Ii. Holy Scripture
II. HOLY SCRIPTURE
First, then, what was Calvin's doctrine of Holy Scripture?
Under the designation of "Scripture" or "the Scriptures" Calvin understood that body of writings which have been transmitted to us as the divinely given rule of faith and life. In this body of writings, that is to say, in "the Canon of Scripture," he included all the books of the Old
Covenant which were recognized by the Jewish Church as of divine gift, and as such handed down to the Christian Church; and all the books of the New Covenant which have been given the Church by the Apostles as its authoritative law-code. Calvin's attitude towards the canon was thus somewhat more conservative than, say, Luther's. He knew of no such distinction as that between Canonical and Deutero-Canonical Books, whether in the Old or the New Testament.
The so-called "Apocryphal Books" of the Old Testament, included within the canon by the decrees of Trent, he rejected out of hand: the so-called "Antilegomena" of the New Testament he accepted without exception.11
The representations which are sometimes made, to the effect that he felt doubts of the canonicity of some of the canonical books or even was convinced of their uncanonicity,12 rest on
Cf. J. Cramer, Nieuwe Bijdragen op het gebied van Godgeleerdheid en Wijsbegeerte, iii. 1881, p. 102: "By the Scripture or the Scriptures he [Calvin] understood the books of the Old and New Testaments which have been transmitted to us by the Church as canonical, as the rule of faith and life. The Apocrypha of the O. T. as they were determined by the Council of Trent, he excludes. They are to him indeed libri ecclesiastici, in many respects good and useful to be read; but they are not libri canonici 'ad fidem dogmatum faciendam' (Acta
Synodi Tridentinae, cum antidoto, 1547)." In a later article, "De Roomsch-Katholieke en de Oud-protestantsche
Schriftbeschouwing," 1883, p. 36, Cramer declares that by the Scriptures, Calvin means "nothing else than the canon, established by the Synods of Hippo and Carthage, and transmitted by the Catholic Church, with the exception of the so-called Apocrypha of the O. T.," etc. Cf. Leipoldt, "Geschichte des N. T. Kanons," ii. 1908, p.
149: "We obtain the impression that it is only for form's sake that Calvin undertakes to test whether the disputed books are canonical or not. In reality it is already a settled matter with him that they are. Calvin feels himself therefore in the matter of the N. T. canon bound to the mediæval tradition." Cf. also Otto Ritschl,
"Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus," i. 1908, pp. 70, 71, to the same effect.
12 Cf. e.g. J. Pannier, "Le témoignage du Saint-Esprit," 1893, pp. 112 sq.: "One fact strikes us at first sight: not only did Calvin not comment on the Apochryphal books, for which he wrote a very short preface, which was ever more and more abridged in the successive editions, but he did not comment on all the Canonical books. And if lack of time may explain the passing over of some of the less important historical books of the Old Testament, it was undoubtedly for a graver reason that he left to one side the three books attributed to Solomon, notably the Song of Songs. 'In the New Testament there is ordinarily mentioned only the Apocalypse, neglected by Calvin undoubtedly for critical or theological motives analogous to those which determined the most of his contemporaries, but it is necessary to note that the two lesser epistles of John are also lacking, and that in speaking of the large epistle Calvin always expresses himself as if it were the only existing one' (Reuss, Revue de
Theologie de Strasbourg, vi. 1853, p. 229). In effect, at the very time when he was defending particularly the authority of the Scriptures against the Council of Trent, when he was dedicating to Edward VI, the King of England, his Commentaries on the 'Epistles which are accustomed to be called Canonical' (1551), he included in the Canon only the First Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of John, James and, at the very end, the Second
Epistle of Peter and Jude."—Reuss, however, in his "History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian
Church" (1863, E. T. 1884), greatly modifies the opinion here quoted from him: "Some have believed it possible to affirm that he [Calvin] rejected the Apocalypse because it was the only book of the N. T., except the two short
Epistles of John, on which he wrote no commentary. But that conclusion is too hasty. In the Institutes, the Apocalypse is sometimes quoted like the other Apostolic writings, and even under John's name. If there was no commentary, it was simply that the illustrious exegete, wiser in this respect than several of his contemporaries and many of his successors, understood that his vocation called him elsewhere" (p. 318). He adds, indeed, of II and III John: "It might be said with more probability that Calvin did not acknowledge the canonicity of these two writings. He never quotes them, and he quotes the First Epistle of John in a way to exclude them: Joannes in sua canonica, Instit. iii. 2. 21; 3. 23 (Opp. ii. 415, 453)." But this opinion requires revision, just as that on the Apocalypse did, as we shall see below. Cf. further, in the meantime: Reuss, "Hist. of the Sacred Scriptures of the N. T.," 1884, ii. p. 347, and S. Berger, "La Bible au seizieme siecle," 1879, p. 120, who expresses himself most
a fundamental misconception of his attitude, and are wrecked on his express assertions. No doubt he has not left us commentaries on all the Biblical Books, and no doubt his omission to write or lecture on certain books is not to be explained merely by lack of time, but involves an act of selection on his part, which was not unaffected by his estimate of the relative importance of the several books or by his own spiritual sympathies.13 He has also occasionally employed a current expression, such as, for example, "the Canonical Epistle of John,"14 when speaking of I John, which, if strictly interpreted, might be thought to imply denial of the genuineness of certain books of the canon—such as II and III John—and not merely the momentary or habitual neglect of them; just as the common use of the term "the Apostle" of Paul might be said, if similarly strictly pressed, to imply that there was no other Apostle but he. It is also true that he expresses himself with moderation when adducing the evidence for the canonicity of this book or that, and in his modes of statement quite clearly betrays his recognition that the evidence is more copious or more weighty in some cases than in others. But he represents the evidence as sufficient in all cases and declares with confidence his conclusion in favor of the canonicity of the whole body of books which make up our Bible, and in all his writings and controversies acts firmly on this presupposition. How, for example, is it possible to contend that some grave reason connected with doubts on his part of their canonical authority underlies the failure of Calvin to comment on "the three books attributed to Solomon, particularly the Song of Songs,"15 in the face of the judgment of the ministers of Geneva with regard to Castellion, which is thus reported positively: "Calvin expresses no judgment on the lesser Epistles of St. John. But we remark that he never cites them and that he mentions the First in these terms: 'As John says in his canonical.' This word excludes, in the thought of the author, the two other Epistles attributed to this Apostle."
