Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 French Edition: The First English Version
Overview
John Calvin originally wrote his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion in Latin. Beginning with the second edition of his work published in 1541, Calvin translated each new version into French, simultaneously adapting the text to suit lay audiences, shaping it subtly but clearly to teach, exhort, and encourage them. Besides reflecting a more pastoral bent on Calvin’s part, this 1541 Institutes is also notable as one of the founding documents of the modern French language.
Elsie Anne McKee’s masterful translation of the 1541 French Edition—the first-ever English version—offers full access to the brilliant mind of John Calvin as he considered what common Christian people should all know and practice.
Top Highlights
“We cannot ardently desire God before we have begun to be completely dissatisfied with ourselves” (Page 23)
“I believe that I have also sufficiently discussed what faith is and what graces of God it communicates to people and what fruit it produces in them. Now the summary was that by faith we receive and possess Jesus Christ as He is presented to us by God’s goodness, and that in participating in Him we have a double grace.” (Page 318)
“It is an external sign by which our Lord represents and testifies His good will toward us to support and confirm the weakness of our faith.” (Page 495)
“Finally, our faith also receives this comfort from baptism: not only does it certify to us that we are engrafted into the death and the life of Jesus Christ, but also we are so united to Him that He makes us participants of all His goods.” (Page 512)
“For this reason, when the Lord exhorts the Jewish people to repentance, He does not command those who had been circumcised by the hands of sinners and sacrilegious people, and had also lived for some time in the same impiety, to be circumcised again; but He requires only conversion of the heart. For even though His covenant had been violated by them, nevertheless the sign of the covenant as He had instituted it remained always firm and inviolable. So He received them on this condition alone: that they turn back to improvement, and He confirmed to them the covenant which He had once made with them by circumcision, although it had been offered to them by wicked priests and it had been broken by their own iniquity.” (Pages 518–519)
- Title: Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition
- Author: John Calvin
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Print Publication Date: 2009
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Era: era:reformation
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Reformed Church › Doctrines--Early works to 1800; Theology, doctrinal › Early works to 1800
- ISBNs: 9780802807748, 9780567054913, 9780664241568, 9780801025242, 9780802820549, 9781598561685, 0802807747, 0567054918, 0664241565, 0801025249, 0802820549, 1598561685
- Resource ID: LLS:NSTTTS1541FRDTN
- Resource Type: Systematic Theology
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:55:13Z
John Calvin (1509–1564), one of the most important thinkers in church history, was a prominent French theologian during the Protestant Reformation and the father of Calvinism. His theological works, biblical commentaries, tracts, treatises, sermons, and letters helped establish the Reformation throughout Europe.
Calvinism has spawned movements and sparked controversy throughout the centuries. Calvin began his work in the church at the age of 12, intending to train for the priesthood. Calvin attended the Collège de la Marche in Paris at 14, before studying law at the University of Orléans and continuing his studies at the University of Bourges.
In 1532, Calvin’s first published work appeared: a commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia. The controversy of calling for reform in the Catholic Church disciplined Calvin in his writing project, and he began working on the first edition of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, which appeared in 1536. Calvin’s Commentaries and The Letters of John Calvin are also influential; both appear in the Calvin 500 Collection.