Day 75 — Book 1, Chapter 13, §1

New chapter, and it is the big one. Chapter 13 runs twenty-nine sections — the longest and most technical chapter in Book 1 — and it is the Trinity chapter. So watch where Calvin chooses to begin. Not with the Father. Not with the Son. Not with a creed. He begins with two adjectives about the essence: immensity and spirituality. And he spends the whole of §1 using them as a broom.

Here is the design, and you should see it before you read a word. Yesterday Chapter 12 finished by proving that God shares his honour with nothing — so prone is the descent to this vice of communicating to a crowd that which God strictly claims as his own peculiar right. Today Calvin has to start saying three persons on top of that floor. Before he can, he has to clear the room of every conception of God that would make three mean three gods, or one essence mean one lump of divine stuff. So §1 sweeps out four errors in fourteen sentences: the wild dreams of the vulgar (S1), the subtleties of a profane philosophy — Stoic pantheism, with Seneca named (S1–S3) — the Manichees (S8–S10), and the Anthropomorphites (S11–S14). Two attributes, four corpses. And the division of labour is exact: immensity kills the dualists, spirituality kills the body-mongers. Do not cross those wires; an exam item will try to make you.

But the sentence you will remember for the rest of your life is S12, and it is not a refutation at all. It is the most famous single image in Calvin: God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children. Latin balbutire, to babble, to talk baby-talk. That is the doctrine of accommodation in one verb, and every later Calvin scholar builds on this line. Then S13 tells you what accommodation does and — ⚠️ read it slowly — what it does not do. Not so much A **as** B is not a denial of A. That is today's nastiest trap and I will come back to it three times.

Grammatically, today is correlative day. Almost every sentence is built on a pair of arms held together by a hinge word: not only … but also, although … still, both … and, at once … and, while, It is true, indeed, that … but, not so much … as, so … as not to. Find the hinge, split the sentence in two, and today is easy. Miss the hinge and you will translate half a sentence and stop.

Today's 3 Big Points

1. The correlative with a repeated preposition: not only OF V-ing … but also OF V-ing (S1) — and its three cousins that do NOT repeat (S4, S9). S1: should have the effect **not only of** dissipating the wild dreams of the vulgar, **but also of** refuting the subtleties of a profane philosophy. Both arms are gerunds, and of is written twice because both are governed by the effect. ⚠️ Drop the second of and the parallelism breaks — that is exam item ① today. Now the cousins, where the shared word is written once: S4 he **at once** suppresses all gross imaginations, **and** checks the audacity (⚠️ at once … and here = both … and, simultaneously, not immediately); S9 was **both to** destroy his unity **and** restrict his immensity (one to, two infinitives). Rule to carry: not only/but also demands identical grammatical arms; whether the shared word is repeated is style, but if you repeat it in one arm you must repeat it in the other. And S1 carries a period feature you must not "fix": a comma between the long subject and its verb — …the essence of God, should have the effect. That is 1845 punctuation for a subject that has run too long, not an error.
2. The as family, all three of its jobs, in three consecutive sentences (S10, S12, S13). ⓐ Gapping with a pro-verb (S10): Their attempt … **proved** their shameful ignorance, **as** the very nature of the error **did** their monstrous infatuation — did stands in for proved, and the second clause has no verb of its own. Read it: as the very nature of the error [proved] their monstrous infatuation. ⓑ Degree + result (S12): who is **so** devoid of intellect **as not to** understand…? — the same so … as not to you drilled yesterday in S12 and S15 of Ch. 12, now inside a rhetorical question, which flips the answer to nobody is, i.e. everybody understands. ⓒ Comparison of preference (S13): do **not so much** express what kind of a being God is, **as** accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. ⚠️⚠️ not so much A as B does not deny A. It ranks: B rather than A; B more than A. Anyone who translates it they do not express what God is, but only accommodate has over-read the sentence, and I will build an exam option out of exactly that mistake.
3. The concession frames, and where the real clause hides (S4, S7). S4: **But although** God, (in order to keep us within the bounds of soberness,) treats sparingly of his essence, **still**, (by the two attributes which I have mentioned,) he at once suppresses… — although … still is Beveridge's regular correlative (modern English writes yet or nothing), and between the hinge and the main verb he has parked two heavy adverbials. Bracket them out and the spine is four words: although God treats sparingly, still he suppresses. S7 does the same with a different frame: **It is true, indeed, that** as he is incomprehensible, he fills the earth also, **but** (knowing that our minds are heavy and grovel on the earth,) he raises us above the worlds **that he may** shake off our sluggishness and inactivity — concession, contrast, participial adjunct, and a purpose clause with that … may (Beveridge's ut + subjunctive; modern so that he may). ⚠️ That final that is purpose, not a relative and not a noun clause. If you read it as the worlds that he may shake off, you have just made God shake off the worlds.

