Day 65 — Book 1, Chapter 11, §10

Yesterday Calvin was writing history. Today he stops writing history and points across the aisle. Look at the first word of §9 — "After." Chronology. Now look at the first six words of §10: It is an impudent falsehood to deny… That is not chronology. That is an accusation, and notice the shape of it: he does not say "the same thing happens today." He says "denying it is a shameless lie." In one clause he has taken the burden of proof off himself and welded it to the other man's back. Underline that move. It is the single most useful rhetorical device in the whole chapter.

Then comes the machine. Five rhetorical questions in a row — S2, S3, S5, S6, S7 — and they are not questions. They are exhibits. Why do you kneel? Why do you face it while praying? Why is this statue of the same God worth more than that one? Why travel, when you own one at home? Why kill for it? Cross-examination, not inquiry. And wedged into the middle of them, at S4, the witness: Augustine, on Psalm 113. Remember who cites Augustine in this fight — they do. Calvin puts the opponents' own authority on the stand and gets the confession out of him.

Then S8 does something you must not miss. And yet I am not now detailing the gross errors of the vulgar. Everything you just read — the kneeling, the pilgrimages, the riots — Calvin now says that wasn't even the argument. He sets aside the easy target and takes the hardest one available: what those profess who are most desirous to clear themselves of idolatry (S9). Same move as §9's concession. Never argue against the worst example. He states their defence in seven words (S10) and destroys it in one (S11) — by granting it.

Grammatically, this is the section of negatives that turn into positives. no person… without… (S4). Nor did either… or… (S11). If a test is written on §10, it is written on those two.

Today's 3 Big Points

1. no + N + V … without + V-ing = the universal affirmative (S4). Two negatives, one claim: nobody prays there without believing it hears means every single person who prays there believes it hears. Read without as a simple exclusion and your translation flips 180°. Then note the repetition — without being impressed… or without hoping… — both are governed by the one no person.
2. Why, [adverbial], do + S + V …? — do-support inversion with the adverbial wedged in (S3, S7). Why, when in the act of praying, do they turn… The adverbial sits between the wh-word and the auxiliary, and it is itself elliptical: when [they are] in the act of praying. Same in S7 with at the present time. Restore the base pattern before you translate a single word.
3. Nor did either A or B so call them — negative fronting + correlative under negation + so as a pro-form (S11). Three things at once. Fronted Nor forces do-support inversion (did … call, bare infinitive). either A or B sitting under that negative means neither A nor B. And so is not an adverb of manner — it is a pro-form standing in for the predicate our gods: so call them = call them that.

Trap words I will test: solemnities (S5) — not seriousness; the great ceremonial rites (sollus + annus, the full-year festival). common honour (S5) = ordinary, low-grade honour, not "honour held in common." gross (S8) = coarse, crude — not "disgusting." the vulgar (S8) = the common people; a sociological word, no sneer. would be deemed (S11) = wish to be reckoned — archaic volitional would, not the conditional. carnally (S11) = according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα), i.e. by way of sense-objects — not "immorally." part with (S7) = give up, surrender (≠ part from).

10. It is an impudent falsehood to deny that the thing which was thus anciently done is also done in our day. For why do men prostrate themselves before images? Why, when in the act of praying, do they turn towards them as to the ears of God? It is indeed true, as Augustine says (in Ps. 113), that no person thus prays or worships, looking at an image, without being impressed with the idea that he is heard by it, or without hoping that what he wishes will be performed by it. Why are such distinctions made between different images of the same God, that while one is passed by, or receives only common honour, another is worshipped with the highest solemnities? Why do they fatigue themselves with votive pilgrimages to images while they have many similar ones at home? Why at the present time do they fight for them to blood and slaughter, as for their altars and hearths, showing more willingness to part with the one God than with their idols? And yet I am not now detailing the gross errors of the vulgar—errors almost infinite in number, and in possession of almost all hearts. I am only referring to what those profess who are most desirous to clear themselves of idolatry. They say, we do not call them our gods. Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles of old so call them; and yet the prophets never ceased to charge them with their adulteries with wood and stone for the very acts which are daily done by those who would be deemed Christians, namely, for worshipping God carnally in wood and stone.