13 This may have been the case with the Apocalypse, which not only Reuss, as we have seen, but Scaliger thought him wise not to have entered upon; and which he is—perhaps credibly—reported to have said in conversation he did not understand (cf. Leipoldt's "Geschichte des N. T. Kanons," ii. 1908, p. 148, note). But how impossible it is to imagine that this implies any doubt of the canonicity or authority of the book will be quickly evident to anyone who will note his frequent citation of it in the same fashion with other Scripture and alongside of other
Scripture (e.g. Opp. i. 736 = ii. 500; i. 953—ii. 957; i. 1033 = ii. 1063; i. 1148; ii. 88, 859; v. 191, 196, 532; vi. 176; vii. 29, 118, 333; xxxi. 650, sometimes mentioning it by name (vii. 469; i. 733 = ii. 497), sometimes by the name of John (i. 715 = ii. 492, viii. 338 [along with I John] ), sometimes by the name of both "John" and "the Apocalypse" (ii. 124, vii. 116, xxx. 651, xlviii. 122), and always with reverence and confidence as a Scriptural book. He even expressly cites it under the name of Scripture and explicitly as the dictation of the Spirit: vii. 559,
"Fear, not, says the Scripture (Eccles. xviii. 22).... Again (Rev. xxii. 11) . . . and (John xv. 2)"; i. 624: "Elsewhere also the Spirit testifies . . ." (along with Daniel and Paul). Cf. also such passages as ii. 734, "Nor does the Apocalypse which they quote afford them any support . . "; xlviii. 238: "I should like to ask the Papists if they think John was so stupid that . . . etc. (Rev. xxii. 8)"; also vi. 369; v. 198.
14 We use the simple expression "the Epistle of John"; the apparently, but only apparently, stronger and more exclusive, "the Canonical Epistle of John," which Calvin employs, although it would be misleading in our associations, is its exact synonym. Those somewhat numerous writers who have quoted the form "the Canonical
Epistle of John " as if its use implied the denial of the canonicity of the other epistles of John forget that this was the ordinary designation in the West of the Catholic Epistles—"the Seven Canonical Epistles"—and that they are all currently cited by this title by Western writers. The matter has been set right by A. Lang: "Die Bekehrung
Johannis Calvins" (II. i. of Bonwetsch and Seeberg's "Studien zür Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche,"
1897, pp. 2Cr29). On the title "Canonical Epistles" for the Catholic Epistles, see Lücke, SK. 1836, iii. pp. 643650; Bleek, "Introd. to the N. T.," § 202 at end (vol. ii. 1874, p. 135); Hilgenfeld, "Einleitung in d. N. T.," 1875, p.
153; Westcott, "Epp. of St. John," 1883, p. xxix.; Salmond, Hastings' BD. i. 1898, p. 360. In 1551, Calvin published his "Commentarii in Epistolas Canonicas"—that is on the Catholic Epistles; also his "Commentaire sur l'Épistre Canonique de St. Jean," i.e. on "the Epistle of John"; also his "Commentaire sur l'Épistre
Canonique de St. Jude." Calvin does not seem ever to have happened to quote from II and III John. The reference given in the Index printed in Opp. xxii., viz., III John 9, Opp. xb. 81, occurs in a letter, not by Calvin but by Christof Libertetus to Farel. Cf. J. Leipoldt, "Geschichte des N. T. Kanons" (2nd Part, Leipzig, 1908), p.
148, note 1: "The smaller Johannine Epistles Calvin seems never to have cited. He cites I John in Inst. III. ii. 21 by the formula: dicit Johannes in sua canonica. Nevertheless it is very questionable whether inferences can be drawn from this formula as to Calvin's attitude to II and III John." He adds a reference to Lang as above.
15 Pannier, as cited, p. 113.
by Calvin himself over his signature.16 "We unanimously judged him one who might be appointed to the functions of the pastor, except for a single obstacle which opposed it. When we asked him, according to custom, whether he was in accord with us on all points of doctrine, he replied that there were two on which he could not share our views: one of them . . . being our inscribing the Song of Solomon in the number of sacred books. . . . We conjured him first of all, not to permit himself the levity of treating as of no account the constant witness of the universal
Church; we reminded him that there is no book the authenticity of which is doubtful, about which some discussion has not been raised; that even those to which we now attach an undisputed authenticity were not admitted from the beginning without controversy; that precisely this one is one which has never been openly repudiated. We also exhorted him against trusting unreasonably in his own judgment, especially where nothing was toward which all the world had not been aware of before he was born. . . . All these arguments having no effect on him, we thought it necessary to consider among ourselves what we ought to do. Our unanimous opinion was that it would be dangerous and would set a bad precedent to admit him to the ministry in these circumstances. . . . We should thus condemn ourselves for the future to raise no objection to another, should one present himself and wish similarly to repudiate Ecclesiastes or Proverbs or any other book of the Bible, without being dragged into a debate as to what is and what is not worthy of the Holy Spirit."17 Not merely the firmness with which Calvin held to the canoncity of all the books of our Bible, but the importance he attached to the acceptance of the canonical Scriptures in their integrity, is made perfectly clear by such an incident; and indeed so also are the grounds on which he accepted these books as canonical.