Trap words I will test. immensity (S1, S5, S9) ⚠️⚠️ = unmeasurableness (in- + mensus, measured) — not "hugeness"; S5 tells you the sense outright: it ought to deter us from **measuring** him by our sense. spirituality (S1, and spiritual nature S5) ⚠️⚠️ = the property of being spirit (John 4:24) — not piety or the devotional life; today's #1 register trap. the vulgar (S1) ⚠️ = the common people (vulgus) — not "coarse persons". subtleties (S1) ⚠️ = over-fine quibbles — the identical word that opened yesterday's section (Laying aside subtleties), now pointed at philosophers instead of canonists. profane (S1) ⚠️ = unhallowed, outside the sacred (pro-fanum, in front of the temple) — not "obscene". spake shrewdly (S2) ⚠️ = spoke acutely, said something sharp — and it is ironic; Calvin means he thought he was being clever. fancied (S3) ⚠️ = imagined, supposed — not "liked". transfused (S3) = poured across, diffused through (trans-fundere). bounds of soberness (S4) ⚠️ = the limits of sober-mindedness — sobrietas, Calvin's standing name for restraint in speculation; nothing to do with drink. treats sparingly of (S4) ⚠️ = speaks only briefly about — treat of = discuss. at once … and (S4) ⚠️⚠️ = both … and, at the same time — not "immediately". gross (S4) ⚠️ = coarse, material, thick (grossus) — not "disgusting". audacity (S4) = daring, presumption. by our sense (S5) ⚠️ = by our sense-perception — the faculty, singular. carnal (S5) = fleshly (caro, carnis). With the same view (S6) ⚠️⚠️ = with the same purpose in view, for the same end — not "opinion". incomprehensible (S7) ⚠️ = uncontainable / not to be grasped whole (com-prehendere, to seize entirely) — the containment sense is live here, because the very next words are he fills the earth also. grovel (S7) = crawl face-down. worlds (S7) ⚠️ — printed plural; see the text note. sluggishness (S7) = torpor. first principles (S8) ⚠️ = ultimate originating principles (principia, ἀρχαί) — a technical term of philosophy, not "the basics". assuredly (S9) = certainly. restrict (S9) ⚠️ = draw tight, set a limit to (re-stringere) → stringent, strict. pervert (S10) = twist aside (per-vertere). monstrous infatuation (S10) ⚠️⚠️ = prodigious folly — infatuation < fatuus, foolish; no romantic sense whatever, and it is the same word Beveridge used for Ps. 92:6 back on Day 22. corporeal (S11) = bodily. ascribed to (S11) = attributed to (ad-scribere, to enter to someone's account). devoid of (S12) = empty of (→ void). lisps (S12) ⚠️⚠️⚠️ = talks baby-talk, babbles — Lat. balbutire; today's one word to memorise. are wont to do (S12) ⚠️ = are accustomed to do (OE wunian, to be used to) — and do here is a pro-verb, standing in for lisp. modes of expression (S13) = ways of speaking, idioms. not so much … as (S13) ⚠️⚠️ = not so much A as B = B rather than A — it does not negate A. what kind of a being God is (S13) ⚠️ = qualis sit Deus — the qualis question of I.2.2 (Day 5), returning by name. accommodate X to Y (S13) ⚠️ = fit X to the measure of Y (ad-commodare < modus, a measure). feebleness (S13) = weakness. must (S14) ⚠️ = logical necessity (it follows that he does), not obligation. proper height (S14) ⚠️⚠️ = his own height, the height belonging to him (proprius) — not "appropriate"; the same trap as yesterday's peculiar right.

1. The doctrine of Scripture concerning the immensity and the spirituality of the essence of God, should have the effect not only of dissipating the wild dreams of the vulgar, but also of refuting the subtleties of a profane philosophy. One of the ancients thought he spake shrewdly when he said that everything we see and everything we do not see is God (Senec. Praef. lib. 1 Quaest. Nat.) In this way he fancied that the Divinity was transfused into every separate portion of the world. But although God, in order to keep us within the bounds of soberness, treats sparingly of his essence, still, by the two attributes which I have mentioned, he at once suppresses all gross imaginations, and checks the audacity of the human mind. His immensity surely ought to deter us from measuring him by our sense, while his spiritual nature forbids us to indulge in carnal or earthly speculation concerning him. With the same view he frequently represents heaven as his dwelling-place. It is true, indeed, that as he is incomprehensible, he fills the earth also, but knowing that our minds are heavy and grovel on the earth, he raises us above the worlds that he may shake off our sluggishness and inactivity. And here we have a refutation of the error of the Manichees, who, by adopting two first principles, made the devil almost the equal of God. This, assuredly, was both to destroy his unity and restrict his immensity. Their attempt to pervert certain passages of Scripture proved their shameful ignorance, as the very nature of the error did their monstrous infatuation. The Anthropomorphites also, who dreamed of a corporeal God, because mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are often ascribed to him in Scripture, are easily refuted. For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height.

Sentence count: 14 (S1–S14). One paragraph. This section opens Chapter 13.

Text note (not a correction to the quotation). Five things about the printed page, all left exactly as they stand. (i) S1 has a comma between subject and verb — …the essence of God, should have the effect…. This is period punctuation for a subject that has run long (nineteen words), and Beveridge does it throughout; it is not a scan error and not something to tidy. (ii) S2's citation carries no sentence-final period. The printed text is …is God (Senec. Praef. lib. 1 Quaest. Nat.) In this way… — the full stop is absorbed by the closing parenthesis, Beveridge's regular habit with an abbreviation ending in a point. Reproduced as printed. (iii) A hyphenated line-break falls inside S7 (in- / activity) and another inside S10 (infatu- / ation); both closed up to inactivity and infatuation. (iv) A page break falls inside S11, between because mouth, ears, and eyes, hands, and feet, with the margin page number 110 in between; closed up, the number removed. (v) ⚠️ S7 prints above the worlds, plural. The sense plainly wants the singular (supra mundum — he lifts us above the world), and the plural is almost certainly a scan or compositor's slip; it is reproduced as printed here and flagged so you do not learn a false form. honour-class British spellings do not occur in this section. Nothing else altered.

