On Christian doctrine

<1+> THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SAINT

AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPONES.

<2+> Prologue. It is not superfluous to teach the doctrine of the Scriptures.

1. There are certain precepts concerning the handling of the Scriptures, which I see cannot
be uncomfortably delivered to those who study them; so that not only by reading others
who have opened the veils of the divine Letters, but also by opening them to others
themselves. I intend to deliver these things to those who are willing and able to learn, if God
and our Lord suggest what is usually suggested to those who think about this matter, He
will not deny it to me who writes. Before I begin, it seems to me that I must reply to those
who are to be reproached for these things, or would be reproached, if we did not appease
them first. And if some even after these censures, at least they will not move others, nor will
they turn from useful interest to the laziness of inexperience, those whom they could move,
unless they found them guarded and prepared. 2. For some will be reproached for this work
of ours, since they have not understood what we are about to command. Some, however,
who wish to use their understanding, and have tried to treat the divine Scriptures according
to these precepts, and have not been able to open and explain what they desire, will think
that I have labored in vain; and since they themselves will not be helped by this work, they
will think that no help can be given. The third class are those who are reproached, who
either really treat the divine Scriptures well, or seem to treat them well: who, having read
no observations of this kind, such as I have now set out to deliver, either see that they have
attained the faculty of expounding the holy books, or think that these precepts are
necessary for no one, but rather, all that is laudably revealed about the obscurities of those
Letters, they will cry out that it can be done by a divine gift. 3. Answering them all briefly, to
those who do not understand these things that we write, I say this: I am not to be criticized
in this way, because they do not understand these things; as if they wanted to see the old or
the new moon, or something not at all bright, which I pointed to with my pointed finger; but
they would not even have sufficient eyesight to see my very finger; not therefore should
they be angry with me. But those who, even knowing and perceiving these precepts, are
unable to look at the things which are obscure in the divine Scriptures, think that they can
indeed see my finger, but that they cannot see the stars to which it is intended to be pointed.
And then let them and these cease to reproach me, and pray that the light of their eyes may
be divinely provided for them. For if I can move my member to show something, I can also
light up the eyes, with which either my demonstration itself, or even that which I want to
show, is perceived. 4. Now indeed those who exult in the divine gift, and without such
precepts as I have now set out to deliver, boast that they understand and handle the holy
books, and therefore think that I have wanted to write superfluous things, so it is to soften
the commotion, so that although they rejoice in the great gift of God, they remember that yet
through men they learned even letters; nor therefore should he be insulted by Anthony, a
holy and perfect man, an Egyptian monk, who, without any knowledge of literature, is said
to have held the divine Scriptures by hearing them by heart, and to have understood them
by thinking prudently; or from that Christian Barbarian slave, of whom we have lately
received from the most serious and worthy of faith men, who also received the letters
themselves without any learned man, praying in full knowledge that they might be revealed
to him, and obtaining with prayers for three days that he might also go through the offered
codex, to the astonishment of those who were present, by reading it. 5. Or if everyone thinks
that these things are false, I do not act aggressively. For surely since it is the case with us
Christians, who rejoice that they know the Holy Scriptures without a human guide, and if
this is so, they truly and not moderately rejoice in the good; It is necessary to grant that
each one of us has learned his own language from early childhood by the habit of hearing,
and that he has received some other language, either Greek or Hebrew or any of the others,
either by hearing in the same way, or by a human teacher. Now then, if it pleases us, let us
warn all the brethren not to teach these things to their little ones, because at one moment of
time the coming of the Holy Spirit, filled with the Apostles, spoke in the languages of all
nations; or to whom such things do not appear, he does not consider himself a Christian, or
doubts whether he has received the Holy Spirit. Indeed, and what is to be learned through
man, let him learn without pride; and by whom another is taught, without pride and
without envy, let him hand over what he has received. ; and we shall wait to be caught up to
the third heaven, whether in the body or outside the body, as the apostle says, and there to
hear ineffable words which it is not lawful for man to speak (II Cor. 12:2-4), or there to see
the Lord Jesus Christ, and to hear the Gospel from him rather than from men. 6. Let us
beware of such proud and dangerous temptations, and let us think even more that the
apostle Paul himself, though prostrated and instructed by the divine and heavenly voice,
was nevertheless sent to man, that he might receive the sacraments, and join the Church
(Acts 9:3-7): and the centurion Cornelius, although the angel had told him that his prayers
had been heard, and that his alms had been respected, yet Peter had been told to be imbued;
through whom he would not only receive the sacraments, but also hear what to believe,
what to hope for, and what to love (Id. 10:1-6). And indeed all things could be done through
an angel, but the human condition would be rejected if God would not be seen to minister
his word to men through men. For how could what has been said be true, for the temple of
God is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3:17); if God did not give answers from the human
temple, and all that He wanted to be taught to men, He personified from heaven and
through angels? Next, charity itself, which binds men to one another by a knot of unity,
would not have access to the reconciling and, as it were, mixing of their own minds, if men
learned nothing through men. 7. And surely that sword which he did not understand when
he read the prophet Isaiah, neither did the apostle send to the angel, nor was that which he
did not understand explained to him by the angel, or was divinely revealed in his mind
without the ministry of man; but rather by divine suggestion he was sent to him, and Philip
sat with him, who knew the prophet Isaiah, and opened to him in human words and
language what was hidden in that Scripture (Acts 8:27-35). Didn't God speak with Moses,
and yet he received the advice of ruling and managing such a great people from his father-
in-law, a foreigner, namely a man, and he was most prudent and least proud (Exodus 18:14-
26)? For that man knew that, from whatever soul the true counsel had proceeded, it must be
attributed not to him, but to him who is the truth, the immutable God. 8. Lastly, whoever
boasts that he is instructed by no precepts by divine authority to understand whatever is
obscure in the Scriptures, he indeed believes well, and it is true, that this faculty is not of his
own, as if it existed of himself, but was divinely handed down. for thus he seeks God's glory
and not his own: but when he reads, and does not understand by any human expounder,
why does he affect to explain to others, and does not rather leave them to God, so that they
too may understand, not through man, but by him teaching within him? But he obviously
fears lest he should hear from the Lord, ``You wicked servant, you would give my money to
the moneylenders'' (Matthew 25:26, 27). Just as these, therefore, betray to the rest what
they understand, either by speaking or by writing; so also if I betray not only what they
understand, but also understanding what they observe, I am certainly not to be blamed by
them: although no one ought to have anything like this as his own, unless perhaps it is a lie.
For all truth is from him who says: I am the truth (John 14:6). What do we have that we did
not receive? But if we have received, why do we boast as if we had not received (1 Cor. 4,
7)? 9. He who reads the letters to the audience, certainly pronounces those which he
recognizes; but he who delivers the letters itself, does this so that others may also know
how to read them: yet each one insinuates what he has received. So also he who
understands what is in the Scriptures, expounds to his hearers, as if he pronounces the
letters which he recognizes in the office of a reader; but he who commands how it is to be
understood is like one who delivers a letter, that is, he who commands how it is to be read:
just as he who knows how to read does not need another reader, when he has found a
codex, from whom he can hear what is written there; so he who has received the precepts
which we are trying to hand down, when he finds something obscure in the books, holding
certain rules as if they were letters, does not require another understanding, by whom to
reveal to him what is covered; but by tracing certain steps he himself may arrive at the
hidden sense without any error, or at least he may not fall into the absurdity of a wrong
opinion. Therefore, even though it may be sufficiently apparent in the work itself, it is not
right to contradict anyone to this duty of ours; yet, if such a preface seems to be a suitable
answer to any who oppose it, the beginning of the way which we wish to enter in this book,
we meet with such a beginning

<2+> THE FIRST BOOK

At the beginning a division of the whole work is made, by which the student of the
Scriptures is justified when he is to investigate their meaning, as well as to expound them.
Having observed the difference between those about whom the teaching is to be given and
the distinction between things and signs, the treatment of things is taken up in this previous
book. I will continue to say that there are other things which we may reject, and others
which it is only lawful for us to use; but among those things which come into use, there are
some in which love is rightly expended, but referred to God. When these are explained, it
will be taught that the fullness and end of the whole sacred Scripture is the twin charity, of
God for his own sake, and of his neighbor for God's sake.

<3+> CHAPTER ONE.--The treatment of Scripture is based on discovery and enunciation; which
must be undertaken with God's help.

1. There are two things upon which all the treatment of the Scriptures rests; the method of
discovering what is to be understood, and the method of expressing what is understood. We
will discuss about finding first, about bringing it out later. A great and arduous task, and if
difficult to bear, I am afraid that I would be too rash to undertake it. Of course, if we were to
assume so about ourselves: now, however, since there is in him the hope of carrying out this
work, from whom we hold in our thoughts much about this matter already handed down to
us, there is no need to fear that the rest will cease to give, when we have begun to spend
what has been given. For every thing which does not fail to be given, while it is held and not
given, is not yet held as it ought to be held. And he said: He that hath, to him shall be given
(Matthew 13:12). He will therefore give to those who have, that is, those who use what they
have received with kindness, will fulfill and accumulate what he has given. They were five
and they were seven loaves, before they began to be given to the hungry; that when it began
to be done, they filled the baskets and baskets with so many thousands of men (Id. 14:17-
21; and 15:34-38). Just as that bread increased while it was being broken, so the things
which the Lord has already provided for this work, when they have begun to be dispensed,
will be multiplied by that very suggestion, so that in this very service of ours, we may not
only suffer no want, but may also rejoice in a wonderful abundance.

<3+> CHAPTER II.-- What things, what signs.

2. All learning is either of things or of signs, but things are learned by means of signs. Now I
have properly called things which are not used to signify anything, such as wood, stone,
cattle, and the like. But not that wood which we read that Moses cast into the bitter waters,
that they might be free from bitterness (Exodus 15:25); nor the stone which Jacob had
placed at his head (Genesis 28:11); nor that cattle which Abraham sacrificed for his son (Id.
22:13). For these things are such that they are also signs of other things. But there are other
signs whose entire use is in signifying, just as words are. For no one uses words except for
the sake of signifying something. From this it is understood what I call signs; namely those
things which are used to signify something. Wherefore every sign is also some thing; for
what is no thing is nothing at all: but not every thing is also a sign. And therefore in this
division of things and signs, when we speak of things, we shall speak in such a way that,
even if some of them can be used to signify, they do not hinder the partition, by which we
shall first discuss things, then signs; and let us bear in mind that things must now be
considered for what they are, not for what they signify, even apart from what they mean.

<1+> CHAPTER III.-- Division of things

3. Therefore there are different things which are to be enjoyed, others which are to be used,
and other things which are enjoyed and used. Those things which are to be enjoyed make us
happy. By those which we must use, we are aided in tending to happiness, and supported as
it were, so that we may reach those things which make us happy, and cling to them. But we
who enjoy and use, being placed between both, if we wish to enjoy those things which are to
be used, our course is impeded, and sometimes even deflected, so that we are either delayed
from obtaining those things which are to be enjoyed, or even withdrawn, by love of
inferiors.

<3+> CHAPTER IV.-- Enjoyment and use, what it is.

4. For to enjoy is to cling with love to a thing for its own sake. But use, which comes into use
to refer to obtaining what you love, if it is to be loved. For illegal use, it should rather be
called abuse or exploitation. How, then, if we were sojourners, who could not live happily
except in the country, and desiring to put an end to misery and misery by that journey, how
could we return to our country? ; that if the pleasures of the journey, and the very
movement of the vehicles, delighted us, and we turned to enjoy those which we had to use,
we would not soon end the way, and be entangled with a perverse sweetness, and be
alienated from the country, whose sweetness would make them happy: thus in the life of
this mortality, pilgrims from the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6), if we want to return to our country,
where we can be happy, we must use this world, not enjoy it; that the invisible things of God
may be seen, understood through the things that have been made (Rom. 1:26), that is, that
we may grasp eternal and spiritual things from corporeal and temporal things.

<3+> CHAPTER V.-- God the Trinity, a thing to be enjoyed.

5. Therefore, the things which are to be enjoyed, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
and the same Trinity, are one supreme thing, and common to all who enjoy them; if, after all,
the thing is not the cause of all things, if, after all, it is also the cause. For it is not easy to find
a name that suits such excellence, except that this Trinity is better called thus, one God from
whom all things, through whom all things, in whom all things (Rom. 11:36). Thus the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and each one of these is God, and at the same time all are
one God; and each one of these is a full substance, and at the same time they are all one
substance. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Father
nor the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son; but the Father only the
Father, and the Son only the Son, and the Holy Spirit only the Holy Spirit. The same eternity,
the same immutability, the same majesty, the same power. Unity in the Father, equality in
the Son, harmony of unity and equality in the Holy Spirit: and these three things are one
because of the Father, all things are equal because of the Son, all things are connected
because of the Holy Spirit.

<3+> CHAPTER VI.-- The ineffable God, how.

6. Did we say something and sound something worthy of God? Nay, indeed, I feel that I
meant nothing else than to say: but if I said, this is not what I meant to say. How do I know
this, except because God is ineffable; But what was said by me, if it were ineffable, would it
not be said? And by this God is not even to be called ineffable, because even when this is
said, something is said. And I do not know what sort of battle of words takes place, because
if that which cannot be said is ineffable, it is not ineffable that which can be said ineffable.
This conflict of words is to be avoided by silence rather than to be pacified by voice. And yet
God, when nothing worth saying can be said about him, admitted obedience to the human
voice, and wanted us to rejoice in his praise with our words. For it is from this that we are
called God. For he is not really known in the noise of these two syllables; but nevertheless
all who know the Latin language, when this sound touches their ears, moves them to think
of a certain most excellent and immortal nature.

<3+> CHAPTER VII.-- All understand God in whom there is nothing better.

7. For when the one God of gods is thought of, even by those who suspect others and call
and worship gods, whether in heaven or on earth, it is thought in such a way that that
thought tries to reach something better than which there is nothing better and more
sublime. Of course, since they are moved by different goods, partly by those which pertain
to the sense of the body, partly by those which pertain to the intelligence of the soul; those
who are devoted to the senses of the body, either the sky itself, or what they see in the sky
most brilliant, or the world itself, think that the God of the gods is; they establish with vain
suspicion, or think of the shape of the human body, if they put it before the rest. But if they
do not think that there is one God of gods, but rather that there are many or innumerable
gods of equal order; yet they also hold them in mind, just as something of the body seems to
excel. But those who continue to see what God is through intelligence, prefer him to all
visible and corporeal, intelligible and spiritual natures, to all changeable natures. All,
however, contend for the excellence of God; and no one can be found who believes that this
God is better than anything. Therefore all agree that this is God, which they put before all
other things.

<3+> CHAPTER VIII.-- Since God is unchangeable wisdom, he must be put before all things.

8. And since all who think of God think of something living, they alone can not think absurd
and unworthy of God, who think of life itself, and whatever form of body meets them, they
decide to live or not to live that life, and they prefer the living to the non-living ; and that the
very living form of the body, no matter how light it shines, no matter how large it
predominates, no matter how beautiful it is adorned, they understand that it is one thing,
and the life by which it grows is another thing, and they prefer it to that mass which is
vegetated and animated by it, with an incomparable dignity. Then they continue to look at
life itself, and if they find it vegetative without sense, such as trees, they prefer to them
sentient, such as cattle; and to this one, again, understanding, what is the nature of men.
Since they still see it as changeable, they are forced to prefer something unchangeable to
this, namely, that life which is not sometimes wasteful, sometimes wise, but rather is
Wisdom itself. For a wise mind, that is, having acquired wisdom, was not wise before it was
acquired; but wisdom itself was never foolish, nor can it ever be. As if they did not see, they
would by no means with full confidence prefer an immutably wise life to a changeable life.
For they see the very rule of truth, by which they claim to be better, immutable; nor do they
see anywhere but above their own nature, since they see themselves as changeable.

<3+> CHAPTER IX.--Everyone knows that immutable wisdom is preferable to changeable

wisdom.

9. For there is no one who is so shamelessly insipid as to say: How do you know that an
immutably wise life is preferable to a changeable one? For the very thing that he asks, as far
as I know, is available to all for contemplation in common and immutably. And he who does
not see is like a blind man in the sun, to whom it is of no use that the glare of such a bright
and present light is poured into the very places of his eyes. But he who sees and shrinks
from the habit of carnal shadows wears a weak line of mind. Men, therefore, are repelled by
the country itself, as it were, by contrary blasts of perverse behavior; following the latter
and inferior, than that which they confess to be better and more excellent.
<3+> CHAPTER X.-- To see God the mind must be purified.

10. Therefore, let us enjoy that truth which lives unchangeably, and in which the Trinity
God, author and founder of the universe, comforts the things which he has created; the mind
must be purified, so that it is able both to perceive that light, and to adhere to the insight.
We will decide that the cleansing is like a certain walk, and like a voyage to the country. For
we are not moved by places to him who is present everywhere, but by good study and good
behavior.

<3+> CHAPTER XI.-- Wisdom incarnate is an example of purifying the soul.

11. Which we could not do, unless Wisdom herself deigned to conform to our great
weakness, and provided us with an example of how to live, no differently than in man, since
we are also men. But because when we come to it, we do it wisely; When she came to us, she
was thought to have acted foolishly to proud men. And since when we come to her, we
recover; When she came to us, she was thought to be weak. But what is foolish to God is
wiser to men, and what is weak to God is stronger to men (1 Cor. 1:25). Therefore, since he
is the country itself, he also made a way for us to the country.

<3+> CHAPTER XII.-- How the Wisdom of God comes to us.

And when the healthy and pure inner eye is present everywhere, it has been deigned to
appear even to the fleshly eyes of those who have that eye which is weak and impure.
Because in the wisdom of God the world could not know God through wisdom, it pleased
God to save believers through the foolishness of preaching (1 Cor. 1:21). 12. Therefore he is
said to have come to us, not by coming through the spaces of places, but by appearing in
mortal flesh to mortals. She therefore came to where she was, because she was in this
world, and the world was made through her. But since, with the desire to enjoy the creature
for the Creator himself, men who were configured to this world, and called in the most
appropriate way by the name of the world, did not know it, that is why the Evangelist said:
And the world did not know him (John 1, 10). Therefore, in the wisdom of God, the world
could not know God through wisdom. Why then did he come when he was here, unless it
pleased God to save those who believe through the foolishness of his preaching?
<3+> CHAPTER XIII.-- The Word became flesh.

How did he come, except that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14)? Just
as when we speak, so that what we carry in our mind is drawn into the mind of the hearer
through the carnal ears, the sound becomes the word that we carry in our heart, and is
called speech. yet our thought is not turned into the same sound, but remaining whole with
itself, it assumes the form of the voice which it insinuates itself into our ears, without any
decay of its change: thus the Word of God was not changed, yet it was made flesh, that it
might dwell in us.

<3+> CHAPTER XIV.-- How the Wisdom of God heals man.

13. But just as treatment is the way to health, so this treatment took the healing and
restoration of sinners. And just as physicians, when they bind up wounds, do it not
uncomplicatedly, but properly, so that a kind of beauty also results from the benefit of the
binding: so the medicine of Wisdom is adapted to our wounds through the reception of
man; caring about some opposites, and some similar ones. Just as also he who heals a bodily
wound uses opposites, such as cold and hot, or wet and dry, or anything else of this kind; he
also uses some similar things, such as a round cloth for a round wound, or an oblong one for
an oblong one, and the bandage itself is not the same for all members, but like for like: thus
the wisdom of God, caring for man, presented itself to heal, the doctor itself, the medicine
itself. Therefore, because man fell through pride, he used humility to heal. By the wisdom of
the serpent we are deceived, by the foolishness of God we are delivered. But just as that
wisdom was called, it was foolishness to those who despised God; so that which is called
foolishness is wisdom to those who conquer the devil. We have made a bad use of
immortality, that we should die; Christ made good use of mortality, that we might live. The
disease entered into the corrupt mind of a woman; the whole body of the woman was
healed. It belongs to the same contrary, that even by the example of his virtues our vices are
cured. Indeed, they are like bandages applied to our limbs and wounds, because through a
woman, born of a woman, a man redeemed men, mortals, mortals, and the dead by death.
Many other things also appear to those who consider more carefully those who are not
carried away by the necessity of carrying out the work of the institution, either from the
opposites or from the likes of Christian medicine.

<3+> CHAPTER XV.-- By the resurrection and ascension of Christ, faith is supported, judgment
is awakened.
14. The already believed resurrection of the Lord from the dead, and ascension into heaven,
supports our faith with great hope. For he shows much how willingly he laid down his life
for us, who thus had the power to resume it. How much, then, is the hope of believers
comforted by their confidence, considering how much he has suffered for those who have
not yet believed? But when the judge of the living and the dead is expected from heaven, he
strikes great fear into the negligent, so that they turn to diligence, and desire him more by
doing well than they fear him by doing evil. But with what words can be said, or by what
thought can the reward be taken, which he is about to give in the end; when for the
consolation of this journey he gave so much of his Spirit, so that in the adversities of this life
we may have such confidence and charity of his, which we have not yet seen, and gifts
proper to each one for the instruction of his church, that what he shows must be done, not
only without murmuring, but also shall we do it with pleasure?

<3+> CHAPTER XVI.-- The body of Christ and the spouse are cleansed by him with medicinal
ailments.

15. For the Church is his body, as the apostolic teaching recommends (Ephesians 1:23),
which is also called his spouse. His body, therefore, with many members carrying out
different duties (Rom. 12:4), binds it with a knot of unity and charity as of health. But at this
time he exercises and cleanses himself with medicines for certain ailments, so that he may
be delivered from this world and eternally marry his wife the Church, not having a spot or a
wrinkle or anything of the kind (Eph. 5, 23-32).

<3+> CHAPTER XVII.-- Christ, by forgiving sins, opened the way to the country.

16. Moreover, since we are on a road, and that road is not of places, but of affections, which
the malice of past sins shut out, like a kind of thorny fence; What could he have done more
liberally and mercifully, who wished to subdue himself to us, by which we should return,
than to forgive all the sins of the converted, and to tear down the crucifix for us, the gravely
fixed prohibitions of our return?

<3+> CHAPTER XVIII.-- The keys of the traditional Church.

17. He therefore gave these keys to his Church, so that whatever he loosed on earth would
be loosed in heaven. What he binds on earth will be bound in heaven (Matth. 16:19): that is,
if anyone in his church does not believe that his sins are forgiven, they will not be forgiven.
but whosoever believed, and being corrected by them turned away, was placed in the same
bosom of the Church, and was healed by the same faith and correction. For whoever does
not believe that his sins can be forgiven, becomes worse by despairing, as if nothing better
remained for him than evil, where he is unfaithful about the fruit of his conversion.

<3+> CHAPTER XIX.-- The death and resurrection of body and soul.

18. Now, as it is a kind of death of the soul, the abandonment of the former life and manners,
which is done by repentance; so also the death of the body is the dissolution of the former
animation; so also the body after that death, to which we all owe the bond of sin, must be
believed and hoped to be changed for the better at the time of the resurrection, so that flesh
and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God, which cannot be done; but let this corruptible
put on incorruption, and let this mortal put on immortality (1 Cor. 15, 50, 53), and doing no
trouble, because he will suffer no need, and will be tormented by a blessed and perfect soul
with the utmost rest.

<3+> CHAPTER XX.-- Those who are reborn not to life but to punishments.

19. But whose soul does not die to this world, nor does it begin to be conformed to the truth,
is drawn into a graver death by the death of the body; nor for the exchange of heavenly
relations, but for the execution of punishments.

<3+> CHAPTER XXI.-- Again the resurrection of the body.

Faith therefore has this, and thus it is necessary to believe that it has the object, that neither
the mind nor the human body suffer all manner of destruction; but the ungodly will rise to
incalculable punishments, but the pious to eternal life.

<3+> CHAPTER XXII.-- God alone is to be enjoyed.

20. In all these things, therefore, there are only those things which are to be enjoyed, which
we have mentioned as eternal and unchangeable; but the rest must be used, so that we may
arrive at their fullness. We, therefore, who enjoy and use other things, are some things. For
man is a great thing, made in the image and likeness of God, not in so far as he is included in
the mortal body, but in so far as he precedes the beasts in honor of the rational soul. So the
big question is whether people should enjoy themselves, or use them, or both. For we are
commanded to love one another; but the question is whether man is to be loved by man for
his own sake, or for some other reason. For if for its own sake, we enjoy it; if for another
reason, we use it. But it seems to me that he is loved for another reason. For what is to be
loved for its own sake, a happy life is constituted in it; of which, even if it is not yet the case,
yet his hope comforts us at this time. Cursed is he who puts his hope in man (Jer. 17:5). 21.
But no one should enjoy himself, if you warn clearly; because he ought not to love himself
for his own sake, but for the sake of him who is to be enjoyed. Then he is indeed the best
man, when his whole life continues in the unchangeable life, and he clings to it with all his
affection: but if he loves himself for his own sake, he does not relate himself to God; but
when he turns to himself, he does not turn to something unchangeable. And therefore he
enjoys himself already with some deficiency; for it is better when it is entirely attached and
bound to unchangeable good, than when it relaxes therefrom or towards itself. If, then, you
ought not to love yourself for your own sake, but for the sake of Him in whom the most right
end of your love is, let no other man be angry, if you also love him for God's sake. For this
rule of love has been divinely established: "Love your neighbor as yourself," he says. but
God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind (Leviticus 19:18; Deut.
6:5; and Matt. 22:37, 39); that you may contribute all your thoughts and all your life and all
your understanding to him, from whom you have the very things you contribute. But when
he says, with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, he has left no part of our life
which should be freed and, as it were, to give room for something else to be enjoyed; but
whatever else comes into the mind to be loved, let it be carried away to the place where the
whole impulse of love runs. Whoever, therefore, loves his neighbor rightly, must do this
with him, so that he also loves God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind. For
in this way, loving him as himself, he brings all his love and his love into that love of God,
which does not suffer any stream to be led away from itself, to be lessened by its derivation.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIII.-- Man does not need a precept to love himself and his body. Bad self-
love.

22. But not all things which are to be used are to be loved, but only those things which are
either referred to God by a kind of association with us, as is a man or an angel; or related to
us, they need the grace of God through us, just as the body is. For certainly the martyrs did
not love the crimes of their persecutors, which they nevertheless used to merit God. Since
then there are four things to be loved, one that is above us, the second that we are, the third
that is near us, the fourth that is below us; about the second and fourth no precepts were to
be given. For however much a man falls away from the truth, his love of himself and his love
of his body remain. For the mind is fugitive from the immutable light of the ruler of all
things, so that it rules itself and its body; and therefore he cannot but love both himself and
his body. 23. But he thinks he has gained something great if he has been able to dominate
even his associates, that is, other men. For it is inherent in a vicious mind to desire that
more, and to claim as a debt to itself that which is properly owed to God. But such self-love
is better called hatred. For it is unjust, because he wants to serve himself that which is
below him, when he himself does not want to serve the superior: and it has been most
correctly said, He who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Psal. 10:6): and therefore the soul
becomes weak, and is tormented by the mortal body. For it is necessary that he should love
it, and be aggravated by its corruption. For the immortality and incorruption of the body
exist from the soundness of the mind; but the sanity of the mind is to cling most firmly to
what is more important, that is, to the immutable God. But when he affects to dominate even
those who are naturally equal to him, that is, men, pride is absolutely intolerable.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIV.-- No one hates his own flesh, not even those who rise up in it.

24. Therefore no one hates himself. And hence there was indeed no question of any kind.
But neither does anyone hate his own body: for it is true what the Apostle says, "No one
ever hated his own flesh" (Eph. 5:29). And when some say that they would rather be
without a body at all, they are entirely mistaken: for they hate not their body, but its
corruptions and weight. Therefore, they do not want to have no body, but an incorruptible
and swiftest body; but they think that there is no body if it is like that, because they think
that the soul is something like that. But they seem to pursue their bodies with a certain
restraint and labors; those who do this rightly, do not do it so that they do not have a body,
but so that they have it subjugated and prepared for the necessary tasks. For the lusts,
making bad use of the body, that is, the habits and inclinations of the soul to enjoy inferior
things, affect to extinguish a kind of laborious warfare of the body itself. For they do not kill
themselves, but take care of their health. 25. But those who do this perversely, as if they
were naturally waging war on their enemy's body. Wherein they are deceived by what they
read: The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these things
oppose each other (Galatians 5:17). For this was said because of untamed carnal habits,
against which the spirit lusts; not that it destroy the body, but that its concupiscence, that is
to say, evil habit, may make it subject to the spirit, which the natural order desires. For since
this will be after the resurrection, so that the body may live immortally, subject to the spirit
in every way with the utmost rest, this also must be meditated upon in this life, so that the
carnal habits may be changed for the better, and the spirit may not resist disordered
movements. Until this is done, the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the
flesh: not through hatred of the resisting spirit, but through dominion. because what he
loves rather wants to be subject to a better one: not through hatred resisting the flesh, but
through the bond of custom, which he instilled in the law of nature, even from the progeny
of his parents. Therefore the spirit does this in the flesh, so that bad habits may be
dissolved, as perverted agreements, and peace may be made to good habits. Nevertheless,
even those who detest their bodies by a false belief, would not be ready to lose one eye,
even without feeling pain, even if as much sense of sight remained in the other, as there was
in two, unless some thing which had to be preferred urged it. By this and similar documents,
it is sufficiently shown to those who demand the truth without obstinacy, how certain is the
opinion of the Apostle, when he says: For no one ever hated his own flesh. He also added:
But he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church.

<3+> CHAPTER XXV.-- Although something is loved more than the body, yet the body is not
hated.