Sentence count: 11 (S1–S11). One paragraph.

[CHARGE]      S1        to deny that the ancient practice continues today = an IMPUDENT FALSEHOOD
                        (burden of proof transferred to the opponent in one clause)
[EXHIBITS]    S2–S3     Q1 why prostrate?  Q2 why face them "as to the ears of God" while praying?
[WITNESS]     S4        Augustine (in Ps. 113): NO ONE prays at an image WITHOUT thinking it hears
                        — the opponents' own authority, turned hostile
[EXHIBITS]    S5–S7     Q3 why rank images of the SAME God?  Q4 why travel, owning one at home?
                        Q5 why kill for them — surrendering God sooner than an idol?
[PIVOT]       S8–S9     and none of that was the argument: NOT the vulgar's crude errors —
                        I take the BEST case, the self-consciously orthodox defence
[DEFENCE]     S10       "we do not call them our gods."          ← seven words
[DEMOLITION]  S11       GRANTED — neither did Jews nor Gentiles; the prophets charged them anyway.
                        The indictment was never "you call wood a god" but
                        "you worship GOD CARNALLY in wood and stone."

Examiner's Eye. Four traps are loaded here, and three of them are direction-flips.

(1) The Augustine trap. "Calvin appeals to Augustine to show that image-prayer can be doctrinally innocent when the intention is right." Exactly backwards. S4 says no person thus prays or worships… without being impressed with the idea that he is heard by it. Augustine is here as a witness for the prosecution, and the sting is that he is the authority the other side quotes. Any option that makes Augustine a defence witness is wrong on sight.

(2) The double-negative trap. "Augustine grants that some worshippers pray without crediting the image." No. no… without… is a universal affirmative: every one of them credits it. Students who take without as an exclusion clause read the sentence as a concession. It is the opposite of a concession.

(3) The scope trap. "§10 is Calvin's attack on popular superstition." S8 disclaims it in writing: And yet I am not now detailing the gross errors of the vulgar. He deliberately raises the level of the opponent. Quoting §10 against folk piety quotes it past its own stated scope.

(4) The concession trap in S11. "Calvin denies that his opponents refrain from calling images gods." No — he concedes it, twice over (Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles of old so call them). The concession is the weapon: if the ancients also refrained, and the prophets convicted them anyway, then the disclaimer was never the point at issue.

Formula 1 — the double negative that means "everyone"

no + N + V ... , without + V-ing [that-clause]
  = EVERY N that V-s, DOES the V-ing.       (부정 + 부정 = 전칭긍정)

  ⚠ TRAP 1: reading "without" as a simple exclusion → meaning flips 180°
            ("people pray without believing"  ✗   vs.  "everyone who prays, believes"  ✓)
  ⚠ TRAP 2: a SECOND "without ..." joined by "or" is STILL under the one "no person"
            no one ... without A, or without B   =   everyone does A AND B
  ⚠ TRAP 3: "or" under a negative distributes as AND

Transformation drill. Turn this into Calvin's register: "Every man who kneels before a relic secretly credits it with power." → No man kneels before a relic without secretly crediting it with power. (Watch the gerund after without — without he credits is not English.)

Formula 2 — interrogative do-support with the adverbial wedged in

Why (, ADVERBIAL ,) + do/does/did + S + V ... ?

  ⚠ the adverbial can sit BETWEEN the wh-word and the auxiliary:
      Why, when in the act of praying, do they turn ... ?      (S3)
      Why at the present time  do they fight ... ?             (S7)
  ⚠ the wedged adverbial is often ELLIPTICAL:
      when in the act of praying  =  when [they are] in the act of praying
  ⚠ RHETORICAL FUNCTION: a stack of these is not inquiry — it is CROSS-EXAMINATION.
      Five in this section (S2, S3, S5, S6, S7). Each is an exhibit, not a question.

Transformation drill. "They claim to worship God alone, yet they bow before the picture — why?" → Why, while professing to worship God alone, do they bow before the picture?