[THESIS]        S1     TWO ATTRIBUTES of the ESSENCE — immensity + spirituality —
                       clear TWO targets:
                       "NOT ONLY OF dissipating the wild dreams of THE VULGAR,
                        BUT ALSO OF refuting the SUBTLETIES OF A PROFANE PHILOSOPHY"
[TARGET A]      S2-S3  Stoic pantheism, Seneca named: "everything we see and everything
                       we do not see is God" → "the Divinity was TRANSFUSED into every
                       separate portion of the world"                    ← cf. I.5.5 (Day 17)
[HOW IT WORKS]  S4-S5  God "treats SPARINGLY of his essence" (although…) — STILL the two
                       attributes "AT ONCE suppress … AND check":
                         immensity    → "deter us from MEASURING him BY OUR SENSE"
                         spirituality → "forbids … CARNAL OR EARTHLY SPECULATION"
[COROLLARY]     S6-S7  "heaven as his DWELLING-PLACE" — and at once the qualification:
                       "he FILLS THE EARTH ALSO" — the heaven-idiom is a LIFT for us,
                       "THAT HE MAY shake off our sluggishness and inactivity"
[TARGET B]      S8-S10 MANICHEES: "TWO FIRST PRINCIPLES" → devil "ALMOST THE EQUAL of God"
                       = "BOTH TO DESTROY his UNITY AND RESTRICT his IMMENSITY"
                       (immensity is the blade; the refutation is one line, S10)
[TARGET C]      S11-S14 ANTHROPOMORPHITES: mouth/ears/eyes/hands/feet → "EASILY REFUTED"
                       "God, IN SO SPEAKING, LISPS WITH US AS NURSES are wont to do
                        with little children"                            ← accommodatio
                       "NOT SO MUCH express WHAT KIND OF A BEING God is,
                        AS ACCOMMODATE the knowledge of him TO OUR FEEBLENESS"
                       "he MUST, OF COURSE, STOOP FAR BELOW HIS PROPER HEIGHT"

Examiner's Eye. Five traps, in rising order of nastiness.

Trap 1 — spirituality (S1). ⚠️⚠️ the immensity and the **spirituality** of the essence of God. Modern ear hears the spiritual life, devotion, inwardness. Dead wrong. The word is a metaphysical predicate of the essence: God is spirit and therefore not body — John 4:24, πνεῦμα ὁ θεός. Everything in S5, S11, S12, S13 depends on it. An item will offer "Calvin commends Scripture's teaching on the spiritual life as a corrective to philosophy." That option has moved the whole sentence out of metaphysics into piety. Wrong register, wrong section, wrong chapter.

Trap 2 — at once (S4). he **at once** suppresses all gross imaginations, **and** checks the audacity of the human mind. Two verbs, joined by and, with at once in front. That is the correlative at once … and = both … and, simultaneously, not the temporal immediately. Test yourself with the diagnostic: can you delete at once and keep two coordinated verbs? Yes → it is the correlative. An item will paraphrase "the attributes act instantly" and it will be a mistranslation dressed as a summary.

Trap 3 — the heaven/earth pair (S6–S7). he frequently represents heaven as his dwelling-place … he fills the earth also. Read carelessly and you have Calvin contradicting himself in eleven words. Read the purpose clause and the contradiction dissolves: he raises us above the worlds **that he may shake off our sluggishness and inactivity**. The heaven-idiom is not a statement about where God is; it is an instrument aimed at us, and it belongs to the same accommodation doctrine that S12 will name. Two items live here: "Calvin teaches that God dwells in heaven and is not present on the earth" (⚠️ contradicts S7 outright) and "Calvin says Scripture's heaven-language is inaccurate and should be discarded" (⚠️ over-reach — Calvin says it is purposeful, which is the opposite of discardable).

Trap 4 — which attribute kills which error. This is the section's architecture and the easiest content-mismatch item on the page. Immensity → the Manichees: S9 says so in the sentence itself, both to destroy his unity **and restrict his immensity** — a second ultimate principle bounds God, and a bounded God is a measured God. Spirituality → the Anthropomorphites: S11–S13, the body-parts, a **corporeal** God. Cross them and every step of the argument breaks. Memorise the pairing as a two-line table before you go on.

Trap 5 — not so much A as B (S13). ⚠️⚠️ Such modes of expression, therefore, do **not so much** express **what kind of a being God is**, **as** accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. This is not a denial that the bodily idioms tell us anything about God. Not so much A as B = B rather than A, a ranking, and the A-arm survives in reduced force. And the reason this matters is not grammatical but doctrinal, and it runs back to Day 5: I.2.2 taught that the right question about God is qualis — what kind of being he is — and not quid, what he is in his essence. Calvin is not now cancelling the qualis question. He is saying that the mouth-and-ears idioms are not the vehicle by which it is answered; their office is to bring knowledge down to our size. An option reading "Calvin holds that the bodily language of Scripture conveys no knowledge of God" is the over-reading, and it is the most attractive wrong answer today because it sounds like sophistication. Notice what S13 actually says the idioms do: they accommodate **the knowledge of him** — there is knowledge in them; it has been sized.

Formula 1 — Correlatives, and the law of matching arms

  not only OF V-ing , but also OF V-ing        (S1)   ← preposition REPEATED in both arms
  at once  V(s)     , and       V(s)           (S4)   ← "at once … and" = BOTH … AND (⚠ not "immediately")
  both TO  V        , and     ‹to› V           (S9)   ← "to" written ONCE, shared
  although  … , still  …                       (S4)   ← Beveridge's concessive pair (modern: although … yet/∅)
  It is true, indeed, that … , but …           (S7)   ← concession frame + anticipatory "it"

  THE LAW:  whatever you put in arm 1, put the SAME SHAPE in arm 2.
            Repeat the shared word in both arms, or write it once and share it —
            but never repeat it in one arm only.
  ⚠ TRAP 1: "not only OF dissipating … but also refuting"  →  BROKEN (the second "of" is missing)
  ⚠ TRAP 2: "at once" before two coordinated verbs is the CORRELATIVE, not the adverb of time.
            Diagnostic: delete "at once" — do two coordinated verbs remain?  Yes → correlative.
  ⚠ TRAP 3: the comma between a long subject and its verb (S1) is PERIOD PUNCTUATION. Leave it.

변형 연습. Compose: 신학은 대중의 조야한 상상을 흩을 뿐 아니라 철학자들의 궤변을 논박하는 효과도 가져야 한다. 그 한 속성이 동시에 그의 단일성을 무너뜨리고 그의 불측성을 제한했다.

Model: Theology should have the effect not only of scattering the gross imaginations of the multitude, but also of refuting the subtleties of the philosophers. That one principle at once destroyed his unity and restricted his immensity. ⚠ Check: second of present? at once followed by two coordinated verbs, not by a time-sense? If you wrote at once destroyed his unity and at once restricted, you have doubled the correlative — delete the second.

