2007-03-14T20:11:00.007Z

WITH DAVID WRIGHT'S PASSING, I HAD CEASED FROM WORKING ON THIS SITE. BUT I WILL BEGIN WORK ON IT AGAIN AFTER SUMMER HOLIDAYS, ROUGHLY IN OCTOBER 2009. THANK YOU FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS VISITED THUS FAR AND SENT E-MAILS; I WILL RESPOND TO THEM. JON BALSERAK

Ford Lewis Battles’ translation of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (2 vols; Library of Christian Classics 20-21; London, SCM Press, and Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1960) has become virtually the standard one in general use, and unlikely to be superseded in a hurry. Yet it is far from perfect. The aim of this web-site is to collect and list errors in Battles’ translation, for the benefit of users (and perhaps in the longer term as one preparation for a revised Battles).

Contributions are invited, and should be submitted to Dr Jon Balserak (Bristol) or leave your comments below. A few simple guidelines will be helpful.

*This exercise relates only to the text, including Calvin’s opening address to the reader and his preface, and not to the annotations.

* Errors should be clearly identified by a reference to Battles – always page number (and preferably line number also) and book/chapter/section (e.g. Inst. 3:6:10). The identification must enable Balserak to track the Latin source in the Opera Selecta or Calvini Opera, if contributors cannot provide this.

* Balserak will receive all submissions and add them to the web-site according to their order in the Institutes in a uniform style.

*We retain a modicum of editorial discretion in cases which may reflect matters more of interpretation than translation.

*We are open to refining these guidelines in response to suggestions.

2007-03-10T11:05:00.000Z

CURRENT LIST OF CORRECTIONS TO FORD LEWIS BATTLES'
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF CALVIN'S INSTITUTES (last updated 22 June 2007)

Section headings: users of Battles’ translations should be aware that the section headings are his work and do not derive from Calvin’s text. For example, Battles 464: the title to Book 2, chapter 12 is Calvin’s own, but not the summary of sections 1-3 in italics in brackets nor the heading for section 1, similarly in italics.

Lectori; Battles, 5; OS III, 6, 30-31: instead of Battles’ ‘approach Scripture’ T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s NT Commentaries, 53, proposes ‘approaches the commentaries’, which the context undoubtedly confirms. The Latin has no object to the verb accedat.

Lectori; Battles, 5; OS III, 6, 32: huius instituti should be ‘intention’ or ‘aim’, not ‘instruction’ (Parker, ibid.).

2:14:1; Battles, 482; OS III, 458, 18-19: e Virginis utero templum sibi delegit should be ‘he chose for himself from the Virgin’s womb a temple’

3:3:1; Battles, 593; OS IV, 55, 16: continuo means ‘immediately, promptly’, not ‘constantly’

3:3:19; Battles, 614; OS IV, 77, 15. Battles’ ‘both kinds of grace’ too loosely translates utraque gratia, which carries no implication of different kinds. In the context, ‘each grace’ would sufficiently point to the ‘each of two’ which utraque conveys. An earlier translator (Beveridge) gives ‘both graces’. See also on 3:11:1.

3:11:1; Battles, 725; OS IV, 182, 9. Battles seems to avoid the clear meaning of the Latin in writing ‘the second of these gifts’. It should be simply ‘the second grace’ (quae secunda est gratia). Earlier in this section Battles rightly translates Calvin’s duplicem gratiam as ‘a double grace’ – although most Calvin scholars prefer ‘twofold grace’. See also on 3:3:19.

3:11:6; Battles, 732; OS IV, 187, 21-22: percipimus – ‘receive’, not ‘perceive’

3:20:37; Battles, 900; OS IV, 347, 10-12: Battles omits a negative here, and should read ‘his father’s heart cannot pretend not to be moved by such entreaties’ (non enim tum se paterna viscera dissimulare possunt quin ad tales preces commoveantur)

4:8:16; Battles, 1165; OS V, 150, 18-21: Battles misconstrues the construction of the sentence beginning Nemo excepit….By omitting his ‘to the notion’ one gets it more or less right: ‘No one objected that the church could add something of its own, that the Spirit had not revealed everything to the apostles, or at least had not transmitted everything to posterity.’ The rendering of the third clause varies among translators, since some (e.g. Beveridge, Allen) assume that ‘the apostles’ must be the subject of prodidisse (‘or at least that the apostles had not transmitted everything to posterity’), but this assumption seems quite insecure.

4:15:22; Battles, 1323; OS V, 303, 19-20: Accedit postea sacramentum sigilli instar should be rendered ‘There is added afterward a/the sacrament like a seal’ (Battles: ‘a sort of seal is added to the sacrament’)

4:16 title; Battles, 1324; OS V, 303, 32-33: optime is probably not so much ‘best’ as ‘very well’, since both comparatives and superlatives were widely used to express emphasis ( and of what could infant baptism be said strictly to be ‘best’?)

4:16:1; Battles, 1324; OS V, 304, 8: Battles omits to translate non parum habitura sit momenti: ‘so to organize this discourse that it will have no little importance for explaining the mystery of baptism more clearly’ [perhaps clarius better ‘very clearly, really clearly’, without strict comparative force]

4:16:5; Battles, 1328; OS V, 309, 9-10: ad infantes destinetur Baptismi verbum, not simplistically ‘the word “baptism”’, but ‘the word of baptism’ in the sense of ‘the promise, meaning, substance of baptism’

4:16:20; Battles, 1343; OS V, 324, 33: ‘regeneration’ instead of ‘resignation’

4:16:27; Battles, 1350; OS V, 332, 8-11: Battles’ translation is at best ambiguous: ‘For they make more than a merely childish error when from these passages [i.e. Matt. 28.19, Mark 16.16, Matt. 3.13, Luke 3:21-22] they derive the first institution of baptism which [quem, i.e. baptism] from the beginning of his preaching ….’

4:17: 10; Battles, 1370-71; OS V, 352: in this section Battles translates three times the verb exhibeo and once the noun exhibitio by ‘show, showing’. Without entering into debates about Calvin’s theology of the supper, we can all agree that ‘show’ is an inadequate rendering of exhibeo.

Corrections to Battles' translation of Calvin's Institutes