26. Therefore the manner of loving is to be prescribed to man, that is, how he loves himself
so as to benefit himself. But if he loves himself and wants to benefit himself, it is insane to
doubt. He must also be instructed how to love his body, so that he may comfort it in an
orderly and prudent manner. For that he also loves his body, and wishes to keep it safe and
whole, is equally evident. Therefore, a person can love nothing more than the health and
integrity of his body. For many are found to have willingly accepted the pains and losses of
some members, but in order to obtain other things which they loved more. Therefore it is
not for this reason that anyone should be said not to love the health and safety of his body,
because he loves something more. For even though the miser loves money, he still buys
bread for himself. but because he values more highly the health of his body, which is
supported by that bread. It is unnecessary to discuss any longer the most obvious thing,
which, however, the error of the wicked generally compels us to do.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVI.-- The commandment was given to love God and the neighbor, nay, and
to love oneself.

27. Therefore, since there is no need for a precept that everyone should love himself and his
body, that is, since what we are and what is below us still belongs to us, we love the
unshakable law of nature, which was promulgated even to beasts (for and beasts love
themselves and their bodies); it remained that we should take precepts concerning that
which is above us, and that which is near us. He says, "You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your
neighbor as yourself." The whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two
commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). Therefore the end of the commandment is love (1
Tim. 1:5), and that twin, that is, of God and of the neighbor. If you understand yourself as a
whole, that is, your mind and body, and your neighbor as a whole, that is, his mind and body
(for man consists of his mind and his body), no kind of thing to be loved has been omitted in
these two precepts. For when the love of God runs ahead, and the prescribed manner of his
love appears, so that the rest flow into it, nothing seems to have been said about your love;
but when it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, at the same time thy love was
not omitted from thyself.
<3+> CHAPTER XXVII.-- The order of love.

28. And he lives justly and holyly, who is a perfect estimator of things: and he is the one who
has an ordered love, so that he either loves what is not to be loved, or does not love what is
to be loved, or loves more what is less to be loved, or equally loves what is either less or
more is to be loved, or less or more that which is equally to be loved. Every sinner, insofar
as he is a sinner, is not to be loved; and every man, insofar as he is a man, is to be loved for
God's sake, but God for his own sake. And if God is to be loved more by every man, every
man ought to love God more than himself. Another man is more to be loved than our body:
because all these things are to be loved for God's sake, and another man can enjoy God with
us, which the body cannot; because the body lives through the soul by which we enjoy God.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVIII.-- To whom to help, when you cannot help all, or two.

29. Now all are to be loved equally: but since you cannot be of benefit to all, it is especially
necessary to consult those who, because of the opportunities of places and times, or of any
things, are bound to you more closely, as if by a sort of lot. For just as if you had an
abundance of something, which would have to be given to someone who had none, nor
could it be given to two people, if two people met you, neither of whom overcame the other
either in need or in some relation to you; you would do nothing more justly than to read by
lot, to whom it was to be given that which could not be given to both: so in men whom you
cannot consult with all, it is to be regarded as a lot, according as each may temporarily
adhere more closely to you.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIX.-- To wish and act that all may love God.

30. But of all who can enjoy God with us, we love partly those whom we ourselves help,
partly those by whom we are helped, partly whose help we need, and help those in need;
partly to whom we do not confer anything of advantage ourselves, nor do we take care that
it be conferred upon us by them. We ought, however, that all should love God with us, and
all that we either help them or are helped by them, is referred to that one end. For if in the
theaters of iniquity he loves an actor, and enjoys his skill as if it were great or even
supremely good, he loves all those who love him with him, not for their sake, but for the
sake of him whom they also love. and the more ardent he is in his love, the more he acts in
the ways he can, so that he is loved by more people, and the more he wants to show him to
more people. and whom he sees colder, he arouses him as much as he can by his praises; but
if he finds a transgressor, he vehemently hates the hatred of his beloved in him, and by
whatever means he can, he insists that he remove him. and from whom all who love him
have both what they are and what they love him; of which we have no fear, lest it be
displeasing to any one who knows it; and he who wills himself to be loved, not as something
for himself, but so that an eternal reward may be conferred on those who love him, is this he
whom they love? Hence it is brought about that we love our enemies also: for we do not fear
them, because they cannot take away from us what we love; but let us rather pity them,
because they hate us all the more, inasmuch as they are separated from him whom we love.
To whom, if they have been converted, it is necessary that they should love him as a beatific
good, and us as partners in such a good.

<3+> CHAPTER 30.-- Our neighbors, all men, and the Angels themselves.

31. Now a certain question arises in this passage concerning the Angels. For enjoying that,
they themselves are also blessed, which we also desire to enjoy: and the more we enjoy in
this life, either through a mirror or in a riddle (1 Cor. 13:12), the more we endure our
pilgrimage and the more tolerable, and the more ardently we desire to finish it. But whether
the love of angels also belongs to those two precepts cannot be unreasonably asked. For the
Lord Himself showed in the Gospel, and Paul the Apostle, that he did not accept any man
who commanded us to love our neighbor. For he to whom he had brought forth the two
precepts, and had said that the whole Law and the Prophets depended on them, when he
asked him, saying, And who is my neighbor? He proposed that a certain man, coming down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, had fallen upon robbers, and had been severely wounded by
them, and had been abandoned half alive; He did not teach him to be his neighbor, unless he
was compassionate towards him to refresh and care for him, so that he who had asked this,
would himself admit it when asked. To whom the Lord said, Go and do likewise (Luke 10:27,
37); so that we may understand that he is the neighbor, to whom either the duty of mercy
must be shown, if he needs it, or should be shown if he needs it. From which it already
follows that the one from whom this should be presented to us in turn is our neighbor. For
neighbor is a name for something, and no one can be neighbor unless he is a neighbor. But
who does not see that there is no exception to whom the duty of mercy is denied, when it
was extended even to enemies, when the same Lord said: Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you (Matthew 5:44)? 32. The Apostle Paul also teaches this when he says:
"You shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit murder, you shall not steal, you shall
not covet." Love of one's neighbor does not work evil (Rom. 13, 9, 10). Whoever, therefore,
thinks that the Apostle did not command every man, is compelled to confess that it is most
absurd and most wicked, that the Apostle thought it was no sin if a man committed adultery
with the wife of a non-Christian, or of an enemy, or killed him, or coveted his property; , it is
clear that every man is to be deputed as a neighbor, because evil is to be done to no one. 33.
Now, if either to whom it is to be given, or from whom it is to be given to us, the duty of
mercy is rightly said to be neighbor; It is clear that this commandment, by which we are
commanded to love our neighbor, also includes the holy angels, from whom so many offices
of mercy are invested in us, as it is easy to notice in many passages of the divine Scriptures.
Whence God himself and our Lord desired to be called our neighbor. For the Lord Jesus
Christ also signifies himself to have been found half-alive lying on the road afflicted and
abandoned by robbers. And the prophet said in his prayer: As our neighbor, as our brother,
so I was pleased (Psal. 34, 14). But since the divine substance is more excellent and above
our nature, the precept whereby we love God is distinct from the love of our neighbor. For
he shows mercy to us because of his goodness, and we to each other because of his: that is,
he showed mercy to us, that we may enjoy ourselves; but we should have mercy on one
another, that we may enjoy it.

<3+> CHAPTER XXXI.-- God does not enjoy us, but uses us.

34. Therefore it still seems ambiguous when we say that we enjoy that thing which we love
for its own sake, and that we should only enjoy that thing by which we are made happy, but
we should use the rest. For God loves us, and the divine Scripture commends much to us his
love for us: how then does he love? to use us, or to enjoy? But if he enjoys it, he needs our
good, which no sane person will say. For all our good is either from himself or from him: but
to whom is darkness or doubt, not in need of the light of the luster of these things which she
has illumined? The prophet also says very openly: I said to the Lord, you are my God,
because you do not need my goods (Ps. 15:2). He therefore does not enjoy us, but uses us.
For if he neither enjoys nor uses, I do not find how he loves.

<3+> CHAPTER 32.-- How God uses man.

35. But he does not use them in the same way as we do: for we refer the things we use to
that, that we may enjoy God's goodness; But God relates our use to his goodness. For
because he is good, we are; and as far as we are, we are good. Moreover, since he is also just,
we are not evil without impunity; and in so far as we are bad, we are still less. For he is
supremely and first, who is completely unchangeable, and who could most fully say: I am
who I am; and, You shall say to them, He who is has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14). So that
the rest of the things that are, and can only be from Him, and are good in so far as they have
received them to be. Therefore, that use which is called God's, which he uses for us, is not
related to his, but to our benefit, and only to his goodness. But to whom we pity, and to
whom we consult, we do it indeed for his benefit, and we look to it; but I do not know how
the consequence also becomes ours, since God does not leave the mercy we spend on the
needy unrewarded. But this is the greatest reward, that we may enjoy him, and all who
enjoy him may also enjoy one another in him.
<3+> CHAPTER 33.-- How it behooves a man to enjoy himself.

36. For if we do this in ourselves, let us remain on the road, and place the hope of our
happiness in man or in an angel. That both the proud man and the proud angel are proud of
themselves, and rejoice in the hope of others. But the holy man and the holy angel, even
when we are tired, and desiring to rest and remain in themselves, rather refresh us, either
with that expense which they received for our sake, or with that also which they received
for their own sake; and thus being refreshed, they compel us to go into it, in the enjoyment
of which we are equally happy. For the apostle also cries out: Was Paul crucified for you? or
were you baptized in the name of Paul (1 Cor. 1:13)? and, Neither he who plants is anything,
nor he who waters, but he who gives growth is God (Id. 3, 7). And the angel admonishes the
man who worships himself to worship him instead, under whom he himself is also a servant
of the Lord (Apoc. 19:10). 37. But when you enjoy man in God, you enjoy God rather than
man. For you will enjoy that which makes you happy; and you will rejoice that you have
reached him, in whom you place your hope that you may come. Then Paul said to Philemon:
Yes, brother, I will delight you in the Lord (Phil. 20). And if he had not added, in the Lord,
and had said only that I enjoy thee, he would have placed his hope of happiness in him.
Although it is also said to enjoy very closely, to use with pleasure. For when that which is
loved is present, it must also carry pleasure with it: through which, if you pass, and bring it
back to that where it is to remain; you use them, and you are said to enjoy them abusively,
not properly. But if you cling to it and remain, putting an end to your joy in it, then you will
be truly and properly said to enjoy it: which is to be done only in that Trinity, that is the
highest and unchangeable good.

<3+> CHAPTER XXXIV.-- The first way to God, Christ.

38. See how when the Truth itself, and the Word by which all things were made, was made
flesh, that it might dwell in us (John 3:3, 14), yet the Apostle says: And if we knew Christ
according to the flesh, but we no longer know him ( 2 Corinthians 5:16). For he who not
only wanted to provide a possession to those who arrived, but also to provide a way for
those who came to the beginning of the ways, wanted to assume flesh: whence also that, the
Lord created me at the beginning of his ways (Prov. 8:22); that those who wished to come
should begin from there. Therefore, although the apostle was still walking on the road, and
following the calling God to the palm of the heavenly calling, yet forgetting the things behind
and engrossed in the things before (Philipp. iii, 12-14), he had already passed the beginning
of the ways; that is to say, he did not need it, from which, nevertheless, the journey must be
approached and begun by all who desire to reach the truth and to continue in eternal life.
For thus he says, I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6); that is, it comes
through me, it reaches me, it continues in me. For when we reach him, we also reach the
Father; because by equal he is acknowledged to be equal; conquering and, as it were,
agglutinating us with the Holy Spirit, by which we may continue in the highest and
unchangeable good. From this it is understood that no thing ought to hold us on the way,
when even the Lord himself, in so far as he deigned to be our way, willed to hold us, but to
pass. let us not cling weakly to temporal things, although they have been taken up and
carried out by him for our salvation, but let us rather run through them with vigor, so that
we may merit to be advanced and carried to him who freed our nature from temporal things
and placed us at the right hand of the Father.

<3+> CHAPTER 35.-- The fullness and end of Scripture, the love of God and neighbor.

39. Therefore, of all that has been said, from which we discuss things, this is the summation,
so that it may be understood that the fullness and end of the Law and of all the divine
Scriptures is love (Rom. 13:10; and 1 Tim. 1:5) of the thing which is to be enjoyed. and the
things that can be enjoyed with us; for there is no need of a precept in order that every one
may love himself. Therefore, that we may know and be able to do this, a temporal
dispensation has been made entirely for our salvation by divine providence, which we must
use, not as a kind of manorial love and delight, but rather transitory, as roads, as vehicles, or
any other means, or if anything more appropriate it can be said; that we may love those
things with which we are struck, for the sake of that for which we are struck.

<3+> CHAPTER 36.-- Although the interpretation of Scripture is faulty, it is not false or
destructively deceptive, if only it is useful for building up charity. However, the interpreter
who is thus mistaken must be corrected.

40. Whoever, therefore, thinks to himself that he has understood the divine Scriptures or
any part of them, so that he does not with that understanding build up this twin charity of
God and of his neighbor, has not yet understood. But whoever draws such a view from it, as
to be useful to this edifying charity, and yet does not say that he who reads it will be proved
to have felt it in that place, is not perniciously mistaken, nor does he lie at all. Indeed, there
is in the liar the will to tell falsehoods: and therefore we find many who wish to lie; but
those who deceive, no one. When, therefore, a man does this knowingly, and suffers that
without knowing it, it is sufficiently evident in one and the same matter that he who is
deceived is better than he who lies; since it is better to suffer iniquity than to do it: but
everyone who lies does iniquity; and if it seems to any one that lying is sometimes useful, it
may be seen that iniquity is sometimes useful. For no one who lies keeps faith in what he
lies about; for he certainly wants this, so that he to whom he lies has faith, which he does
not keep by lying to him: but every violator of faith is unjust. Either, therefore, iniquity is
sometimes useful, which cannot be done; or lying is always useless. 41. But anyone who
feels otherwise in the Scriptures than he who wrote, is deceived by those who do not lie: but
still, as I began to say, if that sentence is mistaken, by which he builds up charity, which is
the end of the precept, he is so mistaken, just as if anyone abandons the way by error, he
however, he continues through the country, through which that road also leads. It must,
however, be corrected, and it must be shown how much more useful it is not to abandon the
way, lest by the habit of deviating he be forced to go in a transverse or perverse direction.

<3+> CHAPTER 37.--There is much danger in this faulty interpretation.

For by asserting at random that he did not perceive what he was reading, he generally runs
into other things which he is not able to form a conclusion: which, if he agrees to be true and
certain, that which he perceived cannot be true; and it happens in him, I do not know how,
that in loving his opinion, he begins to be more offensive to the Scriptures than to himself. If
evil should creep in, it will be uprooted from it. For we walk by faith, not by appearance (II
Cor. 5:7); but faith will waver if the authority of the divine Scriptures falters: moreover,
when faith wavers, charity itself also languishes. For if anyone has fallen from faith, he must
also fall from charity; for he cannot love that which he does not believe to be: moreover, if
he both believes and loves, by doing well and obeying the precepts of good behavior, he
makes it so that he also hopes that what he loves will come to be. And so there are these
three, with which both all knowledge and prophecy serve: faith, hope, and charity.

<3+> CHAPTER 38 Charity remains forever.

42. But the appearance of faith succeeds, which we shall see; and to hope succeeds the
happiness itself, to which we are about to arrive: but charity will also be increased rather by
these who are dying. For if we love by believing what we do not yet see, how much more
when we have begun to see? and if in hope we love what we have not yet reached, how
much more when we have reached it? For the difference between the temporal and the
eternal is this, that a temporal thing is loved more before it is possessed, but is despised
when it comes; for it does not satisfy the soul, whose true and sure abode is eternity: but the
eternal is more ardently loved by what is obtained than what is desired; but as much as any
one coming could imagine, he will find more when he arrives.

<3+> CHAPTER 39.-- A man instructed in faith, hope, and charity does not need the Scriptures.

43. A man, therefore, supported by faith, hope, and charity, and retaining them unshaken,
does not need the Scriptures except to instruct others. Therefore, many people live through
these three things even in solitude without codes. Wherefore in them I think that what was
said has already been fulfilled: Either prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease,
or knowledge shall be made void. However, such an instruction arose in them, as if they
were instruments of faith, hope, and charity, that, holding something perfect, they should
not seek those things which are in part: perfect, of course, as far as is possible in this life; for
in comparison with the future life of any righteous and holy person, that life is perfect.
Therefore, he says, faith, hope, and charity remain; these three: but the greater of these is
charity (1 Cor. 13:8, 13); because even when everyone has reached the eternal, charity will
continue to be greater and more certain for these two who have passed away.

<3+> CHAPTER 40.--What kind of reader the Scripture requires.

44. Therefore, when everyone knows that the end of the commandment is charity, from a
pure heart, and a good conscience, and unfaithful faith (1 Tim. 1, 5), he will relate all the
understanding of the divine Scriptures to these three, and approach the treatment of those
Books with confidence. For when he said, charity, he added, of a pure heart, that nothing but
that which is to be loved should be loved. But he conjoined a good conscience for the sake of
hope: for he despairs of attaining what he believes and loves, who has the scruples of a bad
conscience. Thirdly, and by faith, he says, not false. For if our faith lacks a lie, then we do not
love what is not to be loved, and we hope for it by living rightly, so that our hope is in no
way deceived. For this reason, I wanted to say as much as I thought was sufficient for the
time concerning matters containing faith, because much has already been said in other
volumes, either by others or by us. Let this be the mode of this book. We will discuss the rest
of the signs as much as the Lord will give.

<2+> THE SECOND BOOK

Augustine has already established a discourse on the signs and words of the sacred
Scriptures, and shows that the genuine meaning of this is generally not understood, because
those signs are either unknown or ambiguous. Having thus been set forth in the first canon
of the divine Books, he continues to declare that the most important of these is the skill of
languages, and what training and knowledge contribute to the removal of that ignorance of
signs. When given the opportunity, he strictly discusses the rejection of superstitious arts
and doctrines, but to what extent. He declares at the beginning and at the end of the book
how he should be prepared in mind, who is going to devote himself to the study of the
Scriptures.

<3+> CHAPTER ONE.-- What sign and how many times.

1. Because when I was writing about things, I warned beforehand that no one should pay
attention to them except for what they are, not even if they signify something else besides
themselves; On the other hand, speaking of signs, I say this, so that no one pays attention to
what they are, but rather that they are signs, that is, what they signify. For a sign is a thing,
in addition to the appearance which it gives to the senses, by causing something else of its
own accord to come into thought. and when we see smoke, we know that there is fire
underneath; and having heard the voice of the animating one, we notice the affection of his
soul; and when the trumpet sounds, the soldiers know that they must either advance or
retreat, and if the battle requires anything else, they must know that they must. 2.
Therefore, there are some natural signs and some given signs. They are natural things
which, without the will or any desire to signify, make something other than themselves
known from themselves, just as smoke signifies fire. For he does not wish to signify it, but
by observing and noting experienced things, he knows that there is a fire under it, even if
only smoke appears. But the trace of a passing animal also belongs to this kind: and an
angry or sad countenance signifies the affection of the soul, even with no will of him who is
either angry or sad; or if any other emotion of the mind be betrayed by the countenance of
the countenance, even we are not the agents to be betrayed. But it is not our intention to
discuss this whole class now. However, since it fell on our partition, it could not be passed at
all; and that has been noted up to now.

<3+> CHAPTER II.-- Of what kind of signs to treat here.

3. But givens are the signs which each living thing gives to each other to show, as far as they
can, the movements of their minds, whether they are felt or understood. And there is no
reason for us to signify, that is, to give a sign, except in order to disprove and convey to
another's mind what he who gives the sign carries in his mind. Therefore, we decide to
consider and treat the class of these signs, as far as men are concerned; because the signs
given by God, which are contained in the holy Scriptures, were revealed to us by men who
wrote them down. Even beasts have certain signs among themselves, by which they betray
the appetite of their souls. For the hen also, when he finds food, gives a signal to the hen's
voice to run; and a dove calls a dove with a moan, or is called by it in turn; and many things
of this kind are usually noticed. Whether these things, like the countenance or the cry of
pain, follow the motion of the mind without the intention of signifying, or whether they are
really given to signify, is another question, and does not pertain to the matter at hand:
which part of this work do we remove as not necessary.

<3+> CHAPTER III.-- Among the signs of leadership, words prevail.

4. Therefore, of the signs by which men communicate their senses to one another, some
belong to the sense of the eyes, most to the ears, and very few to the other senses. For when
we beckon, we do not give a sign except to the eyes of him whom we wish to make partaker
of our will by this sign. And some signify by the movement of the hands most of the time;
and the banners and military dragons convey through their eyes the will of the leaders: and
all these things are like visible words. Now, as I said, there are many things that pertain to
the ears, especially in words. For both the trumpet, and the pipe, and the lyre, generally give
not only a sweet, but also a significant sound. But all these signs are very few compared to
words. For among men words have obtained the supremacy of signifying whatever is
conceived in the mind, if each one chooses to betray them. For the Lord also gave some sign
with the smell of the ointment with which his feet were soaked (John 12:3 and 7); and by
the sacrament of his body and blood, he signified what he willed (Luke 22:19, 20); and when
the woman touched the hem of his garment, and was saved, it signifies nothing (Matthew
9:21): but the innumerable multitude of signs by which men expressed their thoughts, is
established in words. For I was able to express in words all those signs whose kinds I briefly
touched upon; But I could not in any way use those words.

<3+> CHAPTER IV.-- Whence letters.

5. But because they pass immediately through the beaten air, and do not remain longer than
they sound, the signs of words are established by means of letters. Thus voices are shown to
the eyes, not by themselves, but by certain of their signs. These signs, then, could not be
common to all nations, a kind of sin of human dissension, when each snatches the
principality to himself. The sign of whose pride is the erection of that tower in heaven,
where wicked men deserved to have not only hearts, but also discordant voices (Gen. 11:1-
9).

<1+> CHAPTER V.-- Diversity of languages.

6. From this it came about that even the divine Scriptures, by which they are helped in so
many diseases of human wills, issued from one language, by which it could be opportunely
disseminated throughout the world, through the various languages of interpreters, spread
far and wide to become known to the nations for salvation: which readers desire nothing
but thoughts and to discover the will of those by whom it was written, and through them
the will of God, according to which we believe such men spoke.
<3+> CHAPTER VI.--The obscurity of Scripture in tropes and figures to what purpose.

7. But those who read at random, mistaking one thing for another, are deceived by many
and manifold obscurities and ambiguities; but in some places they do not find what they
suspect or falsely suspect, so obscurely they cover certain statements with the thickest fog. I
do not doubt that the whole was provided by God, to tame pride with labor, and to recall the
understanding from disgust, which is easily investigated and generally despised. For what is
it, I pray thee, that if any man say that they are holy men and perfect, whose life and
manners the Church of Christ cut off from all superstitions those who come to her, and by
imitation of good things she in some way incorporates herself; those who are good believers
and true servants of God, laying aside the burdens of the world, have come to the holy bath
of Baptism, and ascending from thence with the conception of the Holy Spirit, they bear the
twin fruit of charity, that is, of God and of their neighbor. if to the same meaning he
expounds that passage from the Song of Songs, where it was said to the Church, when she
was praised as a certain beautiful woman, Your teeth are like a sheared flock, coming up
from the wash, which all create twins, and is not barren among them (Cant. 4, 2 ) Does a
man learn anything else than when he hears it in the plainest words, without the support of
this similitude? And yet I do not know how I can look more kindly on the saints, when I see
them as the teeth of the Church cutting men from errors, and transferring into his body,
softened hardness, as if they were slow and steady. I also recognize most delightfully the
sheep that have been shorn, laid down with worldly burdens as in fleeces, and coming up
from the wash, that is, from Baptism, to create all twins, that is, the two precepts of love, and
I see that there is none barren from this holy fruit. 8. But why should I see it better, than if
no such similitude is to be found in the divine Books, when the matter is the same and the
knowledge is the same, it is difficult to say, and there is another question. Now, however, no
one seeks, and everything is more willingly known by similitudes, and much more willingly
found when sought with some difficulty. For those who do not find exactly what they are
looking for, suffer from hunger; but those who do not seek, because they have what is
readily available, often wither with disgust; Therefore, in a magnificent and wholesome
way, the Holy Spirit modified the Holy Scriptures in such a way that it met hunger in the
more open places, and cleansed disgust in the darker ones. For almost nothing is revealed
about those obscurities, which is not clearly stated elsewhere.

<3+> CHAPTER VII.-- Steps to wisdom: first, fear; the second, piety; thirdly, knowledge; the
fourth, fortitude; fifth, counsel; sixth, purification of the heart; the seventh degree or end,
wisdom.

9. Above all, then, we need to be converted to the fear of God in order to know his will, what
he commands us to desire and avoid. But this fear must necessarily inculcate the thought of
our mortality and future death, and as if nailed to the flesh, it fastens all the movements of
pride to the wood of the cross. Then we need to be gentle with piety, and not to contradict
the divine Scriptures, whether understood, if any of our faults strike us; whether they are
not understood, as if we could better understand and better command: but rather think and
believe that what is written there is better and truer, even if it is hidden, than what we can
understand by ourselves. 10. After these two degrees of fear and piety comes the third
degree of knowledge, of which I now intend to speak. For every student of the divine
Scriptures exercises himself in it, finding in them nothing else but to love God for God's
sake, and the neighbor for God's sake: and indeed to love him with all the heart, with all the
soul, with all the mind but the neighbor as himself (Matthew 22:37 and 39), that is, that the
whole love of the neighbor, as well as ours, is referred to God. Of these two precepts, when
we dealt with things, we treated in the preceding book. It is necessary, therefore, that
everyone should first find himself in the Scriptures by the love of this world, that is, of
temporal things, entangled, far removed from so much love of God and so much love of
neighbor, as the Scripture itself prescribes. But then that fear with which he thinks of the
judgment of God, and that piety with which he cannot but believe and yield to the authority
of the holy books, compels him to mourn himself. For this knowledge of good hope makes a
man not proud of himself, but lamenting: with which emotion he obtains the consolation of
the divine helper by diligent prayers, lest he be crushed by despair, and begins to exist in
the fourth degree, that is, of courage, in which righteousness hungers and thirsts. For with
this affection he withdraws himself from all the deadly delight of transitory things, and
turning from thence he turns to the love of the eternal, that is, the unchangeable unity and
the same Trinity. 11. When he looked, as far as he could, at the far-off radiating light, he felt
that he could not support that light due to the weakness of his gaze; in the fifth degree, that
is, in the counsel of mercy, he purifies the soul which is in a certain way tumultuous and
noisy to itself from the filth of the lower conceptions of the appetite. Here, however, he
readily exercises himself in the love of his neighbor, and is perfected in it; and already full of
hope and full of strength, when he has reached even the love of the enemy, he ascends to the
sixth degree, where he already cleanses the eye itself, by which God can be seen, as far as he
can by those who die in this world as far as they can. For they see in so far as they die to this
world; but to what extent they live to this, they do not see. And therefore, although it is
already more certain, and not only more tolerable, but also more delightful, the aspect of
that light begins to appear; it is said to be seen through a mirror (1 Cor. 13:12), because we
walk more by faith than by appearance when we sojourn in this life (2 Cor. 5:6, 7), although
we have conversation in the heavens ( (Philippians 3:20.) At this stage he so cleans the eye
of the heart that he does not even prefer himself or compare the neighbor to the truth.
therefore neither himself, because neither him whom he loves as himself. He will therefore
be a saint with such a simple and pure heart that he will not deviate from the truth in his
desire to please men, nor will he avoid any of his inconveniences which are contrary to this
life. Such a son ascends to wisdom, which is the last and seventh, by which peace and
tranquility are enjoyed. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psal. 19:10, and
Eccl. 1:16). For from him to her it stretches through these steps, and it comes.
<3+> CHAPTER VIII.-- Canonical books.

12. But let us return to that third degree of consideration, about which we intend to discuss
what the Lord has suggested, and to treat. He will therefore be the most skilful investigator
of the divine Scriptures, who first has read them all, and has made notes, and if he does not
yet understand, yet already by reading, only those which are called canonical. For he will
read the rest more safely, being instructed in the faith of the truth, lest they preoccupy the
feeble mind, and, evading dangerous lies and fancies, prejudice something contrary to
sound understanding. But in the canonical Scriptures, he follows the authority of the several
Catholic Churches; among whom, of course, are those who deserved to have apostolic Sees
and to receive Epistles. He will therefore maintain this manner in the canonical Scriptures,
that those which are accepted by all the Catholic Churches, he prefers to those which some
do not accept: but in those which are not accepted by all, he prefers those which are
accepted by the majority and more weighty, to those which are held by fewer and less
authority of the Church. But if he finds that some are held by the majority, and others by the
more serious, although he cannot easily find this, yet I think that they are held to be of equal
authority. 13. Now the whole canon of the Scriptures, in which we say that this
consideration should be turned, is contained in these books: the five books of Moses, that is,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; and one book of Jesus' ship, one Judges,
one book called Ruth, which seems to belong more to the beginning of the Kingdoms; then
the four Kingdoms, and the two Chronicles, not consecutive, but as if joined from the side
and proceeding together. This is history, which contains times connected with itself, and an
order of things: there are others, as if from a different order, which are neither to this order,
nor to each other, as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of the
Maccabees, and The two Esdras, which seem rather to follow that orderly history, ended up
to the Kingdoms or Chronicles: then the Prophets, in which David is one book of Psalms; and
Solomon's three, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For those two books, one called
Wisdom, and the other called Ecclesiasticus, are said to be about a certain likeness of
Solomon: for Jesus Sirach is most consistently reported to have written them, which,
however, since they deserved to be received into authority, are to be numbered among the
prophets. The rest of their books, which are properly called the Prophets, are the twelve
books of the Prophets, each of which is connected with itself, because they are never
separated, and are considered as one. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi: then there are
the four Prophets of the larger volumes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. With these forty-
four books of the Old Testament, the authority ends; but with the New, with the four books
of the Gospel, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to
John; the fourteen Epistles of Paul the Apostle, to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, two to
the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, to the
Colossians, two to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; Two Peters; to the tribe
of John; one of Judah, and one of James; The Acts of the Apostles in one book, and the
Apocalypse of John in one book.
<3+> CHAPTER IX.-- On what account should we spend our time in the study of the Scriptures?