Formula 2 — The as of degree, and the two complement columns

  so + ADJ + as (not) to + V                   (S12)  "so devoid of intellect AS NOT TO understand"
     → inside a rhetorical question ("who is so … as not to …?")
       the answer is NOBODY  →  the assertion is EVERYBODY DOES.

  not so much  A  as  B                        (S13)  "do NOT SO MUCH express … AS accommodate …"
     ⚠⚠ This RANKS; it does NOT deny A.   = "B rather than A", "B more truly than A".
     ⚠ The pair is fixed:  not so much A **as** B.    NEVER "not so much A **than** B".

  THE TWO COLUMNS — memorise as a block:
     deter / prevent / prohibit / hinder / keep   X   FROM  V-ing      (S5: "deter us FROM measuring")
     forbid / allow / permit / enable / compel    X   TO    V          (S5: "forbids us TO indulge")
  ⚠ TRAP: "deter us to measure" ✗ ;  "forbids us from indulging" ✗ (loose modern usage; not Beveridge, not exam-safe).

변형 연습. Compose: 그의 불측성은 우리가 감각으로 그를 재려는 것을 막아야 하고, 그의 영적 본성은 우리가 육적 사변에 탐닉하는 것을 금한다. 그 표현들은 그가 어떤 분이신지를 말한다기보다 우리 연약함에 지식을 맞추는 것이다.

Model: His immensity ought to deter us from measuring him by our sense, while his spiritual nature forbids us to indulge in carnal speculation. Those expressions do not so much express what kind of a being he is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. ⚠ Check: from + gerund after deter; to + infinitive after forbid; as (not than) after not so much; and both arms after not so much … as are bare infinitives sharing do.

Formula 3 — Ellipsis after as: the pro-verb, and the purpose that

  … V-ed  X ,  as  Y  DID  ‹V-ed›  Z           (S10)  "proved … , as the very nature of the error DID …"
  … V     X ,  as  Y  are wont to DO ‹V›  Z    (S12)  "lisps with us, as nurses are wont to DO with children"

  RULE: after "as" / "than", a repeated verb phrase is replaced by DO / DOES / DID.
        The form of "do" tracks the tense of the ELIDED verb, not of anything nearby.
           proved  (past)      → did
           lisps   (present)   → do
  ⚠ TRAP: reading "did" as the lexical verb "did (performed)". It is doing PROVING, not doing.
        Restore the elided verb out loud before translating.

  AND, in the same family, the clause that is NOT a relative:
  … he raises us above the worlds  THAT HE MAY  shake off …          (S7)  = SO THAT he may (PURPOSE)
  ⚠ TRAP: parsing "that" as a relative on "the worlds".
     DIAGNOSTIC: a relative "that" leaves a GAP in its clause. Here "shake off" already has
     its object ("our sluggishness and inactivity") → no gap → NOT a relative → purpose clause.

변형 연습. Compose: 그들의 왜곡 시도가 그들의 무지를 드러냈듯, 그 오류의 본질 자체가 그들의 어리석음을 드러냈다. 그분은 우리의 나태를 떨쳐 버리시려고 우리를 들어 올리신다.

Model: Their attempt to pervert the passages proved their ignorance, as the very nature of the error did their folly. He raises us up that he may shake off our sluggishness. ⚠ Check: did (past, tracking proved) with no lexical verb after it; and that he may with a filled object slot after shake off — if your that-clause has an empty object, you have written a relative by mistake.

Where we are, and why the chapter starts here. Chapter 13 is the longest chapter in Book 1 — twenty-nine sections — and the Beveridge summary you read above divides it cleanly: the orthodox doctrine occupies §§1–20 (the term Person, §§2–6; the deity of the Son, §§7–13; the deity of the Spirit, §§14–15; the Trinity itself, §§16–20), and the refutation of heresies occupies §§21–29, aimed above all at Servetus. Today's §1 belongs to none of those four heads. It is a doorstep: before Calvin says anything about persons, he clears the ground of every conception of the divine essence that would make the doctrine unsayable. And he does it with the two attributes he says Scripture itself emphasises — immensity and spirituality — because those two are exactly what a Trinity has to be predicated of. A God transfused through the world (S2) cannot be three persons in one essence; he is already infinitely many. A God with a body (S11) cannot be three persons in one essence; he is one body. Chapter 13 §1 is a negative preface, and it is doing structural work.

Continuity from yesterday, in one line. Chapter 12 ended by insisting that God shares his peculiar right with nothing — the anti-idolatry principle pressed as far as it will go outward, toward creatures. Chapter 13 §1 presses the same principle inward, toward conceptions: the same God who will not share his honour with a creature will not be conceived as diffused into creatures (Seneca), rivalled by one (Mani), or shaped like one (the Anthropomorphites). Chapters 11–12 forbade the image; §1 forbids the idea behind the image.

Target A: Seneca and Stoic pantheism. The reference Senec. Praef. lib. 1 Quaest. Nat. is to the preface of Seneca's Natural Questions, where the question What is God? is answered all that you see and all that you do not see. That is orthodox Stoicism: God as the immanent logos, the active principle (to poioun) pervading passive matter, identical with Nature, Fate and Zeus. Calvin has met this before and you have already studied his answer — I.5.5, Day 17, where he quoted Virgil's one common soul and made the crucial distinction: to say Nature is God may be piously used if the speaker means the order God has established, but it is inaccurate, because it confounds the Deity with the inferior operations of his hands. Today he does not repeat the argument. He restates the position in a metaphor that condemns it (transfused, a liquid, hence divisible) and passes on. If asked where does Calvin refute pantheism?, the honest answer is I.5.5, not here.

