Why You Should Study Languages

An addendum to my citation of Calvin on 1 Cor. 5:7 the other day:

There was a sentence in that selection that liked me not, as Bill S. might say. That sentence is the following:

“Now there is no reconciliation without a sacrifice; and, besides, the Apostle now expressly confirms it, for he makes use of the word θύεσθαι, which is applicable to sacrifices, and in other respects, too, the context would not correspond.”

I puzzled over the bolded part of the sentence in order to unravel how I was to interpret it. No dice.

So I went and had a look at the original, and, sure enough, the bolded words had been mistranslated.

Non est autem reconciliatio absque sacrificio. Deinde id palam nunc apostolus confirmat: nam verbo θύεσθαι utitur, quod sacrificiis aptum est: nec aliter staret eius contextus.

One might translate instead:

There is, however, no reconciliation apart from sacrifice. Next, the Apostle now openly confirms it: for he uses the word θύεσθαι, which is [a term] employed in reference to sacrifices; its connection [with the paschal lamb] would not hold good in a different way [from its normal usage].¹

You may not have had time to learn Latin; you may have frittered away the time you did have. But don’t despair–you can fix it!

1. I.e., the term is a term of sacrifice; it would not be used of sacrifice as its regular frame of reference everywhere else, but used in an entirely different way in this passage.