14. In all these books, fearing God and meek in piety, they seek the will of God. The first
observation of whose work and labor is, as we have said, to know these books, even if not
yet to the understanding, by reading them either to memorize them, or not to have them
completely unknown. Then those things which are clearly laid down in them, either the
precepts of living, or the rules of believing, are to be more skilfully and diligently
investigated: which each one finds so much more, the more capable of intelligence he is. For
in those things which are plainly laid down in the Scriptures, are found all those things
which contain faith, and manners of living, namely, hope and charity, of which we have
treated in the preceding book. And then, having become somewhat familiar with the very
language of the divine Scriptures, we must continue to open up and discuss the things that
are obscure, so that in order to illustrate the more obscure expressions, examples may be
taken from the more obvious ones, and some proofs of certain opinions may remove the
doubt of the uncertain. In this matter memory is of great value: which, if lacking, cannot be
given by these precepts.

<3+> CHAPTER X.-- Scripture may not be understood because of unknown or ambiguous signs.

15. But for two reasons what is written is not understood, if it is covered with either
unknown or ambiguous signs. But there are signs either proper or transferred. They are
called proper, when they are used to signify those things, for which they are instituted; as
we say ox, when we mean cattle, which all the Latin-speaking people with us call by this
name. They have been translated, when the very things which we signify by our proper
words are used to signify something else: as we say an ox, and by these two syllables we
understand a piece of food which is usually called by that name; but again by that cattle we
understand the evangelist, whom the Scripture signified, interpreting the Apostle, saying,
Thou shalt not bridle the ox that is treading (I Cor. 9:9).

<3+> CHAPTER XI.--In order to remove ignorance of the signs, a knowledge of languages is
necessary, and especially of Greek and Hebrew.

16. Knowledge of languages is a great remedy against unknown signs. And the Latin-
speaking people, whom we now undertake to instruct, need two others for the knowledge of
the divine Scriptures, namely, Hebrew and Greek; in order to have recourse to previous
examples, if the infinite variety of Latin interpreters has brought any doubt. Although we
often find untranslated Hebrew words in books, such as Amen, and Alleluia, and Racha, and
Hosanna, and if there are others: partly because of their holier authority, although they
could have been translated, the antiquity has been preserved, as is Amen, and Alleluia; but
in part they are said not to have been able to be translated into another language, like the
other two which we have put forward. For there are certain words of certain languages
which cannot pass into the use of another language through interpretation. And this
happens especially with interjections, which words signify a movement of the mind rather
than any part of a conceived sentence; for these two are said to be such: for they say that
Racha is the voice of the indignant, Hosanna of the rejoicing. But it is not because of these
few things, which are the easiest to notice and question, but because of the diversities, as
has been said, of the interpreters, that the knowledge of those languages is necessary. For
those who translated the Scriptures from the Hebrew language into Greek can be counted;
but the Latin interpreters by no means. For as every one in the first days of faith came into
the hands of a Greek codex, and it seemed to him that he had some ability in both languages,
he ventured to translate

<1+> CHAPTER XII.-- A useful diversity of interpretations. From the

ambiguity of the words, as it happens, there is an error in interpretation.

17. This fact has helped the understanding more than it has hindered it, if only the readers
are not negligent. For inspection has often brought to light some of the more obscure
sentences of several codices, as one interpreter of the prophet Isaiah says, And thou shalt
not despise the household of thy seed; but another says, "And do not despise your flesh"
(Isa. 58:7): each testified to himself the other. For the one is explained from the other,
because the flesh could also be taken properly, so that each one might not look down on his
own body, but think himself admonished; and by the translation of domestic seeds,
Christians could be understood, born spiritually from the same seed of the word with us.
Whence I think that the Apostle said, "If by any means I could bring my flesh to rivalry, that I
might save some of them" (Rom. 11:14); that is, that by emulating those who had believed,
they themselves believed. For he called the Jews his flesh, because of his kinship. Also that
of the same prophet Isaiah, Unless you believe, you will not understand; another
interpreted it, Unless you believe, you will not continue (Isa. 7:9): who followed these
words, unless the examples of the preceding language are read, is uncertain. However, from
both of them something great is suggested to the intelligent reader. It is difficult for
interpreters to become so different from each other that they do not come into contact with
each other in some proximity. Therefore, since the understanding is eternal in nature, faith,
on the other hand, in certain temporal things feeds little children in certain cradles as with
milk; but now we walk by faith, not by appearance (II Cor. 5:7); but unless we walk by faith,
we shall not be able to arrive at the appearance of that which does not pass away, but
remains, through the purified intellect we adhere to the truth: therefore he says, Unless you
believe, you will not continue; But he said, Unless you believe, you will not understand. 18.
And from the ambiguity of the preceding language, the interpreter is generally mistaken,
who is not well acquainted with the sentence, and transfers it to a meaning which is
completely foreign to the meaning of the writer: as some manuscripts have, their feet are
sharp to shed blood; For ὀξὺς signifies both sharp with the Greeks and swift. He then saw
the sentence that translated, Their feet are swift to shed blood (Psal. 13:3); but he was led
astray by the sign of another sharp-edged man in another direction. And such indeed are
not obscure, but false; of which there is another condition; for such codes should rather be
commanded not to be understood, but to be corrected. Hence also the fact that since μόσχος
is called calves in Greek, some did not understand μοσχεύματα to be plantations, and
interpreted them as calves: which error has overtaken so many manuscripts, that it is
scarcely found written otherwise; and yet the sentence is very clear, because it is made clear
by the following words: for adulterous plantings will not give deep roots (Wis. iv. 3), it is
said more appropriately than, calves, which walk on the ground with their feet, and do not
stick to the roots. Other contexts also keep this translation in place.

<3+> CHAPTER XIII.-- The defect of interpretation from which it can be corrected.

19. But since whatever the actual sentence is, how many interpreters try to express it
according to their ability and judgment, it is not apparent unless we look at the language in
which they are interpreting; and usually the translator deviates from the meaning of the
author, if he is not the most learned: or knowledge of those languages from which the
Scripture reached Latin is required; or to have the interpretations of those who have
restricted themselves too much to words; not because they are sufficient, but so that from
them the truth or error of others may be discovered, who have preferred to follow the
interpretation of words rather than sentences. For not only individual words, but also
phrases are often translated, which cannot pass into the use of the Latin language at all, if
one wishes to maintain the custom of the ancients who spoke Latin. These things sometimes
take nothing away from the understanding, but still offend those who take more pleasure in
things, when even in their signs a certain integrity is preserved. For the so-called solecism is
nothing else than when the words are not adapted to themselves according to that law, by
which those who spoke to us before us did not without some authority. For whether it is
said, Among men, or, Among men, does not concern the knower of things. Again, what else is
barbarism, if not a word uttered in letters or sounds other than those which were usually
uttered by those who spoke Latin before us? For whether the third syllable is called
Ignoscere produced or corrected, it does not matter much to one who asks God to forgive
his sins, in whatever way that word may sound. What, then, is the integrity of speech, but
the preservation of a foreign custom, confirmed by the authority of the ancient speakers. 20.
Nevertheless, men are the more offended by this, the weaker they are; and they are weaker
the more they want to appear more learned, not by the knowledge of things by which we
are built, but by the signs by which it is absolutely difficult not to be inflated, since the
knowledge of things itself often raises the neck, unless it is repressed with a domineering
yoke. For what is the object of the understanding, that it is thus written: What is the earth in
which these dwell upon it, whether it is good or evil; and what are the cities in which they
dwell in themselves (Num. 13:20)? Which phrase I think is more of a foreign language than
any deeper meaning. Even that which we can no longer remove from the mouths of the
singing peoples, But upon him shall my sanctification flourish (Ps. 211, 18), certainly does
not detract from the sentence: yet a more expert listener would prefer to correct this, so
that it should not be said to flourish, but to flourish; and nothing hinders correction, except
the custom of the singers. These things, therefore, can easily be despised, if one does not
want to beware of them, which detract nothing from a healthy understanding. But it is true
that what the apostle says, What is foolish to God is wiser to men; and what is weak for God
is stronger for men (1 Cor. 1:25): if someone wanted to keep the Greek phrase in it, to say,
"What is foolish for God is wiser for men." and what is weak in God is stronger in men; the
attentive reader's attention would indeed go to the truth of the sentence, but still someone
slower would either not understand, or even understand it wrongly. For not only is such a
vicious expression in the Latin language, the truth also falls into ambiguity; so that it seems
as if the foolishness of men or the weakness of men is wiser or stronger than God's.
Although he is wiser than men, he is not without ambiguity, even if he lacks solecism. For
whether to these men what is from him, to this man; Whether it was said to these men by
that which is, by this man, does not appear except by the illumination of the sentence.
Therefore it is better said, He is wiser than men, and is stronger than men.

<3+> CHAPTER XIV.-- The knowledge of the unknown word and of the unknown phrase,
whence to be extracted.

21. But we shall speak of ambiguous signs later; now we are dealing with unknowns, of
which there are two forms, as far as words are concerned. For either an unknown word
makes the reader stick, or an unknown phrase. If these come from foreign languages, they
must either be sought from the people of those languages, or the same language, if there is
both leisure and talent, must be learned, or the collation of several interpreters must be
consulted. If, however, we do not know some words and expressions of our own language,
they will become familiar by the habit of reading and listening. Certainly there are no more
commandments of memory than those kinds of words and expressions which we do not
know; so that when either an expert is encountered about whom they can be asked, or such
a reading as shows either from the preceding or from the consequent or both the force it
has, or what it means that we do not know, we can easily notice and learn by adjuvant
memory. Although the power of habit is so great even for learning, that those who have
been in some way nourished and educated in the holy Scriptures, are more surprised at
other expressions, and think them less Latin than those which they have learned in the
Scriptures, and are not found in the authors of the Latin language. Here, too, the large
number of interpreters who have examined and discussed the collated codes is of great
help; so far is falsity absent: for in correcting the codices the skill of those who desire to
know the divine Scriptures must first of all be watched over, so that they yield to the
corrected and uncorrected, coming from only one kind of interpretation.

<3+> CHAPTER XV.-- The Latin Italian version is recommended, and the Greek Septuagint
translators.

22. But in the interpretations themselves, Italian is preferred to the rest; for he is more
tenacious of words than of clearness of thought. And in making any corrections to the Latin,
let the Greek be used, in which the Septuagint of interpreters, as regards the Old Testament,
excels in authority; which are already said to have been interpreted by all the more
experienced churches by such a presence of the Holy Spirit, that the mouth of so many men
became one. If, as it is reported, and many preach not unworthy of faith, when they were
interpreted each in cells even separated from each other, nothing was found in the codex of
any of them that was not found in the same words and in the same order of words in the
others; who dares to contribute anything to this authority, much less prefer it? If, however,
they contributed to the common discussion and judgment of all, and not even any one
person with any expertise, it is necessary or appropriate to aspire to the agreement of so
many elders and teachers. Therefore, even if something is found in the Hebrew copies that
is different from what they set, I think that we must yield to the divine dispensation which
was made through them, so that the books which the Jewish nation did not want to betray
to the other peoples, either by religion or envy, should be betrayed by the Lord to the
Gentiles under the power of King Ptolemy's minister so long ago . And so it is possible that
they were interpreted in this way, just as the Holy Spirit judged that he who dealt with
them, and who had made one mouth for all, was fitting for the Gentiles. But still, as I said
above, the comparison of these interpreters, who clung more tenaciously to the words, is
not useless in order to explain many a sentence. The Latins, therefore, as I began to say, are
to be corrected, if necessary, by the authority of the Greeks. There is no doubt that the
books of the New Testament, if there was anything in the Latin varieties, must yield to the
Greek, and especially those who are found to be more learned and diligent among the
Churches.

<3+> CHAPTER XVI.--In order that translated signs may be understood, both knowledge of
languages and of things helps.

23. But in the translated signs, if by any chance the unknown force the reader to cling to
them, the knowledge of languages, partly of facts, must be investigated. For something
similar is valid, and without a doubt the pool of Siloam hints at something secret, where he
was commanded to wash the face of one whose eyes the Lord had anointed with mud made
of spittle (John 9:7). side by side In the same way, many Hebrew names which have not
been translated by the authors of the same books, it is not to be doubted that they have no
small power and help in solving the riddles of the Scriptures, if one can translate them: for
some men expert in the same language have certainly contributed no small benefit to
posterity. who interpreted all the same words separately from the Scriptures; and what is
Adam, what Eve, what Abraham, what Moses; or even the names of places, what is
Jerusalem, or Sion, or Jericho, or Sinai, or Lebanon, or Jordan; or whatever other names are
unknown to us in that language: by which they are opened and interpreted, many figurative
expressions in the Scriptures are made manifest. 24. But ignorance of things makes obscure
figurative expressions, when we are ignorant of the natures of animals, or of stones, or of
plants, or of other things, which are generally set forth in the Scriptures in the likeness of
some grace. For what is known about the serpent is that the whole body should be thrown
at those who strike him instead of the head, as much as it illustrates that sense by which the
Lord commands us to be as cunning as serpents (Matthew 10:16); so that instead of our
head, which is Christ, we should rather offer the body to the persecutors, lest the Christian
faith be killed in us, if we spare the body and deny God! or that which, confined by the
straits of the cave, is said to receive new powers after laying aside the old tunic, inasmuch as
it prepares to imitate the very cunning of the serpent, and to put off the old man himself, as
the Apostle says, that we may put on the new (Eph. 4, 22, 24; Colossians iii, 9, 10); and to be
taken off through the straits, saying to the Lord, Enter through the narrow gate (Matthew
7:13)! As, therefore, the knowledge of the nature of the serpent illustrates the many
similitudes which the Scripture is wont to give concerning this animal; thus the ignorance of
certain animals, which he mentions no less by similitudes, hinders a great deal of
understanding. So a stone, so grass, or whatever is held by the roots. For the information of
the carbuncle, which shines in the darkness, illuminates many things even in the darkness
of books, wherever it is placed for the sake of similarity; and ignorance of beryl or diamond
generally closes the doors of intelligence. And for no other reason is it easy to understand
that perpetual peace is signified by the branch of olive, which the dove carried on its way
back to the ark (Gen. 8:11), except because we also know that the gentle contact of oil is not
easily corrupted by foreign moisture, and that the tree itself leaves perpetually. But many,
because of the ignorance of the hyssop, while they do not know what power it has, either to
cleanse the lungs, or, as it is said, to penetrate rocks by the roots, since it is a short and low
herb, cannot at all find out why it was said, "Spare me to the hyssop, and I shall be cleansed"
(Ps. 5, 9). 25. Even ignorance of numbers causes many things not to be understood,
translated and mystically placed in the Scriptures. For the intellect, as I may say, cannot be
moved by what it wants, because both Moses and Elijah, and the Lord Himself, fasted for
forty days (Exod. 24:18; 3 Kings 19:8; and Matt. 4:2). A certain knot of whose action is
figured, is not resolved except by the knowledge and consideration of this number. For he
has a penny fourfold, as if the knowledge of all things were interwoven with the times. For
in the quaternary number both daily and annual courses are carried out: daily morning,
noon, evening, and night hours; yearly in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter months.
But from the pleasure of the times, while we live in the times, because of the eternity in
which we want to live, we must abstain and fast: although the course of the times itself
teaches us the doctrine of despising times and desiring eternity. Moreover, the number of a
denarius signifies the knowledge of the Creator and of the creature: for it is the trinity of the
Creator, and the number of seven signifies the creature, because of life and body. For there
are three things in it, from which God is to be loved with the whole heart, with the whole
soul, with the whole mind (Id. 22:37); but in the body there appear four most manifest
elements, which are evident from them. In this penny, therefore, while it is temporarily
insinuated to us, that is, it is led four times, chastely and continually, we are admonished to
live by the pleasures of the times, that is, to fast for forty days. This Law, whose person is in
Moses, this Prophecy, whose person Elijah wears, this the Lord himself warns; who, as if
having a testimony from the Law and the Prophets, was the middle among them on the
mountain, to the three disciples who saw and were amazed, he became clear (Id., 17, 2, 3).
Then it is asked how a man of fifty exists out of a number of forty, who is not moderately
consecrated in our religion because of Pentecost (Acts 2), and how he was brought three
times because of three times, before the Law, under the Law, under Grace, or because of the
name of the Father and the Son , and the Holy Spirit, associated more prominently with the
Trinity itself, is referred to the mystery of the most purified Church, and may reach one
hundred and fifty-three fishes, which the nets caught after the Lord's resurrection cast to
the right hand (John 21:11). Thus, in many other and other forms of numbers, certain
similitudes are kept secret in the holy books, which are closed to the readers because of the
ignorance of numbers. 26. Ignorance of some musical matters also closes and covers not a
few things. For and concerning the difference between the psaltery and the lyre, some one
has not unreasonably opened some figures of things: and the psaltery of ten strings (Ps.
32:2; and Ps. force the number; or indeed, if it has not, the number itself is to be taken more
sacredly, either because of the ten commandments of the Law, about which also if a number
is asked, it is to be referred only to the Creator and the creature, or because of the above-
explained denarius itself. And that number of the building of the temple, which is mentioned
in the Gospel, namely forty and six years (John 2:20), I do not know what music sounds; and
being related to the fabric of Dominic's body, for which the mention of the temple was
made, compels some heretics to confess the Son of God, not falsely, but in truth and clothed
in a human body: and indeed we find the number and music in most places honorably
placed in the holy Scriptures.

<3+> CHAPTER XVII.--The origin of the story of the Nine Muses.

27. For the errors of the heathen superstitions are not to be heard, who pretended that the
nine Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Memory. Varro rebukes them, and I do not
know whether any of them can be more learned or more curious about such things. For he
says that a city of I do not know which, for I do not remember the name, placed with three
artists three images of the Muses, that he would place a gift in the temple of Apollo, that
whoever had fashioned the most beautiful of the artists should buy from him the most
chosen one. And so it happened that those artists also displayed their works equally
beautiful, and that the state was pleased with all nine, and that they were all bought, to be
dedicated in the temple of Apollo; to which he afterwards says that Hesiod the poet imposed
the terms. Therefore, Jupiter did not beget nine Muses, but three craftsmen created three.
But that city had not for that reason placed three, because it had seen them in dreams, or
because so many had shown themselves to the eyes of any one of them; but because it was
easy to perceive that every sound, which is the material of songs, is triformous by nature.
For either it is eaten with the voice, as is the case with those who sing with their throats
without an organ; or with the wind, as with trumpets and pipes; or by beating, as in lyres
and drums, and any other things that are sung by beating.

<3+> CHAPTER XVIII.-- If the profane have said something good, it is not to be reproached.

28. But whether what Varro reported is so, or not; yet we ought not to shun music because
of the superstition of the profane, if we could steal from it anything useful for understanding
the Holy Scriptures; nor should we turn to their theatrical toys, if we were to dispute
something about the lyres and the organs, which would be of use to grasp spiritual things.
For neither did we have to learn letters, because they say that Mercury was the discoverer
of them; or because they dedicated the temples of justice and virtue, and preferred to
worship in stones what should be worn in the heart, therefore justice and virtue must be
shunned by us: nay, whoever is a good and true Christian must understand that he is his
Lord, wherever he finds the truth, which he confesses and acknowledges, even in the sacred
letters reject superstitious fictions; and let men be sorry and beware, who, knowing God,
did not glorify God, or give thanks, but vanished in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts
were darkened: for saying they were wise, they became fools, and changed the incorruptible
glory of God into the likeness of a corruptible image of man, and of the bird, and of the four-
footed, and of the serpent (Rom. 1, 21 sqq.).

<3+> CHAPTER XIX.-- Two kinds of doctrines found among the ethnics.

29. But in order to explain this whole passage, for it is most necessary, let us explain more
carefully; There are two kinds of doctrines, which are practiced even in the manners of the
Gentiles. One of the things that men have instituted; the second of those which they noticed
had already been accomplished or divinely instituted. That which is according to the
institutions of men is partly superstitious, partly not.

<3+> CHAPTER XX.-- Some of the sciences which men have instituted are full of superstitions.
Cato's saying was nice.
30. Whatever is instituted by men to make and worship idols, or to worship as God a
creature or any part of a creature, is superstitious. or to the consultations and agreements
of certain significations agreed upon and confederated with demons, such as the difficulties
of the magical arts, which indeed the poets are wont to mention rather than to teach. From
which class they are, but as if with a more licentious vanity, the book of auspiciousness and
augury. To this class also belong all the ligatures and remedies, which the discipline of
physicians also condemns, whether in chanting, or in certain signs which they call
characters, or in any matter of suspending and tying things, or even fitting them in some
way, not for the tempering of the bodies, but for certain meanings. either hidden, or even
manifest; which they call by the better name of physics, so that they seem not to involve
superstition, but to benefit nature: as there are earrings on the top of the ears of individuals,
or rings of ostrich bones on the fingers, or when you are told to sob, to hold the thumb of
the left with your right hand. 31. To these are added thousands of the most empty
observations, if some limb jumps, if a stone, or a dog, or a middle child intervenes when
friends are walking together; He runs into those who are walking. But it is a war that
sometimes children are avenged by dogs: for generally some are so superstitious that they
dare to strike even a dog that intervenes in the middle, not with impunity; for from the vain
remedy he sometimes sends his assailant to the true physician. Hence they are, too, to step
on the threshold when he passes before his house; to return to bed, if any one sneezes while
putting on his shoes; to return home, if he stumbles on his way; when one's clothes are
gnawed by shrews, one trembles more at the suspicion of future evil than at the pain of the
present loss. Whence this was elegantly said to Cato, who, when he was consulted by a
certain one, who told him that his boots were worn by shrews; He answered that it was not
a monster, but that it was truly a monster if the shrews gnawed through the boots.

<3+> CHAPTER XXI.-- Superstition of mathematics.

32. Nor are those to be excluded from this class of pernicious superstition, who, on account
of the considerations of the days of their birth, are called geneticists, but are now generally
called mathematicians. For even they themselves, although they follow the true position of
the stars when each is born, and sometimes even trace them; however, because they try to
predict either our actions or the results of our actions, they err too much, and sell a pitiable
service to ignorant people. For every librarian, when he has entered a mathematician of this
kind, gives money so that the servant may leave thence either on Tuesday, or on Friday, or
rather on all the stars; by which those who erred first, and misled the posterity, and
imposed terms either of beasts because of their likeness, or of men, to honor the men
themselves. For it is not to be wondered at that, even in nearer and more recent times, the
Romans tried to call the star which we call Lucifer, the honor and name of Caesar. And
perhaps it would have been done and would have reached old age, if his grandmother Venus
had not preempted this estate of the name; nor would he by any right pass to his heirs what
he had never possessed during his lifetime or claimed to possess. For where there was a
vacant place, and no one was held in honor of any of the former dead, the thing that usually
happens in such matters happened. For the quintile and sextile months, we call Julius and
Augustus, from the honors of the men named Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar; so that
anyone who wills may easily understand that even those stars previously wandered in
heaven without these names; but for those dead whose memory men were either compelled
by royal power, or pleased by human vanity, to honor their memory, by imposing their
names on the stars, they seemed to raise the dead themselves into heaven. But whatever
they may be called by men, they are still stars which God instituted and ordered as He
willed; and their movement is certain, by which the seasons are distinguished and varied. It
is easy to note what movement, when each one is born, in what manner he behaves, by their
inventions and written rules, which the Holy Scripture condemns, saying: For if they could
only know so that they could estimate the age, how could they not have found its Lord more
easily (Sap. 13 , 9)

<3+> CHAPTER XXII.-- Observing the stars to know the vain series of life.

33. But to wish to predict the behavior, actions, and events of those born from that
identification is a great error and a great madness. And indeed among those who have
learned to learn such things, this superstition is rejected without any doubt. For the
constellations, which they call, are the marking of the stars, how they were when he was
born, about which these wretched are consulted by the wretched. It is possible, however,
that some twins are so closely founded from the womb, that no interval of time between
them can be apprehended, and marked by the numbers of the constellations. Hence it is
necessary that some twins have the same constellations, when they do not have equal
results, either in what they do or what they suffer, but generally so disparate, that one lives
the happiest, the other the most unhappy. the latter was born, he would be found holding in
his hand the plant of the preceding brother (Gen. 25, 25) . Surely the day and hour of their
birth could not be marked in any other way, except that the constellation of both was one;
and as far as the conduct, deeds, labors, and success of both are interposed, the Scripture is
a witness, having already passed through the mouth of all nations. 34. For it is not relevant
that they say that the smallest and narrowest moment of time, which determines the birth
of twins, has much effect in the nature of the world and the very rapid speed of the heavenly
bodies. For although I grant that it is of great value, yet it cannot be found by the
mathematician in the constellations, which he professes to call fortunes by looking at them.
What, therefore, he does not find in the constellations, which it is necessary for him to look
at, whether he consults about Jacob or his brother; What does it profit him if he is far away
in heaven, which he slanders at random, and is not far away on the map, which he looks at
in vain concern? Wherefore these opinions also are to be referred to certain signs of things
established by human presumption, to those same things, as it were, agreements and
agreements with demons.
<3+> CHAPTER XXIII.-- Why the science of genetics should be rejected.

35. For from this it happens that by a secret divine judgment, men who are fond of evil
things are given up to mock and deceive for the merits of their own wills, mocking and
deceiving them to transgressing angels; to which this lowest part of the world, according to
the most beautiful order of things, is subject to the law of divine providence. By these
illusions and deceptions it happens that by these superstitious and pernicious kinds of
divination many things past and future are said, and they do not happen otherwise than
they are said; and many things may happen to the observers according to their
observations, by which those involved become more curious, and insert themselves more
and more into the manifold snares of the most pernicious error. This kind of fornication,
which is healthful to the soul, was not silent in the divine Scriptures; nor did he deter the
soul from it so much as to deny that such things should be followed because they are said by
their professors to be false; For it is not because the image of the dead Samuel foretold the
truth to King Saul (1 Kings 28:14-20; Eccl. 46:23), therefore such sacrileges to which that
image was presented are less blasphemous: or because in the Acts of the Apostles a female
ventriloquist bears true witness He passed through the Apostles of the Lord, therefore the
Apostle Paul spared that spirit, and did not rather cleanse the woman by rebuking and
expelling that demon (Acts 16:16-18). 36. Therefore, all the arts of this kind, either
destructive or noxious superstition, formed from a certain pestilential association of men
and demons, as if some pacts of infidel and deceitful friendship were established, are to be
utterly rejected and shunned by the Christian: Not that anything is an idol, says the Apostle,
but because what they sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; But I do not want
you to become companions of demons (1 Cor. 10, 19, 20). But as regards idols and the
sacrifices which are offered to their honor, said the Apostle, this is to be understood of all
imaginary signs, which relate either to the worship of idols, or to the creature and its parts
being worshiped as God, or to the care of remedies and other observances; which are not
divinely instituted for the love of God and neighbor as publicly, but through the private
desires of temporal things they destroy the hearts of the wretched. In all these doctrines,
then, the company of demons is to be feared and avoided, who, with their prince the devil,
do nothing but try to close and block our return. But just as concerning the stars, which God
created and ordered, human and deceptive conjectures were instituted by men; in the same
way also concerning all things arising or existing in any way by the administration of divine
providence, many men have written many human suspicions, as if they had been regularly
cast, if by chance unusual things should happen, as if a mule gave birth, or something was
struck by lightning.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIV.--A partnership and agreement with demons in the superstitious use of
things.
37. All these things are valid only in so far as they are confederated with the demons by the
presumption of their minds, as if by a common language. But all these things are full of
malignant curiosity, of tormenting anxiety, of deadly servitude. For it was not because they
were strong that they were noticed; but by noting and signing it was cast that they might be
strong. And therefore they arrive at different results according to their thoughts and
presumptions. For those spirits who wish to deceive, procure such things for every one, by
which they see him ensnared by his suspicions and consents. For just as, for example, one
figure of the letter X, which is marked with a decussate, has one thing with the Greeks,
another with the Latins, not by nature, but by agreement and agreement of signification;
and therefore he who knows both languages, if he wishes to signify something to a Greek
man by writing, does not place this letter in that meaning, in which he places it when he
writes to a man in Latin: and Beta, with one and the same sound, is a letter among the
Greeks, and the name of an herb among the Latins; and when I say, Read, in these two
syllables, the Greek understands one thing, the Latin another. nor therefore did men
consent to them, because they were already valid for their meaning, but they are valid
because they consented to them: so also those signs, to which the pernicious company of
demons is compared, are valid for the observations of each. This is most clearly shown by
the rites of omens, who, both before they observe and after they have observed the signs, do
so in order not to see the flights or hear the voices of the birds; because there are no such
signs unless the consent of the observer approaches.

<3+> CHAPTER XXV.-- In human institutions that are not superstitious, some are superfluous,
some are convenient and necessary.

