Day 61 — Book 1, Chapter 11, §6

Yesterday Calvin overruled Gregory with the Holy Spirit's own decision. Today he does something even more dangerous to Rome — he wins the argument on Rome's home court. The whole medieval defence of images runs on one fuel: the fathers, the councils, the tradition. Fine, says Calvin. Call the fathers. Lactantius — testifies against images. Eusebius — testifies against images. Augustine, the greatest doctor of the West — declares it unlawful not only to worship images, but to dedicate them. A church council — Elvira, canon 36, three centuries before Gregory — "There must be no pictures used in churches." And then the star witness, and here Calvin is grinning: a pagan. Varro, Rome's most learned antiquarian, quoted and expressly endorsed by Augustine: "Those who first introduced images of the gods both took away fear and brought in error." The Papists appeal to antiquity? Antiquity has already ruled — and even the heathens in their darkness saw more light than Rome sees now. That reversal — the pagan who shames the church — is the sting of the whole section.

Watch the architecture too. This is answer number two of three against the "books of the unlearned" plea (Scripture ruled yesterday; the fathers rule today; tomorrow the images themselves take the stand and incriminate their owners). And watch Augustine's precision in S9–S10, because it is the most quotable analysis in the section: errors about God did not originate with images — they increased with them, as if new fuel had been added; images extinguish the fear of God and stoke the error. Fear down, error up. Two dials, both turned the wrong way. Memorise that machine.

Today's 3 Big Points

1. The inverted conditional with might (S6). Were this merely the saying of Varro, it might perhaps be of little weight — same if-less inversion you drilled yesterday (were fronts when if drops; were for every person), but the consequence clause now runs on might, not would: possibility, not certainty. Match the modal to the meaning — and don't let an exam swap in was.
2. The not-A-but-B contrast + as if + past perfect subjunctive (S9). did not originate with images, but increased with them, as if new fuel had been added — first the corrective frame (not origin, but increase: the direction-flip trap of the day), then the counterfactual comparison: as if + had + p.p. for an imagined past event. Yesterday's S5 had as if + were (present); today completes the pair.
3. than as a relative pronoun — comparative ellipsis (S4). he says no more than had been long before decreed — no subject after than, because than itself is the subject of had been decreed: "no more than [that which] had been decreed." Restore the missing that which or you will hunt for a subject that isn't coming. Bonus cousin in S10: the absolute participle his presence being brought into contempt — a clause with its own subject and no finite verb.

Bonus traps I will test: Libertine Council (S4) — not a council of libertines! Beveridge's garbled rendering of the Council of Elvira (Illiberis/Eliberis, Spain, c. 305) — details in Period 6. dedicate (S3) = consecrate for religious use — the point is that even setting up an image in a church is unlawful, worship or no worship. sentiment (S7) = considered opinion, judgment — not "feeling." as it were (S6) = so to speak. apply to (S12) = betake oneself to, resort to — nobody is filling out an application.

6. Moreover, let Lactantius and Eusebius be read on this subject. These writers assume it as an indisputable fact, that all the beings whose images were erected were originally men. In like manner, Augustine distinctly declares, that it is unlawful not only to worship images, but to dedicate them. And in this he says no more than had been long before decreed by the Libertine Council, the thirty-sixth Canon of which is, “There must be no pictures used in churches: Let nothing which is adored or worshipped be painted on walls.” But the most memorable passage of all is that which Augustine quotes in another place from Varro, and in which he expressly concurs:—“Those who first introduced images of the gods both took away fear and brought in error.” Were this merely the saying of Varro, it might perhaps be of little weight, though it might well make us ashamed, that a heathen, groping as it were in darkness, should have attained to such a degree of light, as to see that corporeal images are unworthy of the majesty of God, and that, because they diminish reverential fear and encourage error. The sentiment itself bears witness that it was uttered with no less truth than shrewdness. But Augustine, while he borrows it from Varro, adduces it as conveying his own opinion. At the outset, indeed, he declares that the first errors into which men fell concerning God did not originate with images, but increased with them, as if new fuel had been added. Afterwards, he explains how the fear of God was thereby extinguished or impaired, his presence being brought into contempt by foolish, and childish, and absurd representations. The truth of this latter remark I wish we did not so thoroughly experience. Whosoever, therefore, is desirous of being instructed in the true knowledge of God must apply to some other teacher than images.