Formula 3 — negative fronting + correlative under negation + so as pro-form

Nor + did/were/have + S + V(bare) ...  ;  and yet ...

  ⚠ TRAP 1: "did" carries the tense → lexical verb stays BARE
              Nor did they so CALL them        ✓
              Nor did they so CALLED them      ✗   ← the #1 error on this pattern
  ⚠ TRAP 2: "either A or B" under a preceding negative = NEITHER A NOR B
              Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles ...  =  Neither the Jews nor the Gentiles ...
  ⚠ TRAP 3: "so" = PRO-FORM for the predicate complement, not an adverb of manner
              so call them = call them [our gods]
  ⚠ "and yet" following it = CONCESSION → REVERSAL (grant the fact, deny the relevance)

Transformation drill. "Neither the fathers nor the councils used that word; and still the reformers condemned the practice." → Nor did either the fathers or the councils so speak; and yet the reformers never ceased to condemn the practice.

What §10 actually is. Beveridge's own argument-heading names it: Evasion of the Papists. Their agreement with ancient idolaters. §9 was the anatomy of idolatry in the ancient world. §10 is the application, and it is built as a legal proceeding: charge (S1), exhibits (S2–S7), witness (S4), then — after the pivot — the defendant's own statement (S10) and the demolition (S11).

The tactical decision that makes this section work. Calvin refuses to fight on doctrinal formulation and insists on fighting on liturgical behaviour. His opponents' position is stated at the level of theory: we do not call them gods; the honour passes to the prototype. Calvin will not engage the theory yet. He asks instead: why is this shrine worth more than that one? why the journey? why the blood? — questions the theory cannot answer, because the theory predicts that all images of one God are interchangeable and the practice loudly says they are not. Practice as evidence against professed doctrine. That is the method; note it, because it recurs whenever Calvin discusses worship.

Augustine, and why he is here. in Ps. 113 is Vulgate/LXX numbering (Hebrew Pss. 114–115); the Enarratio there is the classic patristic treatment of they have ears, but they hear not. Augustine is the single most-quoted authority on both sides of the sixteenth-century image controversy — the defenders leaned on him constantly. Calvin does not dispute the authority; he subpoenas him. Rhetorically that is worth more than a refutation: the concession It is indeed true costs him nothing and costs the other side their best witness.

What is being deliberately postponed. The δουλεία / λατρεία (dulia / latria) distinction — service vs. worship — formalised in the aftermath of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), given its philosophical shape by John of Damascus and later systematised by Aquinas. Calvin knows it is coming and holds it back to §11 (and Ch. 12.2). Why? Because he wants the behaviour on the table before the terminology can absorb it. §10 is intentionally pre-distinction. Read that way, S10's we do not call them our gods is not a strawman — it is the doorway to the technical defence, and Calvin is stepping through it slowly on purpose.

to blood and slaughter. The archetype is the Byzantine iconoclast conflict of the eighth and ninth centuries; the live referent in the 1530s–50s is nearer home, where images had already become a flashpoint. Note carefully what Calvin does and does not say. He does not commend violence and he does not prescribe it. He reads the willingness to bleed as a revealed preference — a man's actual hierarchy of goods shows up in what he will die for, not in what he professes.

Later reception. This paragraph is standard proof-text territory for the Reformed treatment of worship objects (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 98; Westminster Confession 21.1). Barth's Bildverbot takes up the underlying epistemology — that a given form domesticates God — rather than the polemic.

⚠️ Over-reading guardrails — three fences. 1. §10 is about cultic behaviour, not about art. §12 will say so explicitly (I am not, however, so superstitious as to think that all visible representations of every kind are unlawful). Quoting §10 as a condemnation of images as such quotes it past its own scope. 2. It is not an attack on popular piety. S8 disclaims that in writing. The target is the sophisticated defence — Calvin says so in S9. 3. S11 is not "Roman Catholics are pagans." The claim is narrower and sharper: the disclaimer offered today is the same disclaimer the ancients offered, and the prophets convicted them anyway — because the charge was never "you call wood a god." Flatten that into an equation of religions and you have lost the argument Calvin is actually making.