These grounds, to speak briefly, were historico-critical. Calvin, we must bear in mind, was a Humanist before he was a Reformer,18 and was familiar with the whole process of determining the authenticity of ancient documents. If then he received the Scriptures from the hands of the Church, not indulging himself in the levity of treating the constant witness of the universal
Church as of no account, he was nevertheless not disposed to take "tradition" uncritically at its face value. His acceptance of the canon of the Church was therefore not a blind but a critically mediated acceptance. Therefore he discarded the Aprocrypha: and if he accepted the Antilegomena it was because they commended themselves to his historico-critical judgment as holding of right a place in the canon. The organon of his critical investigation of the canon was in effect twofold. He inquired into the history of the books in question. He inquired into their internal characteristics. Have they come down to us from the Apostolic Church, commanding either unbrokenly or on the whole the suffrages of those best informed or best qualified to judge of their canonical claims? Are they in themselves conformable to the claims made for them of 16 Opera, xi. 674-676: cf. Buisson, "Castellion," 1892, i, pp. 198-199. Buisson discusses the whole incident and quotes from the minutes of the Council before which Castellion brought the matter: the point of dispute is there briefly expressed thus: "Mossr Calvin recognizes as holy, and the said Bastian repudiates" (p. 197) the book in question.
17 Calvin employs all these "three books attributed to Solomon" freely as Scripture and deals with them precisely as he does with other Scriptures. As was to be expected, he cites Proverbs most frequently, Canticles least: but he cites them all as Solomon's and as authoritative Scripture. "'I have washed my feet' says the believing soul in Solomon . . " is the way he cites Canticles (Opp. i. 778, ii. 589). "They make a buckler of a sentence of Solomon's, which is as contrary to them as is no other that is in the Scriptures" (vii. 130) is the way he cites Ecclesiastes. He indeed expressly contrasts Ecclesiastes as genuine Scripture with the Apocryphal books: "As the soul has an origin apart, it has also another preeminence, and this is what Solomon means when he says that at death the body returns to the earth from which it was taken and the soul returns to God who gave it (Eccl. xii. 7). For this reason it is said in the Book of Wisdom (ii. 23) that man is immortal, seeing that he was created in the image of God. This is not an authentic book of Holy Scripture, but it is not improper to avail ourselves of its testimony as of an ancient teacher (Docteur ancien)—although the single reason ought to be enough for us that the image of God, as it has been placed in man, can reside only in an immortal soul, etc." (vii. 112, written in 1544).
18 Cf. A. Bossert, "Calvin," 1906, p. 6: "Humanist himself as well as profound theologian . . ."; Charles Borgeaud,
"Histoire de l'Universite de Geneve," 1900, p. 21: "Before he was a theologian, Calvin was a Humanist..."
apostolic, which is as much as to say, divine origin? It was by the application of this twofold test that he excluded the Apocrypha of the Old Testament from the canon. They had in all ages been discriminated from the canonical books, and differ from them as the writing of an individual differs from an instrument which has passed under the eye of a notary and been sealed to be received of all.19 Some Fathers, it is true, deemed them canonical; even Augustine was of that way of thinking, although he had to allow that opinions differed widely upon the matter. Others, however, could admit them to no higher rank than that of "ecclesiastical books," which inight be useful to read but could not supply a foundation for doctrine; among such were Jerome and Rufinus.20 And, when we observe their contents, no sane mind will fail to pass judgment against them.21 Rome may, indeed, find her interest in defending them, for she may discover support in them for some of her false teachings. But this very fact is their condemnation. "I beg you to observe," he says of the closing words of II Maccabees, where the writer sets his hope in his own works: "I beg you to observe how far this confession falls away from the majesty of the Holy
Spirit"22 —that is to say, from the constant teaching of Holy Scripture.
And it was by the application of the same two-fold test that he accredited the Antilegomena of the New Testament as integral parts of the canon. In the Preface which he has prefixed to II Peter, for example, he notes that Eusebius speaks of some who rejected it. "If it is a question," he adds, "of yielding to the simple authority of men, since he [Eusebius] does not name those who brought the matter into doubt, no necessity seems to be laid on us to credit these unknown people. And, moreover, he adds that afterwards it was generally received without contradiction. .
. . It is a matter agreed upon by all, of common accord, that there is nothing in this Epistle unworthy of Saint Peter, but that, on the contrary, from one end of it to the other, there are apparent the force, vehemence and grace of the Spirit with which the Apostles were endowed. . . . Since, then, in all parts of the Epistle the majesty of the Spirit of Christ is clearly manifest, I cannot reject it entirely, although I do not recognize in it the true and natural phrase of Saint Peter."23 To meet the difficulty arising from the difference of the style from that of I 19 Cf. the Preface he prefixed to the Apocryphal Books (for the history of which, see Opera, ix. 827, note) : "These books which are called Apocryphal have in all ages been discriminated from those which are without difficulty shown to be of the Sacred Scriptures. For the ancients, wishing to anticipate the danger that any profane books should be mixed with those which certainly proceeded from the Holy Spirit, made a roll of these latter which they called 'Canon'; meaning by this word that all that was comprehended under it was the assured rule to which we should attach ourselves. Upon the others they imposed the name of Apocrypha; denoting that they were to be held as private writings and not authenticated, like public documents. Accordingly the difference between the former and latter is the same as that between an instrument, passed before a notary, and sealed to be received by all, and the writing of some particular man. It is true they are not to be despised, seeing that they contain good and useful doctrine. Nevertheless it is only right that what we have been given by the Holy Spirit should have preëminence above all that has come from men." Cf., in his earliest theological treatise, the "Psychopannychia" of 1534-1542 (Opp. v. 182), where, after quoting Ecclus. xvii. 1 and Wisd. ii. 23 as "two sacred writers," he adds: "I would not urge the authority of these writers strongly on our adversaries, did they not oppose them to us. They may be allowed, however, some weight, if not as canonical, yet certainly as ancient, as pious, and as received by the suffrages of many. But let us omit them and let us retain . . ." etc. In the "Psychopannychia" his dealing with Baruch on the other hand is more wavering. On one occasion (p. 205) it is quoted with the formula, "sic enim loquitur propheta," and on another (p. 227), "in prophetia Baruch" corrected in 1542. In the "Institutes" of 1536 he quotes it as Scripture: "alter vero propheta scribit" (Opp. i. 82)—referring back to Daniel. This is already corrected in 1539 (i. 906; cf. ii. 632). In 1534-1536, then, he considered Baruch canonical: afterwards not so. His dealing with it in v. 271 (1537), vi. 560 (1545), vi. 638 (1546) is ad hominem.