Sentence count: 12 (S1–S12). One paragraph.

Source housekeeping (page furniture removed, text otherwise character-exact): footnote markers 29 (after Eusebius), 30 (after subject.), and 31 (after representations.) were stripped; the end-of-line hyphenations im-paired (S10) and rep-resentations (S10) were rejoined to impaired and representations. No page numbers or running headers fall inside this §. Curly quotes and the :— before the Varro quotation are the source's own.

[CALL THE      S1   read Lactantius & Eusebius              ← the fathers take the stand
 FATHERS]      S2   their finding: the imaged beings were originally MEN (euhemerism)
               S3   Augustine: unlawful to worship — AND even to DEDICATE — images
[COUNCIL]      S4   he says no more than Elvira ("Libertine") Council, canon 36:
                    no pictures in churches; nothing adored painted on walls
[STAR          S5   Augustine quoting Varro — and EXPRESSLY concurring:
 WITNESS]           image-introducers "took away fear and brought in error"
               S6   were it ONLY Varro → little weight; yet shame on us —
                    a groping heathen attained this light
               S7   the sentiment: no less truth than shrewdness
               S8   but Augustine ADOPTS it as his own opinion
[AUGUSTINE'S   S9   errors did NOT originate with images — INCREASED with them (new fuel)
 ANALYSIS]     S10  fear of God extinguished/impaired; presence held in contempt
                    by foolish, childish, absurd representations
[VERDICT]      S11  "I wish we did not so thoroughly experience" the latter remark
               S12  → whoever wants TRUE knowledge of God: find another teacher

Examiner's Eye — three traps I would build from this section

Trap 1 — the neutral-reporter flip on S5/S8. A test-writer will offer: "Augustine cites Varro's remark without committing himself to it." False, twice over. S5: he "expressly concurs"; S8: he "adduces it as conveying his own opinion." Calvin hammers the endorsement precisely because a Papist would try to wave the line away as "just a pagan's opinion, merely reported." An option that softens concurs into mentions is the same trap in a lab coat.

Trap 2 — the origin flip on S9. "According to Augustine, images were the original source of men's errors concerning God." False — the exact reverse of the corrective frame. S9: the first errors "did not originate with images, but increased with them." Augustine's analysis is careful: images are the fuel, not the spark. Flip that direction and the sentence dies.

Trap 3 — the dismissed-heathen trap on S6. "Calvin argues that Varro's saying deserves little weight because it comes from a heathen." Half-true, therefore false. S6's concessive frame says it might be of little weight were it merely Varro's — a hypothetical Calvin raises in order to retire it: S8 gives the saying Augustine's full authority, and S6 itself turns the heathen's insight into a shame on Christians. The option quotes real words and reverses their function — the concessive trap you must learn to smell.

Formula 1 — inverted conditional, might edition (S6)

Were + S + (merely) X, S + might (perhaps) + V(bare)
    S6: Were this merely the saying of Varro, it might perhaps be of little weight.

⚠ if 생략 → were 전진 배치. WERE for every person — "Was this merely…" is wrong.
⚠ Modal matching is MEANING: would = confident result, might = conceded possibility.
   Yesterday: were it not true…, the prophets WOULD not condemn (certain).
   Today:     were this merely…, it MIGHT be of little weight (possible).
⚠ The concession is often raised only to be retired — read on before you agree.

Transformation drill. Theme: the authority of councils. → Were this decree merely the voice of one bishop, it might perhaps be set aside; but seeing a whole council subscribed it, the Papists must quarrel with their own fathers.

Formula 2 — the corrective frame + past counterfactual comparison (S9)

S + did not + V1 + with X, but + V2 + with X, + as if + S′ + had + p.p.
    S9: the first errors… did not originate with images, but increased with them,
        as if new fuel had been added.

