Page:Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1.djvu/23

Rh bility of their argument to an unauthorised substitution. For the me, in the above sentence they substitute "Joannem Calvinum," and then interpret as if they stood, "nobody there knew that John Calvin was the author." As already ex plained, the two sentences have very different meanings; and it is only by means of the latter, which is altogether unau thorised, that the argument in favour of an earlier first edition is made to assume any semblance of plausibility.

But grant that the word "me" and "Joannem Calvinum," are in the sense here intended, convertible terms, and that Calvin really meant to state that there was nothing on the title-page of the First Edition which disclosed the fact that he was the author, to what does it amount? Certainly not to a proof of what has already been shown to be scarcely within the limits of possibility—the existence of an edition of the Institutes antecedent to that of 1536. Almost any supposition is more plausible than this; and, therefore, before adopting it, it would even require to be considered whether there may not be some ground for the idea suggested by Clement, that there were two sets of title-pages to the First Edition—the one exhibiting the true name of the author, and the other anonymous, or with a fictitious name, that Calvin's own copy was of the latter description, and that he naturally supposed it to be the same with all the rest. This supposition becomes less extravagant than at first sight it may appear to be, when it is considered that the double titles conjectured for the First actually exist in the case of the Second Edition, in 1539.

Holding it incontrovertibly established that the Edition printed at Basle in 1536 is truly the first, it will now be proper to furnish such information, with regard to it, as may serve to give a tolerable idea of the original form of this celebrated