20 "Acta Synodi Tridentinae, cum antidoto " (1547), Opp. vii. 365-506.
21 "Vera ecclesiae reformandae ratio," Opp. vii. 613: quae divinitus non esse prodita, sani omnes, saltem ubi moniti fuerint, iudicabunt.
22 "Acta Synodi Tridentinae, cum antidoto," Opp. vii. 413: Quantum, obsecro, a Spiritus Sancti maiestati aliena est haec confessio!
23 This is translated from the French version, ed. Meyrueis, iv. 1855, p. 743. The Latin is the same, though somewhat more concise: nihil habet Petro indignum, ut vim spiritus apostolici et gratiam ubique exprimat ...
Peter, he therefore supposed that the Epistle is indeed certainly Peter's, since otherwise it would be a forgery, a thing inconceivable in a book of its high character,24 but was dictated in his old age to some one of his disciples, to whom it owes its peculiarities of diction. Here we have an argument conducted on the two grounds of the external witness of the Church and the internal testimony of the contents of the book: and these are the two grounds on which he everywhere depends. Of the Epistle of Jude he says:25 "Because the reading of it is very useful, and it contains nothing that is not in accord with the purity of the Apostolic doctrine; because also it has long been held to be authentic by all the best men, for my part, I willingly place it in the number of the other epistles." In other cases the external evidence of the Church is not explicitly mentioned and the stress of the argument is laid on the Apostolic character of the writing as witnessed by its contents. He receives Hebrews among the Apostolic Epistles without difficulty, because nowhere else is the sacrifice of Christ more clearly or simply declared and other evangelical doctrines taught: surely it must have been due to the wiles of Satan that the Western
Church so long doubted its canonicity.26 James seems to him to contain nothing unworthy of an Apostle of Christ, but to be on the contrary full of good teaching, valuable for all departments of Christian living.27 For the application of this argument he of course takes his start from the Homologoumena, which gave him the norm of Apostolic teaching which he used for testing the other books. It must not be supposed that he received even these books, however, without critico-historical inquiry: but only that the uniform witness of the Church to their authority weighed with him above all grounds of doubt. It was, in a word, on the ground of a purely scientific investigation that Calvin accredited to himself the canon. It had come down to him through the ages, accredited as such by the constant testimony of its proper witnesses: and it accredited itself to critical scrutiny by its contents.28 eam prorsus repudiare mihi religio est.
24 Haec sutem fictio indigna esset ministro Christi, obtendere alienam personam.
25 Ed. Meyrueis, iv. p. 780.
26 Ibid., iv. p. 362.
27 Ibid., iv. p. 694. Latin: mihi ad epistolam hanc recipiendam satis est, quod nihil continet Christi apostolo indignum.
28 Cf. J. Cramer, as cited, p. 126: "It was thus, in the first place, as the result of scientific investigations that Calvin fixed the limits of the canon . . . not a priori, but a posteriori, that he came to the recognition of the canonicity of the Biblical books." But especially see the excellently conceived passage on pp. 155-6, to the following effect:
"What great importance Calvin attaches to the question whether a Biblical book is apostolic! If it is not apostolic, he does not recognize it as canonical. To determine its apostolicity, he appeals not merely to the ecclesiastical tradition of its origin, but also and principally to its contents. This is what he does in the case of all the antilegomena. The touchstone for this is found in the homologoumena. That he undertakes no investigation of the apostolic origin of these latter is a matter of course. This, for him and for all his contemporaries, stood irreversibly settled. The touchstone employed by Calvin is a scientific one. The testimonium Spiritus Sancti no doubt made its influence felt. But without the help of the scientific investigation, this internal testimony would not have the power to elevate the book into a canonical book. That Calvin was treading here in the footprints of the ancient Church will be understood. The complaint sometimes brought against the Christians of the earliest centuries is unfounded, that they held all writings canonical in which they found their own dogmatics. No doubt they attached in their criticism great weight to this. But not less to the question whether the origin of the books was traceable back to the apostolical age, and their contents accorded with apostolic doctrine, as it might be learned from the indubitably apostolic writings. So far as science had been developed in their day, they employed it in the formation of the canon. . . ." In a later article Cramer says: "In the determination of the compass of Scripture, he [Calvin], like Luther, took his start from the writings which more than the others communicated the knowledge of Christ in His kingdom and had been recognized always by the Church as genuine and trustworthy. Even if the results of his criticism were more in harmony than was the case with those of the German reformer with the ecclesiastical tradition, he yet walked in the self-same critical pathway. He took over the canon of the Church just as little as its version and its exegesis without scrutiny" ("De RoomschKatholieke en de Oud-protestansche Schriftbeschouwing," 1883, pp. 31-32). Cramer considers this critical procedure on Calvin's part inconsistent with his doctrine of the testimony of the Spirit, but (p. 38) he recognizes that we cannot speak of it as the nodding of Homer: "It is not here and there, but throughout; not in his exegetical writings alone, but in his dogmatic ones, too, that he walks in this critical path. We never find the
The same scientific spirit attended Calvin in his dealing with the text of Scripture. As a Humanist he was familiar with the processes employed in settling the texts of classical authors; and naturally he used the same methods in his determination of the text of the Biblical books.
His practice here is marked by a combination of freedom and sobriety; and his decisions, though often wrong, as they could not but be in the state of the knowledge of the transmission of the New Testament text at the time, always manifest good sense, balance, and trained judgment. In his remarks on the pericope of the adulteress (John viii. 1-11), we meet the same circle of ideas with which we are familiar from his remarks on the Antilegomena: "because it has always been received by the Latin Churches and is found in many of the Greek copies and old writers, and contains nothing which would be unworthy of an apostolical spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to take our profit from it."29 He accepts the three-witness passage of I John v. 7.