38. When these have been cut off and eradicated from the Christian mind, the institutions of
men are henceforth to be seen as not superstitious, that is, instituted not with demons, but
with men themselves. For all things which therefore prevail among men, because it was
agreed among them that they should prevail, are the institutions of men: partly of these are
superfluous and luxurious institutions, partly convenient and necessary. For those signs
which the actors make in dancing, if by nature, and not by the design and consent of men,
were valid; not in the early times, by dancing in a pantomime, should a messenger announce
to the people of Carthage what the dancer wished to be understood. This is still
remembered by many of the old men, whose report we are accustomed to hear these things.
This must be believed because even now, if someone enters the theater of such plays
uninformed, unless he is told by another what those movements mean, he is completely
intent on it in vain. However, all desire a certain similarity in signification, so that the signs
themselves, as far as they can, are similar to the things signified. But since something can be
similar to something in many ways, such signs do not stand between people unless there is
agreement. 39. Indeed, in paintings and statues, and other simulated works of this kind,
especially by skilled artists, no one errs when he sees similar things, so as to recognize what
they are similar to. And this whole class must be numbered among the superfluous
institutions of men, except when it is important what they are, for what reason, and where,
and when, and by whose authority it is done. In short, thousands of fictitious stories and
falsities, the lies of which men delight, have been instituted by men. And there is no more
characteristic of men, which they have from themselves, than all falsities and lies. Indeed,
the conveniences and necessities of men were instituted with men, whatever difference in
dress and bodily dress was deemed necessary to distinguish the sexes or honors; and the
innumerable kinds of signs without which human society is carried on, either not at all, or
less conveniently; and which in weights and measures, and the impressions or valuations of
money, are peculiar to each state and people; and other things of this kind, which were not
instituted by men, would not be varied by different peoples, nor would they be changed in
the individual peoples themselves at the discretion of their princes. 40. But this whole part
of human institutions, which are necessary for the use of life, must by no means be shunned
by the Christian; nay, even as much as is sufficient, to be observed, and to be retained in
memory.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVI.--What human institutions are to be avoided, and what are to be
embraced.

For certain things are drawn from the natures, in any way similar to the institutions of men.
Those things which belong to the company of demons, as has been said, are to be utterly
rejected and detested; but those things which men have with men, are to be accepted, in so
far as they are not luxurious and superfluous; and especially the figures of letters, without
which we cannot read, and the variety of languages as much as we have discussed above. Of
this class are also the marks, which those who have learned are properly called notaries.
These things are useful, and are not learned illicitly, nor involve superstition, nor enervate
with luxury, if they only occupy them so that they do not serve as a hindrance to the greater
things to which they must be attained.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVII.-- Some of the sciences which men have not instituted help to
understand the Scriptures.

41. Indeed, those things which men have brought forth by investigation, not by establishing
them, but either by the passage of time, or divinely instituted, wherever they are learned,
are not to be considered the institutes of men. Some of these belong to the sense of the
body, and others to the reason of the mind. But those things which are touched by the sense
of the body, we either believe what has been told, or feel demonstrated, or infer what has
been experienced.
<3+> CHAPTER XXVIII.-- How far history helps.

42. Whatever, therefore, which is called history, reveals about the order of past times, helps
us a great deal to understand the holy books, even if it is learned by childish learning
outside the Church. For both during the Olympiads and through the Consul many names are
often sought by us; and the ignorance of the consulship, in which the Lord was born, and in
which he suffered, forced some to err, so as to think that the Lord suffered at the age of
forty-six years, because it was said by the Jews that a temple had been built for so many
years, which had the image of Dominic's body. And indeed we maintain that he was
baptized at about thirty years of age on the authority of the Gospel (Luke 3:23): but
afterwards how many years he spent in this life, although it may be noticed from the text
itself of his actions; however, lest the cloud of doubt arise from another source, the history
of the nations collated with the Gospel is gathered more fluidly and with certainty. For then
it will be seen that it was not in vain that it was said that the temple was built in forty-six
years, so that since this number could not be referred to the age of the Lord, it is referred to
the more secret instruction of the human body, in which the only Son of God, through whom
all things were made, did not condescend to be clothed for our sake. . 43. But concerning the
usefulness of history, to omit the Greeks, how much our Ambrose solves the question, to the
slanderous readers and admirers of Plato; who have dared to say that they learned all the
sentences of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they are forced to wonder and preach, from the
books of Plato, since it cannot be denied that Plato was long before the coming of the Lord
to man! Did not the aforesaid bishop, considering the history of the nations, when he found
that Plato had gone to Egypt in the time of Jeremiah, where that prophet was then, show
that it is more probable that Plato was rather imbued with our letters through Jeremiah,
that he might teach or write what is rightly praised? For before the writings of the Hebrew
nation, in which the worship of one God flashed forth, from whom our Lord came in the
flesh, he was not even Pythagoras, from whose posterity they asserted that Plato had
learned theology. Considering the times in this way, it becomes much more credible that
these men had whatever good and true things they said about our Letters, than about
Plato's Lord Jesus Christ, which is a most insane thing to believe. 44. But in the historical
narrative, when the past institutions of men are also told, history itself is not to be counted
among human institutions; because things that have already passed away, and cannot
become infected, must be considered in the order of times, of which God is the founder and
administrator. For it is one thing to narrate facts, another to teach. History tells facts
faithfully and usefully; but the books of the aruspicus, and all similar literature, intend to
teach to be done or observed, the audacity of the monitor, not the faith of the informer.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIX.--To the extent that the knowledge of animals, plants, etc., and especially
of the stars, is conducive to the understanding of the Scriptures.
45. There is also a narrative similar to a demonstration, in which the present, not the past, is
indicated to the unconscious. In what kind are all things written concerning the situation of
places, and the nature of animals, trees, herbs, stones, or other bodies. Of which kind we
have spoken above, and have taught that knowledge is useful for solving the riddles of the
Scriptures: not that they should be used for certain signs, as for the remedies or devices of
any superstition; for we have also separated that class already distinct from this lawful and
free one. For it is another thing to say, If you drink this ground herb, your stomach will not
ache; and it is another thing to say, if you hang that herb around your neck, your stomach
will not ache. For there a healthy moderation is proved, here a superstitious meaning is
condemned. However, where there are no chants, and invocations, and characters, it is
generally doubtful whether the thing which is bound, or in any way attached to the body for
healing, is of the 6th nature, which must be used freely, or whether it results from a
significant obligation, which the Christian must be all the more prudent to beware of, the
more it will be seen to be more effective. But where it is hidden for what reason what is of
value, it is important with what mind each one uses it, especially in healing or controlling
bodies, whether in medicine or in agriculture. 46. But it is not a narrative, but a
demonstration, of the stars to be known, of which Scripture mentions very few. But as is
well known to many, it is the course of the moon, which is also solemnly used to celebrate
the anniversary of the Lord's passion; so also for the very few other stars, either the rising
or the setting, or any other moments, are well known without any error. This knowledge by
itself, although it does not bind us to superstition, nevertheless does not help much and
almost nothing in the treatment of the divine Scriptures, and hinders the more by fruitless
intention; and because he is familiar with the most pernicious error of the foolish fate of
singers, he is more conveniently and honorably despised. Besides the demonstration of the
present, it also has something similar to the narrative of the past, in that it is permitted to
retrace regularly from the present position and motion of the stars, and their traces in the
past. He also has regular conjectures of the future, not suspicious and ominous, but
confirmed and certain; not that we should try to draw something from them into our deeds
and events, such as are the delusions of the genethliacs, but as far as the stars themselves
are concerned. For just as he who counts the moon, when he looks at the quota today, he
can say how many years ago the quota was, and after how many years the quota will be;
Thus they are wont to answer about each star, who expertly count them. Of which whole
knowledge, as regards its use, I disclosed what seemed to me.

<3+> CHAPTER 30.--What the mechanical arts contribute to the same.

47. Also of other arts, by which something is made, or that which remains after the work of
the craftsman from that effect, as a house, and a bench, and some vessel, and other things of
this kind; or which present a certain service to the working God, such as medicine, and
agriculture, and government; or the whole effect of which is action, as of dancing and
fighting and wrestling. for none of these artists moves his members to work unless he
connects the memory of the past with the expectation of the future. But the knowledge of
these things must be used in human life in a subtle way, and quickly, not to work, unless
perhaps some duty compels us, of which we are not now speaking; but to judge, that we
may not know at all what the Scripture means to insinuate, when it inserts some figurative
expressions about these arts.

<3+> CHAPTER XXXI.-- What helps dialectics Sophistry

48. There remain those things which pertain not to the senses of the body, but to the reason
of the mind, where the discipline of discussion and numbers reigns. But the discipline of
debate is of great value for penetrating and solving all kinds of questions which are in the
holy letters: only there must be guarded against the lust of quarreling, and a kind of childish
display of deceiving the adversary. For there are many things which are called sophistry,
false conclusions of reason, and generally so imitating the truth, as to deceive not only the
slow, but also the intelligent, who are less attentive. For someone proposed, saying to him
with whom he was talking: What I am, you are not. But he consented: for it was partly true,
or in the very fact that he was insidious, he was simple. Then he added: But I am a man.
When he had received this from him, he concluded by saying: You are not a man, then. What
kind of clever conclusions. Scripture, as far as I think, is detestable in that place where it is
said: He who speaks sophistically is hateful (Eccl. 37, 23). Although his speech is not clever,
yet more abundantly than befits gravity, pursuing ornaments of words, he is called a
sophist. 49. There are also true connections of reasoning, having false sentences, which
result in the error of the person with whom it is dealt with: which, however, are brought to
this end by a good and learned man, so that he who is ashamed of them, whose error they
result in, may leave that same error; for if he wills to remain in the same, he must be forced
to hold even that which he condemns. For the apostle was not inferring truths when he said,
Neither did Christ rise; and that other thing, our preaching is vain, your faith is also vain (1
Cor. 15:14); and afterwards other things which are completely false, because Christ also
rose again, and it was not an empty preaching of those who announced this, nor the faith of
those who believed this: but these falsities were most truly connected with that sentence by
which it was said that there is no resurrection of the dead. But with these falsities rejected,
since they were true, if the dead do not rise again, the resurrection of the dead will be the
consequence. Since then there are true connections, not only of true but also of false
opinions, it is easy to learn the truth of connections even in those schools which are apart
from the Church. But the truth of the opinions must be sought in the holy ecclesiastical
books.

<3+> CHAPTER 32.-- The truth of connections was not established by men, but only observed.
50. However, the truth of connections itself was not instituted, but was noticed by men and
noted, so that they could either learn or teach it: for it is in the order of things perpetual and
divinely instituted. For just as he who narrates the order of the times does not compose it
himself; and he who shows the sites of places, or the natures of animals, or races, or stones,
does not show things instituted by men; and he who shows the stars and their movements,
does not show a thing established by himself or by any man: so also he who says, When
what follows is false, it is necessary that what precedes be false; He says very truly, he does
not himself make it so, but only shows that it is so. From this rule is that which we
mentioned about the apostle Paul: for it precedes that there is no resurrection of the dead,
as those said whose error the apostle wished to destroy. Moreover, that preceding sentence,
in which they said that there is no resurrection of the dead, necessarily follows, Neither did
Christ rise: but what follows is false; For Christ rose again: therefore also what precedes is
false; but it precedes, that there is no resurrection of the dead; therefore it is the
resurrection of the dead. All of which is briefly said thus: If there is no resurrection of the
dead, neither has Christ risen: but Christ has risen; therefore there is a resurrection of the
dead. This, therefore, that by taking away the consequence, what must necessarily be taken
away also from what precedes, men did not institute, but showed. And this rule pertains to
the truth of connections, not to the truth of sentences.

<3+> CHAPTER 33.-- Conclusions can be true in false sentences, and false in truths.

51. But in this passage, when the resurrection was being dealt with, both the rule of
connection is true, and the sentence itself in conclusion. But in falsified sentences, the truth
of the connection is in this way: let us pretend that someone has conceded, If an animal is a
snail, it has a voice; This being granted, when it has been proved that the voice does not
have a cochlea, since the consequent is taken away from what precedes it, it is concluded
that the animal is not a cochlea. This sentence is false, but from the fact that it is falsely
granted, the connection of the conclusion is true. Therefore the truth of the sentence is valid
by itself; but the truth of the connection consists in the opinion or consent of him with
whom it is dealt with. Therefore, as we have said above, what is true is inferred by
connection with what is false, so that he whose error we wish to correct may repent of
having allowed precedents, the consequences of which he sees to be repudiated. From this
point it is easy to understand that, just as there can be true sentences in false sentences, so
false conclusions can exist in true sentences. For suppose that someone has proposed, If he
is just, he is good, and it is granted to be; then he assumed, But he is not just; which also
being granted, he had drawn the conclusion, He is therefore not good. However, even if all
these things were true, it is not a true rule of conclusion. For not as what precedes is
necessarily taken away from the consequent, so also what follows is necessarily taken away
from what precedes. Because it is true when we say, If there is a speaker, he is a man: from
which proposition if we assume, But he is not a speaker; there will be no consequence when
you bring it in. Therefore it is not a man.
<3+> CHAPTER XXXIV.-- It is one thing to know the laws of conclusions, another to know the
truth of sentences.

52. Therefore it is one thing to know the rules of connections, another the truth of
sentences. In them we learn what is consequential, what is not consequential, and what is
contradictory. It is consequent, If he is a speaker, he is a man: inconsistent, If he is a man, he
is a speaker: contradictory, If he is a man, he is four-legged. Here, then, the connection itself
is judged. But in the truth of sentences, the sentences themselves, not their connection, is to
be considered: but with truths and certain sentences, when uncertain truths are joined by
connection, they must also become certain. But some boast in this way, when they have
learned the truth of connections, as if the truth of sentences itself were. And again, some,
generally retaining the true opinion, despise themselves badly, because they do not know
the laws of inference; since he who knows that there is a resurrection of the dead is better
than he who knows that it is consequential, as if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither
is Christ risen.

<1+> CHAPTER 35.-- The science of defining and dividing is not false, even
if it is used in falsities. What is false?

53. Likewise, the science of defining, dividing, and dividing, although it is generally applied
to false things, is not itself false, nor instituted by men, but discovered in the nature of
things. For it is not because poets and their fables, and the opinions of their error, or false
philosophers, or even heretics, that is, false Christians, have been wont to apply it; therefore
it is false neither in defining, nor in dividing or dividing, that anything should be included
which does not relate to the matter itself. it belongs, or something that belongs to be passed
over. This is true even if what is defined or distributed is not true. For falsity itself is also
defined, when we say that the meaning of a thing is false if it does not have itself as it is
signified, or in some other way: which definition is true, although falsity cannot be true. We
can also divide, saying that there are two kinds of falsity: one of those which cannot be at
all; the other of those things which are not, though they may be. For he who says that seven
past three is eleven, says that which cannot be at all: but he who says that it rained in
January, for example, although it did not happen, still says that it could have happened.
Therefore, the definition and division of falsities can be very true, although the falsities
themselves are certainly not true.
<3+> CHAPTER 36.-- The precepts of eloquence are true, although they are sometimes
persuaded to be false.

54. There are also certain precepts of more fruitful discussion, which is already called
eloquence, which are nevertheless true, although falsehoods can also be persuaded by
them: but because they can also be true, it is not the faculty itself that is to blame, but the
perversity of those who use it badly. For this was not instituted by men, that the expression
of charity might win over the hearer, or that a short and open narrative might easily
insinuate what it intended, and that its variety might keep those intent without disgust; and
other observations of this kind, which, whether in falsities or in true causes, are
nevertheless true, in so far as they either make something to be known or believed, or move
the mind to seek or to flee, and are discovered rather because they are so, than instituted so
that they should be so.

<3+> CHAPTER 37.-- What is the usefulness of rhetoric and dialectic.

55. But when this part is learned, it must be used more so that we may express what has
been understood, than that we may understand it. But the latter, of conclusions and
definitions and distributions, helps the understanding a great deal: so far is the error by
which men seem to have learned the very truth of a happy life to themselves, when they
have learned these things. Although it usually happens that people more easily achieve
those things, for which they learn to achieve them, than the most knotty and thorny
disciplines of such teachers. As if he wished to give someone the rules of walking, he advises
that the hind foot should not be lifted until you have placed the front foot, then he describes
minutely how the hinges of the joints and the kneecap should be moved. For he says the
truth, and there is no other way to walk; but men go about doing these things more easily
than they notice when they do, or understand when they hear. But those who cannot walk
care much less for those things which they cannot pay attention to even by experience.
Thus, in general, a person of genius sees that the conclusion is not right, sooner than he
grasps its precepts; but the slow one does not see her; but much less what is commanded
about it: and in all these things the very spectacles of truth often delight us, rather than we
are helped by them in disputing or judging; except perhaps that they render their tempers
more exercised, if they do not render them more malicious or inflated, that is, that either
they love to deceive with plausible speech and questions, or that those who have learned
these things think they have achieved something great, by which they place themselves
before the good and innocent.
<3+> CHAPTER 38.-- The knowledge of numbers was not invented by men, but was discovered
by men from the nature of things.

56. But the discipline of numbers is already clear to every slow learner, that it was not
instituted by men, but rather researched and discovered. For Virgil did not like the first
syllable of Italy, which the ancients pronounced short, and it became long; so any one can
make it, when he wills, so that the triples are either not nine, or they cannot make a square
figure, or they are not three to the number three, six to six, or two to none, because
intelligible numbers have no half. Whether, therefore, they be considered in themselves, or
whether the laws of numbers be applied to figures, or to sounds, or other motions, they
have immutable rules, not in any way instituted by men, but discovered by the sagacity of
men of genius. 57. However, whoever loves all these things so much that he wants to flaunt
himself among the ignorant, and rather not to seek where the truths are, which he feels are
the only truths; and whence certain things are not only true but also immutable, which he
comprehends to be immutable; and thus reaching from the form of bodies to the human
mind, when he found that it was changeable itself, that it was now learned, now unlearned,
yet constituted between the immutable truth above it, and the rest changeable below it, to
convert all things to the praise and love of the one God, from whom he knows that
everything is; he may be seen as learned, but he is by no means wise.

<3+> CHAPTER 39.-- To whom of the above-noted disciplines and with what intention should
the works be given. Human laws.

58. Wherefore it seems to me that studious and ingenious youths, and fearing God, and
seeking a happy life, should be healthily enjoined not to dare to follow any doctrines which
are practiced outside the Church of Christ, as if to obtain a happy life, but to judge them
soberly and diligently: and if they find any from men instituted, varied because of the
different will of those who instituted it, and unknown because of the suspicions of those
who wander, especially if they also have a partnership entered into with demons through
certain significations, as if they were some kind of pacts and agreements; they utterly reject
and detest; they also alienate the study from the superfluous and luxurious institutions of
men. But those institutions of men, which are effective for the society of those who live
together, do not neglect the very necessity of this life. But in the rest of the doctrines which
are found among the nations, besides the history of things, whether past or present,
pertaining to the senses of the body, in which experiments and conjectures of useful bodily
arts are also enumerated, and besides the method of discussion and numbers, I do not think
that there is anything useful. In which all things must be kept, Nothing too much; (Terent. in
Andr., act. 1, scen. 1.) and especially in those things which pertain to the senses of the body,
they revolve in times, and are contained in places. 59. And as some of the Hebrew, Syrian,
and Egyptian words and names, or if any other language can be found in the Holy
Scriptures, which are placed in them without interpretation, they made them interpret them
separately; and what Eusebius did about the history of the times because of the questions of
the divine books, which demand its use: what they did about these things, so that it is not
necessary for a Christian to labor in many things for the sake of a few; thus I see that it can
be done, if one of those who can, of course, chooses to devote a kind effort to the fraternal
benefit, so that he may command any places of the world, any animals or plants or trees or
unknown stones or metals, and any species mentioned in the Scriptures, digesting them in
general, and only expounding them in literature. It is also possible to do with numbers, so
that only those numbers that are mentioned in the divine Scriptures are written down.
Some or all of which may have already been done, just as we have found many things which
we did not think had been elaborated and written down by good and learned Christians; but
either because of the multitudes of the negligent, or because of the concealments of the
envious, they are hidden. I do not know whether it can be done on the basis of the
discussion; and it seems to me that it cannot be, because throughout the whole text of the
Scriptures it is connected by turns of nerves; and therefore it helps the readers more to
solve and explain the ambiguities, of which we shall speak later, than to know the unknown
signs, of which we are now dealing.

<3+> CHAPTER 40.-- If anything has been rightly said by the ethnics, it must be converted into
our own practice.

60. But the philosophers who are called, if by any chance they have said truths and are
adapted to our faith, especially the Platonists, are not only not to be feared, but also to be
reclaimed from them as unjust possessors for our use. For just as the Egyptians had not only
idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel hated and shunned, but also vessels and
ornaments of gold and silver, and clothing, which that people, coming out of Egypt, claimed
for themselves, as if for a better use; not by their own authority, but by the commandment
of God, unwittingly lending to the Egyptians those things which they did not use well (Exod.
3:22, and 12:35) coming out of the company of the Gentiles under the leadership of Christ,
he must be abhorred and shunned; but they also contain liberal disciplines more suitable
for the use of truth, and certain very useful precepts of manners, and therefore some truths
are found among them by worshiping the one God. that theirs, like gold and silver, which
they did not themselves lay down, but from some of them, as if they were the metals of the
divine providence, which is infused everywhere, and by which they perversely and
injuriously exploit them for the obedience of demons, when he separates himself from their
wretched society in mind, he must take away from them a Christian to the right use of
preaching the Gospel. It is also permissible to accept and have their clothing, that is to say,
established by men, but still adapted to human society, which we cannot do without in this
life, and converted into Christian use. 61. For what else did many of our faithful faithful do?
Do we not see how much adorned with gold and silver and clothes Cyprian came out of
Egypt, the sweetest teacher and the most blessed martyr? How much Lactantius? how much
Victorinus, Optatus, Hilarius, to say nothing of the living? How numerous are the Greeks?
This was done by Moses, the most faithful servant of God, of whom it is written that he was
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22). To all these men the superstitious
custom of the Gentiles, and especially in those times, when the yoke of Christ was
persecuting the Christians, he would never lend the instruction which he found useful, if it
were suspected that they would be turned to the use of the worship of one God, by which
the vain worship of idols would be cut off: but they gave gold, and silver, and their clothing,
when the people of God came out of Egypt, not knowing how those things they gave, they
would surrender in obedience to Christ. For that which took place in Exodus was without
doubt figured to foreshadow this; which I would say without prejudice to another, or of
equal or better intelligence.

<3+> CHAPTER 41.-- The study of the sacred Scriptures, what kind of soul it requires.
Properties of hyssop.

62. But the student of the divine Scriptures, instructed in this way, when he began to
approach them to scrutinize them, did not cease to think the apostolic saying: Knowledge
inflates, charity builds (1 Cor. 8:1). For in this way he will feel that, although he came out of
Egypt rich, yet he could not be saved unless he had kept the Passover. But our Passover is
Christ sacrificed (Id. 5:7), and the sacrifice of Christ teaches us nothing more than that
which he cries out, as to those whom he sees laboring in Egypt under Pharaoh: Come to me,
you who labor and are burdened, and I I will restore you. Take away my yoke upon you, and
learn from me that I am meek and lowly in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30): who but the meek and lowly in
heart, whom knowledge does not inflate, but charity builds up? Let them therefore
remember that those who celebrated the Passover at that time through imaginary shadows,
when the posts were ordered to be sealed with the blood of the lamb, were sealed with
hyssop (Exodus 12:22). This herb is gentle and lowly, and nothing is stronger and more
penetrating than its roots: so that, rooted and grounded in charity, we may comprehend
with all the saints, which is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, that is, the cross
of the Lord: the breadth of which is said in across the wood, by which the hands are
extended; length, from the ground to the very width, by which the whole body is attached
from the hands and below; the height, from the width upwards to the top, to which the head
adheres; but the deep, which is hidden in the earth. By this sign of the cross, every Christian
activity is described, to work well in Christ, and to cling to him perseveringly, to hope for
heavenly things, not to profane the sacraments. Purified through this action, we will be able
to recognize also the superior knowledge of the charity of Christ, in which he is equal to the
Father, through whom all things were made, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of
God (Eph. 3, 17-19). There is also a cleansing power in the hyssop, lest, puffing up with the
knowledge of the riches taken away from Egypt, he might proudly gasp with a swollen lung.
You will wash me, and I will be white over the snow. You will give my audience exultation
and joy. Then he adds, in consequence, to show that purification from pride is signified by
hyssop, And the humbled bones shall rejoice (Psal. L, 9, 10).

<3+> CHAPTER 42.-- A comparison of the Holy Scriptures with the profane.

63. And how much less is the quantity of gold, silver, and clothing which that people took
with them from Egypt, in comparison with the riches which they later obtained in
Jerusalem, which are especially shown in King Solomon (3 Kings 10, 14-23); All knowledge,
which is indeed useful, collected from the books of the Gentiles, becomes so great if it is
compared with the knowledge of the divine Scriptures. For whatever a man has learned
outside, if it is harmful, he is condemned there; if it is useful, it is found there. And when
every one has found there all that he has usefully learned elsewhere, he will find there much
more abundantly those things which are learned nowhere else at all, but only in those
Scriptures with the marvelous height and marvelous humility. Therefore, endowed with this
instruction, when unknown signs do not hinder the reader, let him, meek and humble in
heart, subjugated gently to Christ, and burdened with a light burden, founded and rooted
and built up in charity, which science cannot inflate, proceed to consider and discuss the
ambiguous signs in the Scriptures, about to whom I will now proceed to say in the third
volume, what the Lord will be pleased to grant.

<2+> THE THIRD BOOK

After dealing in the previous book with regard to the removal of ignorance of signs, St.
Doctor now passes on to the consideration of the ambiguity which occurs both in his own
and in translated signs. In the proper cases, indeed, from the punctuation of the words, from
their pronunciation, from the meaning of the adverb: which kind of ambiguity is resolved by
the inspection of the context of the speech, and the collation of the interpreters, or of the
language from which the Scripture was translated. But in the translated signs ambiguity
occurs, when the expression itself is not used in the literal sense in the Scriptures: on which
subject he discusses more laboriously, and gives the rules by which to determine whether
the expression is figurative, and if it is indeed figurative, by what agreement it should be
explained. At the end of Tichonius himself he considers the seven rules one by one.

<3+> CHAPTER ONE.-- The summary of the preceding books, and the aim of the following.

1. A man who fears God diligently searches for his will in the Holy Scriptures. And he did not
want to fight, he was meek with piety; protected also by the knowledge of languages, so that
he does not get stuck in unfamiliar words and phrases; being also guarded by the
knowledge of certain necessary things, lest he should be ignorant of the force or nature of
those which are used for the sake of similitude; with the adjuvant also of the truth of the
codices, which the care of skillful emendation procured: let him come thus equipped to
discuss and resolve the ambiguities of the Scriptures. But that he may not be deceived by
ambiguous signs, as far as he can be instructed by us; but it is possible that these ways
which we wish to show may be ridiculed as childish, either by the greatness of the genius, or
by the clarity of a greater enlightenment: but nevertheless, as I began to say, as much as he
can be instructed by us, he who is in that place of mind to be able to be instructed by us, let
him know the ambiguity of Scripture either to be in their own words, or in translated ones;
which kinds we have shown in the second book.

<3+> CHAPTER II.-- How to remove ambiguity from the distinction of words.

2. But when proper words make Scripture ambiguous, we must first see that we do not
make a wrong distinction, or mispronounce it. When, therefore, with the intention he used,
he saw that it was uncertain how to distinguish or how to pronounce, he consulted the rule
of faith, which he perceived from the plainer passages of the Scriptures and the authority of
the Church; of which we have done enough, when we were speaking of things in the first
book. But if both, or even all, if there were several parts, sounded an ambiguity according to
faith, the text of the discourse itself, from the preceding and consequent parts, which placed
that ambiguity in the middle, remains to be consulted, in order to see which opinion, of the
several that present themselves, will vote. and I covered it for him to suffer. 3. Now consider
the examples. That heretical distinction, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and God was, so that there is another sense, this Word was in the beginning with
God, does not want the Word to confess God. But this rule of faith must be refuted, by which
it is prescribed for us of the equality of the Trinity that we should say, And God was the
Word; then let us subjoin, This was in the beginning with God (John 1, 1, 2). 4. But that
ambiguity of distinction resists faith on neither side, and therefore must be judged by the
text of the discourse itself, where the Apostle says: And I do not know which I shall choose:
but I am compelled from two; having a concupiscence to be dissolved, and to be with Christ;
for it is much more excellent: it is necessary to remain in the flesh for your sake (Philippians
1, 23, 24). For it is uncertain whether he who has concupiscence comes from two, or
whether I am compelled from two, that it may be joined, having concupiscence to be
dissolved, and to be with Christ. But since it follows in this way, for the best is much more, it
appears that he says that he has a concupiscence of his best, so that when he is addressed by
two, he still has the concupiscence of the other, the need of the other; namely, the desire to
be with Christ, the necessity to remain in the flesh. This ambiguity is judged by one
consequent word, which has been stated, for the translators who removed the particle were
rather guided by that opinion, so that it seemed not only to be compelled by two, but also to
have the concupiscence of two. Thus it must be distinguished: And I do not know what to
choose: but I am forced from two; which distinction he follows, having a desire to be
dissolved, and to be with Christ. And as if it were being asked why he should rather desire
this thing; for much more is the best, he says. Why, then, is he forced out of the two?
Because there is the necessity of remaining, which he thus submitted, to remain in the flesh
is necessary for your sake. 5. But where the ambiguity cannot be explained either by the
precepts of the faith, or by the text of the speech itself, there is nothing to prevent us from
distinguishing the opinion according to any of those which are shown. As it is to the
Corinthians, Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all
defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God. Take us. We did no
harm to anyone (II Cor. 7:1, 2). There is indeed a doubt as to whether we should cleanse
ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, according to that opinion, that she may be
holy both in body and spirit (1 Cor. 7:34); or, Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of
the flesh, that there may be a different sense, and the spirits perfecting sanctification in the
fear of God head us. Such ambiguities of distinctions are therefore in the power of the
reader.

