System of Sacred Theology

CHAPTER TEN. On the principle of sacred theology dependent on the first and ordered to it§1

1CHAPTER TEN On the principle of sacred theology dependent on the first and ordered to it

So far we have explained the first principle of sacred theology.

There follows that which depends on the first and is ordered to it.

By directing some believable matter to Sacred Scripture as the first principle, it makes that matter credible.

By disposing the hearer through declaration or proof, it invites him to believe.

II–IV. Church testimony pure or mixed; themes known from Scripture and nature§2

2II. And it is either the Church's testimony, or that of those who are outside the Church. III. The Church's testimony is first pure or mixed. IV. Pure is that which by the Church's voice defines the matter to be believed from the Scriptures alone. V. Mixed is that which by the Church's voice determines the matter from Scripture and nature together.

For there are certain things in theology which become known partly through Scripture, partly through nature: for example, that God is; that there is providence; that there is a magistrate; that there is marriage. Here faith can also be confirmed by natural principles, according to that saying: Turn your eyes to the birds of the sky, and consider the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:26) — of which things Paul also makes mention (Acts 14:17; Romans 1:19).

What then, you ask — are not both theological themes and arguments sought from Scripture alone? Reply: Arguments that found the Christian faith, on which we rest, are rightly drawn from Scripture alone; but illustratives, which we use and are helped by in any way — especially in refuting heresies and human additions, which we necessarily contradict — can also without inconvenience be sought from nature, right reason, and human testimonies ad hominem. See Chemnitz, Theological Commonplaces part I, on creation, chapter 3.

V–VII. This principle is proof or declaration; Damascene on the Son's generation§3

3VI. And this principle is proof or declaration. VII. Proof is that by which something is shown to be both from nature and from Scripture — thus that God is, nature as well as the free Scripture asserts (Isaiah 41:22; Psalm 19:2).

VIII. Declaration is that by which something proposed by Scripture is declared from nature. Thus Damascene declares the generation of the Son of God from nature (On the Orthodox Faith book 1, chapter 9): Just as, he says, light is always begotten from fire, and always is in it, and is by no means separated from it — in this way also the Son is begotten from the Father, and is by no means separated from him, but always is in him.

Rules 1: Mysteries from Scripture pages; analytic vs dialectic; the solid theologian§4

4IX. And here rules are to be noted. 1. The mysteries of faith are to be dug out not from nature's storehouses, but from the pages of the Scriptures — such as the most holy Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, election to salvation, redemption, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the like. For in these that saying has place: Athens has nothing in common with Jerusalem; and that of Paul (Galatians 1:15), I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood; and (2 Corinthians 10:5), we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

For we do not side with Raymond Lull and Albertinus — of whom the former strives to deduce all articles of faith, the latter all conclusions, from philosophical principles — much less with the Photinians, who seem everywhere to hold human reason in controversies of faith before Sacred Scripture, however much some try to rub this itch onto us.

For we rightly and deservedly observe the distinction of analytic and dialectic treatment: and we call analytic proof in theology the spiritual principle proper to theology, theopneuston, divinely revealed, accommodated to the demonstration or confirmation of the articles of faith in which our salvation is contained. And we judge that he alone can truly be called analytic in theology — that is, a true and solid theologian — who draws his proofs and the principles of his proofs from the clearest springs of the sacred letters, or from those things which have been demonstrated through the Sacred Scriptures, and does not allow anything alien or foreign from philosophy or human traditions or the fathers' testimonies to be mixed in, unless these entirely agree with the sacred letters or pertain to the true interpretation of Sacred Scripture — and that especially when spiritual demonstrations are needed.

Dialectic proofs: common topics, councils, common spiritual nature; two uses§5

5I add this because, when solid and firm foundations have been laid, or even when the wholly uninstructed are to be taught, Christ himself and the Apostles also employ dialectic proofs and oratorical arts — as may be seen in Andreas Hyperius of Flanders, formerly professor at Marburg, in his Theological Topics — such as: (1) topical places common to several disciplines; (2) proofs sought from the decrees and judgments of councils, from the Church's custom, from human traditions, from the opinions and sentences of the Latin as well as the Greek fathers — for the authority of all these is only probable, and rests on the authority of canonical Scripture, which the Protestants with one mouth testify and Bellarmine also somewhere does not deny; (3) proofs sought not from the proper but from the common nature of the spiritual things under discussion, which are called dialectic and logical only by analogy, even if their terms are merely spiritual.