⚠ not A but B — the negation corrects the CAUSE-STORY: not the spark, but the fuel.
   Flipping origin/increase is the exam's favourite reversal here.
⚠ as if + had p.p. = counterfactual comparison BEFORE the main clause's past.
   (as if + were = present pattern — yesterday's S5. Keep the two apart.)
⚠ Parallel prepositions (with images / with them) make the contrast surgical — keep them.

Transformation drill. Theme: superstition and ceremonies. → The corruption of worship did not originate with ceremonies, but grew with them, as if oil had been poured upon the flame.

Formula 3 — than as subject: comparative ellipsis (S4)

S + says/does + no more than + [finite verb clause WITHOUT subject]
    S4: he says no more than had been long before decreed by the Libertine Council.

⚠ than + 주어 없는 정동사 → than 자체가 주어 ("no more than [that which] had been decreed").
   Do NOT insert "it" — "no more than it had been decreed" breaks the construction.
⚠ Cousin patterns: no more than + bare V (Day 60 S8: "nothing more than state verbatim");
   no more than + NP (plain comparison). Diagnose by what follows than.
⚠ Bonus (S10): the ABSOLUTE participle — N + being + p.p. — a subordinate clause
   compressed to a phrase with its own subject: "his presence being brought into contempt."

Transformation drill. Theme: the Reformers and the fathers. → In abolishing images we teach no more than was decreed by the ancient council, the canon of which still stands on record, his authority being despised only by those who never read him.

Where we are in the chapter's plan. Beveridge's analysis mapped §§5–7 as the three-part demolition of Gregory's "books of the unlearned": §5 — Scripture's verdict (yesterday); §6 — the ancient theologians' verdict (today); §7 — the verdict of the images themselves, condemned by their own luxury and meretricious adornment (tomorrow). Notice the strategy of order: Scripture first, fathers second — exactly the Reformed doctrine of authority practised as rhetoric. The fathers are called, but they testify under the Word, never beside it.

The witnesses. Lactantius (c. 250–325), the "Christian Cicero," tutor to Constantine's son, whose Divine Institutes ridiculed the gods as deified mortals and their images as dead matter. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339), the church historian, whose Praeparatio Evangelica stockpiled pagan admissions to the same effect. Their common weapon is euhemerism — the theory, named for Euhemerus of Messene (c. 300 BC), that the gods began as human kings and benefactors, deified after death. The fathers loved it because it was pagan testimony against paganism. Calvin inherits the move and repeats it in miniature: his own star witness today is the pagan Varro. (Guardrail: as an account of all pagan religion, euhemerism is crude — modern historians of religion would say so, and Calvin's §8, deriving idolatry from the heart's own forge, actually digs deeper than the theory he here cites approvingly.)

Augustine and Varro. The quotation is from The City of God (Book IV, ch. 31 — the source's footnote points there), where Augustine reports Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC), Rome's most learned antiquarian. Varro observed that early Rome worshipped without images for more than 170 years, and judged: those who first introduced images "took away fear and brought in error" (et metum dempsisse et errorem addidisse). Augustine seals it with his own analysis — errors did not originate with images but increased by them; the fear of God is extinguished when his presence is trivialised. The separate declaration Calvin cites — unlawful to worship or to dedicate images — echoes Augustine's teaching elsewhere (e.g., On Faith and the Creed) that God is to be worshipped without fabricated forms. For Calvin's polemic the layering is everything: pagan insight, patristic endorsement, his own application — three eras, one verdict.

The "Libertine Council" = Elvira, c. 305. Beveridge's odd name is a garbling of Concilium Eliberitanum — the synod of Elvira (ancient Illiberis, near Granada), the earliest church council whose canons survive, held around 305, before Constantine's peace. Canon 36: "It has seemed good that pictures ought not to be in a church, lest what is worshipped and adored be painted on walls." This is the oldest conciliar text on images in existence — and it is prohibitive. (Guardrail: its exact motive is a famous scholarly crux — blanket iconophobia? protection of holy things from pagan desecration in an age of persecution? The canon's wording supports Calvin's minimal claim — a council barred pictures from churches — but do not quote him, or it, as settling the canon's every ambiguity.) The chronological club: Elvira antedates Gregory the Great by three centuries. "Antiquity" does not begin where Rome finds it convenient.