"Since the Greek codices do not agree with themselves," he says, "I scarcely dare reach a conclusion. Yet, as the context flows most smoothly if this clause is added, and I see that it stands in the best codices and those of the most approved credit, I also willingly adopt it." 30
When puzzled by difficulties, he, quite like the Humanist dealing with a classical text, feels free to suggest that there may be a "mendum in voce." This he does, for example, in Mat. xxiii. 35, where he adduces this possibility among others; and still more instructively in Mat. xxvii. 9, where he just as simply assumes "Jeremiah" to be a corrupt reading31 as his own editors assume that the "Apius" which occurs in the French version of the "Institutes" in connection with Josephus is due to a slip of his translators, not of his own—remarking: "It is evident that it cannot be Calvin who translated this passage."32 His assurance that it cannot be the Biblical writer who stumbles leads him similarly to attribute what seems to him a manifest error to the copyists. It is only, however, in such passages as these that he engages formally in textual emendation. Ordinarily he simply follows the current text, although he is, of course, not without an intelligent ground for his confidence in it.33 As we cursorily read his commentaries we feel ourselves in the hands of one who is sanely and sagely scrutinizing the text with which he is dealing from the point of view of a scholar accustomed to deal with ancient texts, whose confidence in its general integrity represents the well-grounded conclusion of a trained judgment. His occasional remarks on the text, and his rare suggestion of a corruption, are indicia of the alertness of his general scrutiny of the text and serve to assure us that his acceptance of it as a whole as sound is not merely inert acquiescence in tradition, but represents the calm judgment of an instructed intelligence.
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE
Now, these sixty-six books of canonical Scriptures handed down to us, in the singular providence of God,34 in a sound text which meets the test of critical scrutiny, Calvin held to be faintest trace of hesitation."
29 Comment on John viii. 1 (Meyrueis' ed. of the Commentaries, ii. 1854, p. 169).
30 Comment on I John v. 7 (Meyrueis' ed. of the Commentaries, iv. 1855, p. 682).
31 Quomodo Jeremiae nomen obrepserit, me nescire fateor, nee anxie laboro; certe Jeremiae nomen errore positum esse pro Zacharia rea ipsa ostendit; quia nihil tale apud Jeremiam legitur (Opera, xlv. 749).
32 Opera, iii. 100, note 3.
33 Cf. J. Cramer, as cited, pp. l1f-117: "Calvin does not largely busy himself with textual criticism. He follows the text which was generally received in his day. It deserves notice only that he exercises a free and independent judgment and recognizes the rights of science." Cramer adduces his treatment of I John v. 7 and proceeds: "He comes forward on scientific grounds against the Vulgate. The decree of Trent that this version must be followed as 'authentical,' he finds silly; and reverence for it as if it had fallen down from heaven, ludicrous. 'How can anyone dispute the right to appeal to the original text? And what a bad version this is! There are scarcely three verses in any page well rendered' (Acta Synod. Trident., etc., pp. 414-116)."
34 "Institutes," I. viii. 10. Cf. I. vi. 2-3.
the very Word of God. This assertion he intended in its simplest and most literal sense. He was far from overlooking the fact that the Scriptures were written by human hands: he expressly declares that, though we have received them from God's own mouth, we have nevertheless received them "through the ministry of men."35 But he was equally far from conceiving that the relation of their human authors to their divine author resembled in any degree that of free intermediaries, who, after receiving the divine word, could do with it what they listed.36 On the contrary, he thought of them rather as notaries (IV. viii. 9), who set down in authentic registers
(I. vi. 3) what was dictated to them (Argumentum in Ev. Joh.).37 They wrote, therefore, merely as the organs of the Holy Ghost, and did not speak ex suo sensu, not humano impulsu, not sponte sua, not arbitrio suo, but set out only quae coelitus mandata fuerant.38 The diversity of the human authors thus disappears for Calvin before the unity of the Spirit, the sole responsible author of Scripture, which is to him therefore not the verba Dei, but emphatically the verbum
Dei.39 It is a Deo ("Institutes," I. vii. 5); it has "come down to us from the very mouth of God " (I. vii. 5);40 it has " come down from heaven as if the living words of God themselves were heard in it" (I. vii. 1);41 and "we owe it therefore the same reverence which we owe to God Himself, since it has proceeded from Him alone, and there is nothing human mixed with it" (Com. on II Tim. iii.
16).42 According to this declaration the Scriptures are altogether divine, and in them, as he puts it energetically in another place, "it is God who speaks with us and not mortal men " (Com. on II Pet. i. 20).43 Accordingly, he cites Scripture everywhere not as the word of man but as the pure word of God. His "holy word" is "the scepter of God"; every statement in which is "a heavenly oracle" which "cannot fail" (Dedicatory Epistle to the "Institutes," Opp. ii. 12): in it God "opens
His own sacred mouth" to add His direct word to the voice of His mute creatures (I. vi. 1). To say
"Scripture says" and to say "the Holy Ghost says" is all one. We contradict the Holy Spirit, says
35 I. vii. 5, ad init.: "We have received it from God's own mouth by the ministry of men."
36 It is quite common to represent Calvin as without a theory, at least an expressed theory, of the relation of the divine and human authors of Scripture. Thus J. Cramer, as cited, p. 103, says: "How we are to understand the relation of the divine and human activities through which the Scriptures were produced is not exactly defined by Calvin. A precise theory of inspiration such as we meet with in the later dogmaticians is not found in him."
Cramer is only sure that Calvin did not hold to the theory which later Protestants upheld: "It is true that Calvin gave the impulse [from which the later dogmatic view of Scripture grew up], more than any other of the Reformers. But we must not forget that here we can speak of nothing more than the impulse. We nowhere find in Calvin such a magical conception of the Bible as we find in the later dogmaticians. It is true he used the term
'dictare' and other expressions which he employs under the influence of the terminology of his day, but on the other hand—in how many respects does he recognize the human factor in the Scriptures!" (p. 142). Similarly
Pannier, as cited, p. 200: "In any case Calvin has not written a single word which can be appealed to in favor of literal inspiration. What is divine for him, if there is anything specifically divine beyond the contents, the brightness of which is reflected upon the container, is the sense of each book, or at most of each phrase,—never the employment of each word. Calvin would have deplored the petty dogmatics of the Consensus Helveticus, which declares the vowel points of the Hebrew text inspired, and the exaggerations of the theopneusty of the nineteenth century." Yet nothing is more certain than that Calvin held both to "verbal inspiration" and to "the inerrancy of Scripture," however he may have conceived the action of God which secured these things.