And they are used chiefly for two causes. (1) For hearers ignorant of the divine mysteries and unskilled in Scripture's language. Thus Paul in Acts uses the authority of Aratus to refute the Stoics and Epicureans, who would not have admitted the Scriptures, just as Mohammedans do not today; likewise the poet Epimenides against the Cretans; and Menander to correct the Corinthians. Thus Christ, in teaching the people, for the most part uses common and dialectic arguments from likes and other such things customary then in Syria. This is useful for instruction. But acroamatically Christ teaches his disciples and analytically disputes against the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Satan. (2) For illustrating those things which were first demonstrated acroamatically or analytically.

Two legitimate proof-genera; analytic force; justification syllogism; progymnasmata§6

6For what is also customary in other disciplines — that sometimes dialectic syllogisms are premised to analytic ones, sometimes postponed according to the variety of controversies — nothing forbids the same in sacred theology, in which, as I said, there are two genera of legitimate proofs, just as in other disciplines too. The former contains analytic, didactic proofs, which can also be called with the Apostle merely spiritual and theological, proper, vernacular, and likewise of the Spirit and power of God — spiritual and effective demonstrations. The latter has common and dialectic proofs, which we have already briefly indicated as threefold.

But analytic proofs, which are merely spiritual, are either drawn from the written and divinely revealed Word of God — or handed down by Christ from the Father's bosom, by the prophets through whom the Lord's Spirit spoke, and by the Apostles, to whose authority, since they had a certain promise of the Holy Spirit not only in kind but also in individuals, no human authority of synods or even of fathers, Latin or Greek, is to be equated unless they speak with Scripture — or they are drawn from the proper nature of the spiritual things under discussion, which itself is gathered from the Scriptures by the benefit of analytic doctrine. The former proofs for proving the articles of faith are of all the most effective and powerful. For God is the author and fountain of all things, and truth itself. From Plato, Republic book 2, in the second formula for constituting religion: God, he says, is simple and truthful in work and words; he neither changes himself nor deceives others — neither by objects of images, nor by speeches, nor by signs sent in, nor through waking, nor in sleep. To God's truth in the Word is added omnipotence — to which two springs of certainty our Savior looked in confuting the Sadducees (Matthew 22:29).

But the later analytic proofs also have the greatest force for acquiring solid science of spiritual things, because they too are drawn from Israel's saving springs — as when one treats of original sin, faith, justification, and other spiritual things, proofs are sought from their proper nature; but they have more of art and skillful industry. For example, if someone wishes to prove analytically the Pauline saying: That those justified by faith have a pacified conscience. For one must first of all know beforehand what justification is, what faith, what peace, what conscience — which can hardly be done without analytic doctrine applied to the sacred letters. But once definitions of these extremes of the conclusion are constituted, partly perfect, partly also nominal, analytic proof becomes easy: Whoever rests on trust in divine mercy for Christ's merit has a pacified conscience. But the one justified by faith rests on trust in God's mercy for Christ's merit. Therefore the one justified by faith has a pacified conscience.

All the other proofs whose legitimate use is in our theology are only dialectic, of which we spoke a little earlier, together with their use. And although the whole of topics has much weight in theological study, yet first of all there are to be learned from the four progymnasmata set out at the end of the first book of the Topics the precepts of distinguishing things said in many ways, of finding differences, and of discerning likenesses of things — because unless ambiguities are distinguished (as the word justice, Gospel, faith, and the like) and things that are alike are separated by certain differences found (as law and gospel, active and passive righteousness, justification and regeneration, faith and good works, charity, faith and hope), doors are opened to various word-fights and dangerous disputations which Paul everywhere bids us avoid. Here also pertain Topics books 6 and 7, by whose precepts definitions constituted by others are examined — for example, whether the gospel is a sermon of repentance — and the springs and likenesses of differences are shown. From which it is clear that a double mode of treating spiritual things — acroamatic or analytic, and exoteric or dialectic — is not alien to our religion and the sacred letters, but rather is proper; and that it is most fitting for the solid — and to expose the false — theologian as such in theological treatments.

Sophists' three false proof-genera: pseudographic, sophistic, heterogeneous§7

7But sophists and false theologians, as such, use almost a threefold genus of proofs. The first is pseudographic — when for proving a spiritual theorem proofs are indeed assumed from the sacred letters, yet not true ones, either because of perverse interpretation or because of sinister application to the proposed question — of which pseudographemata countless occur among the Arians and Photinians, as also among Paracelsists and Weigelians and many Jacob-Boehmists and the like, who twist many Scripture testimonies to absurd and blasphemous opinions, as when they attack the deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the truth of the human nature assumed from the virgin Mary, the personal union, and things connected with these. This first genus is opposed to true proofs proper and vernacular to theology, because it constructs a syllogism from vernacular premises that are not true, as the philosopher speaks (Topics book 1, chapter 1).

The second is sophistic, which is opposed to dialectic and common proofs and commits some fallacy either in conjoined words, or in simple ones, or outside diction in things. The third is interposed between the two prior ones, which assumes some heterogeneous principle — alien or foreign — true indeed in its own genus, but transferred to another genus ineffective for what is proposed. Aristotle sometimes calls this logical, sometimes absurd and fictitious, forced toward the proposed question (Metaphysics book 13, chapter 7). This third genus of vicious proof was too familiar to the scholastics, who fitted philosophical principles to proving spiritual theorems, crossing from one genus into another against the analytic laws that demand kinship of all terms. The Photinians, unlearned and ignorant of analytics, abuse this when they try to destroy the eternal and hyperphysical generation of the Son of God with physical little reasonings.

Moreover, as analytic proofs beget accurate knowledge of things, so pseudographic proofs produce ignorance and a disposition — ignorance of a depraved affection contrary to solid cognition. Sophistic proofs make a show and as it were mock with certain juggling tricks. Heterogeneous foreign proofs bring forward some opinion for science. Hence blessed Luther rightly writes of Scholastic Theology that it is only opinion, or a shadowy and thin cognition of spiritual things, because it constructs spiritual theorems not from proper but from alien or diverse-genus principles.

Solving pseudographic proofs; rule 2: where reason fails, faith's edifice begins§8

8But the mode of solving pseudographic proofs is not one. For sometimes they are solved by applying a sound interpretation of the principles and showing the sinister application to the proposed question; sometimes by denial or even by opposing true principles from diverse Scripture places that agree best among themselves, and by showing the harmony and connection which, agreeably to the nature of the words and things signified, confirms the truer sentence and is destroyed and weakened by the weaker; sometimes by some limitation and distinction; sometimes even by deduction to absurdity, which rests on the negative principle of contradiction and has the greatest force for vigorously weakening such proofs and whatever conflicts with the articles of faith — as may be seen in 1 Corinthians 15, where the Apostle leads those denying the resurrection of the dead to as many absurdities as possible.

2. Where reason fails, there faith's edifice begins. Divine mysteries are not to be pried into, but to be wondered at. Hence St. Athanasius to Serapion: The knowledge of God, he says, is to be comprehended by faith, not sought out by human reason. Let faith preside; let reason sit under.

Faith forms reason under Scripture; Lesbia rule; Durandus; Richard of St Victor§9

9Note here, however: when the proper and interior truth of the mysteries brought into controversy comes to be explained by God's Word, the canon is by no means to be formed according to the natural measure of human reason and that hitherto described by the philosophers, but according to the genius and dictate of faith, which under a new light subjects reason in its mysteries to God's Word, even against blind reason's blind judgment. For example, Scripture teaches that Mary's only-begotten is God's only-begotten Son, and that this man begotten from Mary is the eternal God; likewise, that God suffered, and things like these. Which words by their native signification do not yield that sense of which reason by its natural light is capable, and which can be measured and grasped according to that norm delineated in the genera of logical predications.

Nor is it needful here that the significations of these words be turned so long by artful translations until they yield such a sense as can be comprehended by reason's natural capacity according to logical rules — because the truth of the divine mysteries and institutions exceeds the natural capacity of human reason, and does not temper itself to human wisdom and logical rules, as things and actions subject to reason are customarily disposed and treated according to logical rules. For logic is like the Lesbian rule, which ought to accommodate itself to things as they are; nor are things and their necessary and contingent connections, known by nature or divinely revealed, to be twisted to rules found by logicians from considering natural and moral things. Where therefore the truth of a statement is revealed in the Scriptures as singular and unusual, there the logician ceases; if he is a Christian he believes God revealing, and gladly confesses that his rules fail, and heartily rescinds his own decrees in God's honor.

But whatever right reason demonstrates to be alien to God's wisdom, goodness, equity, and justice — so far that it is alien even from the human — that is to be flatly rejected and spat out. Indeed whatever is absurd, false, and foolish according to right reason is absurd, false, and foolish before God and everywhere — as if someone should say that one is two, that one and two do not make three, that three are even, four odd, and that if we take equals from equals what remain are not equal, and if anything else truly implies a contradiction. For it cannot be that two contradictories are true at once. Let faith be present, and there will be no question. For to scrutinize mysteries is rashness; to believe is piety; to know is eternal blessedness.