<3+> CHAPTER III.-- By what means is the ambiguity arising from the pronunciation resolved.
How do an inquiry and a question differ?

6. But whatever we have said about ambiguous distinctions, the same must be observed in
ambiguous pronouncements. For they too, unless the reader's carelessness is too great, are
corrected either by the rules of faith, or by the context of the preceding or consequent
discourse; or if neither of these is used for correction, doubts will nevertheless remain, so
that whatever way the reader pronounces it, he is not at fault. For unless the faith retracts,
by which we believe that God will not accuse His elect, and Christ will not condemn His
elect, it can be pronounced thus, Who will accuse God's elect? to follow this question as an
answer, God who justifies. And it will be asked again, Who is it that condemns? and let it be
answered, Christ Jesus who died. That to believe because it is most insane will be
pronounced in such a way that the inquiry precedes and the question follows. Now between
inquiry and questioning, the ancients said that this was important, because many things can
be answered to an inquiry; but to the question, either No, or Yes. It will therefore be
pronounced in such a way that after the inquiry we say, Who will accuse God's elect? that
which follows will be uttered in a questioning tone, God who justifies? that it may be silently
answered, No: and we shall also be asked, Who is it that condemns? and let us ask again,
Christ Jesus who died, but rather who rose again, who is at the right hand of God, who
intercedes for us (Rom. 8, 33, 34)? to be answered everywhere in silence, No. But in that
place where he says, What then shall we say? Because the nations that did not follow
righteousness, they took hold of righteousness (Rom. 9:30); except after the inquiry in
which it was said, What then shall we say? Let the answer be submitted, Because the
nations which did not follow righteousness, apprehended righteousness, the consequent
text will not be coherent. But in whatever voice Nathanael said, "From Nazareth can there
be something good" (John 1:46), or affirmative, so that it only pertains to the question that
he says, "From Nazareth?" or the whole with the doubt of the questioner; I do not see how it
can be distinguished: but neither sense hinders faith. 7. There is also an ambiguity in the
doubtful sound of the syllables, and this of course belongs to the pronunciation. For what is
written, My mouth is not hid from thee, which thou hast done in secret (Psal. 138:15), does
not make it clear to the reader whether the word uttered is the word mouth, or produced.
For if he rebukes, from what they are bones; but if it produces, from the fact that they are
edges, a singular number is understood. But such things are judged by inspection of the
preceding language: for in Greek it is not στόμα, but ὀστέον. Hence, in general, the vulgar
habit of speaking is more useful in signifying things than a literate integrity. For I would
rather say with barbarism, My bone is not hid from you, than that it should therefore be less
open, because it is more Latin. But sometimes the doubtful sound of a syllable is also judged
by a neighboring word relating to the same sentence: as is the saying of the Apostle, What I
preach unto you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21). If he had only said, What I preach to you, and had not
subjoined it, as I foretold, we would only have recourse to the codex of the preceding
language, so that we might know whether in what he said, I preach, the middle syllable was
to be produced or to be corrected: but now it is evident that it must be produced; for he
does not say, As I preached, but as I foretold.

<3+> CHAPTER IV.-- Ambiguity of speech by what reason

8. But not only these, but also those ambiguities which do not pertain to distinction or
pronunciation, are to be considered in the same way: such as it is to the Thessalonians,
therefore, brethren, we are comforted in you (1 Thess. 3:7). For there is a doubt whether, O
brethren; or, These brothers: but neither of these is contrary to faith; but the Greek
language does not have these equal cases, and that is why the vocative is rejected, that is, O
brothers. And if the interpreter had wished to say, Therefore, brethren, we had comfort in
you; the words would be less enslaved, but the sentence would be less in doubt: or at least if
it were added, Ours, almost no one would doubt that the vocative was the case when they
heard, Therefore we are comforted, our brothers, in you. But now this is permitted more
dangerously. Thus it happened in that case to the Corinthians, when the Apostle says. I die
every day through your glory, brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 15:31). For a
certain interpreter said, I die every day, by your glory; because in Greek the word for
swearer (νή) is clear without an ambiguous sound. Therefore, it is extremely rare and
difficult to find an ambiguity in the proper words, as far as the books of the divine
Scriptures are concerned, which is not solved either by the very circumstance of the speech
by which the intention of the writers is known, or by the collation of interpreters, or by an
inspection of the preceding language.
<3+> CHAPTER V.-- To take literally the figurative expressions of Scripture is a pitiable
servitude.

9. But the ambiguities of the translated words, of which we shall speak hereafter, require no
mean care and energy. For in the beginning one must be careful not to take figurative
expression literally. And to this belongs what the Apostle says: The letter kills, but the spirit
gives life (II Cor. 3:6). For when what is said figuratively is thus taken, as if it were properly
said, it is understood carnally. Nor is any death of the soul more fittingly called, than when
even that which in it precedes the beasts, that is, intelligence is subjugated to the flesh by
following the letter. For he who follows the letter takes the translated words as their own,
and does not relate that which is signified by the proper word to another meaning: but if he
hears Saturday, for example, he does not understand but one day out of seven, which are
repeated continuously in the volume; and when he hears of the Sacrifice, he does not go
beyond in thought what is usually done with the sacrifices of cattle and earthly fruits.
Finally, it is a miserable servitude of the soul, to accept signs for things; and above the
corporeal creature, the eye of the mind cannot be lifted up to absorb the eternal light.

<3+> CHAPTER VI.-- Slavery of the Jews under useful standards.

10. However, this slavery among the Jewish people was far removed from the custom of
other nations; since they were so enslaved to temporal things that one God was commended
to them in all. And although they observed the signs of spiritual things instead of the things
themselves, not knowing to what they referred, yet they had the instinct that by such
servitude to one of all, whom they did not see, they should please God. The apostle writes
that he was under the tutelage of little children (Galatians 3:24). And therefore those who
obstinately clung to such signs could not bear to despise the Lord when the time of their
revelation had come (Matthew 12:2); and hence the slanders, that he should take care of the
Sabbath, were stirred up by their leaders (Luke 6:7); and the people, bound by those signs
as if by things, did not believe that there was a God, or that they came from God, who would
not pay attention to them as they were observed by the Jews. But those who believed, from
whom the first Church of Jerusalem was formed, sufficiently showed how useful it was to be
kept under the tutelage in such a way as to link the beliefs of those who observed the signs
which were temporarily imposed on the servants to the worship of the one God who made
heaven and earth. And because they were close to the spiritual (for in the temporal and
carnal vows and signs themselves, although they did not know how they were to be
understood spiritually, yet they had learned one thing to worship the eternal God), they
were so capable of the Holy Spirit as to sell all they had, and to distribute their price to those
in need, before the Apostles they should set their feet (Acts 4:34), and then dedicate them
all to God as a new temple, whose earthly image, that is, the old temple, they served. 11. For
it is not written that any of the churches of the Gentiles did this, because they were not
found so near, who had gods made in idols.
<3+> CHAPTER VII.-- Enslavement of nations under useless standards.

And if any of them ever tried to interpret them as signs, they referred to a creature to be
worshiped and venerated. For of what use is the image, for example, of Neptune, not to be
regarded as God himself, but to signify by him the whole sea, or even all the other waters
which spring forth from the fountains? as it is described by a certain poet of theirs, if I
remember rightly, saying thus: You, father Neptune, whose times resound with the
crackling gray of the sea, great under whose chin the ocean flows forever, and the rivers
wander with hair. This pod, shaken by the sounding stones within the sweet roof, is not
human food, but swine's food. He who knows the Gospel knows what I am going to say
(Luke 15:16). What good, then, is it to me that the image of Neptune is related to that
meaning, unless perhaps I worship either? for to me every statue is no more God than the
whole sea. I admit, however, that those who consider the works of men to be gods are sunk
deeper than those who think the works of God; but we are commanded to love and worship
one God (Deut. 6:5), who made all these things, whose images are to be worshipped, either
as gods, or as signs and images of gods. If, therefore, a sign usefully instituted for the very
thing to be followed, to whom it was instituted to be signified, is carnal servitude; how
much more useless are the standards of things to be accepted for things? If you return to the
very things which are signified by these, and commit your mind to worshiping them,
nevertheless you will not be freed from the servile and carnal burden and veil.

<3+> CHAPTER VIII.-- The Jews were freed from the slavery of the gods in one way, the
Gentiles in another way.

12. Wherefore Christian liberty freed those whom it found under useful signs, as if found
near, interpreted by the signs to which they were subject, elevated to those things of which
those signs are: from these were made the churches of the holy Israelites. And those whom
he found under useless signs, he not only slavishly worked under such signs, but also
frustrated the signs themselves and removed everything: that the Gentiles might be
converted from the corruption of a multitude of pretended gods, which the Scripture often
and properly calls fornication, to the worship of one God; nor under the useful signs of
servitude, but rather of training the mind in their spiritual intelligence.

<3+> CHAPTER IX.-- Who is oppressed by the servitude of signs, and who is not. Baptism.
Eucharist
13. For he serves under a sign who works or venerates something signifying something, not
knowing what it signifies; but he who either works or venerates a useful sign instituted by
God, the power and meaning of which he understands, should not venerate that which is
seen and passes, but rather that to which all such things are related But such a spiritual man
is free, even in the time of slavery, when those signs must not yet be revealed to carnal
souls, whose yoke is to be tamed. . At this time, however, after the resurrection of our Lord,
the clearest indication of our freedom has dawned, and we are not even burdened with the
heavy operation of those signs which we already understand; but a few things for many, and
with the same easy deed, and the most august understanding, and the most chaste
observation, the Lord himself and the apostolic discipline delivered: as is the sacrament of
Baptism, and the celebration of the Lord's body and blood. When each one perceives these
things, imbued with what they refer to, he recognizes them, so that they are not worshiped
with carnal servitude, but rather with spiritual freedom. But to follow the letter, and to
accept the signs for the things signified by them, is servile weakness; so to interpret the
signs in vain, is the evil of a wandering error. But he who does not understand what a sign
signifies, and yet understands that it is a sign, is not himself oppressed by slavery. It is
better, however, to press unknown, but useful signs, than, by interpreting them uselessly, to
insert the neck brought from the yoke of slavery into the snares of error.

<3+> CHAPTER X.-- How to determine whether a phrase is figurative. General rule Charity Lust
A scourge A deed Utility. Charity.

14. Now to this observation we are careful to follow a figurative expression, that is,
translated as if proper; It is also to be added that we do not want to accept the proper as if
figured. It must first be demonstrated, therefore, the method of finding the expression,
whether properly or figuratively. And this is absolutely the method, so that whatever in the
divine speech can properly be referred neither to the honesty of behavior nor to the truth of
faith, you may know that it is figured. Honesty of behavior is related to loving God and
neighbor, truth of faith is related to knowing God and neighbor. But each one's hope is in his
own conscience, as he feels himself to advance in the love of God and his neighbor, and in
knowledge. About all of which it was said in the first book. 15. But since the human race is
prone to esteem sins not from the moments of lust itself, but rather from their own custom,
it usually happens that each person thinks that only those things are to be blamed, which
the people of his country and time are accustomed to reproach and condemn; and they are
only to be approved and praised, which the custom of those with whom they live admits:
and it happens that if the Scripture either commands something that is repugnant to the
custom of the hearers, or blames that which is not repugnant, if their minds have already
been conquered by the authority of the word, they think it a figurative expression. Now the
Scripture commands nothing but charity, nor blames but covetousness; and in this way
informs the behavior of men. Likewise, if the mind is preoccupied with the opinion of any
error, whatever the Scripture asserts otherwise, men consider it to be figurative. But he
asserts nothing but the Catholic faith, in things past, and future, and present. It is a narrative
of the past, a foretelling of the future, a demonstration of the present: but all these are
capable of nourishing and strengthening the same charity, and of conquering and
extinguishing cupidity. 16. I call charity the movement of the mind to enjoy God for his own
sake, and oneself and the neighbor for God's sake: but covetousness, the movement of the
mind to enjoy oneself and the neighbor and any body not for God's sake. But what unbridled
lust does to corrupt his mind and body is called a crime, but what he does to harm another
is called a crime. And these are the two kinds of all sins; but the atrocities are prior. When
these things have emptied the mind, and have led to a certain need, it leaps into misdeeds,
by which the impediments of immorality are removed, or aids are sought. Likewise, what
charity does to benefit itself is utility, but what it does to benefit its neighbor is called
beneficence. And here utility comes first; because no one can benefit another from what he
does not have. But the more the kingdom of desire is destroyed, the more charity is
increased.

<3+> CHAPTER XI.-- Rule concerning those things which reek of cruelty, and are nevertheless
referred to from the person of God or of the saints.

17. Therefore, whatever harsh and as if cruel deed and saying is read in the holy Scriptures
from the person of God or his saints, is effective for destroying the kingdom of lust. If it
sounds clear, it is not to refer to something else, as if it were figuratively said. As the Apostle
says: Store up for yourself the wrath of God in the day of wrath and revelation of the
righteous judgment, who will render to each one according to his works: indeed to those
who, according to the endurance of good work, seek glory and honor and incorruption,
eternal life; but to those who are from strife, and distrust the truth, but believe in iniquity,
anger and indignation. Tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who works evil, Jews
first and Greeks (Rom. 2, 5-9). But this applies to those with whom desire itself is
overthrown, who would not conquer it. But when the kingdoms of lust are overthrown in a
man whom he had dominion over, that is an open expression: But those who are of Jesus
Christ have crucified their flesh with their passions and lusts (Galatians 5:24). Except that
here also certain translated words are treated, as it is, the wrath of God, and they crucified:
but there are not so many, or so placed, as to obscure the sense, and to make an allegory or
a riddle, which I call a properly figurative expression. And what is said in Jeremiah: Behold, I
have set thee this day over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest tear down, and destroy,
and scatter, and scatter (Jer. 1:10); there is no doubt that the whole expression is figurative,
referring to the end we have spoken of.
<3+> CHAPTER XII.-- A rule concerning what is said and what is said and done as if it were
flagrant in the judgment of the inexperienced, which are attributed to God or to holy men.
Facts are judged from the circumstances.

18. But those things which seem to the uninitiated to be flagrant, whether they are only said
or even done, or from the person of God, or from men whose sanctity is commended to us,
are all figured: whose secrets are to be developed for the feeding of charity. But whoever
uses passing things more restrictively than the manners of those with whom he lives is
either temperate or superstitious; but whoever uses them in such a way as to exceed the
goals of the customs of the good among whom he is engaged, either means something, or is
unscrupulous. For in all such cases it is not the use of things, but the lust of the user that is
at fault. Nor in any way has anyone more sober believed that the Lord's feet were anointed
with such precious ointment by a woman (John 12:3), that they are the habit of lustful and
wicked men, whose banquets we detest. For a good fragrance is a good reputation, which
any one has by the works of a good life, while he follows in the footsteps of Christ, as if
pervading his feet with the most precious fragrance. Thus, what in other persons is usually
an abomination, in a divine or prophetic person is a sign of something great. Indeed, it is one
thing in perverted manners, another in the prediction of the prophet Hosea, the conjunction
of a harlot (Hosea 1:2): nor, if the bodies are naked at the feasts of drunkards and lascivious
people; therefore it is a crime to be naked in the baths. 19. Therefore, we must pay careful
attention to what is suitable for places and times and persons, so that we do not blame
random atrocities. For it is possible for a wise man to use the most precious food without
any vice of greed or gluttony; but the unwise man burns with the foulest flame of gluttony in
the meanest. And every healthy person would prefer to eat fish after the manner of the Lord
(Luke 24:43), than lentils after the manner of Esau's grandson Abraham (Gen. 25:34), or
barley after the manner of cattle. For this is not why most animals are more tame than us,
because they are fed with cheaper food. For in all things of this kind, it is not from the
nature of the things which we use, but from the reason of using them, and the manner in
which we desire them, that we must either prove or disprove what we do. 20. The ancients
imagined the earthly kingdom of the righteous, and foretold the heavenly kingdom. The
cause of the sufficiency of children was the blameless custom of having several wives at the
same time for one man (Id. 16, 3, 25, 1; and 2 Kings 5, 13); and therefore it was not
honorable for one woman to have many husbands: for a woman is not that much more
fertile, but a harlot is rather a disgrace, or to seek gain or children in general. Whatever the
saints of those times did not lustfully do in this kind of behavior, even though they did
things that in this age can only be done through lust, Scripture does not blame. And
whatever is said there, not only historically and literally, but also figuratively and
prophetically accepted, must be interpreted up to that end of charity, whether of God, or of
the neighbor, or of both. For just as it was an abomination among the ancient Romans to
have tunics and sleeved shirts; but now, when born in a respectable place, when they are
clothed, it is a crime not to have them: so it must be observed, that in the other use of things
also lust must be absent, which is not only itself abused by the custom of those among
whom he lives; but also often, having gone beyond its bounds, it manifests its ugliness,
which was hidden between the barriers of solemn manners, by a most flagrant eruption.

<3+> CHAPTER XIII.-- Continuation of the same argument.

21. But whatever accords with the custom of those with whom this life is to be lived, or is
imposed by necessity, or undertaken by duty, has been referred by good and great men to
utility and beneficence; either literally, as we must, or figuratively, as the Prophets are
allowed.

<3+> CHAPTER XIV.--The error of those who think that there is no justice by itself.

22. When the uninitiated of another custom fall into the facts of the legend, unless they are
rebuked by authority, they think they are atrocities; nor are they able to perceive that their
whole conduct, either in marriages, or in banquets, or in dress, and in the rest of human
food and worship, seems to other nations and other times to be indecent. By this variety of
innumerable customs, some who were asleep, so to speak, who were neither asleep in the
deep sleep of folly, nor able to wake up in the light of wisdom, thought that there was no
justice in itself, but that each nation saw its own custom as just. that justice should remain
unchangeable, it should become manifest that there is no justice at all. They did not
understand that, lest I remind them of many things, "What you do not want done to you, do
not do to others" (Tobias 4:16; Matt. 7:12), that it could in no way be varied by any of their
gentile diversity. When this sentence is related to the love of God, all abominations die;
when to the neighbor, all deeds. For no one wants his habitation to be corrupted: therefore
he must not corrupt the habitation of God, that is, himself. And no one wishes to be harmed
by anyone; therefore, he himself will not harm anyone.

<3+> CHAPTER XV.-- The rule to be observed in figurative expressions.

23. Having thus been overthrown by the tyranny of lust, charity reigns by the most just laws
of love of God for God's sake, of self and neighbor for God's sake. A rule of this kind will
therefore be observed in figurative expressions, so that what is read should be devoted to a
careful consideration for so long, until the interpretation is brought to the realm of charity.
But if this already sounds proper, it is not supposed to be a figurative expression.
<3+> CHAPTER XVI.-- Rule on prescriptive expressions.

24. If a prescriptive expression is either prohibiting an atrocity or deed, or enjoining utility

or beneficence, it is not figurative. But if it seems to enjoin a crime or deed, or to prohibit
utility or beneficence, it is figured. Unless, he says, you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life in you (John 6:54). It seems to command a deed or an
abomination: it is therefore a figure, commanding us to share in the passion of the Lord, and
gently and usefully to keep in memory that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us.
Scripture says: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. Here he
enjoins beneficence without any hesitation: but what follows, For in doing this you heap
coals of fire on his head (Prov. 25, 21, 22; Rom. 12, 20); You think that a deed of malice is
commanded: therefore do not doubt what is said figuratively, and since it can be interpreted
in two ways, one way to harm, the other to perform; rather, let charity call you back to
beneficence, so that you may understand that coals of fire are the burning groans of
penitence, by which the pride of him who grieves that he was the enemy of man is healed,
by whom he is helped in his misery. Likewise, when the Lord says, He who loves his life will
lose it (John 12:25), he is not to be thought to be forbidding utility, by which everyone must
preserve his soul; but it is said figuratively, that he destroys his soul, that is, he perishes and
loses his use which he now has, namely, perverse and preposterous, by which he inclines to
temporal things, so that he does not seek the eternal. It is written: Give to the merciful, and
do not receive a sinner (Ecclesiastes 12:4). The latter part of this sentence seems to prohibit
beneficence; for he says, Thou shalt not receive a sinner: therefore understand the sinner
figuratively put for sin, that thou mayest not receive his sin.

<3+> CHAPTER XVII.-- One thing to be commanded in common to all, another to each one
separately.

25. But it often happens that whoever is in a better stage of spiritual life, or thinks he is, is
thought to be speaking figuratively, which are prescribed for the lower stages: as, for
example, if he has embraced life as a celibate and castrated himself for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19 , 12), contends that whatever the Holy Book prescribes
concerning the wife to be loved and governed, should not be taken literally but translated;
and if a man decides to keep his unmarried virgin, he should try to interpret as a figurative
phrase in which it was said, Trade your daughter, and you have accomplished a great work
(Ecclesiastes 7:27). This, then, will also be in the observations of the Scriptures to be
understood, so that we may know that certain things are commanded in common to all, and
others to each individual and to what classes of persons; so that medicine pertains not only
to the general state of health, but also to the particular infirmity of each member. For it
must be taken care of in its own kind, which cannot be raised to a better kind.
<3+> CHAPTER XVIII.-- At what time what is precept or lawful, to be considered.

26. Likewise, we must beware lest anyone think that in the old Scriptures for the condition
of those times, even if it is not understood figuratively, but literally, there is no abomination
or deed, even to those times it can be transferred to the use of life. He will not do this unless
he is driven by a dominant desire, and by seeking the help of the Scriptures themselves,
which are to be overthrown; nor does the wretch understand that it is placed in such a way
for this benefit, that men of good hope may healthily see that the custom which they scorn
may have a good use, and that which they embrace may be damnable, if both there the
charity of those who use it, and here the desire is attended to. 27. For if any one could
chastely use many wives for a time, another can have one lustfully. For I approve more of
him who uses the fruitfulness of many for another, than he who enjoys the flesh of one for
its own sake. For there the usefulness of the times is sought, in accordance with the
opportunities of the time, here the desire is satisfied, involved in temporal pleasures: and
there are lower degrees to God, to whom the apostle grants, according to forgiveness, a
carnal habit with each spouse because of their intemperance (1 Cor. 7, 2), than those who
had more than one when they had , just as the wise in food and drink looked only to the
health of the body, so in intercourse they looked only to the procreation of children. And so
if the coming of the Lord had found them in this life, when it was no longer time to cast, but
to gather stones (Eccl. 3:5), they would immediately castrate themselves for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven: for there is no difficulty in lacking, except when there is desire in
having. Indeed, those men knew that even in married couples there is a luxury of abusing
intemperance: as Tobias's speech testifies, when he was joined to his wife. For he said:
Blessed are you, Lord God of our fathers; and blessed be thy name for ever and ever. May
heaven bless you and all your creatures. You made Adam and gave him Eve as a helper: and
now, Lord, you know that I do not take my sister for the sake of lust, but in truth, that you
may have mercy on us, Lord (Tob. 8:7-9).

<3+> CHAPTER XIX.-- The wicked judge others of their own intelligence.

28. But those who, with unbridled lust, or who wander away through many acts of
fornication, or in the very same spouse, not only exceed the measure pertaining to the
procreation of children, but also accumulate the filth of the most inhuman intemperance,
completely shameless with the slavish license of a certain freedom; they do not believe that
it could have been possible for men in ancient times to use many women in a moderate
manner, keeping nothing in that use except the proper duty of propagandizing their
offspring; and what they themselves are bound by the snares of lust, or do not do in one,
they think that it can in no way be done in many. 29. But these can say that good and holy
men do not even need to be honored and praised, because when they themselves are
honored and praised, they swell with pride; so much more eager for the most empty glory,
the more frequently and widely the flattering tongue fanned them; by which they become so
light, that the breeze of rumor, whether it is considered successful or unfavorable, carries
them into any abyss of depravity, or even dashes them against the rocks of misdeeds. Let
them see, then, how hard and difficult it is for them to be penetrated neither by the bait of
illicit praise, nor by the sting of insults; and let them not measure others by themselves.

<3+> CHAPTER XX.-- In every mode of life they are alike in their own good.

Rather, let them believe that our apostles, even when they were looked up to by men, were
not puffed up; nor when they were despised, they were shunned. For those men lacked
neither temptation: for both the believers were celebrated by the proclamation, and the
persecutors were slandered by the curses. Just as these, therefore, for a time used all these
things, and were not corrupted; so those ancients, referring the use of women to the
convenience of their time, did not suffer that domination of lust, which they serve who do
not believe in these things. 30. And therefore they could not restrain themselves in any way
from the inexcusable hatred of their children, by whom they knew that either their wives or
concubines had been attempted or abused, if by any chance such a thing had happened to
them.

<3+> CHAPTER XXI.-- Although David fell into adultery, he was far from the intemperance of
the lustful.

But King David, when he had suffered this from his impious and monstrous son, not only
endured the ferocity, but also wept when he was extinguished (II Kings 18:33). For he was
not held in the net of carnal zeal, which was in no way moved by his own injury, but by the
sins of his son. For therefore, if he should be conquered, he forbade him to be killed, so that
the place of penitence might be kept in peace; For another son, who was innocent before, for
whom he suffered when he was sick, he rejoiced in dying. 31. From this it is most evident
with what control and temperance those men used women, that when the same king had
unlawfully rushed upon one, carried away by the heat of a certain age and the prosperity of
temporal affairs, he had also ordered her husband to be killed; He was accused by the
prophet, who, when he came to him to be convicted of sin, proposed to him the similitude of
the poor man who had one sheep, but when his neighbor had many, at the arrival of his
guest he rather presented the one ewe of his poor neighbor to be fed. At which David,
moved, ordered him to be killed, and four times as much as a poor sheep; so that he who
had sinned knowingly condemned himself without knowing it. When this had been revealed
to him, and the divinely announced vengeance, he diluted the sin by repenting (II Kings
12:1-14). But still, in this similitude, the rape is only designated of the poor neighbor's
sheep; but concerning the slaying of the woman's husband, that is, the slaying of the poor
man himself, who had one sheep, David was not questioned by way of similitude, so as to
pronounce his sentence of condemnation on adultery only. From this it is understood how
much restraint he had with many women, when he was forced to be punished by himself for
one in which he exceeded the limit. But in this man this immoderate lust was not a
continuance, but a transition: for this reason also by the pleading Prophet he was called the
host of illicit appetite. For he did not say that he had presented him to his king, but to his
guest, a poor neighbor, to feed the sheep. But in his son Solomon, he did not pass as a guest,
but that lust possessed the kingdom: about which the Scripture was not silent, blaming him
for having been a lover of women (3 Kings 11:1). Whose beginnings, however, were burning
with the desire for wisdom (II Paralip. 1, 7-12); what he had gained by spiritual love, he lost
by carnal love.

<3+> CHAPTER XXII.-- Rule concerning the passages of Scripture where certain good deeds
contrary to the manners of the present day are praised.

32. Therefore, although all, or nearly all, that are contained in the books of the Old
Testament, are to be taken not only literally, but also figuratively, yet even those things
which the reader has received properly, if those who did them are praised, yet they are
contrary to the custom of the good , who keep the divine precepts after the coming of the
Lord; he refers the figure to the intelligence, but does not transfer the fact itself to the
manners. For there are many things that were dutifully done at that time, which could not
have been done except lustfully.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIII.-- Rule concerning the places where the sins of great men are reported.

If indeed he has read the sins of great men, although he has been able to observe and trace
in them some form of things to come; yet he assumes the propriety of his deeds for this use,
so that he dares not boast of his own deeds, and despises others as sinners before his own
justice, when he sees so many men both weathering storms and tearing shipwrecks. For the
sins of those men were also written for this, so that the Apostolic sentence is everywhere
terrible, in which he says: Therefore let him who seems to stand see that he does not fall (1
Cor. 10:12). For there is almost no page of the holy books in which it is not heard that God
resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIV.--First of all, the type of speech must be considered.

34. The most important thing, then, is to investigate whether the expression which we are
trying to understand is proper or figurative. For I have discovered that it has been shaped,
using the rules of things which we have said in the first book, it is easy to turn it in all ways
until we arrive at the opinion of the truth, especially when the practice has been
strengthened by the exercise of piety. Now we find out whether it is a proper or a figurative
expression, looking at what has been said above.

<3+> CHAPTER XXV.-- The same word does not mean the same thing everywhere.