Target B: the Manichees, and Augustine's shadow. Mani (c. 216–276), a Persian teacher, taught a cosmic dualism: two eternal, unoriginated principles — Light and Darkness, God and Matter — locked in conflict, with the visible world as the mixture. That is what Calvin means by two first principles. Why does he bother with a third-century Persian heresy in 1559? Two reasons. First, Augustine: Manichaeism was Augustine's own religion for nine years, and the anti-Manichaean works (De Duabus Animabus, De Natura Boni, Contra Faustum, and the theodicy of Confessions VII) are the classical Latin refutation, so the name is a fixed item in every Western theological syllabus. Second, the sixteenth century: Calvin's opponents repeatedly charged that his doctrine of predestination and of the bondage of the will made God the author of evil or posited an evil principle — the "Manichee" accusation was a live polemical counter, and Calvin will handle the substance of it in I.14.13–19 (on Satan as a creature, not by creation, but by depravation) and in Book 2. ⚠️ Guardrail: S10 is a dismissal, not a refutation. Calvin gives no exegesis of the passages the Manichees perverted and no analysis of the error. The actual refutation is S9 — dualism destroys unity and restricts immensity — and that is a genuine argument, but it is one sentence long, and it works only against someone who already grants the attributes of S1. Do not present S10 as an argument in an essay; present S9.

Target C: the Anthropomorphites, and the story behind easily refuted. The Audians were a fourth-century ascetic sect in Syria and Mesopotamia, following one Audius, who read the image of God in Gen. 1:26 as a bodily likeness; Epiphanius describes them in Panarion 70. More consequential was the anthropomorphite controversy of 399 in Egypt, when Theophilus of Alexandria issued a festal letter condemning the bodily conception of God and provoked a revolt among the desert monks, many of whom had prayed all their lives to a God they pictured. John Cassian (Conferences 10.3) preserves the moment that gives the episode its pathos: the aged monk Serapion, persuaded at last to abandon the image, broke down in prayer with the cry that they had taken his God away and he had nothing left to hold. ⚠️ Hold that story against Calvin's tone. In grammar he is brisk — easily refuted, so devoid of intellect. In substance he is gentle, and the gentleness is the point: his answer is not you fool but the nurse. He does not tell Serapion that Scripture's mouth-and-eyes are meaningless; he tells him they are how a fluent speaker talks to someone who cannot yet manage the language. That is a pastoral answer wearing a polemical coat, and it is characteristic.

The doctrine: accommodation (accommodatio), what it is and what it is not. S12–S14 give Calvin's most quoted statement of a principle he uses everywhere: God, in revealing himself, adjusts the mode of his speech to the capacity of the hearer. The genealogy is long. Origen and especially Chrysostom used συγκατάβασις (synkatabasis, condescension) for the same phenomenon; Augustine used the nurse and child image in De Catechizandis Rudibus; Calvin's own Latin verb is balbutire, to babble. In the Institutes you have already met the doctrine twice without the name: I.5.1 (Day 13), where the created order is a mirror in which God shows what cannot be seen directly, and I.11, where the prohibition of images rests on the same recognition that God has chosen how he will be represented. It will return decisively at I.14.3 (the six days of creation as accommodation to our slowness) and in the doctrine of Scripture as spectacles at I.6. ⚠️⚠️ The guardrail, and it matters more than anything else on this page: accommodation in Calvin is a claim about mode, not about truth-value. The nurse's baby-talk is simplified, not false; the child really does learn something, and what she learns is not an error to be unlearned. Later writers — from some Enlightenment critics through nineteenth-century liberal exegesis — extended "accommodation" into a theory that Scripture asserts culturally conditioned falsehoods which the interpreter may discard. That is not this sentence. S13 says the idioms **accommodate the knowledge of him** — there is knowledge in them, sized down. If you use Calvin's balbutire to license a doctrine of scriptural error, you are using it against his explicit claim in the same clause. Conversely, do not run the other way and read accommodation as making all anthropomorphism literally descriptive; S13's not so much … as blocks that too. The sentence is balanced on a comparative, and both halves of the comparison are load-bearing.

A precision worth having: immensity is not omnipresence. Calvin uses immensity for the essence's unmeasurableness — not bounded, not partible, not quantifiable. Later Reformed scholastics (Turretin, and the Westminster tradition) distinguish immensity (God's essence considered absolutely, unbounded by space) from omnipresence or ubiquity (God's essence considered in relation to created space, present to all of it). Calvin does not draw that distinction here, and you should not import it into his text; but knowing it prevents the common error of reading S5 as if it were a claim about God being spread out everywhere — which is precisely the pantheist claim of S2 that Calvin is refuting. Immensity denies measurement; it does not assert extension.

Reception, and the honest ranking. (1) S12–S14, accommodation — the strongest and by far the most influential thing in the section; it is the standard reference point for Calvin's doctrine of revelation, and its balance (true speech, lowered register, real knowledge, real cost) has held up under a great deal of scrutiny. (2) S5, the division of labour — clean, and it structures the section well, though it presupposes rather than proves the two attributes; the proof was Chapters 10–11 and the argument from Scripture's own reticence in S4. (3) S9, against dualism — a real argument, one sentence, and decisive only if the attributes are granted. (4) S2–S3, against Stoicism — restatement plus a metaphor, not a refutation; the refutation is at I.5.5. (5) S10 — rhetoric. Notice, too, what §1 does not do: it offers no Scripture citations at all in Beveridge's text, even though it is entirely a claim about the doctrine of Scripture. The proof-texts are assumed from Chapters 10–12 and supplied by the reader; Period 7 supplies them for you.

The bridge to tomorrow. §1 has cleared the essence of pantheism and of body. §2 turns the corner and states the thesis of the entire chapter: But there is **another special mark** by which he designates himself, for the purpose of giving a more intimate knowledge of his nature. While he proclaims his **unity**, he distinctly sets it before us as existing in **three persons**. Then, immediately, the guard against the two errors that will haunt §§2–20 — lest any one should dream of a **threefold God**, or think that the simple essence is **divided** by the three Persons — and the first technical argument of the chapter, from Heb. 1:3, the express image of his person. Note the verb in §2's warning: **dream**. The same verb as today's dreamed of a corporeal God. Calvin has just spent §1 teaching you that a wrong idea of the essence is a dream — and tomorrow he will apply the word to a wrong idea of the Trinity. The doorstep was built for that step.