Yet here too there is a grave stumbling-block: how does Christian faith prevail over philosophical science? Durandus says: To every knower it can be established concerning his conclusion that it is true, and that it is impossible for it to be otherwise. But concerning a conclusion deduced from principles only believed, it cannot be established for the one deducing that it is impossible for it to be otherwise, nor that it is true. For no more can be established concerning the conclusion than concerning the principles, since knowledge of conclusions depends on knowledge of principles. But we reply that God's Word is indeed the firmest principle of faith, yet one that has its own tokens which argue that the sacred Bibles are the true Word of the most true God; and although in these themselves the human mind acting in a human way now and then wavers, yet God, by illuminating it through that very Word and drawing the will into obedience, so confirms the certainty of the principle that the believer with joyful breast does not hesitate to seal it with his blood. With the principle thus established and unmoved, whatever is comprehended in it is believed with equal firmness, so that thus an infallible full assurance of both the principle and the conclusions drawn from it is given.

For if one proceeds so that to the deduction of tokens by which a persuaded man at first believes that the prophetic and Apostolic Word is the most true Word of the most true God, there is joined that Word's power and efficacy in illuminating the mind and strengthening the hearer's assent perpetually depending on the Word — then what otherwise perpetually fluctuates is set most firmly in our souls. And on this depends the conclusion of Richard of St. Victor, called a solid Doctor: As many of us as are truly faithful — that is, gifted with true faith kindled by divine illumination through the mediation of God's Word — hold nothing more certain, nothing more constant, than what we apprehend by faith. Would that the Jews would attend, would that the pagans would notice, with how great security of conscience we shall be able to approach the divine judgment. Shall we not with all confidence be able to say to God: Lord, if it is error, we have been deceived by you yourself? For these things in us have been confirmed by such great signs and wonders and such as can be done only through you, which also have been handed down to us by men of highest holiness, proved with highest and authentic attestation, you yourself cooperating, confirming the word with following signs? Note here the Lord's cooperation with God's preached Word, besides external miracles — as Christ (John 5:20) reckons the vivification which he performs through the gospel among works greater than visible signs.

Rules 4–5; IX–XII. Dependent principle public or private; social collation§10

104. Natural things are not to be confused with supernatural. Hence St. Athanasius, Disputation 2 against the Arians: What is said of men, he says, is not to be thought of God. Compare what was said at the first rule. 5. From civil government to spiritual administration the inference is weak. Hence Christ: But you not so (Luke 22:26); compare Casaubon, Exercitationes 14, disputation 5, and Exercitationes 18, chapters 11–12.

IX. Secondly, the dependent principle is public or private. X. Public is that which has been sealed by the consensus of the universal Church. XI. And it is of social collation or of faithful relation. XII. Social collation takes place either in a council or synod, or in some similar assembly, over which the Holy Spirit presides as judge in the choir of prophets and Apostles, by the written law. This is gathered from Acts 15:28; John 16:8, John 16:13; John 5:45; 2 Kings 17:20; Galatians 6:16; Matthew 10:20See Luther, Jena German volume 7, On Councils and the Church; Calvin, Institutes book 4, chapter 9, section 13; William Whitaker against Duraeus, On Councils book 4.

XIII–XIV. Faithful relation by public Church writing; private orthodox doctors§11

11XIII. Faithful relation takes place through a public writing of the Church. Here pertain the three catholic symbols — the Apostolic, Nicene, Athanasian. Then here can be referred the Augsburg Confession, the Gallican, Anglican, Helvetic confessions, the Harmony of Evangelical Confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, with similar public writings.

XIV. Private is that which some orthodox doctor has made of public right, not in the Church's public name, but in his own. Of this rank are most of the writings of Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Bullinger, Musculus, Chemnitz, Hemmingius, Martyr, Beza, Ursinus, Zanchi, Benedictus Aretius, Franciscus Junius, David Pareus, Whitaker, Perkins, Polanus, Piscator, and the like — indeed also of the ancient fathers, Latin as well as Greek.

Rules on testimony 1–4: Scripture vs Church phrase; authority ranks; Nicephorus§12

12XV. And here too rules are to be noted. 1. Between the testimony and phrases of Scripture and between the testimony and phrases of the Church one must accurately and carefully distinguish — as: the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16); and the bread is the body of Christ. The former is Scripture's phrase, the latter the Church's. Both indeed true: yet the former proper, the latter improper.

2. In public testimony, although there is one and the same truth, yet there is not always one and the same authority. For greater is the authority of the Apostolic Symbol, but lesser that of the Augsburg, Gallican, Helvetic, Belgian, Anglican confession and the like. 3. Public testimony, other things equal, is deservedly to be preferred to private. Thus the confession of the whole Church surpasses the confession of some one doctor — even if there as here there is one truth.