Why this section matters strategically. Rome's case for images rested on unwritten tradition and patristic consensus. §6 is Calvin contesting the consensus itself: the oldest voices — a pre-Constantinian council, the anti-pagan apologists, Augustine — stand against images in churches. This is the standard Reformation manoeuvre (Luther at Leipzig, the Magdeburg Centuries later, Jewel's Apology after) of out-fathering the fathers' self-appointed guardians. And when the Second Council of Nicaea (787) — which did approve image-veneration — takes the stand at §14, Calvin will treat it as the innovation, measured against today's older witnesses. Keep today's dossier in mind; it is the bench he will judge Nicaea from.

Guardrail — do not over-read. Three fences. (1) Calvin's claim is historical and cumulative, not that no father ever tolerated images — S4's argument is that Augustine "says no more than" an earlier council; the appeal is to the oldest stratum. (2) Augustine's nuance in S9 must not be flattened: images increase error, they do not create it — Calvin preserves the distinction carefully, because his own doctrine locates idolatry's origin in the heart (§8). (3) S11's lament ("I wish we did not so thoroughly experience") is a pastoral aside about Calvin's own day, not a claim that nothing had changed since Varro's Rome — the continuity he asserts is of mechanism (fear down, error up), not of circumstance.

Today's section argues from the fathers, not from chapter and verse — there is not a single Scripture citation in it. But the fathers' arguments are themselves built of biblical material, and Calvin expects you to hear it underneath. Four echoes:

1. Wisdom 14:15–21 — S2 (behind the euhemerism). The deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom's account of idolatry's origin: a grieving father makes an image of his dead child; flattery makes images of kings; time hardens custom into law — "men serving either calamity or tyranny, did ascribe unto stones and stocks the incommunicable name." This is the fathers' euhemerist proof-text, and Calvin will engage it directly in §8 ("the statement contained in the Book of Wisdom"). Calvin's use here is indirect: Lactantius and Eusebius carry the argument for him — note that he rests nothing on Wisdom's own authority (it is not canonical for him), only on its historical plausibility as echoed by pagan sources.
2. Romans 1:21–23 — S9–S10 (behind Augustine's analysis). "When they knew God, they glorified him not as God… but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened… and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." Greek emataiōthēsan (became futile). Paul's sequence is exactly Augustine's: the error precedes the image (vain imaginations first), the image then fixes and feeds it (the exchange). S9's "did not originate with images, but increased with them" is Romans 1 read with analytic precision.
3. Psalm 115:4–8 / Jeremiah 10:14–15 — S6 (behind Varro's insight). The prophetic mockery of images — man-made, breathless, powerless — is the biblical measure of S6's "corporeal images are unworthy of the majesty of God." Calvin's quiet irony: Varro, who never read a psalm, arrived where the psalmist stands; the Papists, who chant the psalter daily, have not.
4. Deuteronomy 4:24 with Proverbs 1:7 — S10 (the fear that images extinguish). "The LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God"; "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge." Hebrew yirʾat YHWH — reverent awe, the root-disposition of true religion (Calvin defined piety by it back in Ch. 2). S10's mechanism — fear extinguished, presence held in contempt — is, in biblical terms, the beginning of knowledge being put out at the source. That is why S12 follows necessarily: where fear dies, only a false knowledge can be taught, and the seeker of true knowledge must go elsewhere.

① Grammar — find the wrong underline

①Were this merely the saying of a heathen, it ②might perhaps be of little weight; but the errors of men ③increased with images, as if new fuel ④has been added.

Answer: ④ — the as if counterfactual comparison set against a past main verb (increased) requires the past perfect subjunctive: as if new fuel HAD been added. The present perfect has been added breaks the unreality and the sequence of tenses. (① correct were-inversion — were for every person; ② correct modal: conceded possibility, hedged by perhaps; ③ correct simple past in the corrective frame did not originate… but increased.)

Exam-setter's rationale: Formula 2's second warning, weaponised. Students anchor on as if and stop checking the auxiliary; the item hides the corruption in the last two words, after three correct underlines have lulled them. The reflex to build: as if + past main clause → had + p.p., every time.