§1 quotes no Scripture and cites no verse — Beveridge's text has one parenthesis in it and it is Seneca. But the section is titled The **doctrine of Scripture** concerning…, so every claim in it is a claim about texts. Here are the texts Calvin is standing on. Know them; the section is unintelligible without them.

1. John 4:24 — under the spirituality of the essence of God (S1, S5, S11–S13). πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας αὐτὸν ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ δεῖ προσκυνεῖν — God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Calvin's use: the proof text for attribute two, and note that in John it is stated as a premise about worship — which is why it belongs immediately after Chapters 11–12. ⚠️ The anarthrous πνεῦμα is predicative: God is spirit, a statement of what kind of being, not a spirit among spirits.
2. Jer. 23:24 — under he fills the earth also (S7). הֲלוֹא אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲנִי מָלֵא נְאֻם־יְהוָה — Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. Calvin's use: the immensity text, and the direct warrant for S7's concession. Note the verse's context — it is aimed at the man who thinks he can hide, which is exactly the pastoral point of immensity.
3. 1 Kings 8:27 (‖ 2 Chr. 2:6, 6:18) — under incomprehensible and heaven as his dwelling-place (S6–S7). הִנֵּה הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לֹא יְכַלְכְּלוּךָ — behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. Calvin's use: this single verse holds S6 and S7 together. Solomon says it in the act of dedicating a house for God to dwell in — the heaven-idiom and its qualification in one prayer. That is accommodation demonstrated in the Old Testament before Calvin explains it.
4. Isa. 66:1 — under represents heaven as his dwelling-place (S6). הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי וְהָאָרֶץ הֲדֹם רַגְלָי — The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? Calvin's use: heaven-language given and then used against confinement — the idiom disowns the inference the moment it is drawn.
5. Isa. 40:12, 18, 25 — under deter us from measuring him by our sense (S5). מִי־מָדַד בְּשָׁעֳלוֹ מַיִם — Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? … To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? Calvin's use: the perfect pair for S5, because Isaiah joins measuring and likening in one passage — the two prohibitions of S5's two arms, from one prophet.
6. Deut. 4:12, 15–16 — under carnal or earthly speculation and the Anthropomorphites (S5, S11). קוֹל דְּבָרִים אַתֶּם שֹׁמְעִים וּתְמוּנָה אֵינְכֶם רֹאִים — ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude… take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you. Calvin's use: the foundation text of I.11 on images, and here the scriptural refutation of a corporeal God — the ban on likeness is grounded in the fact that there was no visible form.
7. 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; Exod. 33:20; John 1:18 — under spiritual nature (S5, S11). τῷ … ἀοράτῳ μόνῳ θεῷ — unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live; θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε. Calvin's use: the cumulative New Testament witness that the divine essence is not an object of sight — hence not a body.
8. Ps. 34:15; Isa. 59:1; Ps. 18:8; Gen. 3:8; Exod. 33:22–23 — the texts the Anthropomorphites relied on (S11). The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry; neither his ear heavy; there went up a smoke out of his nostrils; they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden; thou shalt see my **back parts. Calvin's use: he does not cite them, but S11 names the whole class (mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet), and these are the verses in the dock. ⚠️ Notice that Calvin's answer does not delete a single one of them; the nurse still speaks.
9. Num. 11:12; Isa. 49:15; 66:13; Deut. 1:31; Hos. 11:1–4 — the nurse image, and Scripture's own use of it (S12). כַּאֲשֶׁר יִשָּׂא הָאֹמֵן אֶת־הַיֹּנֵק — as a nursing father beareth the sucking child; can a woman forget her sucking child…?; as one whom his mother comforteth; the LORD thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son; I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by their arms. Calvin's use: this is why the nurse image is not an arbitrary illustration. ⚠️ Scripture describes God's own dealing with his people in exactly these terms — so when Calvin says God lisps with us as nurses are wont to do, he is not inventing a comparison, he is generalising one the Bible has already made about itself.
10. 1 Cor. 3:19; 1:20; Col. 2:8 — under the subtleties of a profane philosophy (S1). ἡ γὰρ σοφία τοῦ κόσμου τούτου μωρία παρὰ τῷ θεῷ — the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?; beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Calvin's use: warrant for calling philosophy profane without further argument, and the same Pauline register as Rom. 1:22, which drove I.4.1 (Day 9).
11. Rom. 1:20–23 — under both targets of S1 (S1–S3, S11). τά τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης … ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου — changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. Calvin's use: the master text of Book 1 and the exact charge of the Anthropomorphites in Paul's own words. ⚠️ Paul names the same substitution twice over: the vulgar who make images (S1's first target) and the wise who became fools (S1's second) are one story in Rom. 1.
12. Acts 17:24–25, 28 — under S6–S7. οὐκ ἐν χειροποιήτοις ναοῖς κατοικεῖ … οὐδὲ ὑπὸ χειρῶν ἀνθρωπίνων θεραπεύεται — dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, and yet in him we live, and move, and have our being. Calvin's use: Paul at Athens holds both halves of S7 together in front of a Stoic audience — the very audience of S2. ⚠️ Note the danger Calvin is steering past: v. 28 is the verse a pantheist would seize, and Calvin quoted it approvingly at I.5.3 (Day 15). In him we live is not he is in everything.
13. Isa. 55:8–9 — under the bounds of soberness (S4). כִּי־גָבְהוּ שָׁמַיִם מֵאָרֶץ כֵּן גָּבְהוּ דְרָכַי מִדַּרְכֵיכֶם — for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. Calvin's use: the scriptural form of his proper height (S14) — and note that Isaiah states the distance in order to invite, as Calvin states the stoop in order to explain revelation.
14. Deut. 29:29 — under treats sparingly of his essence (S4). הַנִּסְתָּרֹת לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ — the secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us. Calvin's use: the charter of sobrietas, and the reason reticence is not a defect in Scripture but a design.