1. Ps. 115:4–8 (Vulgate/LXX 113) — in S3 (as to the ears of God) and S4 (as Augustine says (in Ps. 113)). Heb. אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ — ears have they, but they hear not. How Calvin uses it: by inversion, and without announcing it. The worshipper turning toward an image as to the ears of God is supplying the idol with the very organ the Psalm denies it. S3 and S4 are one citation arriving twice — first as behaviour, then as patristic testimony.

2. Exod. 20:4–5 / Deut. 5:8–9 — behind S2 (prostrate themselves before images). Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. How he uses it: §9 established that the second commandment has two parts (no making, no bowing); S2 simply asks whether the second part is being kept. The commandment is not quoted — it is applied as a test.

3. Isa. 44:15–19 — the carpenter who burns half the log and worships the rest: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth. Behind S2's posture and S8's gross errors. How he uses it: as the reservoir he is not drawing on — he sets the crude case aside in S8, precisely because Isaiah 44 is too easy a win.

4. Jer. 3:9 — S11, and this is a near-quotation, not an image of Calvin's making: committed adultery with stones and with stocks (Heb. וַתִּנְאַף אֶת־הָאֶבֶן וְאֶת־הָעֵץ). How he uses it: he lifts the prophetic charge-sheet vocabulary wholesale. Adulteries with wood and stone is what the indictment says; Calvin is reading it out, not composing it.

5. Jer. 2:27 — Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth. The content of what S11's prophets never ceased to charge. How he uses it: to establish that the prophetic charge targeted the relation, not a metaphysical confusion.

6. Hos. 2:2–13; Ezek. 16:15–34 — the covenant-as-marriage frame that makes adulteries (S11) the exact word rather than errors. How he uses it: silently, as the grammar of the whole indictment. Idolatry is infidelity in a bond, and no correctness of doctrine acquits infidelity.

7. Hab. 2:18–19 — Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Standing behind S4's hoping that what he wishes will be performed by it. How he uses it: the dumb-oracle taunt is exactly Augustine's point in the Enarratio; Calvin gets the prophet and the father to say the same sentence.

8. 2 Cor. 5:16; Rom. 8:5 — κατὰ σάρκα, according to the flesh — behind S11's worshipping God carnally. How he uses it: as a technical term, not an insult. Carnally names the mode of worship (sense-bound, mediated by a physical object), and the object of that worship is still God. Read carnally as "immorally" and the sentence's precision is destroyed.

① Grammar — one of the four is wrong

ⓐ Why, when in the act of praying, do they turn towards them as to the ears of God? ⓑ Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles of old so called them. ⓒ No person thus prays or worships without being impressed with the idea that he is heard by it. ⓓ Such distinctions are made between images of the same God that one is passed by while another is worshipped with the highest solemnities.

Answer: ⓑ.

Exam-setter rationale. Fronted Nor triggers obligatory do-support inversion, and did is already carrying the tense — so the lexical verb must be the bare infinitive: Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles of old **so call** them. Writing so called double-marks the past and is the single commonest error on negative-fronting items (Formula 3, Trap 1). Why the others are clean: ⓐ is Formula 2 — the wedged adverbial between Why and do is legitimate, and when in the act of praying is a licensed S+BE ellipsis. ⓒ is Formula 1 — without correctly governs a gerund (being impressed), not a finite clause; the double negative is intact. ⓓ is the such … that of kind, with the while-contrast properly balanced inside the that-clause. Candidates who pick ⓐ have mistaken a period feature for an error; candidates who pick ⓒ have not recognised that without takes a gerund.

② Comprehension — which one is correct?

ⓐ Calvin argues that, unlike the ancient idolaters, his own contemporaries openly call their images gods. ⓑ Calvin grants that the image-defenders do not call their images gods, and replies that the ancients did not either — yet the prophets convicted them all the same. ⓒ Calvin's target in this section is the crude superstition of the common people, which he says has taken possession of almost every heart. ⓓ Calvin cites Augustine to show that praying before an image is doctrinally harmless so long as the worshipper's intention is correctly directed.