When this appears, the words with which it is contained will either be found to be drawn
from similar things, or from some neighborhood touching them. 35. But since in many ways
things appear similar to things, we do not think that it is prescribed that because in a certain
place a thing is signified by similitude, we believe that this always signifies it. For even in
reproach the Lord put leaven when he said, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew
16:11); and in praise, when he said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hid leaven
in three measures of flour until it was all fermented" (Luke 13:21). 36. Therefore, the
observation of this variety has two forms. For in this way each thing signifies one thing and
another, so that either they signify opposites, or merely different things. The contrary, of
course, when the same thing is put forward by similitude, sometimes in good, and
sometimes in evil, as we said above of leaven. It is also such that the lion signifies Christ,
where it is said, He overcame the lion of the tribe of Judah (Apoc. 5:5); it also signifies the
devil, where it is written, Your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). Thus the serpent is in good, shrewd as serpents (Matthew
10:16); but in evil, the Serpent seduced Eve in his cunning (2 Cor. 11:3). In the good bread, I
am the living bread, who came down from heaven (John 6:51); in evil, eat the hidden bread
with pleasure (Prov. 9:17): so and many other things. And indeed these things which I have
mentioned bear no doubtful meaning, because they ought to have been mentioned only as
an example. But there are things which are uncertain in which part they should be taken, as,
The cup in the Lord's hand is full of mixed wine. For it is uncertain whether it signifies the
wrath of God not until the last punishment, that is, until the dregs; or rather the grace of the
Scriptures passing from the Jews to the Gentiles, because it inclined from this to that,
remaining with the Jews the observances which they carnally know, because its dregs is not
emptied (Psal. 74, 9) . But since the same thing is not placed in opposites, but only in a
different meaning, that is for example, which signifies water and people, as we read in the
Apocalypse (Apocalypse 17:15 and 19:6); and the Holy Spirit, whence it is, rivers of living
water flow from his belly (John 7:38); and if something else and another, for the places in
which it is placed, it is understood to signify water. 37. So also other things, not individually,
but each one of them, not only two different things, but also sometimes many things, for the
place of the sentence, as it is found to be placed.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVI.-- Obscure things to be explained from more open places
But where they are placed more openly, there we must learn how to understand them in
obscure places. For it cannot be better understood that it was said to God, Take up arms and
a shield, and arise to help me (Psal. xxxiv, 2), than from that place where it is read, O Lord,
as the shield of your good will you have crowned us (Psal. 5, 13 ) And yet it is not so that
wherever we read that a shield has been placed as a bulwark, let us accept nothing but the
good will of God: for the shield of faith is also said, in which, he says, you can quench all the
fiery darts of the evil one (Eph. 6:16). And again, for this reason, we must only give faith to
the spiritual armor of this kind, when in another place it is also called the girdle of faith: Put
on, he says, the girdle of faith and charity (1 Thess. 5, 8).

<3+> CHAPTER XXVII.-- Nothing prevents the same passage from being understood differently.

38. But when from the same words of Scripture, not one thing, but two or more things are
felt, even if it is hidden what the one who wrote felt, there is no danger, if each of them can
be taught to be in accordance with the truth from other passages of the Holy Scriptures; the
divine words are scrutinized, in order to reach the will of the author, through whom the
Holy Spirit worked that Scripture; either he achieves this, or he carves out another opinion
about those words, which is not contradicted by the right faith, having evidence from any
other place of the divine utterances. Indeed, he was the author in the very words that we
want to understand, and he perhaps saw the very sentence; and certainly the Spirit of God,
who worked these things through him, also foresaw the very meeting of the reader or
listener, without doubt; nay, that it should meet, because it is also supported by truth, he
provided. For what could have been more liberally and richly provided by God in the divine
utterances, than that the same words should be understood in several ways, which other no
less divine contestations cause to be approved?

<3+> CHAPTER XXVIII.-- An uncertain place is more safely revealed by other passages of
Scripture than by reason.

39. But when such a sense is brought forth, the uncertainty of which cannot be revealed by
the certain testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, it remains that it may appear manifest by
reason, even if he whose words we seek to understand may not have felt them. But this
habit is dangerous: for one walks much more safely through the divine Scriptures; when we
wish to scrutinize the words which have been obscured by the translation, or let this come
out of it that has no controversy; or, if it has, it will be concluded from the same Scripture
wherever found and used witnesses.
<3+> CHAPTER XXIX.-- Necessary knowledge of tropes.

40. Let the literate know that our authors have used all manner of speech, which the
grammarians call tropes by the Greek name, and in a more numerous and copious manner
than those who do not know them can imagine or believe, and have learned these things
from others. Those who know these tropes, however, recognize them in the Holy Scriptures,
and their knowledge helps them to a certain extent to understand them. But here it is not
proper to deliver them up uninformed, lest we appear to be teaching the art of grammar. Of
course, I advise them to study outside, although I have already advised this above, that is, in
the second book, where I discussed the necessary knowledge of languages. For the letters
from which grammar itself took its name, the Greeks call Γράμματα letters, are certainly
signs of the sounds belonging to the articulated voice with which we speak. And not only
examples of these tropes, as of all, but also the names of some are read in divine books, such
as allegories, riddles, and parables. Although almost all those tropes, which are said to be
known by the liberal arts, are also to be found in their talkers, who have heard no
grammarians, and are content with the speech which the common people use. For who does
not say, "Thus may you flourish?" which trope is called a metaphor. Who does not say that
even a pool has no fish, and was not made for the sake of fish, and yet took its name from
fish? which is called the trope of catachresis. 41. It is a long time to persecute the others in
this way: for the vulgar speech reaches even to them, who are therefore more wonderful,
because they signify the opposite of what is said, just as there is what is called irony or
antiphrasis. But irony indicates by pronunciation what it wants to be understood, as when
we say to a man who does evil, You do good things: but an antiphrase, so as to signify the
opposite, is not made by the voice of the one who pronounces it, but either has its own
words, the origin of which is the opposite, as a forest is called, which does not shine at all; or
it is customary for something to be said in this way, although it is also said not on the
contrary, as when we seek to receive what is not there, and we are answered, It abounds; or
we make it with conjunctions so that it is understood on the contrary that we are speaking,
as if we were to say, Beware of him, because he is a good man. And who does not say such
things uneducated, not knowing at all who they are, or what these tropes are called? The
knowledge of which is therefore necessary to dissolve the ambiguities of the Scriptures,
because since the meaning, if taken as a property of the words, is absurd, we must certainly
seek lest it might be said by this or that trope that we do not understand; and thus most of
the things that were hidden were discovered.

<3+> CHAPTER 30.-- The rules of Tichonius the Donatist are considered.

42. A certain Tichonius, who wrote most invincibly against the Donatists, when he was a
Donatist, and there is found the most absurd of hearts, where he did not wish to leave them
in every part, made a book which he called Regularum, because in it he executed certain
seven rules, by which they were opened as if they were the keys of the divine Scriptures
hidden The first of which he places, Concerning the Lord and his body; the second,
Concerning the two-part body of the Lord; the third, Concerning promises and the Law; the
fourth, On species and genus; the fifth, On the times; the sixth, On recapitulation; the
seventh, Of the devil and his body. These things considered, as they are opened by him, are
not a little adjuvant to penetrate the hidden things of the divine discourses: nor yet all that
are written in such a way as not to be easily understood, can be found by these rules, but by
several other ways, which are not so far in this number of seven this complex, so that the
same himself explains many obscure things, in which he applies none of these rules, since
there is no need. For there is no such question or inquiry, as in the Apocalypse of John, how
the angels of the seven churches are to be understood, to whom he is commanded to write,
and he reasoned in many ways, and it came to this that we understand the angels
themselves as the churches (Apoc. 1:20). In which most copious discussion there is none of
these rules, and of course the most obscure thing is sought there; which, as an example, has
been sufficiently said: for it is too long and too laborious to collect all, which are so obscure
in the canonical Scriptures, that nothing of these seven is to be required there. 43. Now
when he commends these as if they were rules, he only gives them, as if we were able to
understand everything that we have found in the Law, that is, in the divine Books obscurely
placed, well known and used. Indeed, he began the same book in such a way that he could
say: I thought it necessary before everything that seems to me to write a book of Rules, and
to make secrets of the Law as keys and lights. For there are certain mystical rules which
secure the recesses of the whole Law, and make visible the treasures of truth which are
invisible to some. If, as we share, the reason for the rules was accepted without envy;
Everything that is closed will be made clear, and the dark things will be made clear. so that
one who traverses the immense forest of prophecy, guided by these rules in a certain way
by paths of light, may be protected from error. If he had said here, For there are certain
mystical rules which secure certain retreats from the Law, or certainly which secure great
retreats from the Law; but what he says is not the withdrawal of the whole Law: nor would
he have said, "Everything that is closed shall be made manifest," but that many things that
are closed shall be made manifest; he would have told the truth, and would not have sent
his reader and connoisseur into false hope by giving more to his elaborate and useful work
than the matter itself demands. That is why I thought to say that the book itself should be
read by students, because it helps a great deal to understand the Scriptures, and one should
not expect as much from it as it does not have. It must of course be read with caution, not
only because of certain things in which he erred as a man; but chiefly because of what he
speaks like a heretical Donatist. But what these seven rules teach or remind us, I will briefly
show.

<3+> CHAPTER XXXI.-- The first rule of Tichonius.

44. The first is about the Lord and his body; in which we know that at one time the head and
the body, that is, Christ and the Church, are intimated to us in one person (for it was not in
vain said to the faithful, Therefore you are the seed of Abraham [Galatians 3:29], since there
is one seed of Abraham, which is Christ), not We hesitate when it passes from the head to
the body, or from the body to the head, and yet does not depart from one and the same
person. For one person speaks, saying, As a bridegroom hath he put on me a mitre, and as a
bride hath he adorned me with ornaments (Isaiah 61:10); and yet what of these two
belongs to the head and what to the body, that is, what belongs to Christ and what belongs
to the Church, must certainly be understood.

<3+> CHAPTER 32.-- The second rule of Tichonius.

The second is about the two-parted body of the Lord, which indeed should not have been so
called; for it is not really the Lord's body, which will not be with him for eternity: but it was
said, Of the Lord's body, true and mixed, or, true and pretended, or something else; because
not only for eternity, but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with Him, although
they seem to be in His Church. Whence this rule could be so called, that it might be said of a
mixed Church. This rule requires the reader to be vigilant, when the Scripture, when it is
already speaking to others, seems to be speaking to those to whom it was speaking; or of
them, when he is already speaking of others; as if the body of both were one, because of the
temporal mixing and communion of the Sacraments. To this it belongs in the Song of Songs,
I am dark and fair as cedar tents, as the skins of Solomon (Cant. 1. 5). For he does not say, I
was brown as cedar tents, and fair as Solomon's skins; but he said that he was both, because
of the temporal unity within one net of good and bad fish (Matthew 13:48). For the
tabernacles of Cedar belong to Ishmael, who will not be an heir with a free child (Genesis
21:10; Galatians 4:30). And so when God says of the good side, He will lead the blind into a
way which they know not, and they shall tread paths which they know not; and I will make
darkness for them light, and perversions for the straight: I will do these words, and I will
not forsake them. are already signified by these words. But since they are now in one, it is as
if he were speaking of those of whom he spoke: yet they will not always be in one. Indeed,
he is that servant mentioned in the Gospel, whose master, when he comes, will divide him
and place his part with the hypocrites (Matthew 24:51).

<3+> CHAPTER 33.-- The third rule of Tichonius. A book on spirit and literature.

46. The third rule is about the Promises and the Law, which can be said in another way
about the spirit and the letter, as we called it when we were writing a book on this subject.
It can also be said about grace and commandment. But this seems to me more a great
question than a rule to be used in solving questions. This is how the Pelagians, not
understanding, either founded their heresy or increased it. Tichonius worked well to
dissolve it, but not completely. For disputing about faith and works, he said that works are
given to us by God on the merit of faith; but faith itself is so to be from us, that it is not from
God to us. Nor does he pay attention to the Apostle saying, Peace to the brothers and charity
with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 6:23). But he had not
experienced this heresy, which has sprung up in our time, so that we might defend against it
the grace of God which is through our Lord Jesus Christ; and according to what the Apostle
says, "It is necessary to be heretics, that they may be proved manifest in you" (1 Cor. 11:19)
that is, faith itself is the gift of him who distributes its measure to each one (Rom. 12:3).
From which sentence it was said to some, It was given to you for Christ, not only that you
may believe in him, but also that you may suffer for him (Philippians 1:29). Wherefore can
anyone doubt that both are the gift of God, who faithfully and intelligently hears that both
are given? There are many other testimonies by which this is shown: but we do not deal
with this now; and elsewhere and elsewhere we have done these very often.

<3+> CHAPTER XXXIV.-- The fourth rule of Tichonius.

47. The fourth rule of Tichonius is about species and genus. For he calls it thus, wishing to
understand the species as a part, but the genus as a whole, of which it is that part which he
calls a species, just as each city is certainly a part of the totality of nations: this he calls a
species; but the race is all nations. Nor is that fineness of distinction to be used here, which
is handed down by the dialecticians, who dispute most acutely what is the difference
between a part and a species. It is the same reason, if something like this is found in the
divine discourses, not of each city, but of each province, nation, or kingdom. For not only, for
example, of Jerusalem, or of any city of the Gentiles, whether of Tyre, or of Babylon, or of
any other, is something said in the Holy Scriptures, which exceeds its limits, and is rather
applicable to all nations; but also of Judea, of Egypt, Of Assyria, and of any other nation in
which there are many states, yet not the whole world, but a part of it, it is said that it passes
its measure, and rather conforms to the whole of which it is a part. or, as he calls it, of the
genus, of which this is a species. Hence these words came to the knowledge of the common
people, so that even idiots could understand what was specifically and what was generally
established in any imperial precept. This also happens with men; just as what is said of
Solomon goes beyond his manner, and is rather clearly related to Christ or the Church of
which he is a part. 48. Nor is the species always exceeded; for such things are often said
which agree either with him too, or perhaps only with him very openly: but when he passes
from the species to the genus, as if the Scripture were still speaking of the species, the
reader's attention must be on guard there, lest he seek in the species what he can find better
and more certainly in the genus. For it is easy to say what the prophet Ezekiel says, The
house of Israel dwelt in the earth, and they defiled it in their way, and in their idols, and in
their sins. according to the impurity of the menses, their way was made before my face. And
I poured out my wrath upon them, and scattered them among the nations, and drove them
into the regions; I judged them according to their ways and according to their sins (Ezek. 36,
17-19): it is easy, I say, to understand this about that house of Israel, of which the Apostle
says, Behold Israel according to the flesh (1 Cor. 10, 18); because the carnal people of Israel
did and suffered all these things. Other things that follow are also meant to meet the people:
but when he began to say, And I will sanctify that great holy name of mine, which was
defiled among the nations, because you defiled it in the midst of them; and the nations shall
know that I am the Lord; He who reads must already be attentive to how the species is
exceeded, and the genus is added. For he continues and says: And while I will be sanctified
in you before their eyes, and will receive you from the nations, and will gather you from all
lands, and will bring you into your own land; and I will sprinkle you with clean water, and
you will be cleansed from all your idols, and I will cleanse you: and I will give you a new
heart, and I will put a new Spirit in you; and I will take away the stony heart from your flesh,
and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit into you: and I will make you
walk in my righteousness, and keep my judgments, and do them: and you shall dwell in the
land which I gave to your fathers; and you will be my people, and I will be your God; and I
will cleanse you from all your filthiness (Ezek. 36, 23-29). That this was prophesied of the
New Testament, to which it pertains not only to that one nation among its remnants, to
whom it is written elsewhere, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the
sea, the remnant shall be saved (Isaiah 10:22), but also the other nations. which were
promised to their fathers, who are also ours; Anyone who looks will not doubt that the bath
of regeneration is here promised, which we now see restored to all nations. not in tablets of
stone, but in the carnal tablets of the heart (II Cor. 3, 2, 3), he regards and sees that he was
led from here where this prophet says, And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new
Spirit within you; and I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you
a heart of flesh. For the carnal heart, whence the apostle says, by the carnal tablets of the
heart, wanted to be distinguished from the heart of stone by the feeling life, and by the
feeling life he signified the understanding. Thus spiritual Israel becomes, not of one nation,
but of all that was promised to the fathers in their seed, which is Christ. 49. Here, then, the
spiritual Israel is distinguished from that carnal Israel, which is of one nation, by the
newness of grace, not by the nobility of the country, and by the mind, not by the nation: but
the prophetic height, while speaking of him or to him, passes covertly to the latter. and
when he is already talking about this or to that, he still seems to be talking about that or to
that; not as though hostilely envious of our understanding of the Scriptures, but practicing
ours medicinally. Whence also that which he says, And I will bring you into your land; and a
little later, as if repeating himself, And you shall dwell, says he, in the land which I gave to
your fathers; We must receive him not carnally like carnal Israel, but spiritually as he is
spiritual. Indeed, the church without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27) gathered from all
nations, and reigning forever with Christ, is itself the land of the blessed, the land of the
living (Psal. 26:13); it is to be understood that it was given to the fathers, when it was
promised to them by the sure and unchangeable will of God: since it was already given by
the firmness of the promise or predestination, which was believed by the fathers to be given
in due time; as concerning the very grace which is given to the saints, the apostle, writing to
Timothy, says, Not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace, which
was given to us in Christ Jesus before the eternal ages, but has now been manifested by the
coming of our Savior (2 Tim. 1, 9, 10). He said grace was given, when there were not yet
those to whom it was to be given; since in God's arrangement and predestination what was
to come in its time had already been done, which he says was made manifest. Although
these things can be understood also about the earth of the future age, when there will be a
new heaven and a new earth (Apoc. 21:1), in which the unrighteous will not be able to
dwell. And therefore it is rightly said to the pious that the land itself is theirs, which will not
belong to the wicked on any part. because it was similarly given, when it was confirmed to
be given.

<3+> CHAPTER 35.-- The fifth rule of Tichonius.

50. Tichonius lays down a fifth rule, which he calls De temporibus; by which rule the
quantity of times hidden in the holy Scriptures may generally be found or inferred. Now he
says that this rule prevails in two ways; either by the trope of synecdoche, or by legitimate
numbers. The trope of synecdoche makes it understood either in part as a whole or as a part
of the whole: as one evangelist says it happened after eight days, and another says it
happened after six days, when on the mountain the face of the Lord shone like the sun, and
his clothes like snow, in the presence of only three disciples on the mountain (Luke 9:28;
Matthew 17:1, 2; Mark 9:1, 2) For neither of these things could be true, which has been said
of the number of days, unless he who said, after eight days, understood that the last part of
the day from which Christ foretold that it would come to pass, and the first part of the day in
which he showed it to be fulfilled, had put all the days into two whole days. ; but he who
said, after six days, that he counted all the wholes and wholes, but only the middle ones. In
this manner of expression, by which the whole is signified in part, the question concerning
Christ's resurrection is also resolved. For the last part of the day in which he suffered,
unless it be taken as the whole day, that is to say, the past night also included; and the night
in whose last part he rose, unless the whole day is taken, that is to say, with the day
dawning on Sunday, there cannot be three days and three nights, during which he foretold
that he would be in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). 51. Now he says the legitimate
numbers, which the divine Scripture recommends more eminently, such as a septenary, or a
denarius, or a twelve-denarius, and whatever others there are, which the studious will
gladly recognize by reading them. For generally numbers of this kind are put for the whole
time: as, Seven times a day I will praise thee (Psal. 118, 164), there is nothing else than, His
praise is always in my mouth (Psal. 33, 2). They have the same value when they are
multiplied, whether by a penny, as seventy and seven hundred; whence the seventy years of
Jeremiah (Jer. 25:11) can be taken spiritually as the whole time during which the Church is
with strangers: whether by themselves, as ten by ten, there are a hundred; and twelve by
twelve, one hundred and forty-four; by which number is signified the universe of saints in
the Apocalypse (Revelation 7:4). Hence it appears that not only the questions of the times
are to be solved by these numbers, but that their meanings are more widely open, and
spread into many things. For this number in the Apocalypse does not pertain to times, but to
men.
<3+> CHAPTER 36.-- The sixth rule of Tichonius.

52. Tichonius calls the sixth rule Recapitulation, discovered in the obscurity of the
Scriptures with sufficient vigilance. For in this way certain things are said as if they were to
follow in the order of time, or to be narrated in the continuation of things, when the
narration is secretly recalled to the former things which had been passed over: which,
unless it is understood according to this rule, is mistaken. As in Genesis, And the Lord God
planted a garden in Eden to the east, and there he placed the man whom he had formed; and
God still brought forth from the earth every beautiful tree, and good for meat; so it seems to
have been said that after it had been done, God placed man in the garden. God still from the
earth every beautiful and good tree for food. Finally, following, he added: And the tree of life
in the midst of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then the river, by
which the paradise was watered, divided into four principal rivers, is explained; which all
pertains to the establishment of paradise. And when he had finished, he repeated what he
had already said, and really followed this, and said: And the Lord God took the man whom
he had formed, and put him in paradise (Gen. 2:8, 9), etc. For after these things man was
placed there, as the order itself now shows: these things did not happen after man was
placed there, as may be thought before, unless the recapitulation there is carefully
understood, by which we return to those things which had been passed over. 53. Also in the
same book, when the generations of Noah's sons were mentioned, it was said: These are the
sons of Ham in their tribes, according to their languages, in their regions and in their
nations. In the enumeration of the sons of Shem, it is said: These are the sons of Shem in
their tribes, according to their languages, in their regions and in their nations. And it is
added of all: These are the tribes of the sons of Noah, according to their generations and
according to their nations. From these the islands of the nations were scattered over the
earth after the flood. And all the earth had one lips, and one voice for all (Id. 10, 20, 31, 32,
and 11, 1). This, therefore, which is joined, And the whole earth had one lip, and one voice
for all, that is, one language for all, seems to have been said in this way, as if already at the
time when they had been scattered over the earth even according to the islands of the
nations, there had been one language common to all. which doubtless contradicts the
preceding words, where it is said, In their tribes according to their languages. For it should
not be said that each tribe had its own language, which made the nations separate, when it
was one common to all. And by this recapitulation it is added, And all the earth was of one
lip, and one voice to all, secretly returning to the narrative, that it might be said how it was,
that they were divided by one language of all, by many: and immediately it is told of the
building of that tower, where these things are told to them the punishment of pride is
received by the divine judgment; after which they were scattered over the earth according
to their languages. 54. This recapitulation becomes even more obscure: as the Lord says in
the Gospel, On the day that Lot came out of Sodom, he rained fire from heaven and
destroyed them all: according to this will be the day of the Son of Man, in which he will be
revealed. At that hour he that shall be on the roof, and his vessels in the house, shall not
come down to take them; and he that is in the field, likewise shall not turn back: remember
his wife Lot (Luke 17:29-32; Gen. 19:26). When the Lord has been revealed, then are these
things to be preserved, lest anyone look back, that is, inquire into the past life to whom he
has renounced; and is it not rather at that time, that when the Lord is revealed, he may find
retribution for those whom each has kept or despised? And yet because it was said, In that
hour, then these things are supposed to be kept, when the Lord has been revealed, unless to
understand the recapitulation, the sensibility of the reader should be alert, with the adjunct
of another Scripture which still in the time of the Apostles cried out, Sons, it is the last hour
(1 John 2, 18). The very time, then, in which the Gospel is preached, until the Lord is
revealed, is the hour in which these things must be kept; because the very revelation of the
Lord belongs to the same hour, which will end on the day of judgment (Rom. 2:5 and 13:11).

<3+> CHAPTER 37.-- The seventh rule of Tichonius.

55. The seventh rule of Tichonius, and the same last, is concerning the devil and his body.
For he is also the head of the wicked, who are, in a way, his body, and will go with him to the
punishment of eternal fire (Matthew 25:41). 1, 22). As, therefore, in the first rule, which he
calls concerning the Lord and his body, we must be careful to understand that when the
Scripture speaks of one and the same person, what belongs to the head and what to the
body; so also in these last things, it is sometimes said of the devil that he can be recognized
not in him, but rather in his body, which he has not only in those who are most manifestly
outside, but also in those who, though they belong to him, are nevertheless for a time mixed
with the churches. until each one departs from this life, or is separated from the wheat to
the last winnowing chaff (Luke 3:17). For what is written in Isaiah, How Lucifer fell from
heaven in the morning (Isaiah 14:12), and the rest, which are said about the same person,
or to the same person under the figure of the king of Babylon, in the very context of the
speech, are certainly meant about the devil. and yet what is said there, He that sendeth to all
nations is broken in the earth, is not entirely according to the head. For although the devil
sends his angels to all nations, yet his body, not himself, is crushed on earth; except because
he himself is in his body, which becomes crushed like dust, which the wind throws from the
face of the earth (Psal. 1:4). 56. Now all these rules, with the exception of one, which is
called On Promises and Law, make one thing to be understood from another, which is the
characteristic of a tropical expression, which is more extensive than can, as it seems to me,
be comprehended by any one. For wherever one thing is said to mean another, even if the
name of the trope itself is not found in the art of speaking, it is a trope. When things are
done where they are wont to be done, the understanding follows them without effort: but
when they are not wont, it is labored to be understood, by some more, by others less, just as
there are more or less gifts of God in the talents of men, or helpers are given. Accordingly, as
in the proper words, about which we discussed above, where things are to be understood as
they are said; so in the translations which form tropical expressions, where one thing is to
be understood from another, of which we have hitherto dealt sufficiently as far as has been
seen; not only are the students of venerable literature to be reminded to know the kinds of
expressions in the holy Scriptures, and how something is usually said in them, to pay careful
attention to them, and to retain them by heart; but also, what is most important and most
necessary, they pray that they may understand. For in them they read the Letters, of which
they are studious, that the Lord gives wisdom, and from his face knowledge and
understanding. (Prov. 2:6); from whom they received the very study, if it was endowed with
piety. But this much has been said about the signs as far as the words are concerned. It
remains for us to discuss in the next volume, which the Lord has given us, about expressing
to them what we feel.

<2+> THE FOURTH BOOK

So much for investigating the meaning of the Scriptures, now finally it is a matter of
discussion. And indeed Augustine does not want the precepts of the art of rhetoric to belong
to the institution of this book; but nevertheless he pursues the parts of the Christian orator
with the greatest care: to whom he proposes to imitate the authors of the sacred letters and
the ecclesiastical teachers, who are far superior in wisdom of speech, nay, and in eloquence,
giving from their writings examples of elocution in various kinds of speech. Lastly, he
exhorts the ecclesiastics themselves to give their attention first of all to prayer; and what he
teaches others in words, this is completely demonstrated by life and behavior.

<3+> CHAPTER ONE.-- It is not the purpose of this institution to deliver the precepts of
rhetoric.

1. This work of ours, which is inscribed on Christian Doctrine, I had divided into two parts
in the first distribution. For after the prologue, in which I replied to those who had been
reproached for this: There are two things, I say, on which all the treatment of the Scriptures
rests; the method of discovering what is to be understood, and the method of expressing
what is understood. We will discuss about finding first, about bringing it out later. Since,
then, we have already said a great deal about finding, and we have completed three volumes
on this one part, we will say a few things about bringing it out, with the help of the Lord. so
that, if it were possible, we should close everything in one book, and this whole work would
end in four volumes. 2. First of all, therefore, I restrain the expectation of the readers, who
perhaps think that I am going to give rhetorical precepts which I have both learned and
taught in secular schools, with this preface, and I warn them not to expect from me; not that
they have no utility; but that, if they have anything, they must be learned separately, if
perhaps some good man has leisure to learn these things also, but not to be required of me,
either in this work, or in any other.
<3+> CHAPTER II.-- The faculty of rhetoric is appropriate to use as a Christian teacher.

3. For when, by the art of rhetoric, both truths and falsities are persuaded, whoever dares to
say, must stand unarmed against falsehood in its defenders, the truth, so that those who try
to persuade false things, may know how to make the hearer either benevolent, or intent, or
docile by introduction; But did they not know? to him falsities briefly, plainly, probably; and
these tell the truth in such a way that it is tiresome to hear, it is not clear to understand, and
finally one does not want to believe? they attack the truth with fallacious arguments, they
assert falsity; are these neither able to defend truths, nor to refute falsities? those who move
and push the minds of the hearers into error by saying they frighten, grieve, exult, exhort
ardently; will these, for the truth, sleep slowly and coldly? Who is so lost as to know this?
When, then, the faculty of speech is placed in the middle, which is of great value for
persuasion, either wrong or right; why is it not compared to the pursuit of the good, that it
may serve the truth, if the evil use it to obtain perverted and vain causes for the use of
iniquity and error?

<3+> CHAPTER III.--The precepts of rhetoric can be learned at what age and by what method.

4. But whatever are the observations and precepts on this matter, which, when the most
skilful habit of the exerciser of the language comes with the use of many words and
ornaments of words, that which is called eloquence or eloquence becomes, outside of these
letters of ours, set aside for this suitable period of time, to be learned at a suitable and
suitable age there are those who can do this quickly. For even the Roman princes of
eloquence did not hesitate to say that unless someone can learn this art quickly, he can
never learn it at all (Cicero, De Oratore). Whether that is true, what is the need to ask? For
not, even if these things may at last be lost by the slow ones, we value them so much that we
wish to spend the ages of men who are already mature or even serious in learning them. It
is enough that this is the concern of young people; nor of all those whom we desire to be
educated for the ecclesiastical benefit, but of those whom a more pressing need has not yet
taken hold of, and which without a doubt prevails over this matter. For if there is a sharp
and ardent intellect, eloquence will stick more easily to those who read and hear those who
speak, than to those who follow the precepts of eloquence. Nor are there any lack of
ecclesiastical literature, even apart from the canon, which is healthily placed in the citadel of
authority, by reading which a capable person, even if he does not do so, but only if he is
intent on the things that are said there, is also imbued with the speech in which they are
said, while he is engaged in them; by approaching or especially by the exercise of either
writing or dictation, and lastly also of speaking, which feels according to the rule of piety
and faith. But if such a talent is lacking, neither are those rhetorical precepts taken; nor, if
they are inculcated with great effort, however little they are taken from one side, are they of
any use. Since even those who have learned them, and say them abundantly and elegantly,
not all of them, as they say according to them, can think them when they say them, if they do
not discuss them; We must do those rules of speaking to think when they say. For it is
necessary to take care not to let what is to be said escape from the mind, while attention is
paid to the fact that they are said skillfully. And yet in the speeches and sayings of the
eloquent, the precepts of eloquence are found fulfilled, of which they did not think to speak,
or when they spoke, whether they had learned them, or had not even touched them. Indeed,
they fulfill these, because they are eloquent; they do not use it to be eloquent. 5. Therefore,
when children do not become speakers, except by learning the phrases of the speakers; Why
can't they become eloquent, with no traditional art of speaking, but by reading and listening
to the speeches of the eloquent, and as far as it is permitted to achieve, by imitating them?
What is it that we also experience by examples that this happens? For without the precepts
of rhetoric we know many more eloquent than many who have learned them; but without
having read and heard the discussions or speeches of the eloquent, no one. For children
would not need the very art of grammar, by which the integrity of speech is learned, if they
were allowed to grow up and live among men who spoke with integrity. Indeed, not
knowing any names of vices, they would rebuke and beware of whatever vice they heard
from the mouth of anyone speaking, according to their healthy habits; as they criticize the
urban peasants, even those who do not know letters.