How Calvin uses Scripture here: by presupposition, not citation. §1 is the only kind of section in Book 1 that quotes no verse — and that is deliberate, because its whole claim is about what Scripture's teaching is, a claim he has spent Chapters 10–12 establishing text by text. Watch the consequence for the argument's shape: the four errors are refuted not by proof-texts but by measuring them against two attributes already in evidence. That is why the refutations are so short. And it is why S12's nurse — the one image in the section — has to carry so much: it is the only thing in §1 that shows rather than asserts.

① Grammar — which underlined part is wrong?

The doctrine of Scripture concerning the immensity and the spirituality of the essence of God should have the effect ⓐ not only of dissipating the wild dreams of the vulgar, but also refuting the subtleties of a profane philosophy. This, assuredly, ⓑ was both to destroy his unity and restrict his immensity. Their attempt to pervert certain passages of Scripture proved their shameful ignorance, ⓒ as the very nature of the error did their monstrous infatuation. Such modes of expression ⓓ do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답 · Answer: ⓐ. The correlative not only X but also Y requires identical arms. Arm 1 is **of** dissipating…, a prepositional phrase governed by the effect; arm 2 must therefore also be **of** refuting…. As printed, but also refuting is a bare gerund with nothing to attach it to — the parallel is broken. Correct: not only **of** dissipating … but also **of** refuting. ⓑ is right: both to destroy … and ‹to› restrict shares one to across two infinitives, which is permitted — the rule is consistency within the pair, and here neither arm repeats it. ⓒ is right: did is a pro-verb replacing the elided proved, and past tense correctly tracks the elided verb. ⓓ is right: not so much A **as** B is fixed, and both arms are bare infinitives sharing the auxiliary do. Exam-setter's rationale: the three correct options are three different legitimate ways of not repeating something — a shared to, an elided verb, a shared auxiliary — and the wrong option is a case where the shared word must be repeated because each arm needs its own governor. That is the whole lesson: ellipsis is legal when one word can reach both arms; it is illegal when it cannot. Ask of every gap: can the missing word actually govern the second arm from where it sits? In ⓑ, to reaches restrict. In ⓒ, the pattern of proved reaches the second clause. In ⓓ, do reaches accommodate. In ⓐ, the effect cannot reach refuting without a second of.

② Comprehension — which statement is TRUE according to the passage?

(A) Calvin teaches that God dwells in heaven and, being incomprehensible, is therefore not present on the earth. (B) Calvin holds that Scripture's bodily language conveys no knowledge of God, since its only function is to accommodate itself to our weakness. (C) Calvin says that the ascription of mouth, ears, eyes, hands and feet to God is God's baby-talk with us — a way of speaking whose office is less to state what kind of being God is than to fit the knowledge of him to our weakness, and which therefore requires him to stoop far below his own height. (D) Calvin argues that because God treats his essence so sparingly in Scripture, the two attributes of immensity and spirituality are insufficient to restrain the human mind, which must be curbed by the Law instead.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답 · Answer: (C). S12 + S13 + S14 in sequence: God, in so speaking, **lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children** … do **not so much** express what kind of a being God is, **as** accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness … he **must, of course, stoop far below his proper height**. Exam-setter's rationale: (A) is the direction-flip on S6–S7 and the easiest mark to lose if you stop reading at S6. S7 says the opposite in five words — he **fills the earth also** — and it derives that from incomprehensible rather than against it, because the word means uncontainable. The heaven-idiom has a purpose clause attached (that he may shake off our sluggishness) and the purpose concerns us. (B) is the over-reach on S13, and it is today's most attractive wrong answer because it sounds like a sophisticated reading of accommodation. Not so much A **as** B ranks; it does not deny A. And S13 states in its own words that what is accommodated is **the knowledge of him** — knowledge is present, sized to us; the option's no knowledge contradicts the clause it claims to summarise. (D) inverts S4 twice over: Calvin says that although God treats his essence sparingly, **still**, by the two attributes … he **at once suppresses** all gross imaginations, **and checks** the audacity of the human mind — the attributes are stated to be sufficient, and the sparingness is their setting, not an objection to them. The Law is not mentioned in this section at all; that clause is imported from Chapter 12.

③ Composition — apply Formulas 1, 2 and 3

Translate, using not only of V-ing … but also of V-ing and at once … and for the first pair, deter X from V-ing / forbid X to V and not so much A as B for the second, and the pro-verb did after as plus purpose that … may for the last:

(1) 이 교리는 대중의 몽상을 흩을 뿐 아니라 철학의 궤변을 논박하는 효과도 가져야 한다. 그 두 속성이 동시에 모든 조야한 상상을 억누르고 인간 정신의 주제넘음을 제어한다. (2) 그의 불측성은 우리가 감각으로 그를 재는 것을 막고, 그의 영적 본성은 우리가 육적 사변에 탐닉하는 것을 금한다. 그런 표현들은 그가 어떤 분이신지를 말한다기보다 우리의 연약함에 지식을 맞추는 것이다. (3) 그들의 왜곡 시도가 그들의 무지를 드러냈듯, 그 오류의 본질 자체가 그들의 어리석음을 드러냈다. 그분은 우리의 나태를 떨쳐 버리시려고 우리를 들어 올리신다.