4. Of testimonies taken from the fathers the unique norm and touchstone is Sacred Scripture. Thus Augustine, On the Unity of the Church chapter 5: It is not to be heard in the Church, he says: I say this, you say this — but the LORD says this. Worthy of observation here too is the warning of Nicephorus Gregoras, Roman or Byzantine History book 10, page 235: Moreover, he says, it is also worth knowing that the writings of the holy fathers are not to be understood simply nor in one way. Of which some look to teaching and admonishing — are accommodated to teaching and admonishing, persons and times being considered, yet all religiously. For some contain decrees dogmatically; others praises encomiastically; others disputations combatively. Nor indeed are the ancients' disputations to be transferred elsewhere. For if someone fighting with enemies, and with whole mind intent on sword and shield, should strike down a fellow-soldier standing before his feet, neither is that to be thought a law, nor is he to be accused who did it, necessity drawing the thought from the struggle, by no means allowing that what was done should happen otherwise. Therefore neither is this to be so done, nor are praises to be used in place of laws. For art has given to those praising license to say anything. But those dogmas which they sanctioned and promulgated — in those alone it is right and safe to use them as canons and the plumbline of religion. Thus Nicephorus — which yet by our rule are always to be tested against Scripture's Lydian stone, as was demonstrated above.

Rules 5–11: explicit/implicit; heresy; doctors after Apostles; second notions§13

135. Certain things in Sacred Scripture are and are said; certain things are in it, even if they are not said. Hence Nazianzen, Theology book 5: For, he says, in Scripture some things are set down as to words and sense together; some as to sense only. 6. Mutual collation should attend that some things are contained in Scripture explicitly; but some only implicitly. 7. Testification is twofold — dogmatic, which is made concerning the heads of our faith; and historical, which is made concerning the divine books.

8. Even if some heresy has not been condemned in a public council: yet it ought to be judged and refuted from God's Word, according to that of 1 John 4:1Hence Athanasius, letter on the Synod of Ariminum: In vain, he says, those running about pretend that they demand synods for the faith, since divine Scripture is more powerful than all. 9. Carefully beware lest the conclusions of doctors after the Apostles' age rashly pass into norms of faith. For the Apostle teaches (1 Corinthians 2:4) often that my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power or virtue — that is, confirmed (1) by testimonies already long ago brought forth by the Spirit and power of God (2 Peter 1:20-2 Peter 1:21); (2) peculiarly then also by the visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and by various miracles of divine power — all of which he opposes to the demonstrations of human philosophy; (3) by the affection of charity and the strength of patience, from which the speech arose, with which it was spoken, and to effecting which powerfully it uniquely tended — which he opposes to affected eloquence and human persuasion. Compare 1 Corinthians 4:19; 1 John 3:4, 1 John 3:24; 1 John 4:7; Colossians 1; 1 Timothy 1:5.

He therefore, proving his words from the Scriptures, with such signs and such affections evidently added, and so fitting spiritual things to spiritual that (1) both God's presence of which he spoke, and the speech by which he spoke, was rather spiritual and powerful than outwardly specious to the age's sense; (2) the proved conclusion and the proving testimony breathed the same force — further deduced such conclusions from principles as are themselves principles for us. But we, speaking neither with such signs nor with like affection, content with the principles necessarily set in Scripture, gather conclusions firm only insofar as, compared with the said principles, it has been made evident that they conform to them and flow from them.

10. Doubtful, obscure, difficult, or false consequences are not to be turned into axioms beyond all exception, nor all controversies into necessary dogmas. 11. Although second notions ought not to be plainly proscribed on account of the other genus of legitimate common and dialectic proofs: yet the true and sober use of the organon and the perfection of logical judgment even in theological controversies consists more in distinguishing analytic and dialectic proofs — to which rhetorical ones are also akin — than in abusing either of the opposed deceptive, pseudographic, sophistic, and heterogeneous proofs. For since most mysteries, and certain spiritual and divine things, plainly reject the voices of genus, species, difference, accident, subject, form, and other like second notions — if you wish to use them in such mysteries only analogically against heretics, it can easily happen that you open them hiding-places of refuge in which to conceal their errors.