37 Cf. Otto Ritschl, "Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus," 1908, i. p. 63: "If we may still entertain doubts whether Bullinger really defended the stricter doctrine of inspiration, it certainly is found in Calvin after 1543.
He may have merely taken over from Butzer the expression Spiritus Sancti amanuenses; but it is peculiar to him that he conceives both the books of the Old Testament inclusively as contained in the historical enumerations, and those of the New Testament, as arising out of a verbal dictation of the Holy Spirit."
38 These phrases are brought together by J. Cramer (as cited, pp. 102-3) from the Comments on II Tim. iii. 16 and II Pet. i. 20.
39 Cf. Pannier, as cited, p. 203: "The Word of God is for him one, verbum Dei, and not verba Dei. The diversity of authors disappears before the unity of the Spirit."
40 Ab ipsissimo Dei ore ad nos fluxisse.
41 E coelo fluxisse acsi vivae ipsae Dei voces illic exaudirentur.
42 Hoc prius est membrum, eandem scripturae reverentiam deberi quam Deo deferimus, quia ad eo solo manavit, nee quidquam humani habet admistum.
43 Justa reverentia inde nascitur, quum statuimus, Deum nobiscum loqui, non homines mortales.
Calvin—meaning the Scriptures—when we deny to Christ the name of Jehovah or anything which belongs to the majesty of Jehovah (I. xiii. 23). "The Holy Spirit pronounces," says he, . . . "Paul declares . . . the Scripture condemns . . . wherefore it is not surprising if the Holy
Spirit reject"—all in one running context, meaning ever the same thing (I. v. 13): just as in another context he uses interchangeably the "commandments of Christ" and the "authority of Scripture" of the same thing (Dedicatory Letter).
It may be that Calvin has nowhere given us a detailed discussion of the mode of the divine operation in giving the Scriptures. He is sure that they owe their origin to the divine gift (I. vi. 1,
2, 3) and that God has so given them that they are emphatically His word, as truly as if we were listening to His living voice speaking from heaven (I. vii. 1): and, as we have seen, he is somewhat addicted to the use of language which, strictly taken, would imply that the mode of their gift was "dictation." The Scriptures are "public records" (I. vi. 2), their human authors have acted as "notaries" (IV. viii. 9), who have set down nothing of their own, but only what has been dictated to them, so that there appears no admixture of what is human in their product (on II Tim. iii. 16).44 It is not unfair to urge, however, that this language is figurative; and that what
44 The account of Calvin's doctrine of inspiration given by E. Rabaud, "Histoire de la doctrine de l'inspiration . . . dans les pays de langue française," 1883, pp. 52 sq., is worth comparing. Calvin's thought on this subject, he tells us, was more precise and compact than that of the other Reformers, although even his conception of inspiration was far from possessing perfectly firm contours or supplying the elements of a really systematic view (p. 52). He was the first, nevertheless, to give the subject of Sacred Scripture a fundamental, theoretic treatment, led thereto not by the pressure of controversy, but by the logic of his systematic thought: for his doctrine of inspiration (not yet distinguished from revelation) is one of the essential bases, if not the very point of departure of his dogmatics (p. 55). To him "the Bible is manifestly the word of God, in which He reveals Himself to men," and as such "proceeds from God." "But " (pp. 56 sq.) "the action of God does not, in Calvin's view, transform the sacred authors into machines. Jewish verbalism, Scriptural materialism, may be present in germ in the ideas of the Institutes—and the cold intellects of certain doctors of the Protestant scholasticism of the next century developed them—but they are very remote from the thought of the Reformer. Chosen and ordained by God, the Biblical writers were subject to a higher impulse; they received a divine illumination which increased the energy of their natural faculties; they understood the Revelation better and transmitted it more faithfully. It was scarcely requisite for this, however, that they should be passive instruments, simple secretaries, pens moved by the Holy Spirit. Appointed but intelligent organs of the divine thought, far from being subject to a dictation, in complete obedience to the immediate will of God, they acted under the impulsion of a personal faith which God communicated to them. 'Now, whether God was manifested to men by visions or oracles, what is called celestial witnesses, or ordained men as His ministers who taught their successors by tradition, it is in every case certain that He impressed on their hearts such a certitude of the doctrine, that they were persuaded and convinced that what had been revealed and preached to them proceeded from the true God: for He always ratified His word so as to secure for it a credit above all human opinion. Finally, that the truth might uninterruptedly remain continually in vigor from age to age, and be known in the world, He willed that the revelations which He had committed to the hands of the Fathers as a deposit, should be put on record: and it was with this design that He had the Law published, to which He afterwards added the Prophets as its expositors' (Institutes, I. vi. 2). These few lines resume in summary form the very substance of Calvin's doctrine of inspiration. We may conclude from it that he did not give himself to the elaboration of this dogma, with the tenacity and logical rigor which his clear and above all practical genius employed in the study and systematization of other points of the new doctrine.
We shall seek in vain a precise declaration on the mode of revelation, on the extent and intensity of inspiration, on the relation of the book and the doctrine. None of these questions, as we have already had occasion to remark, had as yet been raised: the doctors gave themselves to what was urgent and did not undertake to prove or discuss what was not yet either under discussion or attacked. The principle which was laid down sufficed them. God had spoken—this was the faith which every consciousness of the time received without repugnance, and against which no mind raised an objection. To search out how He did it was wholly useless: to undertake to prove it, no less so" (p. 58). There is evident in this passage a desire to minimize Calvin's view of the divinity of Scripture; the use of the passage from I. vi. 2 as the basis of an exposition of his doctrine of inspiration is indicative of this—whereas it obviously is a very admirable account of how God has made known His will to man and preserved the knowledge of it through time. The double currents of desire to be true to Calvin's own exposition of his doctrine and yet to withhold his imprimatur from what the author believes to be an overstrained doctrine, produces some strange confusion in his further exposition.
