which is generally correct, but does not do justice to the style of Calvin, or the translation by Beveridge, of which McNeill notes that it is unequal, at times inaccurate, but often with a touch of genius, which Allen's translation was sorely lacking. Now, to be quite frank, "genial" is certainly not

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an apt word for describing the new version as a whole. It is conscientious, painstaking, and as faithful to the substance of Calvin's thought as one may reasonably expect, but it remains "pedestrian." The translator has done his best to follow the detail of Calvin's reasoning through the intricacies of the Latin syntax, and this, of course, is not easy. But, in order to make Calvin's thought and reasoning clear to modem English readers, the translator has often "explained," rather than translated. Thanks to his theological insight, his explanations are generally correct, yet Calvin's sharpest arguments are dulled, and the new version is unduly verbose. Keywords are not easily recognized; this is especially true of the termini technici, which Calvin intended to use as termini technici, and which lose their technical flavor in the translation. Liberum arbitrium, for instance, is not adequately rendered by "free will," an expression which may even prove misleading. If nothing better can be found, then a footnote is certainly in order. Some renderings are discouragingly flat, like: "if they be so scrupulous about words," for the Latin: Si eos tenet religio verborum, IV, 17:20. Yet, in a few instances, the translator knows how to use appropriate colloquialisms, like this: "as to a thing far beyond any guesswork," for the Latin: ut rei extra aestimandi aleam positae, I, 7:5. Shall we say, then, that the translation is, from an artistic point of view, unequal? Or is it that some members of the Editorial Committee have "tailored" it, and made the translator shy by their criticisms? The latter hypothesis may seem impertinent, but it is not to be excluded a priori, due to the mores of our age: a likely case of too many cooks, spoiling the broth.

Only those who have never tried their hand at a translation work of average difficulty or importance will wonder at the fact that the new version does occasionally betray the thought of Calvin, either through downright mistranslation, or through a discutable interpretation of some obscure passage. The reviewer did not hunt for such instances, thinking that it would be unfair and little constructive so to do. Here are samples taken at random, just for the sake of illustration: "For by his word, God rendered faith unambiguous forever, a faith that should be superior to all opinion," for the Latin: Semper enim Deus indubiam fecit verbo suo fidem quae omni opinione superior esset, I, 6:2. Semper, "always," modifies fecit, and not indubiam. Hence "God rendered faith unambiguous forever" is a mistranslation, which seems to imply that faith is not of itself unambiguous, unless God decide to make it so; indubiam means "impervious to doubt," which is an essential quality of faith, and not "unambiguous," which properly applies to statements susceptible to be understood one way or the other; furthermore, the subjunctive clause quae . . . esset expresses a purpose; "in order that"; a faith that should

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be . . ." introduces quite another shade of meaning.-"Finally, in order that truth might abide forever in the world with a continuous succession of teaching and survive through all ages . . ." is the translator's rendering for: Tandem, ut continuo progressu doctrinae veritas saeculis omnibus superstes maneret in mundo, 1, 6:2. This is, incidentally, a nice example of the verbosity which we mentioned earlier in this review. But we bring it here for other reasons. Progressus says much more than mere "succession" and, according to normal Latin construction, the genitive doctrinae qualifies veritas, not continuo progressu, otherwise it would have been "sandwiched" between continuo and progressu. Consequently, the meaning is: "Finally, in order that, through a continuous progress, the truth of (revealed) doctrine," etc.-"He signifies that, in manifesting his Spirit, God will make disciples," etc., stands for the Latin: significat Deum illustratione Spiritus sui facturum sibi discipulos . . . . III, 1:2. The Spirit is not the object which God manifests, but rather the agent by which he causes his light to shine upon men, according to the etymological meaning of the word illustratio; as for sibi, which has a certain importance, it has simply been dropped by the translator.

An excellent feature of the new version is the insertion of superscript letters in the text of the translation, to indicate the age of those sections of the Institutes already extant in the editions prior to the edition of 1559, which is the basic text actually used. This will make it possible to follow the successive additions which Calvin made to his magnum opus, without having to consult the corpus or Niesel's Calvini Opera Selecta. From the critical apparatus of the latter, the editors of the new version have borrowed the references to the sources used by Calvin, and they have remedied the extreme laconism of the notes of the Opera Selecta by some additional information, for the benefit of readers not conversant with this literature.

Other footnotes are devoted to a comparison of the doctrine of Calvin with miscellaneous modern theological syntheses, or to a study of doctrinal developments starting from Calvin. It is, of course, a perfectly legitimate question to ask: How was this or this particular teaching of Calvin understood and eventually developed by his followers, and how does it fare today? Yet one wonders whether this type of problems should not rather be reserved for special monographs and for manuals of systematic theology or of the history of doctrines. Obviously the editors wanted to make the new version serviceable to the widest range of readers. Professional theologians and historians, however, would have been interested in a greater number of linguistic or philological annotations, as well as in the tracing of philosophical and theological trends prior to, and influential upon, the development of Calvin's mind. This

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would have been invaluable, even though some of our contemporaries might consider it as a piece of historical luxury. Perhaps it is, but all the same, the publication of a new version offered an unprecedented opportunity to indulge in this. We are sorry to say that such opportunity, which to be sure was not missed altogether, was certainly not used to the desirable extent. This may be due to the fact that the publishers aimed at making a book which would be both scholarly and generally informative. The reviewer would hate to suggest that it is neither, but be feels that a perfect balance was not achieved, and that the scales are tilted somewhat.

It remains that the new version, with its introduction, titles, notes, and indices, is infinitely better than what we had before. As a theological work book, it is highly satisfactory, and this may well allay our excessive craving for the perfect edition which we wistfully envisioned, but which probably will never come.

Georges A. Barrois
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey