Day 68 — Book 1, Chapter 11, §13

Yesterday Calvin argued about what is lawful. Today, first sentence, he changes the word.

expedient.

Underline it. That is not a synonym, it is a different court. §12 asked: may images exist at all? Answer — yes, sculpture and painting are gifts of God; the prohibition attaches to the object, not to the medium. Which means Calvin has already given away the easy argument. He cannot now say images are unlawful, because he spent §12 saying they are not. So he does what a first-rate advocate does when he has conceded the legal point: he moves to a different question. whether it is expedient that churches should contain representations of any kind.

And that word is not neutral. Expedient is Paul's word — All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient (1 Cor 6:12, 10:23; Gk. συμφέρει, it profits, it is advantageous). By choosing it, Calvin quietly puts his opponent inside a Pauline frame where the reply "but it is permitted" has already been answered by the apostle. That is the whole move of S1. Do not skate past it.

Then watch what he reaches for as his first evidence. Not a proof-text. the authority of the ancient Church. Five hundred years, he says, of Christian churches completely free from visible representations. This is Calvin fighting Rome with Rome's own favourite weapon — antiquity — and it is worth noticing that on this ground he thinks he wins outright. Then S6, the sharpest question in the section: Are we to suppose that those holy fathers, if they had judged the thing to be useful and salutary, would have allowed the Church to be so long without it? Silence for five centuries is being read as a verdict. Not an oversight — a judgment, S7 insists: they rather rejected it intentionally and on rational grounds, than omitted it through ignorance or carelessness.

Then three Augustine quotations, back to back (S8–S10), and I want you to notice what they are actually about. Not idolatry. Psychology. they affect weak minds just as if they lived and breathed — the image works on you below the level of your theology. The mind, being itself in a body, cannot help inferring that a body-shaped thing has a body-shaped inner life. That is Augustine's point and it is why Calvin can afford to have conceded so much in §12: his case does not need the images to be idols. It needs only that you are a body, and bodies are persuaded by bodies.

And then the ending, which is the reason this section matters far beyond image-controversy. Having said all that, Calvin turns positive. What may stand in a church? those living symbols which the Lord has consecrated by his own word: I mean Baptism and the Lord's Supper. That is not a throwaway. It is a substitution: the sacraments are the church's authorised visual media. God did not leave the eye unfed; he fed it himself. Then S15 closes with a sneer you should be able to hear — Such, then, is the incomparable blessing of images — pure irony, and the last word of the section, compensated, is an accountant's word. He is pricing a loss at zero.

Grammatically today is the subjunctive-and-inversion day, and it is a hard one. Three constructions carry the whole section, and every one of them buries its meaning in word order rather than in vocabulary.

Today's 3 Big Points

1. Concession by inversion — Even were the danger less imminent, still… (S13). There is no if in that clause. There does not need to be one. In formal English you may drop if from a subjunctive protasis on condition that you invert the operator to the front: Even **were** the danger less imminent = Even **if** the danger **were** less imminent. Same machine as Had he known…, Should you wish…, Were it not for…. Two things to burn in. (a) The verb is were, the past subjunctive, so the clause is granted counterfactually — Calvin is not admitting the danger is small; he is saying suppose it were, my case still stands. (b) The still in the main clause is not "up to now"; it is nevertheless, the resumptive marker that tells you the concession has ended. Yesterday you learned If it be… — bare present subjunctive with the conjunction. Today: past subjunctive without it. Same family, one generation apart.
2. Anticipatory it + extraposed infinitive subject, with a comparative wedged into the gap (S13, second half). **it** appears to me more unbecoming their sacredness than I well can tell, **to admit any other images than** those living symbols… Read that as written and it is gibberish. Restore it: the dummy it is a placeholder, and the real subject is the infinitive phrase at the far end — to admit any other images … appears to me more unbecoming their sacredness than I can well say. Now the trap. There are two thans in that sentence and they belong to different comparatives: more unbecoming … **than I well can tell** (degree of my ability to express it) and any other images **than** those living symbols (exclusion of everything but the sacraments). Cross the wires and you will produce a sentence in which Calvin compares images to his own eloquence. Bracket before you translate.
3. Fronted Such + inversion, in the service of irony (S15). **Such**, then, **is** the incomparable blessing of images. The complement Such is fronted, so the verb comes before the subject — is the … blessing, never the blessing is. That is mechanical and testable. But the content is the trap: incomparable blessing is sarcasm, and the appositive that follows tells you so — a blessing, **the want of which**… cannot possibly be compensated! And there is your archaic reversal: want = lack, absence. Not desire. The want of which cannot be compensated = the lack of which cannot be made up for — which is what the Papists say, not what Calvin says. The if we believe the Papists is doing all the work; strip it out and you have Calvin endorsing images.

Trap words I will test. expedient (S1) — profitable, advantageous, Pauline; opposed to lawful, not to wrong. without reference to (S1) = setting aside, leaving out of account — it is a bracketing phrase, not a denial. attach any weight to (S2) = give any authority to. prosperous (S2) = flourishing, thriving — of religion, not of money. admission (S3) = letting in, admittance — a noun of entry, not of confession. salutary (S6) = health-giving, beneficial (salus). in a manner (S9) = as it were, so to speak — a hedge, not "in a manner of speaking about method." extorted (S9) = wrung out by force — the image compels, it does not persuade. bent (S10) = inclination, tendency — a noun. infatuation (S12) = being made a fool of, mental blindness (fatuus) — much stronger than modern "crush." the moment (S12) = as soon as, a conjunction. as it were (S12) = so to speak — flags the banner as metaphor. forthwith (S12) = immediately. imminent (S13) = overhanging, about to fall (in-minere). unbecoming (S13) = unfitting, unsuited to — same word as §12, and again not "ugly." want (S15) ⚠⚠ = lack. Not desire. This is the single most reversible word in the section.

13. But, without reference to the above distinction, let us here consider, whether it is expedient that churches should contain representations of any kind, whether of events or human forms. First, then, if we attach any weight to the authority of the ancient Church, let us remember, that for five hundred years, during which religion was in a more prosperous condition, and a purer doctrine flourished, Christian churches were completely free from visible representations (see Preface, and Book 4, c. 9 s. 9). Hence their first admission as an ornament to churches took place after the purity of the ministry had somewhat degenerated. I will not dispute as to the rationality of the grounds on which the first introduction of them proceeded, but if you compare the two periods, you will find that the latter had greatly declined from the purity of the times when images were unknown. What then? Are we to suppose that those holy fathers, if they had judged the thing to be useful and salutary, would have allowed the Church to be so long without it? Undoubtedly, because they saw very little or no advantage, and the greatest danger in it, they rather rejected it intentionally and on rational grounds, than omitted it through ignorance or carelessness. This is clearly attested by Augustine in these words (Ep. 49. See also De Civit. Dei, lib 4 c. 31) “When images are thus placed aloft in seats of honour, to be beheld by those who are praying or sacrificing, though they have neither sense nor life, yet from appearing as if they had both, they affect weak minds just as if they lived and breathed,” &c. And again, in another passage (in Ps. 112) he says, “The effect produced, and in a manner extorted, by the bodily shape, is, that the mind, being itself in a body, imagines that a body which is so like its oven must be similarly affected,” &c. A little farther on he says, “Images are more capable of giving a wrong bent to an unhappy soul, from having mouth, eyes, ears, and feet, than of correcting it, as they neither speak, nor see, nor hear, nor walk.” This undoubtedly is the reason why John (1 John 5:21) enjoins us to beware, not only of the worship of idols, but also of idols themselves. And from the fearful infatuation under which the world has hitherto laboured, almost to the entire destruction of piety, we know too well from experience that the moment images appear in churches, idolatry has as it were raised its banner; because the folly of manhood cannot moderate itself, but forthwith falls away to superstitious worship. Even were the danger less imminent, still, when I consider the proper end for which churches are erected, it appears to me more unbecoming their sacredness than I well can tell, to admit any other images than those living symbols which the Lord has consecrated by his own word: I mean Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, with the other ceremonies. By these our eyes ought to be more steadily fixed, and more vividly impressed, than to require the aid of any images which the wit of man may devise. Such, then, is the incomparable blessing of images—a blessing, the want of which, if we believe the Papists, cannot possibly be compensated!

Sentence count: 15 (S1–S15). One paragraph.

Text note (not a correction to the quotation). Four things in the printed page, left exactly as they stand above. (i) its oven in S9 is a scanning artifact in our Beveridge file for its own — the sense demands own (a body which is so like its own, i.e. like the mind's own body), and no edition reads oven. It is quoted here verbatim because the rule for Period 1 is character-exactness to the local source; when you write it out, write its own, and know why. (ii) the folly of manhood is Beveridge's rendering — manhood here in its older collective sense, the human race / human nature, not "manliness." Left as printed. (iii) (see Preface, and Book 4, c. 9 s. 9) in S2 and the citations (Ep. 49. See also De Civit. Dei, lib 4 c. 31) and (in Ps. 112) are Beveridge's editorial cross-references, printed inside the sentence, and are retained. (iv) Page numbers (101, 105, 102), the running chapter header repeated at the page break inside S10, and footnote marker 35 after compensated! have been stripped — nothing else.

[NEW QUESTION]  S1        "without reference to the above distinction" → drop §12's taxonomy
                          NEW STANDARD: not lawful → EXPEDIENT (Pauline: 1 Cor 6:12/10:23)
                          scope: churches, ANY kind (events OR human forms)
[ARGUMENT A]    S2–S4     THE ANCIENT CHURCH — 500 years, purer doctrine, NO images
                  S2      the fact (and it is dated: five hundred years)
                  S3      images enter only AFTER the ministry "had somewhat degenerated"
                  S4      praeteritio ("I will not dispute…") + the comparison stands anyway
[THE PIVOT]     S5        "What then?"  ← two words; the hinge of the whole section
[SILENCE = ]    S6–S7     rhetorical Q (expected answer: NO) → S7 supplies the verdict:
[  VERDICT]               they REJECTED it intentionally, on rational grounds
                          — NOT omitted through ignorance or carelessness
[ARGUMENT B]    S8–S10    AUGUSTINE ×3 — and note the ground shifts to PSYCHOLOGY
                  S8      placed aloft → they "affect weak minds" as if alive
                  S9      the bodily shape EXTORTS the inference (mind is itself in a body)
                  S10      more capable of misdirecting than of correcting (Ps 115 satire)
[ARGUMENT C]    S11       SCRIPTURE — 1 John 5:21: beware not merely the WORSHIP of idols
                          but THE IDOLS THEMSELVES  ← the object matters
[ARGUMENT D]    S12       EXPERIENCE — "the moment images appear… idolatry has raised its
                          banner"; cause given: human folly "cannot moderate itself"
[THE CLINCHER]  S13–S14   Even WERE the danger less → the argument does not need the danger
                          POSITIVE DOCTRINE: the only lawful "images" are the LIVING SYMBOLS
                          God consecrated by his word = Baptism + the Lord's Supper
                          S14: these fix and impress the EYE better than any human device
[IRONY]         S15       "Such, then, is the incomparable blessing of images—"
                          …whose WANT (=LACK), if we believe the Papists, cannot be compensated!

Examiner's Eye. Six traps. The two that separate the top band are S1 and S15 — the first sentence and the last, again.

(1) The lawful/expedient switch — S1. Options will say: "Calvin here proves that images in churches are unlawful." He does not, and he cannot, because §12 conceded the point. without reference to the above distinction announces that he is setting the previous framework aside and asking a new question: not may they? but should they? Any option that reports today's conclusion as a verdict of unlawfulness has swapped the standard. Watch also for the reverse error — treating without reference to as "in defiance of" or "regardless of the fact that." It means leaving out of account.

(2) The five-hundred-years trap — S2–S3. Two precise claims, and distractors will loosen both. (a) The period is five hundred years, and what is asserted of it is that the churches were completely free from visible representations — a claim about church buildings, not about all Christian art everywhere. (b) The images' first admission is dated after the purity of the ministry had somewhat degenerated — note the past perfect: the degeneration is prior, the images subsequent. An option reversing that causal order (images caused the decline) is reading Calvin's sequence backwards. He says decline came first.

(3) The praeteritio trap — S4. I will not dispute as to the rationality of the grounds on which the first introduction of them proceeded. He declines to argue about motives. That is a concession — and it is immediately followed by but, which keeps the comparison of periods in force. So: I grant your intentions may have been reasonable; the two periods still do not compare. An option saying Calvin condemns the motives of those who first introduced images fails on the first half. An option saying he therefore accepts the practice fails on the second.

(4) The silence trap — S6–S7, and this is the engine of the section. S6 is a rhetorical question expecting NO: had the fathers judged images useful, would they have let the Church go five centuries without them? S7 then converts that silence into a positive act: they **rather** rejected it intentionally and on rational grounds, **than** omitted it through ignorance or carelessness. The whole force is in rather … than: the alternatives are deliberate rejection vs accidental omission, and Calvin takes the first. A distractor will offer you "the ancient fathers simply had no occasion to consider the question" — that is precisely the reading S7 exists to kill.

(5) The Augustine trap — S8–S10. These quotations are about effect on the mind, not about intent to worship. they affect weak minds just as if they lived and breathed (S8); the shape extorts the inference (S9); images are more capable of giving a wrong bent … **than** of correcting it (S10). Notice that S10 is a comparative between two functions of the same object — misdirecting vs correcting — not a comparison between images and something else. And notice that Augustine, in S10, is not calling images evil; he is calling them incompetent: they have mouth, eyes, ears and feet, and neither speak, nor see, nor hear, nor walk. An option that reads S8–S10 as proving that image-users intend idolatry has mistaken psychology for intention.

(6) The want trap — S15, and if you miss this one you invert the entire section. a blessing, **the want of which**, if we believe the Papists, cannot possibly be compensated! Want = lack. The sentence is ironic and the irony is fenced by if we believe the Papists, which attributes the valuation to the opponent. Calvin's own view is the exact opposite: what cannot be compensated is the loss of the sacraments, per S13–S14. The distractor writes itself — "Calvin concludes that the absence of images is an irreparable loss to the Church" — and it is built simply by deleting if we believe the Papists and taking incomparable blessing at face value. Read the exclamation mark. It is not enthusiasm.

┌─ FORMULA 1 ─ CONDITIONAL INVERSION: DROP THE "IF", FRONT THE OPERATOR ───┐
│                                                                          │
│    Even IF the danger WERE less imminent , still …      ← ordinary       │
│    Even    WERE the danger less imminent , still …      ← INVERTED       │
│            └──┬──┘                          └──┬──┘                      │
│          operator to the FRONT          "still" = NEVERTHELESS           │
│                                          (resumptive, NOT temporal)      │
│                                                                          │
│    The whole family — all three operators, no others:                    │
│        WERE   I in his place …      = If I were …                        │
│        HAD    he known …            = If he had known …                  │
│        SHOULD you wish …            = If you should wish …               │
│        WERE IT NOT FOR X …          = If it were not for X …             │
│                                                                          │
│  ⚠ TRAP 1: you may drop "if" ONLY if you invert. "Even the danger were   │
│     less imminent" is not English. No inversion → keep the "if".         │
│  ⚠ TRAP 2: "were" is PAST SUBJUNCTIVE ⇒ the clause is COUNTERFACTUAL,    │
│     granted for argument. Calvin is NOT admitting the danger is small.   │
│  ⚠ TRAP 3: reading main-clause "still" as "up to now". It answers the    │
│     concession. Same job as "yet" in S8.                                 │
│  ✎ Compare yesterday (§12 S5): "If it BE unlawful…" = bare PRESENT       │
│     subjunctive, WITH the conjunction. Learn the two as a pair.          │
│                                                                          │
│  Drill: 「설령 그 위험이 덜 임박했다 해도, 그럼에도 그 관행은 교회의       │
│          목적에 어울리지 않는다」                                          │
│  → Even were the danger less imminent, still the practice would be       │
│    unbecoming the end for which the Church exists.                       │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─ FORMULA 2 ─ ANTICIPATORY "IT" + EXTRAPOSED INFINITIVE + DOUBLE "THAN" ──┐
│                                                                          │
│    IT appears to me  more ADJ (+OBJ)  than I well can tell ,             │
│                                       └────────┬────────┘                │
│                                     THAN ① = degree of INEXPRESSIBILITY  │
│                                            (closes here — it is a        │
│                                             self-contained parenthesis)  │
│    TO ADMIT  any OTHER images  THAN  those living symbols …              │
│    └───┬───┘                   └─┬─┘                                     │
│  the REAL SUBJECT           THAN ② = "other … than" = EXCEPTION          │
│  (extraposed to the end)              ("any images EXCEPT …")            │
│                                                                          │
│    RESTORED: [TO ADMIT any images except the sacraments]                 │
│               appears to me more unbecoming their sacredness             │
│               than I can well say.                                       │
│                                                                          │
│  ⚠ TRAP 1: linking "more unbecoming" to THAN ②. That would compare       │
│     images WITH the sacraments — a claim the text never makes.           │
│  ⚠ TRAP 2: hunting for the subject before "it". There isn't one.         │
│     "it" is a DUMMY; the subject is the infinitive at the far end.       │
│  ⚠ TRAP 3: "unbecoming THEIR SACREDNESS" takes a DIRECT OBJECT here —    │
│     no preposition. Modern English wants "unbecoming TO". Leave it.      │
│                                                                          │
│  Drill: 「하나님이 제정하지 않은 표징을 예배에 들이는 것은 이루 말할 수     │
│          없을 만큼 그 거룩함에 어울리지 않아 보인다」                      │
│  → It appears to me more unbecoming that sacredness than I well can      │
│    tell, to admit into worship any signs other than those which God      │
│    has instituted.                                                       │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─ FORMULA 3 ─ FRONTED "SUCH" + INVERSION (and the irony it carries) ──────┐
│                                                                          │
│    SUCH , then , IS  [the incomparable blessing of images]               │
│    └─┬─┘         └┬┘  └──────────────┬──────────────────┘                │
│  COMPLEMENT     VERB              SUBJECT                                │
│  fronted   ⇒ INVERSION IS OBLIGATORY, not optional                       │
│                                                                          │
│    Same rule, three days running — bank it:                              │
│        §11  so far  ARE THEY  from proving …                             │
│        §12  still more unlawful  MUST IT BE  to worship …                │
│        §13  such, then,  IS  the incomparable blessing …                 │
│    RULE: fronted NEGATIVE or fronted COMPLEMENT ⇒ invert.                │
│          fronted ordinary ADVERBIAL ⇒ do NOT (cf. S14 "By these our      │
│          eyes ought to be…", no inversion).                              │
│                                                                          │
│    THE APPOSITIVE: — a blessing, THE WANT OF WHICH , … cannot            │
│                                  └──────┬───────┘                        │
│                    "the N of which" = "whose N"  ⇒ = its LACK            │
│                                                                          │
│  ⚠ TRAP 1: "want" = LACK, never "desire". (for want of a nail;           │
│     found wanting.) Misread it and the sentence inverts.                 │
│  ⚠ TRAP 2: taking "incomparable blessing" straight. It is IRONY, and     │
│     "if we believe the Papists" is the tag that proves it. A terminal    │
│     "!" in Calvin's polemic ⇒ read irony until proved otherwise.         │
│                                                                          │
│  Drill: 「이런 것이 바로 그 형상들의 비할 데 없는 유익이다 — 교황주의자들의│
│          말을 믿는다면, 그 결여는 결코 보상될 수 없는 유익 말이다!」        │
│  → Such, then, is the incomparable profit of these images—a profit,      │
│    the want of which, if we believe the Papists, can never be repaired!  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Secondary patterns worth banking today

Where we are, and why the question changed. Beveridge's headings divide the chapter in three: §§1–7, no visible form may be given to God; §§8–11, the origin of idols and the worship paid them; §§12–16, the use and abuse of images. Yesterday opened division three by conceding that sculpture and painting are gifts of God and that the prohibition attaches to the object represented, not to the medium. That concession is what forces today's move. Having granted that images as such are not unlawful, Calvin cannot ask may they exist? — he has answered it. So S1 asks a different question, and the word he reaches for, expedient, is Paul's (πάντα ἔξεστιν ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πάντα συμφέρει, 1 Cor 6:12 / 10:23). Note how much that word does: it concedes lawfulness in the act of denying profit. That is not evasion; it is the standard Pauline structure for adiaphora, and Calvin is deliberately putting the image question inside it.

The target is still Gregory. S13's utility in teaching yesterday, and today's whole argument, are aimed at the oldest respectable defence of images in the West: Gregory the Great, writing to Serenus of Marseilles (c. 599–600) after Serenus had smashed the images in his own church. Gregory rebuked both sides — do not destroy them, do not adore them — and gave the formula that ruled the West for nine centuries: a picture is to the illiterate what writing is to the reader. Biblia pauperum, the books of the laity. Because the defence is pedagogical and prudential, Calvin answers it on pedagogical and prudential ground. Watch how disciplined he is about this. He does not say images are wicked. He says: the pure church did without them (S2–S4), the fathers' silence was a judgment (S6–S7), the mechanism by which they work is not instruction but suggestion (S8–S10), the apostle warned against the objects (S11), and the outcome in practice is invariable (S12).

Is the five-hundred-years claim true? This is where you must be honest, and where a good student earns marks that a partisan one loses. As Calvin states it — Christian churches were completely free from visible representations for five centuries — the claim is overstated, and we know this from evidence he did not have. The house church at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates (destroyed c. 256) has a painted baptistery: the Good Shepherd, the healing of the paralytic, the women at the tomb. The Roman catacombs carry Christian painting from the third century. So the visual culture of early Christianity was not blank.

But do not over-correct, because his case is stronger than that concession makes it sound. Three things stand. (1) Cult images are a different question from decoration or funerary art, and the veneration of images — the practice actually at issue — is genuinely later. (2) There is a real patristic record of hostility, and it is not thin: the Council of Elvira (c. 305), canon 36, picturas in ecclesia esse non debere — "there ought not to be pictures in a church"; Epiphanius of Salamis tearing down a curtain with an image on it; Eusebius declining Constantia's request for an image of Christ. Calvin's S4 appeal to sound divines who have always disapproved is not invented. (3) His actual argumentative claim is comparative — the earlier period was purer than the later — and that survives even if the earlier period was not visually empty.

The honest verdict: his historical generalisation needs qualifying; his historical argument does not collapse. Say that, and say which part you are qualifying. An examiner can tell the difference between a student who has read the objection and one who has read a slogan.

Augustine, and a note on the citations. Calvin calls two Augustine passages. The first, Ep. 49, follows the older Benedictine letter-numbering; modern editions renumber Augustine's correspondence, so the reference will not match a contemporary edition directly — do not assume Beveridge has erred simply because the number does not resolve. The second, in Ps. 112, is from the Enarrationes in Psalmos, and the content is unmistakable: it is exposition of the psalm containing the idol-satire (they have mouths, but they speak not). Psalm numbering in this period runs on two systems — Hebrew and Greek/Latin — offset by one across most of the Psalter, so references of this kind routinely need translating between reckonings. Flag it, use the content to identify the passage, and move on.

Why Augustine specifically? Because he is the father Rome cannot disown, and because his argument is psychological rather than doctrinal, which is exactly what Calvin needs after §12. If your opponent has conceded that art is lawful and that the artists meant well, you need an argument that works without bad art and without bad intentions. Augustine supplies it: an embodied mind reads a body-shaped object as a body. Nobody has to intend anything.

The positive doctrine — and this is the part that outlives the controversy. S13–S14 are not an afterthought. those living symbols which the Lord has consecrated by his own word: I mean Baptism and the Lord's Supper states a criterion: a visible sign in worship is legitimate if and only if God instituted it. Man's wit may devise; only God's word may consecrate. Later Reformed theology systematises this as the regulative principle of worship, and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) answers Gregory's formula almost in Calvin's words — asking whether images may be tolerated as "books for the laity," and replying that we should not be wiser than God, who wills his people taught not by dumb images but by the living preaching of his Word. That is Q&A 98, and it is §13 versified.

Note also the substitution structure, because it is what distinguishes Calvin from simple iconoclasm. He does not deprive the eye; he redirects it. S14 says our eyes ought to be more steadily fixed and more vividly impressed by the sacraments. The visual appetite is granted as legitimate and then given its divinely appointed object. Whatever else this is, it is not a theology of blank walls for their own sake.

What is coming. §14 takes on the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which restored image-veneration in the East and deployed the proskynēsis / latreia distinction Calvin buried in §11. Worth knowing in advance: the Western reception of Nicaea II was itself contested — the Libri Carolini (c. 790s), from Charlemagne's court, rejected its decrees, partly on the basis of a bad Latin translation. So when Calvin appeals to a Western tradition of resistance, there is something real behind it, and §14 will be him pressing that advantage hard, with more sarcasm than argument in places.

Limit line — three over-readings to refuse. (1) Do not make §13 a proof that images are unlawful. It is not; §12 forbade him that, and S1 changes the standard on purpose. The verdict here is inexpedient, and the difference is the whole architecture of the section. (2) Do not read Calvin as hostile to the visual. S13–S14 give the eye a positive object; §12 called the arts gifts of God. What he restricts is the cultic use of man-devised signs. (3) Do not enlist his historical claim as settled fact. Say what he says, say what the evidence qualifies, and keep the two apart. The section is strong enough that you do not need to defend its weakest sentence.

1. S1 — whether it is expedient → 1 Cor 6:12 / 10:23: πάντα μοι ἔξεστιν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πάντα συμφέρει — "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient." Not quoted, but the word is a loan from Paul, and it imports the apostle's whole distinction between ἔξεστιν (it is permitted) and συμφέρει (it is profitable, it brings together for good). This is the single most important connection in the section, because it explains why Calvin can change the standard without conceding defeat. 10:23 adds the ecclesial criterion — οὐ πάντα οἰκοδομεῖ, "not all things build up" — which is precisely the ground on which S13 will judge the church building by the proper end for which churches are erected.

2. S11 — the sentence Calvin actually cites → 1 John 5:21: Τεκνία, φυλάξατε ἑαυτὰ ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων — "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." Look at the object of the preposition: τῶν εἰδώλων, the idols themselves — not εἰδωλολατρείας, idol-worship. Calvin's point in S11 is exactly this lexical fact. The apostle does not legislate against an act; he warns against the objects. And note where the verse sits: the very last line of the epistle, immediately after three verses on knowing the true God — so the warning is placed as the practical residue of the doctrine of God. Compare 1 Cor 10:14: φεύγετε ἀπὸ τῆς εἰδωλολατρίας — where Paul does name the practice. Calvin needs John's wording, not Paul's, and he has chosen accordingly.

3. S10 — Augustine's four organs → Ps 115:4–8 (Heb.; = Vulg. Ps 113:12–16): פֶּה־לָהֶם וְלֹא יְדַבֵּרוּ עֵינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאוּ — "They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not… neither speak they through their throat." Now reread S10: from having **mouth, eyes, ears, and feet**… as they **neither speak, nor see, nor hear, nor walk**. Four organs, four denied faculties, in the psalm's own order — Augustine is paraphrasing the psalm, which is why the sentence has that hammering rhythm. And the psalm's climax is the sentence that underwrites Augustine's whole psychology in S9: Ps 115:8, כְּמוֹהֶם יִהְיוּ עֹשֵׂיהֶם — "They that make them are like unto them." Assimilation runs both ways. The mind makes the image in its own likeness (S9), and is then conformed to it (Ps 115:8). Parallel at Ps 135:15–18.

4. S13 — living symbols which the Lord has consecrated by his own word → the criterion is institution, and the institution texts are Matt 28:19 (βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα) and 1 Cor 11:23–26 (ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν — "that which I delivered unto you," the language of authorised transmission, τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). For the word symbols doing work as sign and seal, see Rom 4:11: σημεῖον… σφραγῖδα — "a sign… a seal of the righteousness of the faith." That pairing is why S14 reaches for **impressed** — the vocabulary of a seal pressed into wax is not decorative, it is the technical language of sacramental sign.

5. S14 — our eyes ought to be more steadily fixed, and more vividly impressed → Gal 3:1: οἷς κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς προεγράφη ἐσταυρωμένος — "before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified." The verb προγράφω = to write up in public, to post as a placard. Paul claims a visual effect for preaching. And 1 Cor 11:26: τὸν θάνατον τοῦ κυρίου καταγγέλλετε — "ye do shew** the Lord's death." Both texts assign to Word and Sacrament the very function the image-defenders claim for pictures. That is the exegetical backbone of Calvin's substitution: the eye is not left unprovided for.

6. S12 — idolatry has as it were raised its banner → treat this as imagery, not citation, and say so. The Hebrew נֵס (nes, standard, banner) is the raised signal that claims a field — Exod 17:15 (יְהוָה נִסִּי, "the LORD is my banner"), Isa 5:26, Isa 13:2. Calvin's figure inverts it: the standard now raised over the church is idolatry's, not the Lord's. The as it were marks the metaphor as his own; do not report it as an allusion he claims. The substance behind the sentence is rather Rom 1:21–23 — ἐματαιώθησαν… ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν — the same descent from darkened mind to exchanged glory that S12 restates as the folly of manhood cannot moderate itself.

7. S2–S7 — the appeal to the ancient church → not a scriptural argument, and Calvin does not pretend it is. But the nearest scriptural warrant for the form of the appeal is Jer 6:16: שַׁאֲלוּ לִנְתִבוֹת עוֹלָם — "ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein." Worth noting that Calvin does not cite it, which tells you something: he keeps the argument from antiquity clearly labelled as an argument from authority, subordinate to Scripture, not dressed up as Scripture.

How Calvin uses Scripture here — one line. Only one verse is quoted in the whole section (1 John 5:21, S11), and it is quoted for a single lexical point: the object of the warning. Everything else is history, psychology, and experience. After eleven sections of dense citation, that restraint is deliberate — the exegetical work is finished, and §13 is spending its capital, not raising more.

① 어법 — 밑줄 넷 중 어법상 틀린 것은?

Even ⓐwere the danger less imminent, still, when I consider the end for which churches are erected, ⓑit appears to me more unbecoming their sacredness than I well can tell, to admit any other images than those which the Lord has consecrated; and such, then, ⓒthe incomparable blessing of images is—a blessing, the want of ⓓwhich cannot possibly be compensated.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: ⓒ

해설. Such is a fronted subject complement, and fronting a complement of that kind makes subject–verb inversion obligatory: such, then, **is** the incomparable blessing of images. Writing the incomparable blessing of images is leaves a fronted complement with no inversion, which is not English in this register. Third day running for the same rule — §11 so far **are they** from proving, §12 still more unlawful **must it be**, §13 such **is**.

Why the others stand. ⓐ Even were the danger… is conditional inversion: if has been deleted and the operator were fronted, which is exactly the licence condition. Delete if without inverting and it would be wrong; here it inverts. ⓑ it appears… to admit… is anticipatory it with an extraposed infinitive subject — the dummy it is required precisely because the real subject has been moved to the end. ⓓ the want of which is a well-formed relative with the antecedent inside a prepositional phrase (= whose lack); the singular verb cannot be compensated correctly agrees with the want.

출제 의도. Fronting-and-inversion is the most mechanical rule in this stretch of the Institutes and therefore the most reliably testable. Learn to sort fronted elements into two piles: negatives and complements invert (Never have I…, Such is…, So far are they…); ordinary adverbial phrases do not (By these our eyes ought to be…, S14, no inversion). If you can classify the fronted element you can answer without reading the sentence.

② 내용일치 — §13의 내용과 일치하는 것은?

ⓐ Calvin argues that the introduction of images into churches was itself the cause of the subsequent degeneration of the ministry. ⓑ Calvin holds that the ancient fathers left the churches without images not through ignorance or carelessness but by deliberate and reasoned rejection. ⓒ Calvin concludes that images in churches, though inexpedient, may be retained wherever the danger of superstition is not imminent. ⓓ Calvin concedes at the close that the want of images is a loss to the Church which cannot possibly be compensated.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: ⓑ

해설. ⓑ is S7 almost verbatim: they **rather** rejected it intentionally and on rational grounds, **than** omitted it through ignorance or carelessness. Both halves matter — the positive (deliberate, reasoned rejection) and the negative it displaces (ignorance, carelessness) — because the sentence exists precisely to rule out the second reading.

함정 분석. ⓐ — 인과 역전. S3 fixes the order with a past perfect: images were first admitted after the purity of the ministry **had** somewhat degenerated. Decline is prior, images subsequent. The option reverses the sequence, and it is attractive because it sounds like a thing Calvin would happily say elsewhere. The tense forbids it here. ⓒ — 조건절 오독 (the sharpest distractor in the set). It is built by reading S13's Even were the danger less imminent as a real condition — "where the danger is less, images may stay." But were is past subjunctive: the clause is granted counterfactually, and its function is to make the argument independent of the danger. S13 says the opposite of ⓒ: even subtract the danger, and images still do not belong. Misread the mood and you invert the sentence's purpose. ⓓ — 아이러니를 직역. S15 is irony, and the tag **if we believe the Papists** assigns the valuation to the opponent. Note also the vocabulary trap riding along: want = lack, not desire. Calvin's own position (S13–S14) is that the irreplaceable signs are Baptism and the Lord's Supper — the exact reverse of ⓓ.

③ 영작 — 다음을 오늘의 공식으로 옮기시오.

(1) 「설령 그 위험이 덜 임박했다 해도, 그럼에도 그 관행은 교회가 세워진 목적에 어울리지 않을 것이다.」 (Formula 1)

Model: Even were the danger less imminent, still the practice would be unbecoming the end for which churches are erected. 채점 포인트: ① were, not was — past subjunctive. ② if deleted AND the operator fronted; writing Even the danger were less imminent is not English, and writing Even if the danger were… is correct English but not the pattern being tested — no marks. ③ still in the main clause as the resumptive nevertheless. ④ unbecoming takes the object directly in this register (no to).

(2) 「하나님이 자신의 말씀으로 거룩히 구별하신 표징들 외에 다른 어떤 형상도 예배에 들이는 것은, 이루 말할 수 없을 만큼 어울리지 않아 보인다.」 (Formula 2)

Model: It appears to me more unbecoming than I well can tell, to admit any other images than those symbols which the Lord has consecrated by his own word. 채점 포인트: ① Start with the dummy it; if you began To admit any other images… appears…, that is grammatical English but it is the un-extraposed version and not the formula. ② more … **than I well can tell** must close before the infinitive begins — the two thans must not be allowed to cross. ③ any **other** X **than** Y = exception; any images **except** is acceptable in sense but loses the pattern. ④ consecrated **by his own word** — the agent is God and the instrument is the word; that is the criterion, and dropping it empties the sentence.

(3) 「이런 것이 바로 그 형상들의 비할 데 없는 유익이다 — 교황주의자들의 말을 믿는다면, 그 결여가 결코 보상될 수 없는 유익 말이다!」 (Formula 3)

Model: Such, then, is the incomparable blessing of images—a blessing, the want of which, if we believe the Papists, cannot possibly be compensated! 채점 포인트: ① Such, then, is… — inversion obligatory; Such… the blessing is scores zero. ② the want of which = whose lack; if you wrote the desire of which you have inverted the sentence and lost it entirely. ③ if we believe the Papists must be kept as a parenthetical inside the relative clause — it is the tag that carries the irony, and moving it to the front weakens it. ④ The terminal ! is part of the answer.

One-line summary. §13 changes the standard from lawful to expedient (S1, Paul's word) and then asks whether churches should contain images at all, answering with four different kinds of evidence in turn — history (five hundred years of churches completely free from visible representations, with images entering only after the ministry had somewhat degenerated, S2–S4), inference (the fathers' silence was a verdict: they rather rejected it intentionally and on rational grounds, than omitted it through ignorance or carelessness, S6–S7), psychology (Augustine ×3: the shape extorts the response from a mind that is itself in a body, S8–S10), Scripture (1 John warns against idols themselves, not merely their worship, S11) and experience (the moment images appear in churches, idolatry has as it were raised its banner, S12) — before setting the danger argument aside entirely (**Even were** the danger less imminent) to land the positive doctrine: the only images fit for a church are those **living symbols** which the Lord has **consecrated by his own word**, Baptism and the Lord's Supper (S13–S14), by which the eye is better fixed and impressed than by anything the wit of man may devise — and then closing on a sneer, Such, then, is the **incomparable blessing** of images, whose want (= lack) cannot possibly be compensated — if we believe the Papists (S15).

Grammar, the three to carry out of here. ① Even were S + C, still… — delete if, front the operator, and the concession is counterfactual; still = nevertheless. ② Anticipatory it + extraposed infinitive subject, with two thans that must not cross: more … than I well can tell (degree) closes before any other images than … (exception) opens. ③ Fronted Such ⇒ obligatory inversion — third day of the same rule (so far are they → must it be → such is) — plus the archaic reversal want = lack, and a terminal ! in Calvin's polemic that means irony.

Homework (10 min).

1. 구조 복원. Write out S13 and mark, with brackets: (a) the inverted protasis and its subjunctive verb; (b) the dummy it and the actual subject it stands in for; (c) both thans, labelled ① degree / ② exception, with the exact word where ① closes. Then answer in one line: why does Calvin surrender the danger argument in the very sentence after he made it?
2. 영작. Using Formula 1, write a two-part concession on a theological subject where the second half is a positive claim, not a negative one — the shape of S13, not of a mere denial. E.g. Even were X less certain, still, when I consider Y, it appears to me… Then check three things: were not was, no if, and a main clause that begins with a resumptive.
3. 내일 예습 한 줄. §14 opens Enough, I believe, would have been said on this subject, were I not in a manner arrested by the Council of Nice… — and look what is in the first line: were I not, today's Formula 1, immediately again. Also in a manner, S9's hedge. Calvin is about to take on Nicaea II (787) and the veneration/adoration distinction he already buried in §11. Ask yourself tonight: after five hundred years of silence has been made to carry this much weight, what does he do with a council that spoke?

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 11, §13 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 11, §14 (Day 69) — Absurd defence of the worship of images by the second so-called Council of Nice.