XVI. Extra-ecclesial testimony of philosophers, poets, Hermes, Sibyls; Casaubon§14

14XVI. Outside the Church is the testimony of gentile philosophers, poets, historians, and legislators, of Mercury Trismegistus and the Sibyls, by which the truth and equity of the Christian faith is sometimes asserted by the fathers. By this testimony, as an argument ad hominem — not truly that I might confirm faith and doctrine revealed from heaven by human testimonies — the Apostle Paul sometimes did not blush to use (Acts 17:23-Acts 17:24, Acts 17:28; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12). This the most learned fathers have not rarely used — Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Gregory Nazianzen, Lactantius, Augustine, and others — whose business was chiefly with atheists and gentiles.

Concerning Mercury and the Sibylline oracles which are still read today, I gladly assent to that highest man Isaac Casaubon (Exercitationes 1 to the Apparatus of the Annals, Numbers XVIII and XIX), concerning which it cannot be denied that in them not a few heads of religion — for example, concerning one God, the most holy Trinity, the Word the Son of God through whom the world was made, Christ to be born of a virgin, his passion and cross, regeneration through baptism into eternal life, the future judgment, and likewise other things — are found so clearly and in perspicuous words set forth that scarcely, indeed scarcely at all, anything similar can be brought from the whole law of Moses and the prophets. But the excellent man frankly professes that all oracles of this kind, whether of this Mercury or of the Sibyls announced beforehand, the more open they are, the more suspect they become to him; and he demonstrates them to be spurious by candid refutations: (1) because Christian mysteries were hidden before Christ (Colossians 1:26; Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:9), which yet are most plainly explained in Mercury's book and the Sibylline songs, which even indicate JESUS CHRIST by acrostic, without circumlocutions or enigmas, by the very name, and narrate his deeds. For it seems contrary to God's Word to think that such deep mysteries were proposed more clearly to the gentiles than to God's people, whom God so instructed by the prophets' voice that through obscure types of future things he led them to Christ as by a pedagogue's hand (Galatians 3:24).

(2) Because the ancient Greeks — Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and so many other most curious scrutinizers of all disciplines — show absolutely no vestige of those things which today we marvel at in this Mercury and the Sibyls. (3) Because it was solemn in the first times of the church, with a good end, to invent false books, that the new doctrine might more easily be admitted by the gentiles' wise men — of which Pope Gelasius in his decree and that of the Roman council enumerates and by best right condemns very many. And into this census are to be referred those Sibylline oracles which explain the secrets of our religion more openly than was ever done by God's prophets; likewise the whole book which under the name of Mercury Trismegistus began some centuries ago to be circulated, pseudepigraphically falsely inscribed — for it is the mere fiction of some Christian or rather semi-Christian, as our Casaubon from the matter and diction solidly demonstrates in many places. (4) Because writings of this sort, as soon as they came forth, were suspect to very many. For most truly blessed Augustine (City of God book 18, chapter 47): Whatever prophecies of others concerning God's grace through Christ Jesus are brought forth can be thought to have been fabricated by Christians. Therefore nothing is firmer for convincing any aliens, if they contend about this matter, and for supporting our own, if they have thought rightly, than that those divine predictions concerning Christ be brought forth which are written in the Jews' codices.

Cap. 10 close: against preferring gentile writings; Artemonites; Eusebius§15

15But those who still today defer somewhat more to gentile writings in the business of faith, with the Scholastics and Jesuits — to these ought to be opposed what Eusebius (book 5, chapter 28) reports concerning the Artemonites: They have corrupted the divine Scriptures, he says, without any reverence of the fear of God; and they boldly and impiously reject the rule of the ancient faith, being ignorant of Christ, whom therefore they do not find, because they have not sought rightly. And they have so far slipped into folly and impiety that, if someone proposes to them a discourse from the Scriptures, they on the contrary oppose: whether this discourse under discussion makes a conjoined or a separated genus of syllogism; and abandoning God's holy Scriptures they treat geometry — as those who truly are of the earth, they speak of the earth; and therefore they are ignorant of him who is from above.

Finally Euclid among them flourishes especially in the disciplines of Geometry. But Aristotle and Theophrastus are held by them in admiration. And Galen by some of them is even adored. Who strive to assert the impiety of their heresy by those arts and doctrines; and by deceiving men ignorant of God they undermine the simplicity of the divine Scriptures and the sincerity of faith. But they do these things because they have not even become neighbors to the faith; therefore they also violate the divine Scriptures without any fear, and corrupting them say that they are emending them.

Revelation is unwritten or written; one Word in substance, dual in mode; against a real pontifical distinction§16

16XXII. Second: divine revelation is either unwritten or written. Divine things can be known only through God and his word — whether that word is ἄγραφον, unwritten, or ἔγγραφον, written. Whatever is known from it returns to this principle: Whatever God has said must be believed; or, The mouth of the Lord has spoken, therefore it must be believed.