Calvin has in mind is not to insist that the mode of inspiration was dictation, but that the result of inspiration is as if it were by dictation, viz., the production of a pure word of God free from all human admixtures. The term "dictation" was no doubt in current use at the time to express rather the effects than the mode of inspiration.45 This being allowed, it is all the more unfair to urge that, Calvin's language being in this sense figurative, he is not to be understood as teaching that the effect of inspiration was the production of a pure word of God, free from all admixture of human error. This, on the contrary, is precisely what Calvin does teach, and that with the greatest strenuousness. He everywhere asserts that the effects of inspiration are such that God alone is the responsible author of the inspired product, that we owe the same reverence to it as to Him Himself, and should esteem the words as purely His as if we heard them proclaimed with His living voice from heaven; and that there is nothing human mixed with them. And he everywhere deals with them on that assumption. It is true that men have sought to discover in Calvin, particularly in his "Harmony of the Gospels," acknowledgments of the presence of human errors in the fabric of Scripture.46 But these attempts rest on very crass misapprehensions of Calvin's efforts precisely to show that there are no such errors in the fabric of Scripture. When he explains, for example, that the purpose "of the Evangelists"- or "of the Holy Spirit," for he significantly uses these designations as synonyms—was not to write a chronologically exact record, but to present the general essence of things, this is not to allow that the Scriptures err humanly in their record of the sequences of time, but to assert that they intend to give no sequences of time and therefore cannot err in this regard. When again he suggests that an "error" has found its way into the text of Mat. xxvii. 9 or possibly into Mat. xxiii. 35, he is not speaking of the original, but of the transmitted text;47 and it would be hard if he were not permitted to make such excursions into the region of textual criticism without laying himself open to the charge of denying his most assured conviction that nothing human is mixed with Scripture. In point of fact, Calvin not only asserts the freedom of Scripture as given by God from all error, but never in his detailed dealing with Scripture allows that such errors exist in it.48
45 Cf. J. Cramer, as cited, p. 114: "How Calvin conceives of this dictare by the Holy Ghost it is difficult to say. He borrowed it from the current ecclesiastical usage, which employed it of the auctor primarius of Scripture, as indeed also of tradition. Thus the Council of Trent uses the expression dictante Spiritu Sancto of the unwritten tradition inspired by the Holy Spirit." Otto Ritschl, "Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus," i. 1908, p. 59, argues for taking the term strictly in Calvin. It is employed, it is true, in contemporary usage in the figurative sense, of the deliverances of the natural conscience, for example; and some Reformed writers use it of the internal testimony of the Spirit. Calvin also himself speaks as if he employed it of Scripture only figuratively— e.g. Opp. i. 632: verba quodammodo dictante Christi Spiritu. Nevertheless, on the whole Ritachl thinks he meant it in the literal sense.
46 Cf., e.g., J. Cramer, as cited, pp. 114-116, whose instances are followed in the remarks which succeed. Cf. also p.
125. How widespread this effort to discover in Calvin some acknowledgment of errors in Scripture has become may be seen by consulting the citations made by Dunlop Moore, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, 1893, p. 60: he cites Cremer, van Oosterzee, Farrar. Cf. even A. H. Strong, "Syst. Theol.," ed. 1907, vol. i. p. 217, whose list of "theological writers who admit the errancy of Scripture writers as to some matters unessential to their moral and spiritual teaching" requires drastic revision. Leipoldt ("Geschichte des N. T. Kanons," ii. 1908, p. 149) says: "Fundamentally Calvin holds fast to the old doctrine of verbal inspiration. His sound historical sense leads him, here and there, it is true, to break through the bonds of this doctrine. In his harmony of the Gospels
(Commentarii in harmoniam ex Mat., Mk., et Lk. compositam, 1555), e.g., Calvin shows that the letters are not sacred to him; he moves much more freely here than Martin Chemnitz. But in other cases again Calvin draws strict consequences from the doctrine of verbal inspiration. He ascribes, e.g., to all four Gospels precisely similar authority, although he (with Luther and Zwingli) considers John's Gospel the most beautiful of them all.
47 This is solidly shown, e.g., by Dunlop Moore, as cited, pp. 61-62: also for Acts vii. 16.
48 Despite his tendency to lower Calvin's doctrine of inspiration with respect to its effects, J. Cramer in the following passage (as cited, pp. 120-121) gives in general a very fair statement of it: "we have seen that Calvin, although he has not given us a completed theory of inspiration, yet firmly believed in the inspiration of the entirety of Scripture. It is true we do not find in him the crass expressions of the later Reformed, as well as Lutheran, theologians. But the foundation on which they subsequently built—though somewhat onesidedly—is
If we ask for the ground on which he asserts this high doctrine of inspiration, we do not see that any other reply can be given than that it was on the ground of the teaching of Scripture itself. The Scriptures were understood by Calvin to claim to be in this high sense the word of God; and a critical scrutiny of their contents brought to him nothing which seemed to him to negative this claim. There were other grounds on which he might and did base a firm confidence in the divine origin of the Scriptures and the trustworthiness of their teaching as a revelation from God. But there were no other grounds on which he could or did rest his conviction that these Scriptures are so from God that there is nothing human mixed with them, and their every affirmation is to be received with the deference which is due to the living voice of God speaking from heaven. On these other grounds Calvin was led to trust the teaching of the Scriptures as a divine revelation: and he therefore naturally trusted their teaching as to their own nature and inspiration.
Such, then, are the Scriptures as conceived by Calvin: sixty-six sacred books, "dictated" by God to His "notaries" that they might, in this "public record," stand as a perpetual special revelation of Himself to His people, to supplement or to supersede in their case the general revelation which He gives of Himself in His works and deeds, but which is rendered ineffective by the sin-bred disabilities of the human soul. For this, according to Calvin, is the account to give of the origin of Scripture, and this the account to give of the function it serves in the world.