② Comprehension — which statement matches the passage?

(a) Augustine records Varro's saying as a curiosity of pagan learning, without committing himself to its truth. (b) According to Augustine, the first errors of men concerning God originated with images and were spread by them. (c) Calvin argues that the saying of Varro deserves little weight, since it comes from a heathen groping in darkness. (d) Augustine held it unlawful not only to worship images but even to dedicate them — in which he decreed nothing beyond what an ancient council had already ruled.

Answer: (d) — the precise content of S3 + S4: the not only worship but dedicate escalation, and "in this he says no more than had been long before decreed by the Libertine Council."

Exam-setter's rationale: (a) is Trap 1, the neutral-reporter flip — S5 "expressly concurs" and S8 "adduces it as conveying his own opinion" both contradict it. (b) is Trap 2, the origin flip — S9 says the errors "did not originate with images, but increased with them"; the option reverses the corrective frame while keeping its vocabulary. (c) is Trap 3, the retired concession — it quotes S6's hypothetical (were this merely… little weight) as if it were Calvin's conclusion, when S6–S8 exist to cancel it. (d) survives because it tracks two sentences exactly, including the direction of the not only… but escalation.

③ Composition — apply Formula 2

Translate into Calvin-style English, using the corrective frame + as if + past perfect (not A but B, parallel prepositions, counterfactual comparison):

"미신은 유물과 함께 시작된 것이 아니라 유물과 함께 자라났다 — 마치 마른 장작이 이미 타고 있는 불에 던져진 것처럼."

Model answer: Superstition did not originate with relics, but increased with them, as if dry wood had been cast upon a fire already burning.

Exam-setter's rationale: Checklist — corrective frame did not originate… but increased with the negation on the cause-story, not the phenomenon ✓; parallel prepositions (with relics / with them) preserved ✓; as if + had been cast — past perfect subjunctive matching the past main verb ✓; the metaphor keeps the pre-existing fire (superstition already burning), which is the doctrinal point of the fuel image ✓. Commonest student errors: "as if dry wood was cast" (indicative past — kills the unreality); and negating the wrong element ("did not increase with relics, but originated" — reverses Augustine).

One-line summary: Calvin wins on Rome's home court: the oldest witnesses — Lactantius and Eusebius (the imaged gods were dead men, S1–S2), Augustine (unlawful even to dedicate an image, S3), the Council of Elvira three centuries before Gregory (no pictures in churches, S4), and Varro the pagan with Augustine's express countersignature (S5–S8) — all rule against images, whose exact operation Augustine dissects: they did not spark error but fuel it (S9), and they smother the fear of God by making his presence childish (S10); we know it too well ourselves (S11), so the seeker of true knowledge must, again, find "some other teacher than images" (S12). Grammar to keep: ① inversion with the right modal — Were this merely X, it might perhaps… (were, never was; might = conceded possibility); ② the corrective frame + past counterfactual comparison — did not originate with…, but increased with…, as if + had p.p.; ③ than as subject — no more than had been decreed (restore that which) — plus the absolute participle his presence being brought into contempt.

Homework (10 min):

1. Structure restoration: Take S6 and break it into four plain sentences (the hypothetical / the concession about weight / the shame / what the heathen saw and why). Then recompress into ONE sentence using the Were… might inversion — without looking at the original. Compare, and check that your because-clause still grounds the unworthiness, not the shame.
2. Composition: Using Formula 2, write on this theme: the decay of household piety. Target shape: "Family worship did not perish with prosperity, but declined with it, as if the cares of this world had choked the seed."
3. Preview: Tomorrow, §7 — answer number three, and the gloves come off: the images themselves take the stand and incriminate their owners. Brothels and idol-temples, painted harlots and painted virgins — Calvin will argue that the Papists' images fail even Gregory's test, for no one could learn anything holy from figures so meretriciously adorned. First words: "Let Papists, then, if they have any sense of shame, henceforth desist from the futile plea, that images are the books of the unlearned." Watch the word books come back one last time — to be burned.

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 11, §6 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 11, §7 (Day 62) — the images testify against themselves: the luxury and meretricious adornment of the Papists' own idols.