As to the substance of doctrine this Word is altogether one; as to the mode of revelation it is, as it were, twofold — unwritten and written. That mode of revelation is what chiefly needs explanation. Although everything revealed proceeds from one and the same Spirit, not everything is disclosed in the same way. Some things are written; some are gathered by inference — as Gregory Nazianzen teaches in book 5 On Theology, Basil the Great in On the true faith, and Augustine in On Baptism against the Donatists, book 2 chapter 14 and book 4 chapter 23.

Some things are not, and yet are said to be in the Scriptures — that God sits, that he has ears and eyes. Some things are, and yet are not said expressly and in so many words — that the Holy Spirit is God — though something is said from which the point follows of necessity, as when one who says twice five says ten, and one who says twice two says four, even without using those exact words. Some things neither are nor are said. Finally, some both are and are said.

Those who join the papists in setting a real distinction between the written and the unwritten word of God go badly astray. Irenaeus speaks wisely (Against heresies, book 3, chapter 1): We have known the disposition of our salvation through no others than those through whom the Gospel reached us — which they first heralded, and afterwards, by God's will, handed down to us in the Scriptures as the foundation and pillar of our faith to come.

Unwritten revelation by living voice; corruption; writing for stability; do not require the unwritten when Scripture is given§17

17XXIII. Unwritten revelation is that by which the divine things we must believe are signified by the word handed down with a living voice. By living voice — of God himself, or of angels, or of the holy fathers, prophets, and Apostles — the word of God was once delivered. Human carelessness and Satan's malice corrupted and depraved it in many ways. So God restored and confirmed the purity of his word by fresh revelations from time to time, and at last, for greater stability and certainty, also willed it to be committed to writing.

Here a rule must be noted: once written revelation has been given, the unwritten is not to be demanded rashly, nor forced on others by tyranny — against Coster, Enchiridion of controversies, chapter 1, where he claims Christ willed neither that his Church hang on paper writings nor that mysteries be committed to parchments. See also Bellarmine, On the unwritten word of God, book 4, chapter 3; and Sadeel, Whitaker, and Nigrinus on the papistic contempt of sacred Scripture — indeed Christ himself (John 5:39; John 17) and Paul (2 Timothy 3:15-2 Timothy 3:16).

Conclusion II: Scripture dogma not wholly beyond contradiction yet clear by many testimonies and the saints' unanimous tradition§18

18CONCLUSION II. If some dogma happens to occur in the Scriptures that is not wholly beyond controversy and others' contradiction, yet is not only made probable by many Scripture testimonies but also has been so clearly and plainly handed down and believed by all the saints whose writings have reached us, by the force of those testimonies, that even laypeople of sound mind can easily demonstrate their unanimous consent — concerning that we confess no pious lover of peace ought to raise controversy, but rather follow the Apostle's warning (1 Corinthians 1:10): "I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." And (Philippians 2:2): "Fulfill my joy, that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind."

So we separate ourselves from the Photinians, who indeed sometimes seem to urge the practice of things that are clear and certain, yet meanwhile raise contests even about matters defined from the Church's cradle by very many and most certain Scripture testimonies understood in the simplest way.

From these two prior conclusions, which contain everything each Christian must explicitly know and believe, it is plain we wish to seduce no one: we force on no one our opinions, inventions, subtle interpretations, and consequences, but commend solely this as to be believed which has always been publicly and plainly handed down from Sacred Scripture by God's saints — settling for certain that no one can be in peril for his salvation who exercises himself in these dogmas from the heart and diligently.

Conclusion III: what is unclear or of uncertain unanimous tradition is not necessary as infallible Word§19

19CONCLUSION III. If some dogma is not found in the Scriptures so clearly and evidently that it cannot be contradicted, and it is at least uncertain and doubtful whether it has been deduced from the Scriptures, believed, and handed down by the unanimous consent of all the saints whose monuments have reached us — we confess we today see no cause why it must necessarily be believed as the infallible and undoubted Word of God; indeed, why this or that person may not doubt it.

For since all the prophets who followed Moses — indeed the Apostles and Christ Himself — if they handed down anything to be believed as God's Word that was not already altogether plain and written without doubt, demonstrated it both from Scripture by solid consequences and legitimate interpretations and from signs and other undoubted testimonies, so that the Lord dared to affirm that if He had not done among them works which no other did, they would not have sin (John 15:24) — how much less ought others to be believed for what is not contained in the Scriptures, unless they can demonstrate it by the Scriptures or by signs and testimonies worthy of faith? Especially since our salvation can nevertheless stand for us if only we receive in mind the dogmas comprehended in the two prior conclusions.