It was because man in his sinful imbecility was unable to profit by the general revelation which God has spread before all eyes, so that they are all without excuse (I. vi. 1), that God in His goodness gave to "those whom He intended to unite in a more close and familiar connection with Himself," a special revelation in open speech (I. vi. 1). And it was because of the mutability of the human mind, prone to errors of all kinds, corrupting the truth, that He committed this
His special revelation to writing, that it might never be inaccessible to "those to whom He determined to make His instructions effectual" (I. vi. 3). In Calvin's view, therefore, the Scriptures are a documentation of God's special revelation of Himself unto salvation (I. vi. 1, ad init.); but a documentation cared for by God Himself, so that they are, in fine, themselves the special revelation of God unto salvation in documentary form (I. vi. 2, 3). The necessity for the revelation documented in them arises from the blindness of men in their sin: the necessity for the documentation of this revelation arises from the instability of men, even when taught of God. We must conceive of special revelation, and of the Scriptures as just its documentation, therefore, as not precisely a cure, but rather an assistance to man dulled in his sight so as not to be able to perceive God in His general revelation. "For," says Calvin, "as persons who are old, or here. We cannot infer much from such expressions as 'from God,' 'came from God,' 'flowed from God.' Just as in Zwingli, these expressions were sometimes in Calvin synonyms of 'true.' Thus, at Titus ii. 12, he says he cannot understand why so many are unwilling to draw upon profane writers,—'for, since all truth is from God (a Deo), if anything has been said well and truly by profane men, it ought not to be rejected, for it has come from God (a Deo est profectum).' More significant are such expressions as, 'nothing human is mixed with Scripture,' 'we owe to them the same reverence as to God,' God 'is the author of Scripture' and as such has 'dictated' (dictavit) all that the Apostles and Prophets have written, so that we 'must not depart from the word of God in even the smallest particular,' etc. All this applies not only to the Scriptures as a whole, not merely to their fundamental ideas and chief contents, but to all the sixty-six books severally. In contra-distinction from the Apocrypha, they have been given by the Holy Spirit (Préface mise en tête des livres apocryphes de l'Ancien Test.: Opp. ix. 827).
The book of Acts 'beyond question is the product of the Holy Spirit Himself,' Mark 'wrote nothing but what the Holy Spirit gave him to write,' etc. To think here merely of a providential direction by God, in the sense that God took care that His people should lack nothing of a Scriptural record of His revelation—is impossible. For, however often Calvin may have directed attention to such a 'singularis providentiae cura' (Inst., I. vi. 2, cf. I. viii.
10; Argumentum in Ev. Joh.) with respect to Scripture, he yet saw something over and above this in the production of the sacred books. He looked upon them as the writings of God Himself, who, through an extraordinary operation of His Spirit, guarded His amanuenses from all error as well when they transmitted histories as when they propounded the doctrine of Christ. Thus to him Scripture (naturally in its original text) was a complete work of God, to which nothing could be added and from which nothing could be taken away."
whose eyes have somehow become dim, if you show them the most beautiful book, though they perceive that something is written there, can scarcely read two words together, yet by the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly—so the Scripture . . ." etc. (I. vi. 1). The function of Scripture thus, as special revelation documented, is to serve as spiritual spectacles to enable those of dulled spiritual sight to see God.
Of course, the Scriptures do more than this. They not only reveal the God of Nature more brightly to the sin-darkened eye; they reveal also the God of Grace, who may not be found in nature. Calvin does not overlook this wider revelation embodied in them: he particularly adverts to it (I. vi. 1). But he turns from it for the moment as less directly germane to his present object, which is to show that without the "spectacles" of Scripture, sinful man would not be able to attain to a sound knowledge of even God the Creator. It is on this, therefore, that he now insists.
It was only because God revealed Himself in this special, supernatural way to them, that our first fathers—"Adam, Noah, Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs"—were able to retain Him in their knowledge (I. vi. 1). It was only through this special revelation, whether renewed to them by God, or handed down in tradition, "by the ministry of men," that their posterity continued in the knowledge of God (I. vi. 2). "At length, that the truth might remain in the world in a continual course of instruction to all ages, God determined that the same oracles which He deposited with the patriarchs, should be committed to public records"—first the Law, then the Prophets, and then the books of the New Covenant (I. vi. 2). It is now, therefore, only through these Scriptures that man can attain to a true knowledge of God. The revelation of God in His works is not useless: it makes all men without excuse; it provides an additional though lower and less certain revelation of God to His people—to a consideration of which all should seriously apply themselves, though they should principally attend to the Word (I. vi. 2). But experience shows that without the Word the sinful human mind is too weak to reach a sound knowledge of God, and therefore without it men wander in vanity and error. Calvin seems to speak sometimes almost as if the Scriptures, that is special revelation, wholly superseded general revelation (I. v.
12, ad fin.; vi. 2, ad fin.; 4, ad fin.). More closely scrutinized, it becomes evident, however, that he means only that in the absence of Scripture, that is of special revelation, the general revelation of God is ineffective to preserve any sound knowledge of Him in the world: but in the presence of Scripture, general revelation is not set aside, but rather brought back to its proper validity. The real relation between general and special revelation, as the matter lay in Calvin's mind, thus proves to be, not that the one supersedes the other, but that special revelation supplements general revelation indeed, but in the first instance rather repeats and by repeating vivifies and vitalizes general revelation, and flows confluently in with it to the one end of both, the knowledge of God (I. vi. 2). What special revelation is, therefore—and the Scriptures as its documentation—is very precisely represented by the figure of the spectacles. It is aid to the dulled vision of sinful man, to enable it to see God.
The question forcibly presents itself, however, whether "spectacles" will serve the purpose here. Has not Calvin painted the sin-bred blindness of men too blackly to encourage us to think it can be corrected by such an aid to any remainders of natural vision which may be accredited to them? The answer must be in the affirmative. But this only opens the way to point out that Calvin does not present special revelation, or the Scriptures as special revelation documented, as the entire cure, but places by the side of it the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. Special revelation, or Scripture as its documented form, provides in point of fact, in the view of Calvin, only the objective side of the cure he finds has been provided by God. The subjective side is provided by the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The spectacles are provided by the Scriptures: the eyes are opened that they may see even through these spectacles, only by the witness of the Spirit in the heart. We perceive, then, that in Calvin's view the figure of the spectacles is a perfectly just one.