<3+> CHAPTER IV.-- The office of the Christian teacher.

6. Therefore the handler and teacher of the divine Scriptures, the defender of the right faith
and the destroyer of error, must both teach good and unteach evil; and in this work of
speech to conciliate the adversaries, to raise up those who are remiss, to those who do not
know what is going on, to intimate what they should expect. But when he has either found
them benevolent, intent, and docile, or has himself done so, the rest must be carried out, as
the cause demands. If those who hear are to be taught, it must be done by narration, if,
however, it is necessary that they become acquainted with the matter in question. But in
order that what is in doubt may be made certain, it is necessary to reason by means of
documents. But if those who hear are to be moved rather than taught, so that they do not
become numb by acting on what they already know, and adjust their assent to things which
they admit to be true, greater powers of speaking are needed. There entreaties and rebukes,
exhortations and restraints, and whatever else is effective in stirring up the minds, are
necessary. 7. And all these things which I have said, almost all men do not cease to do in
those things which they do by speaking:

<3+> CHAPTER V.-- It is more important that a Christian speaker should speak wisely than
eloquently. Wherefore it is worth achieving.
But when others act obtusely, ugly, coldly; others acutely, ornately, vehemently; He who can
debate or speak wisely, even if he cannot speak eloquently, so as to benefit the audience,
even if less than it would be beneficial if he could speak eloquently, must be approached for
this work from which we are doing. But he who overflows with foolish eloquence, is all the
more to be guarded against, the more the listener delights in what is useless to hear from
him, and since he hears him speak eloquently, he also thinks that he is speaking the truth.
But this opinion did not escape those who thought that the art of rhetoric should be taught:
for they admitted that wisdom without eloquence is of little use to states; But eloquence
without wisdom is usually too much of a hindrance, and is never useful (Cicero, book 1 of
Invention). If, therefore, those who handed down the precepts of eloquence, in the same
books in which they did so, were forced to confess the instigating truth, the truth, that is, the
heavenly truth which comes down from the Father of lights, not knowing the wisdom; how
much more should we feel no other way, who are the children and ministers of this
wisdom? But a man says wisely, more or less, according as he has advanced more or less in
the holy Scriptures. I do not mean in them a great deal of reading and memorizing, but of
understanding them well, and carefully following their senses. For there are those who read
them and neglect them; they read in order to retain, they neglect not to understand. Those
who hold their words less, and see their heart with the eyes of their own heart, are far to be
preferred to them. But he is better than both, who says them when he wants to, and
understands them as he should. 8. Therefore it is most necessary for him who must speak
wisely, even what he cannot eloquently, to hold fast the words of the Scriptures. For as
much as he sees himself poorer in his own, so must he be richer in them; so that what he
says with his words, he proves from them; and he who was smaller in his own words should
grow in a certain way by the testimony of the great. For he delights in proving, who can
delight less in saying. Moreover, he who wants to speak not only wisely, but also eloquently,
because he will certainly benefit more if he can do both; I send him more willingly to read or
hear, and practice imitating those who speak, than I order him to devote himself to the
teachers of the art of rhetoric: if, however, those who are read and heard, not only
eloquently, but also wisely, have spoken or said truthful preaching, they are praised. For
those who speak eloquently, sweetly; who are heard wisely and healthily. Because of this
the Scripture does not say, A multitude of speakers; But, the multitude of wise men is the
health of the world (Wisdom 6:26). But just as bitter healthful things are often to be taken,
so pernicious sweetness is always to be avoided. But what is better than healthful
sweetness, or sweet healthiness? For the more sweetness is desired there, the more easily
health benefits. There are therefore ecclesiastical men who have treated the divine words
not only wisely, but also eloquently: for whom time is no more sufficient for reading, than
they themselves may lack for students and idlers.

<3+> CHAPTER VI. Wisdom combined with eloquence in the sacred authors.
9. At this point someone perhaps asks whether our authors, whose divinely inspired
writings have made a canon for us with the most salutary authority, are only wise, or are
they also to be called eloquent. This question with myself, and with those who feel what I
say with me, is very easily solved. For when I understand them, not only nothing can appear
to me wiser than them, but also nothing more eloquent. And I venture to say that all who
understand correctly what they speak, at the same time understand that they should not
have spoken otherwise. For just as there is a kind of eloquence which is more suitable for a
youthful age, there is one for the elderly; nor is eloquence to be said any more, if it does not
suit the person of the speaker: such is a kind which befits men worthy of the highest
authority and plainly divine. They spoke thus, and neither another thing befits them, nor
others the same: for it befits them; and others, the more lowly it seems, the higher it
transcends, not by airiness, but by solidity. But where I do not understand them, their
eloquence appears less to me, but still I do not doubt that it is such as it is where I
understand. The very obscurity of divine and wholesome sayings had to be mingled with
such eloquence, in which our understanding ought to advance, not only by discovery, but
also by exercise. 10. I could indeed, if I had leisure, all the virtues and ornaments of
eloquence, of which those who prefer the language of our authors of language, not to
greatness, but to swelling, are puffed up, in these sacred letters, which they teach us, and
from this wicked age into a blessed age divine providence provided for the transfer. But
they do not delight me more than can be said in that eloquence, which these men have in
common with Gentile orators and poets. to them: because it was neither to be disapproved
of by them, nor to be displayed; the second of which would happen if it were avoided; it
might be thought the other, if it were easily recognised. And in the places where it may be
recognized by the learned, such things are said, that the words to which they are spoken,
are seen not to be used by the speaker, but as if spontaneously subjoined to the things
themselves. not called to follow eloquence.

<3+> CHAPTER VII.-- He beautifully teaches, by giving examples, that in the sacred letters
there is a genuine eloquence, which clings to wisdom as if it were an inseparable companion.
Examples are given from the Epistles of Paul, and from the prophet Amos. Another example of
sound eloquence is from Amos 6:1.

11. For who does not see what he meant to say, and how wisely the apostle said: We glory in
tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial indeed
hope, but hope does not confound: because the charity of God is diffused in our hearts by
the Holy Spirit , who was given to us (Rom. 5:3-5)? Here, if someone, so to speak, an
inexperienced expert, contends that the Apostle followed the precepts of the art of
eloquence, will he not be laughed at by learned and uneducated Christians? And yet a figure
is recognized here, which in Greek is κλιμαξ, but in Latin it is called gradation by some,
because they did not want to say scale, when words or senses are connected one from
another; as here we see patience connected with tribulation, patience with trial, and hope
with trial. Another merit is also recognized, since after a certain utterance ended with a
single voice, which our members call kaesa, but the Greeks call κῶλα and καμματα, there
follows a circuit or circuit, which they call δεύδονν, the members of which are suspended by
the voice of the speaker, until it ends at the end. For of those things which precede the
circuit, that member is the first, since tribulation works patience; secondly, patience is the
proof; thirdly, the proof is hope. Then the circuit itself is subjoined, which is carried out by
three members, of which it is the first, but hope does not confuse; secondly, because the
charity of God is diffused in our hearts; thirdly, by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. But
these and the like are conveyed in the art of elocution. As, therefore, we do not say that the
Apostle followed the precepts of eloquence, so we do not deny that eloquence followed his
wisdom. 12. Writing to the Corinthians, in the second Epistle he rebuked some who were
false apostles from among the Jews, and were detracting from him. but the companion of
wisdom, the leader of eloquence; following it, preceding it, and not rejecting the following. I
say again, says he, that no one should think me foolish; otherwise, receive me as foolish, that
I too may boast of a little something. What I speak, I do not speak according to God, but as it
were in foolishness, in this substance of glory. For indeed many boast according to the flesh,
and I will also boast. For you willingly support fools, when you yourselves are wise. For you
must bear it if someone reduces you to slavery, if someone devours you, if someone takes
you, if someone is lifted up, if someone strikes you in the face. I mean by humiliation, as if
we were weakened. But in what one dares (I mean in foolishness), I also dare. Are they
Hebrews? I. Are they Israelites? I. Are they Abraham's seed? I. Are they servants of Christ? (I
say foolishly) on the ego. A great deal in labors, in prisons more abundantly, in plagues
beyond measure, in deaths more often. I received from the Jews five times, forty-one less.
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked: night
and day I was in the depths of the sea; in journeys often, dangers of rivers, dangers of
robbers, dangers from kindred, dangers from nations, dangers in the city, dangers in the
desert, dangers in the sea, dangers in false brothers: in labor and hardships, in vigils often,
in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in the cold and in the nakedness: in addition to what is
external, the daily attack on me, the concern of all the Churches. Who is weak, and I am not
weak? who is offended, and I am not offended? If I must boast, I will boast in those things
which are my weakness (II Cor. 11:16-30). Those who watch see how much wisdom these
words are. Indeed, how much eloquence also runs into the river, and he who snorts notices.
13. Moreover, he who knows, acknowledges that those cuts which the Greeks call πομμάτα,
and the limbs and circles, of which I spoke a little before, when they were interposed with
the most decent variety, made this whole species of speech, and as it were its face, with
which even the uninitiated are delighted and moved . For whence we began to insert this
passage, there are circles: the first is the smallest, this is the two-membered; for they cannot
have less than two members of a circle, but they can have more: therefore he is the first, I
say again, lest anyone think me foolish. Another trigram follows. The third, which follows,
has four members. What I speak, I do not speak according to God, but as it were in
foolishness, in this substance of glory. The fourth has two points, since many boast
according to the flesh, and I will boast. And the fifth has two, for you willingly support fools,
when you yourselves are wise. Even the sixth is two-membered, for you bear it if someone
reduces you to slavery. Three slaughters follow: If one devours, if one receives, if one is
lifted up. Then the three members, If someone strikes you in the face, I say according to
indignity, as if we were weak. A three-member circuit is added, but in which one dares (I
mean in foolishness), I also dare. From this point, having put the question to each and which
one was killed, each one is returned with a similarly killed answer, three tribes, are they
Hebrews? I. Are they Israelites? I. Are they Abraham's seed? I. But in the fourth casus, being
put to a similar question, he answers, not with the opposition of another causa, but with the
opposition of a member, Are they ministers of Christ? (I say foolishly) over the ego. The four
following, already cut off, are founded on a very decent question, In labors a great deal, in
prisons more abundantly, in plagues beyond measure, in deaths often. Then a short
circumlocution is interposed, since it is to be distinguished by a suspended pronunciation, I
have received from the Jews five times, that this may be one member to which the other is
connected, forty-one less. Then it is returned to the slaughter, and three things are said. The
member continues: Night and day I was in the depths of the sea. Then the fourteen
slaughters flow forth with the most decent force, In journeys often, dangers of rivers,
dangers of robbers, dangers from kindred, dangers from nations, dangers in the city,
dangers in the desert, dangers in the sea, dangers in false brothers: in labor and hardships,
in vigils often , in hunger and thirst, in frequent fasts, in cold and nakedness. After this he
interposes a three-member circuit, besides those which are external, the daily assault on
me, the concern of all the Churches. And to this he subjoins the two members with the
inquiry, Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I am not offended? Finally,
this whole place, as if panting, is terminated by two members. But the fact that after this
attack the intervening narrative rests in a certain way, and makes the listener rest, what
beauty and what pleasure it has, cannot be sufficiently said. For he continues by saying: The
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying
(II Cor. 11:31). And then he tells very briefly how he was in danger, and how he escaped. 14.
It would be a long time to pursue the rest, or to point out these things in other passages of
the Holy Scriptures. What if I had wanted to show the figures of speech which are conveyed
by that art, at least in those things which I have mentioned in the speech of the Apostle?
Would it not be easier for serious men to think me too much, than any of the students to
think sufficient for them? All these things, when they are taught by the teachers, are
esteemed great, bought at a great price, and sold with great fanfare. I am also afraid that I
reek of boasting when I say these things. But it was to be answered by ill-educated men,
who think that our authors are despised, not because they do not have them, but because
they do not display eloquence, which they love too much. 15. But perhaps someone thinks
that I have chosen the apostle Paul as our speaker. For it appears that where he says,
Though unskilled in speech, but not in knowledge (Ibid., 6), he spoke thus as if conceding to
the detractors, not as if he acknowledged the truth by confessing it. But if he had said, He
was indeed uninstructed in speech, but not in knowledge, it could in no way be understood
otherwise. He clearly did not hesitate to profess knowledge, without which he would not be
able to be a doctor of the Gentiles. Certainly, if we quote anything of his as an example of
eloquence, we certainly quote from those Epistles, which even his detractors, who wanted
the present speech to be thought contemptible, confessed to be serious and strong (Ibid. 10,
10). Therefore I see that there is something to be said about the eloquence of the Prophets,
where many things are covered by tropology. The more these things seem to be covered
with translated words, the more they sweeten when they are opened. But at this point I
must mention something like this, where I will not force myself to explain what was said,
but I will only recommend how it was said. And I will do this especially from the book of
that prophet, who says that he was a shepherd or herdsman, and from there he was divinely
taken and sent to prophesy to the people of God (Amos 7:14, 15). But according to the
Septuagint the interpreters, who also themselves interpreted by the divine Spirit, for this
reason seem to have said some things differently, in order that the reader's intention might
be reminded more to scrutinize the spiritual sense. wherefore some of them are even more
obscure, because they are more tropical, but they were translated, as it were, from Hebrew
into Latin speech, by the priest Hieronymus, an expert interpreter of both languages. 16.
When, therefore, he accused the impious, the proud, the lustful, and therefore most
negligent of charity, this prophet, a countryman or from a countryman, cried out, saying:
Woe to you who are rich in Zion, and who trust in the mountain of Samaria, noble heads of
peoples, entering the house of Israel with pomp! Pass over to Chalanne, and see, and go
thence to the great Emath, and descend to the Geth of the Palestinians, and to the best of all
their kingdoms, if their border is wider than your border. You who are separated in the evil
day, and come near to the throne of iniquity. You who sleep in ivory beds and lascivious in
your couches: who eat lamb from the flock, and calves from the midst of the herd: who sing
to the voice of the Psalter. Like David, they thought they had vessels of song, drinking wine
in bowls, and anointing themselves with the best perfume: and they did not suffer anything
because of Joseph's transgression (Amos, 6, 1-6). Do not those who despise our Prophets as
unlearned and ignorant of elocution as if they were learned and eloquent, if something of
this or that kind had been said to them, would they have said otherwise, who would not,
however, have been maddened by them? 17. For what is it that sober ears desire more in
this speech? First of all, the journey itself, as if to wake up the sleeping senses, with what
noise is it heard? Woe to you who are rich in Zion, and who trust in the mountain of
Samaria, the noble leaders of the peoples, who enter with pomp into the house of Israel!
Then, in order that he might show them ungrateful for the favors of God, who gave them
large areas of the kingdom, because they trusted in the mountain of Samaria, where of
course idols were worshipped. , and to the best of each of these kingdoms, if their boundary
is wider than your boundary. At the same time as these are spoken, the speech is adorned
with the names of places as if with lights, which are Zion, Samaria, Chalanne, Emath the
great, and Geth of the Palestinians. Then the words which are added to these places are
most decently varied: You are rich, you are confident, pass, go, descend. 18. Consequently, it
is announced that the captivity of the future under an unjust king is approaching, when it is
added, You who are separated on an evil day, and come near to the throne of iniquity. Then
the merits of luxury are pointed out. You who sleep on ivory beds and lounge in your
couches; These six members produced three two-member circuits. For he does not say,
Those who are separated for the evil day, who approach the throne of iniquity, who sleep on
ivory beds, who lasciviously on their couches, who eat lambs from the flock, and calves from
the midst of the herd; if it were so said, it would indeed be beautiful, that each of the six
members should run from one repeated pronoun, and each would end with the voice of the
speaker: but it was made more beautiful that the same pronouns should be joined by two,
which would explain three sentences. one foretelling of the captivity, who are separated for
the evil day, and come near to the throne of iniquity; the other to lust, who sleep in ivory
beds, and lascivious in your beds; but to gluttony the third is related, He who eats the lamb
of the flock, and the calves of the midst of the herd: so that it is in the power of the one who
pronounces, whether each ends, and the members are six, or whether he suspends the first
and the third and the fifth by voice, and secondly the first, the fourth, the third, and the sixth
by connecting the fifth, he makes the three two-membered circuit most decently; one by
which calamity is imminent, the other by which an unclean bed is shown, the third by which
a prodigal table is shown. 19. Then he rebukes the luxurious pleasure of the ear. When he
had said, He who is deaf to the sound of the psaltery, since music can be practiced wisely by
the wise, with a wonderful grace of speech, relaxed in the attack of invective, and not to
them, but already speaking about them, in order to remind us to distinguish the music of the
wise from the music of the luxuriant, he did not say, Those who sing to the sound of the
psaltery, and like David think you have the vessels of song: but when he said to them that
they should hear the lustful, who sing to the sound of the psaltery, he also pointed out their
incompetence to others in a certain way, adding, Just as David thought they had the vessels
of song. drinking wine in a cup, and anointed with the best perfume. These three things are
better pronounced if, after suspending the two former members of the circuit, they end with
a third. 20. But what is added to all these things, And they suffered nothing over Joseph's
breach, whether it is continually said that he should be one member, or more decently be
suspended, and they suffered nothing, and after this distinction is inferred, over Joseph's
breach, and that the circuit be two-membered; It is not said with a wonderful decorum,
They suffered nothing on account of the transgression of the brother, but it was put in place
of the brother, Joseph, so that any brother would be signified by his proper name, whose
reputation among his brothers is excellent, either in the evils he hangs on, or in the goods he
hangs on. Surely this trope where Joseph makes any brother to be understood, I do not
know whether that which we have learned and taught is conveyed by art. However, how
beautiful it is, and how it affects those who read and understand, there is no need to tell
anyone if he does not feel it himself. 21. And indeed many things which pertain to the
precepts of eloquence may be found in this very passage, which we have set as an example.
But a good listener, not so much if it is carefully discussed, instructs, as if it is ardently
pronounced, it inflames. For these were not composed by human energy, but were cast by
the divine mind, both wisely and eloquently; not wisdom intent on eloquence, but
eloquence not receding from wisdom. For if, as some of the most eloquent and acute men
could see and say, those things which are learned as the art of oratory, were not observed
and noted, and were not reduced to this teaching, unless they were first discovered in the
talents of the orators; what wonder if they are also found in these, whom he sent who
creates characters? Wherefore let us confess our canonical authors and teachers to be
eloquent indeed, and not only wise men, such eloquence as befits such persons.
<3+> CHAPTER VIII.-- The obscurity of the sacred authors may be spoken of, not to be imitated
by Christian teachers.

22. But let us take a few examples of elocution from their letters, which are understood
without difficulty; yet we must by no means think that imitating them is ours in those things
which are to exercise and in a certain way remove the minds of the readers, and to break up
the disgust and sharpen the studies of those who wish to learn, and also to conceal, either
that they may be converted to piety, or that they may be shut out from the mysteries, the
minds of the impious, useful and wholesome they said in the dark. Indeed, they spoke in this
way, so that later people who understood and expounded them correctly, would find
another grace, different indeed, but subsequent in the Church of God. Therefore their
expositors ought not to speak in such a manner as if they themselves proposed to be
expounded with similar authority; but in all their discourses, first and foremost, that they
should be understood, that they should speak as plainly as they can, so that either he who
does not understand may be very slow, or in the things which we wish to explain and show
with difficulty and subtlety, not in our speech the cause of what we say being less or slower
can be understood

<3+> CHAPTER IX.-- Understanding difficulties with whom and how to treat.

23. For there are certain things which are not understood by their own power, or are
scarcely understood, no matter how much and to what extent, however plainly, the speech
of the speaker is directed; which are rarely, if ever, to be sent to the audience of the people,
or never at all. But in books which are written in such a way that they hold the reader to
themselves in a certain way when they are meant, and when they are not meant they should
not be troubled to read, and in the conversations of some, this duty is not to be abandoned,
so that the truths, however difficult to understand, which we ourselves have already
perceived with all the effort of discussion we bring to the understanding of others, if the
listener or interlocutor has the desire to learn, and the capacity of the mind is not lacking,
which can receive intimates in any way; He who teaches does not care how much eloquence
he should teach, but how much evidence he should teach.

<3+> CHAPTER X.-- The study of transparency in speaking.

24. Whose eager appetite for evidence sometimes neglects more polite words, and does not
care what sounds good, but what indicates well and threatens what he intends to show.
Wherefore some say, when he deals with such a kind of speech, that there is in it a certain
careful negligence (Cicero, in Oratore). However, this removes the ornament in such a way
that it does not contract the dirt. Although good teachers are so anxious to teach, or ought to
be, that a word which is not obscure or ambiguous cannot be Latin, but according to the
custom of the common people it is said in such a way that ambiguity and obscurity are
avoided, it is not said so as by the learned, but rather as it is said by the uneducated usually
For if our interpreters did not hesitate to say, I will not gather their congregations for
bloodshed (Psal. 15:4), because they felt that it was pertinent that in that place this name,
which in the Latin language is only singularly spoken, should be pronounced plurally. why
should a teacher of piety hesitate to speak to the uninitiated, to say bone rather than mouth,
lest those syllables be understood not from what they are bones, but from what they are
mouths, where Afra's ears do not judge of the correction or production of vowels? For what
good is the integrity of speech, which is not followed by the understanding of the hearer,
when there is no reason at all for speaking, if they do not understand what we speak, for
whose sake we speak so that they may understand? He who teaches, therefore, will avoid all
words which do not teach; and if he can say for them other wholes, which are understood,
he will rather choose that: but if he cannot, either because they do not exist, or because they
do not occur in the present, he will also use less whole words, as long as the thing itself is
taught and learned in its entirety. 25. And this, indeed, not only in conversations, whether
they be with one person or with several; but still much more in the people when the word is
promised, it is necessary to insist that we be understood. Because in conversations
everyone has the power to question: but where all are silent that one may be heard, and
they turn their mouths intently on him, there for each to ask what he does not understand, it
is neither manners nor decorum; and by this means the care of the speaker should be
especially helpful to the silent. Now it is customary to indicate by its movement whether the
crowd, eager to know, has understood: that until it understands, what is being done must be
attended to, in a multifarious variety of speech; which they do not have in their power to
pronounce prepared and memorized verbatim. But as soon as it is established that there is
an understanding, the discourse must either end, or pass on to another. For just as he is
pleased who obscures what is to be known; Thus he is burdensome who, knowingly, insists,
only to those whose whole expectation depended on the difficulty of dissolving those things
which are spread. For the grace of delighting is also said to be known; where attention is
paid not to itself, but to the manner in which they are said. But if he himself is already
known, and is liked by the hearers, it makes little difference whether he who says it is the
speaker or the reader. For those things which are conveniently written, not only by those to
whom they are first acquainted, are usually read with pleasure; but even by those to whom
they are already known, they have not yet been obliterated by oblivion, nor have I reread
them without delight, or to be heard from both with pleasure. But what everyone has
already forgotten, when reminded, is taught. But now I am not concerned with the way of
entertaining; I speak of the manner in which those who desire to learn should be taught.
And this is the best, by which it is done that he who hears hears the truth, and understands
what he hears. When this end has been reached, there is no need to labor any longer on the
matter itself as if it were to be taught for a longer time, but perhaps on recommending it to
be fixed in the heart: that if it is seen to be done, it must be done modestly, so as not to lead
to boredom.
<3+> CHAPTER XI.--Why one who endeavors to teach must be told plainly, and yet not
unwittingly.

26. This is precisely the eloquence in teaching, which is done by saying, not that what he
dreaded might be desired, or that what he was reluctant to do might be done, but that what
was hidden might appear. However, if this is done in an inadvertent manner, the fruits of it
reach the most studious few, who desire to know what is to be learned, however repulsively
and rudely it may be said. When they have obtained this, they feed on the truth itself
delightfully. For what is the use of a golden key if it cannot open what we want? Or what is
the wooden object, if this is possible? when we seek nothing but to open that which is
closed. But since those who eat and learn have some resemblance to each other, because of
the disgust of many, even the very thing without which it is impossible to live, food must be
seasoned.

<3+> CHAPTER XII.--It is an orator's duty to teach, to delight, to sway, from Cicero, on the
Orator. In what way should he perform these three things?

27. Then a certain speaker said, and he spoke the truth, that the speaker ought to speak in
such a way that he may teach, that he may choose, that he may bend. Then he added: To
teach is of necessity, to delight is of sweetness, to bend of victory (Cicero, de Oratore). Of
these three, that which is placed in the first place, this is the necessity of teaching, is
established in the things which we say; the other two, in the manner in which we speak.
Therefore, when he says that he wants to teach, as long as it is not understood, he does not
yet think that he has said what he wants to teach whom he wants to teach. Because although
he said what he himself understands, he must not yet be thought to have said it to him, from
whom the understanding is not: but if the understanding is, in whatever way he said it, he
said it. But if he also wants to please him to whom he says, or to bend him, not in whatever
way he says, he will do it; but it is important how he says, so that he does. But it is just as it
is that the listener should be delighted to be held to hear; to be so bent as to be moved to
act. And as he is pleased, if you speak sweetly; it is thus bent, if he likes what you promise,
fears what you threaten, hates what you reproach, embraces what you commend, grieves
what you exaggerate; when you preach something to rejoice, let him rejoice, let him have
pity on those whom you set before his eyes to be pitied by saying, let him flee from those
whom you propose to beware of by frightening them; and whatever else great eloquence
can do to move the hearts of the hearers, not so that they may know what is to be done, but
that they may do what they already know to be done. 28. But if they still do not know, they
must certainly be taught before being moved. And perhaps they will be so moved by the
things they know themselves, that they will not need to be moved by greater powers of
eloquence. However, when there is need, it must be done: but then there is need, when they
know what needs to be done, they do not do it. And through this it is necessary to teach. For
men can both act and not act what they know. But who will say that they should act because
they do not know? And therefore there is no need to bend, because it is not always
necessary if the listener agrees only to the teacher or even to the entertainer. And therefore
it is victory to bend, because it is possible to be taught and delighted, and not consent. But of
what use are these two, if this third is lacking? But it is not necessary to please: since when
truths are shown by speaking, which belongs to the duty of teaching, it is not done by
speaking, nor is this attended to, that either she or he chooses to speak, but by itself, since
they are truths, they please when revealed. Wherefore they usually delight even in
falsehoods that are revealed and convicted. For they do not delight, because they are false;
but because it is true that it is false, the saying by which this is shown to be true also
delights.

<3+> CHAPTER XIII.-- Finally speaking of the turning of the mind.

29. And because of those to whom the truth is not pleasing to those who are disgusted, if it
is said in any other way than in such a way as to please the speaker, there is also no small
place given to pleasure in eloquence. However, what has been added is not enough for the
hard, who neither understood nor were pleased with the teacher's speech. For what do
these two things contribute to a man who both confesses the truth, and approves the
speech, and does not incline his assent, because of whom alone, when something is
suggested, the intention of the speaker watches over the things that are said? For if such
things are taught which it is sufficient to believe or to know, there is nothing else to agree
with them than to confess that they are true. But when that which is to be done is taught,
and therefore it is taught to be done, it is in vain to be persuaded that what is said is true,
and in vain is the manner in which it is said pleasing, if it is not learned in such a way as to
be done. It is necessary, therefore, for an ecclesiastical speaker, when he suggests
something to be done, not only to teach in order to instruct, and to delight in order to hold,
but also to persuade in order to win. For he himself already remains to be swayed to
consent by the greatness of his eloquence, in which he did not do so until his confession, the
truth demonstrated, coupled also with the sweetness of speech.

<3+> CHAPTER XIV.--Sweetness of speech must be procured for the purpose of the argument.