Answer: ⓑ.

Exam-setter rationale. ⓐ is the direction-flip, and S11 refutes it in its first eight words — Nor did either the Jews or Gentiles of old so call them — where Calvin is conceding, not disputing, the disclaimer. ⓑ is right, and you assemble it from S10 + S11: grant the fact, deny its relevance, because the prophetic charge was worshipping God carnally in wood and stone, never "calling wood a god." ⓒ is the scope trap, and it is the attractive wrong answer because every clause in it appears in the text — the vulgar's errors are gross, they are in possession of almost all hearts — but S8 explicitly excludes them from the argument (I am not now detailing…) and S9 names the real target. Reading a disclaimer as a thesis is the classic scope error. ⓓ inverts S4: Augustine is called as a hostile witness, and what he testifies is that no person thus prays or worships… without being impressed with the idea that he is heard by it — i.e. the intention is never correctly directed. Candidates who miss the no… without… double negative land here.

③ Composition — apply today's formulas

Render into Calvin's register, using Formula 3 (fronted Nor + either…or under negation) and Formula 1 (no … without V-ing) in one sentence: "Neither the fathers nor the councils spoke that way; and still, every man who kneels there believes the place hears him."

Model answer: Nor did either the fathers or the councils so speak; and yet no man kneels there without believing that he is heard by the place.

Exam-setter rationale. Four things are being marked. (1) Nor must invert with do-support, and the lexical verb must stay bare — so speak, not so spoke. (2) either A or B under the fronted negative must be read as neither/nor; a candidate who writes neither the fathers or has crossed the correlatives. (3) every man who kneels … believes must be converted into the double negative no man kneels … without believing — that is the whole point of Formula 1, and a candidate who writes no man kneels there without he believes has produced a finite clause where without demands a gerund. (4) is heard by the place preserves S4's agent-direction: the object does the hearing. A candidate who writes without believing that the place hears him is acceptable but has quietly lost the passive that carries Calvin's diagnosis.

One-line summary: Calvin refuses to assert that ancient idolatry survives and instead makes its denial the shameless lie (S1), then convicts by cross-examination — the kneeling (S2), the praying toward the ears of God (S3), the ranking of images of the same God (S5), the pilgrimage past the identical statue at home (S6), the blood shed sooner for an idol than for the one God (S7) — with Augustine subpoenaed from the other side to testify that nobody prays there without believing the thing hears (S4); then he sets the easy target aside (S8), takes the best defence available (S9–S10: we do not call them our gods), and grants it — because neither did the ancients, and the prophets charged them anyway with adulteries with wood and stone, namely, for worshipping God carnally in wood and stone (S11). Grammar: the double negative as universal affirmative (no person… without…, and or under a negative = and), the wedged adverbial in do-support questions (Why, when in the act of praying, do they…), and fronted Nor + do-support with a bare verb + either…or collapsing to neither…nor + so as a pro-form (Nor did either… so call them).

Homework (10 min):

1. Structure restoration: take S4 and write it in four slots — [extraposed it + V + C] , [as-parenthesis] , [that-clause: no person + V ...] + [without-phrase ×2] — then state in one line what the two without phrases jointly assert, and why or between them means and.
2. Composition: using Formula 1 and Formula 2 together, write one sentence beginning "Why, when professing to honour God alone, …" and containing the clause "…without conceding that…".
3. Preview: tomorrow, §11 — the terminology Calvin has been holding back all section finally arrives. First words: "I am not ignorant, however, and I have no wish to disguise the fact, that they endeavour to evade the charge by means of a more subtle distinction…" Watch for δουλεία / λατρεία (dulia / latria) printed in Greek, for I am not ignorant… and I have no wish to disguise as yet another pre-emptive concession, and for the cross-reference he plants to §16 and Ch. 12.2 — he is still refusing to settle it on the spot.

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 11, §10 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 11, §11 (Day 66) — the dulia / latria evasion, met head-on.