Therefore we not undeservedly fear lest we corrupt God's Word by unnecessary additions (Proverbs 30:6; 2 Corinthians 2:17), preach another Gospel (Galatians 1:8), and tempt God if we lay a new yoke on the disciples (Acts 15:10), and force as necessary and beyond dispute what has not been constantly, unanimously, and publicly handed down from Sacred Scripture in God's Church in every age. And not undeservedly is Augustine's word against the Donatists objected to us: "Are you alone wise? Do you alone see clearly? Do you count all others stocks and blind? Has no church besides your little synagogue had eyes or mind?"

Conclusion IV: useful doctrine decided among those agreeing on the premises; peace, weight, and necessity§20

20CONCLUSION IV. If something is not found plainly in the Scriptures, nor handed down from them by all the saints' unanimous consent, yet does not openly and undoubtingly oppose and contradict them, and is decided by a council or congregation of those Christians who agree with us in the foregoing heads — not, however, as a Gospel or article of faith about which no one may doubt, but simply proposed as true and useful doctrine that may be taught in the Church or school — we acknowledge ourselves bound not to contradict it contentiously, but either to consent especially with those with whom we live (and therefore, so far as in us lies, we are also bound to pursue peace with them), or, if we happen to feel a scruple about it in our consciences, to propose that scruple seasonably and conveniently: so that if we cannot agree on the question of some article's truth simply and in itself, we may at least keep consent on the question of its weight and necessity — namely that although it is not altogether necessary to believe, it may still be usefully taught or at least tolerated in the Church and schools.

Moreover, if someone agreed with us on the article simply and in itself (for example, that the books of Judith, Tobit, and the like were not written by the prophets and accordingly are not of equal honor with the canonical) yet dissented from us on its weight and necessity (namely that for this cause the one who thinks apart and constantly believes otherwise is not to be condemned as a heretic): we acknowledge ourselves bound to side with the one who agrees with us on necessity — namely that neither affirmation nor denial of this article is to be judged necessary to salvation — and to regard as a tyrant or heretic the one who agrees with us on the article simply considered yet dissents on necessity, because he lays an unnecessary yoke on the disciples.

From the last conclusions: not heretics; against false prophets; the pious warned against additions§21

21From these two last conclusions it is grasped beyond dispute, as plainly as things seen with the eyes, first that we neither are nor can seem malicious and contentious, nor heretics and apostates: because we desire not only to force on no one our private opinions, inventions, and imaginations, but also in other matters, to avoid all harmful and unnecessary quarrels, to conform ourselves — so far as conscience allows — to the dogmas or opinions of other Christians who agree with us in the foundation.

Nor do we turn from or avoid anyone except the contentious and new prophets who press men's words and say "THE LORD HAS SAID" (Jeremiah 23:21), because they declare: "This is God's Word; this is an article of faith; if you deny it you are a heretic" — and yet cannot prop up these assertions with those testimonies by which the prophets and Apostles confirmed their sermons; but they bring it about that God's commandments, which are certain, are neglected (Jeremiah 23:30, Jeremiah 23:32).

Next, as to the opinions we hint at here: since the things written so clearly and plainly in God's Word that no sound Christian who loves peace and is of ripe age can lawfully doubt their truth, we warn all the pious to whom their souls' salvation is dear to guard themselves as carefully as possible from all other fillings-out or additions. (1) Because such added controversial opinions, if not false, are at least uncertain and doubtful: whence there is danger of falling into superstition, idolatry, even spiritual and abominable pride. (2) Because even if we imagine such controversial opinions neither false nor doubtful but true and certain, this at least remains: they are not necessary — not only because not all Christians need know them, but also because not all Christians need necessarily grant and embrace them after the reasons they seem to rest on have been shown them in the Scriptures — since they are not so clearly and evidently comprehended in the Scriptures that a timid and pious conscience, using all due diligence and hermeneutical means, in view of the danger just indicated, cannot with praise or at least without wrong abstain from them. (3) Because there is at least this danger: that on this occasion many pious and innocent people who, from fear of conscience and from considering that a person must give account even of every idle word in the last judgment (Matthew 12:36), avoid those controversial opinions and cannot hold them as God's Word and articles of faith, are unjustly and proudly judged and condemned — against the Savior's word (Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37) and the Apostle's (Romans 14:10, Romans 14:13; Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 8:2). See the Irenic sermons, with appendix and Apology to D. Nicolaus Hunnius, published by the distinguished D. Conrad Bergius, my colleague and dearest fellow-countryman, where he treats this matter piously and learnedly.