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BRIEF, NOTICES John Calvin on the Christian Faith. Edited by J'. T. McNEIL. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 195--7. Pp. ~53. $.95, paper. The solicitude for a "return to the sources" is a fact of our century. This preoccupation is verified in various spheres: in the studies of Catholic and non-Catholic theologians, but particularly in the work of those Christian churchmen who are engaged in the "ecumenical question." In this last field the word "sources" has a special nuance, namely, those works which are the signposts of division, the landmarks from which two or more paths of theological thought and religious experience take their origin. The writings of John Calvin are, in this sense, "sources" par excellence. Among all the figures of the period of the Reformation-one of the two grand historical moments of dissidence-Calvin stands out as the author of a theological system without equal for'its consistency. For this reason, and also because of the profound influence Calvin has had even upon numerous Protestant confessions not in direct line with his system, the ensemble of his writings is important at the present time. This is especially true of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, hi~ principal work. In the introduction to this small volume the editor includes a short resume of Calvin's life and of the evolution of the Institutes, from the first edition of 1536, to the final redaction of 1559. The bulk of the translated texts (U6 pp.), chosen from writings which fill fifty-nine volumes of the series Corpus Reformatorum, are from the Institutes themselves. The selections from the biblical commentaries are but samples of Calvin's manner of exposing the Sc~iptures, while the letter addressed to Cardinal Sadolet is an example of the sharp and sometimes brutal polemic of the sixteenth century. If one were to set the limits of Calvin's worth, this polemicism (common, however, to all his contemporaries, with scarcely an exception) is the negative pole, the positive being his otherwise dear expression of the primitive reformed doctrines, namely, the exclusive authority of the Scriptures confirmed by the immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost, an ecclesiology based upon invisible election, a sacramental theology in which the two sacraments become signs confirming to the heart of the believer the divine promises made in the gospeL The selected bibliography of Calvin's works (p. xxxi) makes mention of the recent edition of Peter Barth, but lacks any reference to the Corpus Reformatontm. Since the book is designed for those who are getting 429 430 BRIEF NOTICES acquainted with Calvin, it would have been well to include the data concerning this most basic complete collection. The editor has improved considerably those selections which were taken from the Institutes (translation of John Allen, seventh edition) by identifying the patristic citations made by Calvin (where possible), entirely absent in the translation employed. Calvin's doctrine of the Holy Scriptures is surely first in importance, both because of its b~sic character and because of its adoption by nearly all Protestant confessions. The editor is correct in placing the Calvinist concept of a double predestination in the background. It is wrong to isolate this erroneous doctrine from the ensemble of Calvin's thought and to make it the hub around which turns his whole system. The excerpts from the Institutes verify this. In contrast to the methodical approach of the Institutes the tiny morsels of exegesis show a different trait of Calvin's spiritual physiognomy. Particularly in the paragraphs taken from the commentaries on the Psalms, one notes a certain tenderness foreign to the usual description of his character . These pages also show us Calvin, the independent humanist, going to the original text, forging an interpretation from that datum, and ready to make a trenchant criticism of a previous tradition based on a defective rendition. The letter to Sadolet reveals, .finally, the Calvin of bitter coi).troversy. The Catholic reader finds here misunderstandings with regard to the Church which have been propagated right up to our time, and which constitute one of the principal obstacles to an effective, fruitful ecumenical dialogue. It is well that such misunderstandings be brought out into...

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