모범답안 · Model: This doctrine should have the effect not only of dissipating the dreams of the vulgar, but also of refuting the subtleties of philosophy. The two attributes at once suppress all gross imaginations, and check the audacity of the human mind. His immensity deters us from measuring him by our sense, while his spiritual nature forbids us to indulge in carnal speculation. Such modes of expression do not so much express what kind of a being he is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. Their attempt to pervert the passages proved their ignorance, as the very nature of the error did their folly. He raises us above the world that he may shake off our sluggishness. 채점 포인트: ① the second of must be written — but also **of** refuting; omit it and you have reproduced the error of item ①. ② at once must be followed by two coordinated verbs (suppress … and check) and must not be doubled. ③ ⚠️ the two columns must not be swapped: deter us **from measuring** (from + gerund) against forbids us **to indulge** (to + infinitive). Writing deter us to measure or forbids us from indulging costs the whole mark. ④ not so much … **as** accommodate — ⚠️ as, never than, and both arms bare infinitives under do. ⑤ as the very nature of the error **did** their folly — the pro-verb alone, with no lexical verb after it; writing did prove or proved loses the construction, and writing made changes the claim. ⑥ **that he may** shake off — a purpose clause; check that shake off has its own object (our sluggishness), which is what proves the that is not a relative. Bonus mark for **by our sense** singular rather than by our senses.

One-line summary. The Trinity chapter opens by clearing the room. The doctrine of Scripture concerning the **immensity** and the **spirituality** of the essence of God, should have the effect **not only of** dissipating the wild dreams of **the vulgar**, **but also of** refuting the **subtleties of a profane philosophy** (S1) — two attributes, two targets, and then four corpses. Seneca **thought he spake shrewdly** in saying everything we see and everything we do not see is God (S2), **fancied** that the Divinity was **transfused** into every separate portion of the world (S3) — a liquid, therefore divisible, therefore measured. **But although** God … **treats sparingly of** his essence, **still** … he **at once** suppresses all **gross** imaginations, **and** checks the **audacity** of the human mind (S4). The division of labour, and the key to the section: His **immensity** … ought to **deter us from measuring** him **by our sense**, **while** his **spiritual nature forbids us to indulge** in **carnal** or earthly speculation (S5). **With the same view** — for the same purpose — he frequently **represents** heaven as his **dwelling-place** (S6); **It is true, indeed, that** as he is **incomprehensible**, he **fills the earth also**, **but** … he raises us above the worlds **that he may** shake off our **sluggishness** (S7) — the heaven-idiom is a lift for us, not a location for him. Then the Manichees: **two first principles** made the devil **almost the equal** of God (S8), which was **both to destroy his unity and restrict his immensity** (S9) — immensity is the blade — and the sneer that follows the blow, their attempt to pervert … **proved** their shameful ignorance, **as** the very nature of the error **did** their **monstrous infatuation** (S10). Then the Anthropomorphites, whose evidence Calvin states fairly (**because** mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are often **ascribed** to him) before he answers it (S11) — and the answer is not contempt but a nurse: who is **so devoid of intellect as not to** understand that God, **in so speaking**, **lisps with us as nurses are wont to do** with little children? (S12). Such modes of expression, therefore, do **not so much** express **what kind of a being God is**, **as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness** (S13) — ⚠️ a ranking, not a denial; there is knowledge, and it has been sized. **In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height** (S14). Spirituality kills the body-mongers, immensity kills the dualists, and the God who cannot be measured chooses to babble.

Grammar, the three to carry out of here. ① Correlatives and the law of matching arms — not only **of** V-ing … but also **of** V-ing with the preposition repeated (S1, ⚠️ item ①), against **at once** V and V (S4, = both … and, not immediately), **both to** V and ‹to› V with the to shared (S9), although … **still** (S4) and **It is true, indeed, that** … but (S7). The test for every gap: can the missing word reach the second arm from where it sits? ② The as of degree, and the two complement columns — **so** ADJ **as not to** V inside a rhetorical question = everyone does (S12); **not so much** A **as** B = B rather than A, ⚠️⚠️ never a denial of A and ⚠️ never with than (S13); and the columns that must not be swapped, deter/prevent/prohibit/hinder X **from** V-**ing** against forbid/allow/compel X **to** V (S5). ③ Ellipsis after as, and the that that is not a relative — the pro-verb **did** standing in for proved (S10) and are wont to **do** standing in for lisp (S12), with the form of do tracking the elided verb's tense; and he raises us above the worlds **that he may** shake off… (S7), a purpose clause, proved to be one by the fact that shake off already has its object — no gap, no relative.

Homework (10 min).

1. 구조 복원. First, take S11 and bracket it on paper: mark the subject, draw a box round the relative clause, draw a second box round the because-clause inside it, and then draw an arrow from the subject to the main verb are easily refuted. Answer in one line: which verb does the because-clause modify, and what changes if you attach it to the wrong one? Second, take S10 and write the elided verb above the word did; then write out the two-row table (proving-agent → thing proved) in full. Third, take S7 and rewrite the purpose clause as so that he may…, then explain in one line why that cannot be a relative pronoun here — your answer must use the word gap.
2. 영작. Using Formula 1, write one sentence with not only of V-ing … but also of V-ing (both ofs present) and one with at once V and V. Using Formula 2, write one sentence containing both deter X from V-ing and forbid X to V, then one of the form A does not so much X as Y — and check that your sentence would be false if you translated it as A does not X. Using Formula 3, write a sentence whose second clause ends in a bare pro-verb did with an object after it and no lexical verb.
3. 내일 예습 한 줄. Tomorrow is Book 1, Chapter 13, §2 — the turn from clearing the ground to laying the foundation. It opens **But there is another special mark by which he designates himself**, and that mark is this: While he proclaims his **unity**, he distinctly sets it before us as existing in **three persons**. Then comes the first technical argument of the chapter, from Heb. 1:3 — the express image of his **person** — and with it the vocabulary you will live in for the next fortnight: hypostasis, subsistence, substance, persona, πρόσωπον. Ask yourself tonight: today Calvin said that the words of Scripture about God are a nurse's baby-talk, fitted to our feebleness. Tomorrow he will insist on a technical term that is not in Scripture at all. How can the man who wrote S13 defend Person? (Hint: re-read S13 and notice what it says the idioms are not so much doing. If accommodation explains the homely language, what explains the need for the precise language?)

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 13, §1 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 13, §2 (Day 76) — In this one essence are three persons; meaning of the word Person in this discussion; three hypostases in God.