30. So much labor is expended by men for this sweetness, that not only not to be done, but
also to be shunned and detested, so many evils and disgraces, which are so eloquently
persuaded by evil and baseness, are read, not to please them, but only for the sake of
pleasure. But God averts from His Church what the prophet Jeremiah mentions about the
synagogue of the Jews, saying: Fear and horror have come upon the earth. And what will
you do in the future (Jer. 5, 30, 31)? O eloquence so much more terrible, the more pure; and
the more solid, the more intense! O verily an ax for chopping rocks! for God himself said
through this very prophet that his word, which he made through the holy prophets, was
similar to this thing (Id. 46:22). Far be it from us, far be it from us, that the priests should
applaud those who speak unjustly, and that the people of God should love in this way. Far
from us, I say, is such madness: for what shall we do in the future? And certainly they are
less understood, less pleasing, less moved by what is said; however, let them be said; and
that the just, not the unjust, should be heard willingly: which certainly would not be done,
unless they were spoken kindly. 31. But in the heavy people, of whom it was said to God, "In
the heavy people I will praise you" (Psal. 34, 18), nor is that pleasant sweetness, with which
they are not even called unjust, but small and fragile goods are adorned with the foam of
words, such as neither large and stable were decently and heavily decorated. There is such a
thing in the epistle of the blessed Cyprian, which I think therefore either happened, or was
done deliberately, that it might be known to posterity that the sanity of the language of
Christian doctrine had recalled it from this excess, and had restricted it to a graver and
more modest eloquence; such as in his subsequent letters is securely loved, religiously
desired, but fulfilled with great difficulty. He therefore said in a certain place: Let us ask for
this seat: the neighboring secrets give retirement; where, while the wanderers were
crawling through the reeds with hanging ropes, they made a porch of vines covered with
leaves (Cyprus, Epistle 1 to Donatus). They are not said to be but wonderfully affluent in
their fecundity; But those who love these things, certainly think that those who do not say
so, but speak more chastisingly, cannot speak so, and do not avoid these judgments. For this
reason this holy man showed himself able to say so, because he said somewhere, and do not,
because afterwards nowhere.

<3+> CHAPTER XV.-- God to be prayed to the ecclesiastical teacher before the sermon.

32. Our speaker therefore acts when he says just and holy and good things, for he ought not
to say anything else; He therefore does as much as he can when he says these things, so that
they may be heard intelligently, willingly, and obediently: and he does not doubt that he can
do these things, if he can, and to the extent that he can, with the piety of the prayers rather
than the ability of the speakers. that in praying for himself, and for those whom he is about
to address, he may be a speaker before he speaks. At the very hour, as he says, he who
approaches, before he has finished his offering, lifts up his thirsty soul to God, that he may
belch what he has drunk, or pour out what he has filled. For since there are many things to
be said, and many ways in which they are to be said, by those who know these things,
concerning every matter which is to be treated according to faith and love; who knows what
at the present time, either to say to us, or to be heard through us, except he who sees the
hearts of all? And who makes sure that what is proper and how it is proper is said by us,
except in whose hand are both we and our words (Sap. 7:16)? And by this means he indeed
learns all that is to be taught, who both wants to know and to teach; and the faculty of
speaking, as befits an ecclesiastical man: but at the hour of the speech itself, he rather thinks
to agree with the good mind that the Lord says, Do not think how or what I will speak; for at
that hour it will be given you what to speak: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of
your Father who speaks in you (Matthew 10:19, 20). If, then, the Holy Spirit speaks in those
who are handed over to the persecutors for Christ, why not also in those who hand over
Christ to the disciples?

<3+> CHAPTER XVI.-- The precepts of teaching are not given superfluously by man, although
God makes teachers.

33. But whoever says that men should not be commanded what, or how they should teach, if
the Holy Spirit makes teachers, he can say that we should not pray either, because the Lord
says, Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him (Id. 6, 8) or that the apostle
Paul should not have instructed Timothy and Titus what, or how they should instruct
others. What three apostolic epistles should he have before his eyes, to whom the person of
a teacher has been imposed in the Church. Is it not read in the first letter to Timothy: These
announcements and teach (1 Tim. 4, 11)? and what they are, has been said above. Is it not
there: Do not rebuke an elder, but beseech him as a father (Id. 5:1)? Is it not said to him in
the second: Have the form of sound words, which you have heard from me (2 Tim. 1, 13)? Is
it not said to him there: Do well, presenting yourself as a reliable worker to God, not
ashamed, handling the word of truth correctly (Id. 2, 15)? There is also that: Preach the
word, urgently, timely, aggressively; reprove, beseech, rebuke in all longsuffering and
teaching (II Tim. 4:2). Likewise to Titus, does he not say that a bishop must be persevering
according to the doctrine of the faithful word, so that he may be able to rebuke those who
contradict him in sound doctrine (Tit. 1:9)? There he also says: But you should speak what
is fitting for sound doctrine, that the aged should be sober (Id. 2:1, 2), and what follows.
There and that: Speak these things, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one
despise you (Ibid. 15). Remind them that they are subject to princes and powers (Id. 3:1),
etc. So what do we think? Does the apostle feel against himself, who, when he says that
teachers are made by the operation of the Holy Spirit, himself commands them what and
how they should teach? Or is it to be understood that, having given the duties of men by the
Holy Spirit himself, the teachers themselves should not stop in teaching; and yet neither he
who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives growth (1 Cor. 3:7)?
Wherefore also from the ministers of holy men, or even of holy angels working, no one
learns rightly what pertains to living with God, unless he becomes obedient from God to
God, to whom it is said in the Psalm: Teach me to do your will, for you are my God (Ps. 142 ,
10). Hence the Apostle says the same thing to Timothy himself, speaking of course to a
disciple, a teacher: But you continue in those things which you have learned, and they have
been entrusted to you, knowing from whom you have learned them (II Tim. 3:14). For just
as the medicines of the body, which are used for men by men, are useful only to those for
whom God works salvation, who can heal even without them, since without Him they
cannot, and yet they are used; and if this is done dutifully, it is classed among the works of
mercy or beneficence: so also the instruments of doctrine are then useful to the soul when
they are used by man, when God works to profit, who could give the gospel to man, even not
by men, nor by man.

<3+> CHAPTER XVII.-- To teach, to delight and to bend, belongs a threefold kind of speaking.

34. Whoever, therefore, endeavors to persuade by saying that it is good, rejecting none of
these three, that is to say, to teach, to delight, to bend; he prays and acts so that, as we have
said above, he may be heard intelligently, willingly, and obediently. When he does this
properly and appropriately, he may not without merit be called eloquent, even if the
audience does not follow him assent. For to these three, that is to teach, to delight, to bend,
it seems that the same Roman author of eloquence wanted to belong to these three, when he
said in the same way, He will be an eloquent, therefore, who can say small things
submissively, small things in moderation, and big things grandly (Cicero , of the Orator): as
if he were to add those three also, and thus explain one and the same sentence by saying. He
will therefore be a speaker who, in order to teach, will be able to submit to small things; to
delight, moderate; to bend, to say loudly.

<3+> CHAPTER XVIII.-- An ecclesiastical orator is always engaged in great matters.

35. But he could show these three things, as they were said by him, in judicial cases; but not
here, that is, in ecclesiastical questions, in which the discourse of this kind, which we wish
to inform, revolves. For in those things they are said to be small, where pecuniary matters
are to be judged; those great, where the salvation and the head of men are concerned; but
those where none of these is to be judged, and nothing is done to act or decide, but only so
that the hearer may be pleased, between the two as a medium, and for this reason
moderate, they said, this is moderate. For he imposed the name of modesty: for we do not
properly say modesty for small things. But in these of ours, since everything, especially
what we say to peoples about a higher place, we must refer to the salvation of men, not
temporary, but eternal, where also eternal destruction must be guarded, everything we say
is great. so much so that neither the acquiring or losing of the pecuniary things themselves
ought to be thought small, as the ecclesiastical teacher says, whether the money be great or
small. For justice is not small, which we must surely keep even in small money, saying to the
Lord: He who is faithful in the least is also faithful in the great (Luke 16:10). What is least,
therefore, is least; but to be faithful in the least is great. For like the method of roundness,
that is, that from the middle point all equal lines are drawn to the extremes, it is the same in
a large disc as in a small coin; so where small things are done justly, the greatness of justice
is not diminished. 36. Finally, concerning worldly judgments (of which, indeed, but
pecuniary?) when the Apostle spoke: Does any of you, he says, having a business against
another, dare to be judged by the wicked, and not by the saints? Do you not know that the
saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged in you, are you unworthy to
judge the least? Do you not know that we will judge the angels, not to mention the worldly
ones? Therefore, if you have secular judgments, appoint those who are contemptible in the
Church to judge. I say it out of respect for you. So is there not a wise man among you, who
can judge between his brother? But brother is judged with brother, and this among
unbelievers. It is indeed a crime altogether, because you have the judgments with you. Why
do you not suffer more iniquity? why not cheat instead? But you commit iniquity and
defraud, and this, brothers. Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the
kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:1-9)? What is it that the apostle is so indignant, so reproves, so
reproaches, so rebukes, so threatens? What is it that the emotion of his soul is so frequently
and so violently testified by a change of voice? What is it, after all, that he says so grandly
about the smallest things? Did the worldly business earn only from it? He is away. But he
does this for the sake of justice, charity, and piety, which, without any sober mind doubting,
are great even in things however small. 37. Of course, if we were to admonish men how they
ought to conduct secular affairs either for themselves or for their own before the
ecclesiastical judges, we would rightly admonish them to act as if they were in subjection; ,
and we have reached eternal goods; wherever these things are done, whether to the people
or privately, whether to one or to many, whether to friends or enemies, whether in
continuous speech or in conversation, whether in treatises or in books, whether in letters,
whether very long or very short, they are great. Unless, perhaps, since a cup of cold water is
the smallest and the cheapest thing, therefore the Lord says that he who gives something to
his disciple will not lose his reward (Matthew 10:42) , he must think that he is saying
something small; and therefore it should be said that it should be submitted to him, not
moderately, not grandly, but submissively. Did it not happen when we were speaking about
this matter to the people, and God was present so that we could not say incongruously, as if
a kind of flame had risen from that cold water (2 Mach. 1, 32), which also cold the breasts of
men, to do works of mercy, in the hope of a heavenly reward would you light it?

<3+> CHAPTER XIX.-- Others are to be used in another kind of speech.

38. And yet, since this teacher ought to be a speaker of great things, he ought not always to
say them grandly, but in a subdued manner, when something is being taught; be temperate
when something is reproached or praised: indeed, when something must be done, and we
are speaking to those who must do it, and yet do not want to do it, then the things that are
important must be said grandly, and in a manner suitable to sway the minds. And
sometimes it is said of one and the same thing that it is great, and that it is submitted, if it is
taught; and moderate, if it is predicated; and greatly, if the averted mind is thereby driven to
be converted. For what is greater than God himself? Is that why it is not learned? Or does he
who teaches the unity of the Trinity, must act only by submissive discussion, so that things
difficult to discern, as far as they are given, can be understood? Are ornaments here sought,
and not documents? Is the listener to be led to do something, and not rather to be instructed
to learn? Moreover, when God is praised either for himself or for his works, what a face of
beautiful and splendid speech is showered on him who can praise as much as he can, whom
no one praises appropriately, no one does not praise in any way! But if he is not worshiped,
either with him or even before him, idols, or demons, or any other creature are worshiped;
How much evil this is, and that men may be turned away from this evil, must of course be
said grandly.

<3+> CHAPTER XX.--Examples from the Sacred Letters, first, of the speech submitted; then
tempered; and lastly, the great: these three from the Epistles of Paul.

39. An example of submissive speech is in the apostle Paul, to recall something more clearly,
where he says: Tell me, those who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law?
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a handmaid, and one by a free woman:
but he who was of a handmaid was born according to the flesh; but those of freedom, by
promise: which are in allegory. For these are the two Testaments: one, of course, begetting
from Mount Sinai into slavery, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is
joined to what is now Jerusalem, and serves with its children. But Jerusalem above is free,
which is our mother (Galatians 4:21-26), etc. And also where he reasons and says: Brothers,
I speak according to man, yet no one makes void a man's confirmed testament, or
supersedes it. The promises were made to Abraham and his seed. He does not say, And to
the seeds, as in many, but as in one, And to your seed, which is Christ. Now I say this, a
testament confirmed by God, which after four hundred and thirty years became a law, does
not weaken to void promises. For if you inherited from the Law, no longer from the promise.
But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. And because he was able to meet the thought of
the hearer, what then is the law given, if there is no inheritance from it? He himself objected
to this, and said as if asking: What then is the Law? Then he answered: The grace of
transgression was proposed, until the seed to whom it was promised should come, arranged
by the angels in the hand of the mediator. Now there is no mediator of one, but God is one.
And here he met with what he himself had proposed to himself, the law then against the
promises of God? And he answered, Absent. But the Scripture concluded all things under
sin, that the promise might be given to those who believe by the faith of Jesus Christ, etc.
(Galatians 3:15-22); or if there is anything of the sort. It therefore belongs to the care of
teaching not only to open the closed, and to solve the knots of the questions; but even while
this is being done, let us meet with other questions which may perhaps arise, lest what we
say be disproved by them or refuted: if, however, the very solution of them also comes at
the same time, let us not move what we cannot remove. But it happens that, when other
questions are incidental to the question, and other incidental issues are discussed and
resolved, the attention is extended to such a length of reasoning, that unless the memory is
very strong and vigorous, the disputant cannot return to the point from which he
proceeded. Now it is very good that whatever can be contradicted, if it occurs, should be
refuted; lest he meet there, where there will be no one to answer; or he may meet the
present, but in silence, and depart less healed. 40. And in those apostolic words the
expression is tempered: Do not rebuke the elder, but entreat as a father, the younger as
brothers, the old as mothers, the young as sisters (1 Tim. 5, 1, 2). And in them: Now I
beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
pleasing to God. And almost the whole passage of the exhortation itself has a moderate kind
of elocution: where those are more beautiful, in which their own things flow decently to
their own as if dues were returned, as it is, Having different gifts according to the grace that
has been given to us; or prophecy, according to the rule of faith; or service, in ministering;
whether he who teaches, in doctrine; or he who is exhorted, in exhortation; he who gives, in
simplicity; who is in charge, in anxiety; who would be pitied, in gaiety. Love without
pretense; hating evil, clinging to good: caring for one another with fraternal charity,
honoring one another, not lazy in study, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation, persistent in prayer, sharing in the needs of the saints, following
hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who
rejoice, weep with those who weep: feeling the same for one another (Rom. 12, 1, 6-16).
And how beautifully all these things, thus poured out, are bounded by bimembers all round,
Not the high wise, but agreeing with the lowly! And a little later: In this very thing, he says,
persevering, render to all what is due: to whom tribute, tribute; to whom revenue, revenue;
to whom fear, fear; to whom honor, honor These are closed by the members, and the circle
itself, which the two members knit together: Owe nothing to anyone, except that you love
one another. And after a little while, he said: The night is past, but the day is near. Let us
therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light: as in the day let us
walk honorably; not in revelry and drunkenness, not in bedchambers and indecency, not in
strife and rivalry; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not make provision for the flesh
in lusts (Id. 13:6-8, 12-14). But if anyone should say so, And do not make the providence of
the flesh in the lusts; without doubt the ears would have been more numerous with clauses:
but the more serious interpreter also preferred to keep the order of the words. Now how
this sounds in the Greek speech, in which the Apostle spoke, let those who are even more
learned in his speech see it. 41. Of course, we must admit that our authors lack this
ornament of elocution, which is made up of numerous clauses. Whether it was done by the
interpreters, or (which I think more) they deliberately avoided these plausible things, I do
not dare to affirm, since I confess that I am ignorant. I know, however, that if any one expert
in this numerosity arranges those clauses according to the law of those same numbers, this
is done very easily by changing certain words which have the same meaning, or by changing
the order of the things he has found. no one those things which he learned as great in the
schools of grammarians or rhetoricians, he will know that those godly men lacked: and he
will find many kinds of speech of such beauty, which indeed are also in ours, but especially
in their own language, none of which is found in the letters of those by which these are
inflated . But care must be taken that, while the number is added, the weight is not
subtracted from divine and weighty sentences. For that musical training, where this number
is most fully learned, was not wanting to our Prophets to such an extent that the most
learned man Hieronymus even memorized certain meters, in the Hebrew language alone
(Hieron. in the prologue on Job): whose to preserve the truth in his words, these things did
not come from transferred But I, in order to speak of my sense, which is certainly better
known to me than to others and than to others, as in my speech, as modestly as I think to be
done, I do not pass over these numbers of clauses; so I like this more in our authors,
because I rarely find them there. 42. Now this great kind of speech is most distant from that
temperate kind, which is not so much restrained by the ornaments of words, as violent by
the emotions of the soul. For even those ornaments take almost all; but if he does not have
them, he does not require them. For he is carried away by his impulse, and the beauty of
speech, if he meets with it, he seizes it by the force of things, and assumes no concern for
beauty. For it is sufficient for him for the sake of what is being done, that the appropriate
words are not chosen by the energy of the mouth, but follow the ardor of the heart. For if a
brave man is armed with a gilded and bejeweled sword, the most intense in battle, he
indeed does what he does with those weapons, not because they are valuable, but because
they are weapons: nevertheless he is the same, and he is of great strength, even when he
draws a weapon he does anger. The apostle says that, for the sake of the evangelical service,
the evils of this time are patiently endured, with the consolation of the gifts of God. It is a
great matter, and it is being dealt with grandly, and there is no lack of ornaments to say:
Behold, he says, now is an acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation. Giving no
offense in anything, that our ministry may not be censured; in fastings, in chastity, in
knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned charity, in the word
of truth, in the power of God; ; as seducing, and truthful; as those who are unknown, and are
known; as though dying, and behold we live: as if restrained, and not mortified; as sad, but
always rejoicing; as needy, but enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing
everything. See it still burning, our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians; our heart is
enlarged (2 Cor. 6:2-11), and the rest, which is a long pursuit. 43. He likewise works for the
Romans, so that the persecutions of this world may be overcome by charity, with sure hope
in the help of God. And he acts both grandly and gracefully: We know, he says, that to those
who care for God all things work together for good, to those who are called according to
purpose. For those whom he foresaw and predestined to be conformed to the image of his
Son, that he himself might be the firstborn among many brothers. But those whom he
predestined, those he also called; and whom he called, he also justified them; but whom he
justified, he also glorified them. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who
is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how did He
not with Him also give us all things? Who will accuse God's elect? God who justifies? Who is
he to condemn? Christ Jesus who died, but who rose again, who is at the right hand of God,
who intercedes for us? Who is not separated from the charity of Christ? Trouble? or
distress? or persecution? are you hungry? or nakedness? or danger? or a sword? As it is
written, Because for your sake we are put to death all day long, we are counted as sheep for
the slaughter (Psal. 43, 22). But in all these we overcome through him who loved us. For I
am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor the present, nor the
future, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. VIII, 28 39). 44. Now to the
Galatians, although the whole Epistle itself is written in a subdued manner of speaking,
except in the extreme parts where the speech is tempered; yet he interposes a certain
passage with such a movement of mind, that without any such ornaments as are in those
which we have just set forth, it could not be said except grandly. Days, he says, and months,
and years, and seasons are observed. I fear you, lest perhaps I should have labored upon
you without cause. Be as I am, for I also am as you: brothers, I beseech you; You have done
me no harm. You know that through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you for a
long time, and you did not despise your temptations in my flesh, nor did you reject them;
but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then was your happiness? I
bear witness to you, that if it were possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and
given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy by preaching the truth? You do not
compete well; but they want to exclude you, that you may rival them. But it is good to
always be emulating in good, and not only when I am present with you. My children, whom I
will give birth to again until Christ is formed in you. Now I would like to be present with
you, and to change my voice, because I am confused among you (Gal. 4:10-20). Were here
either opposite words given to opposites, or were they connected to each other by some
degree, or were they cut and sounded all around? and yet it was not for that reason that he
was warmed by the great emotion with which we feel the speech to be burning.

<3+> CHAPTER XXI.--Three examples of this kind of saying are taken from ecclesiastical
doctors, namely Cyprian and Ambrose.

45. But these apostolic works are so clear that they are also deep; and so written and
memorized instructions, that they need not only the reader or the listener, but also the
expositor, if one who is not content with the surface in them seeks depth. Wherefore let us
see these kinds of speech in those who, by the reading of these, advanced the knowledge of
divine and wholesome things, and ministered it to the Church. Blessed Cyprian uses a
submissive style of speech in that book where he discusses the Sacrament of the Chalice. For
the question is resolved there, in which it is asked whether the Sunday cup should have
water alone, or whether it should be mixed with wine. But for example something must be
put from there. After the beginning of the epistle, then, beginning to solve the proposed
question: But you know that we have been admonished, says he, that in the offering of the
cup the Lord's tradition is preserved, and nothing else is done by us than what the Lord did
for us before, as the cup that is offered in commemoration of him is mixed with wine be
offered For when Christ says, "I am the true vine" (John 15:5); The blood of Christ is
certainly not water, but wine; nor can it be seen that his blood, by which we are redeemed
and quickened, is in the cup, when the wine is lacking in the cup in which the blood of Christ
is shown; who is preached by the sacrament and testimony of all the Scriptures. For we find
in Genesis that this same thing preceded the sacrament of Noc, and that the figure of the
Lord's passion existed there, that he drank wine, that he was drunk, that he was naked in
his house, that he was reclining with naked and open thighs; that this nakedness of the
father is signified by the middle son; covered by the greater truth and the lesser (Gen. 9, 20-
23), and the rest which it is not necessary to carry out, since it is sufficient to include this
alone, that Noah, showing the type of the future truth, drank not water but wine; and thus
he expressed the image of Sunday's passion. Likewise, in the priest Melchizedek we see the
Sunday Sacrament prefigured, according to what the divine Scripture testifies and says:
"And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine." He was a priest of the most
high God, and he blessed Abraham" (Id. 14:18). And the fact that Melchizedek bore the type
of Christ is made clear in the Psalms by the Holy Spirit, saying from the person of the Father
to the Son: "Before Lucifer I begot thee." You are a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek" (Psal. 90, 4). These and other things that follow in this letter (Cyprus. Epistle.
63, to Caecilius, concerning the sacrament of the chalice) maintain a subdued mode of
speech, which is easy for the readers to explore. 46. Saint Ambrose, too, when he does a
great thing about the Holy Spirit, in order to show that he is equal to the Father and the Son,
still uses a submissive style of speech; since the matter received does not require the
ornamentation of words, or the emotion of emotion to sway the mind, but the evidence of
things. Therefore, among other things, at the beginning of this work he says: Moved by the
oracle, Gideon, when he had heard that although thousands of peoples were failing, in one
man the Lord would deliver his people from their enemies, he offered a kid of goats, the
flesh of which, according to the command of the angel, and the unleavened bread he placed
on a rock. it pervades the law: which at the same time as the top of the rod which he was
carrying, an angel of God happened to break out of the rock of fire, and thus the sacrifice
that was offered was consumed (Jud. 6, 11-21). By which information it seems to be
declared that that rock had a type of Christ's body; because it is written, "They drank from
the consequent rock, but the rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4). This, of course, was not related
to his divinity, but to his flesh, which flooded the thirsty hearts of the people with the
perennial stream of his blood. Already at that time it was declared in the mystery, that the
Lord Jesus, crucified in his flesh, had abolished the sins of the whole world, and not only the
offenses of deeds, but also the desires of the heart. For the flesh of the child is related to the
guilt of the deed; the right to the temptations of lust, as it is written, "Because the people
lusted after the worst lust, and said, Who will feed us with flesh" (Numbers 11:4)?
Therefore, the fact that the angel stretched out his staff and touched the rock from which
the fire came, shows that the flesh of the Lord, filled with the divine Spirit, would burn away
all the sins of the human condition. Whence also the Lord said, "I have come to send fire on
the earth" (Luke 12:49); and the rest, in which the things to be taught and proved chiefly
devolve (Ambros. lib. 1 on the Holy Spirit, in the prologue). 47. Cyprian's praise of virginity
is of a moderate kind: Now we have a speech for virgins, whose glory is more sublime, and
care is greater. He is the flower of the ecclesiastical germ, the adornment and ornament of
spiritual grace, the joyful nature of praise and honor, the work of integrity and incorruption,
the image of God corresponding to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of
the flock of Christ. He rejoices through them, and in them the glorious fecundity of the
mother Church flourishes abundantly: and the more glorious virginity she adds to her
number, the more the mother's joy increases. And in another place at the end of the letter:
As we have borne, he says, the image of him who is made of clay, so shall we also bear the
image of him who is of heaven (1 Cor. 15:49). This image is borne by virginity, by integrity,
by sanctity, and by truth; they bear God's discipline, keep justice and religion, steadfast in
faith, humble in fear, strong for all tolerance, meek to endure injuries, easy to show mercy,
like-minded and concordant in brotherly peace. O good virgins, you ought to observe, love,
and fulfill each and every one of them, which you are freeing for God and Christ, to whom
you say to the Lord, that you go ahead with a greater and better part. When you are
advanced in years, teach the younger ones; give service to the younger ones, to the older
ones, an incentive to your peers; arouse yourselves by mutual encouragements, challenge
your rivals to glory by proofs of valour; persevere bravely, continue spiritually, arrive
happily; only remember ours then, when virginity will begin to be honored among you
(Cypr. Tract. on the discipline and habit of virgins). 48. Ambrose also sets forth in a manner
of speaking, in a temperate fashion, the professed virgins, as if under the form of an
example, that they should be imitated in manners, and he says: She was a virgin, not only in
body, but also in mind, who would not adulterate a sincere affection by any means of deceit:
with a humble heart, with heavy words; prudent in mind, eager to speak, more eager to
read; placing hope not in the uncertainty of riches, but in the prayer of the poor; intent on
work, shy of speech; the will of the mind is usually to seek not man, but God; to injure none,
to wish well to all; to rise above the elders, not to envy the equals; to shun boasting, to
follow reason, to love virtue. When did she even hurt her parents with a look? When did he
disagree with his relatives? when did he hate the lowly? when did he laugh at the weak?
when did he avoid the poor? They were wont to be visited by groups of men alone, whom
pity would not blush, nor shame pass over. Nothing grim in his eyes, nothing impudent in
his words, nothing shameless in his actions; not a more broken gesture, not a looser gait,
not a more impudent voice, so that the appearance of the body itself may be the image of the
mind, and the figure of honesty. For a good house must be recognized at the entrance itself,
and at the first entrance it must pretend that there is no darkness within, just as the light of
a lamp placed within, may shine without. Why should I carry out frugality of food,
redundancy of duties; that the one has survived beyond nature, the other almost absent
from nature itself? There there were no intermissions, here days of fasting; and if at any
time the will to restore had succeeded, food was generally available to ward off death, and
not delicacies served (Ambros. de Virginibus, lib. 2, in princip.), etc. And this is why I put
these things in the example of this temperate race, because he does not act here so that they
may vow virginity which they have not yet vowed; but what must be what has already been
desired. For in order that the mind may be attacked with such a purpose, it must certainly
be excited and kindled by a great kind of speech. But the martyr Cyprian wrote about the
behavior of virgins, not about the purpose of receiving virginity. This bishop, however,
exhorted them with a great speech even for this purpose. 49. True, from what they both did,
I will mention examples of great speech. Indeed, both are brought into those things which
color, or rather discolor, the form of pigment: the former of whom, when he was doing this,
said, among other things: If any artist of painting had marked the face and appearance and
quality of the body of a man with a rival color; and when the image had already been signed
and finished, another hand should bring it in, so as to reform the already formed, already
painted image, as if by a more skilled man, a grave injury and just indignation to the former
artist would be seen. Do you think that you will pass away with impunity the audacity of
such a wicked rashness, offended by God's artificer? For in order that you may not be
unchaste around men, and be not incestuous with those who caress the light, corrupt and
violate the things of God, you are held to be a worse adulterer. That which you think to be
adorned, that which you think to be handsome, is an attack on the work of God, is a
transgression of the truth. It is the voice of the admonishing Apostle: "Purge out the old
leaven, that you may be a new leaven, as you are unleavened bread." For our Passover
Christ was sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feasts, not in the leaven of the old, nor in
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (I
Cor. 5, 7, 8). Can sincerity and truth persist, when things that are sincere are polluted, and
truths are changed into lies by adulterous colors and cosmetic dyes? Your Lord says, "You
cannot make one hair white or black" (Matthew 5:36); and you want to prevail over the
voice of your Lord. You stain your hair with bold effort and sacrilegious contempt; as a bad
omen of things to come, you wish your hair already flaming (Cypr. Tract. on the discipline
and habit of virgins). It is long to insert all that follows. 50. The latter, however, as if he were
to say of such: From here, he says, they are born with the incentive of vices, that they paint
their lips with the desired colors, while they fear displeasing men, and they meditate on the
adultery of the face, the adultery of chastity. What madness is this, to change the image of
nature, to seek a picture; and while they feared marital judgment, betray their own? For the
former declares of herself what she wishes to change what she was born into: thus, while
she strives to please others, she first displeases herself. O woman, what truer judge of your
deformity shall we require than yourself, whom you fear to be seen? If you are beautiful,
why do you hide? if you are ugly, why do you lie that you are beautiful, and neither your
own conscience nor that of another will have the grace of error? For he loves the other, you
want to please the other: and you will be angry if he loves the other, who is taught to
commit adultery in you. You are a bad teacher of your injuries. For he shuns being
slandered, even what has suffered a slanderer; and although a woman is base, she sins not
to another, but to herself. Almost more tolerable crimes are in adultery: for there chastity,
here nature is adulterated (Ambros. on Virgins, book 1). It is quite evident, as I think, that
women do not adulterate their form with makeup, and are strongly driven to shame and
fear by this possibility. Accordingly, we acknowledge this kind of speech, neither subdued
nor moderate, but altogether grand. And in these whom I wished to set forth two of all, and
in other ecclesiastical men and goods, and well, that is, as the matter demands, those who
speak acutely, ornately, and ardently, these three kinds can be found in many of their
writings or sayings, and by constant reading or hearing, mixed also with exercise, to become
injurious to the students.

<3+> CHAPTER XXII.-- The diction must be varied in all kinds.

51. And let no one think that it is apart from discipline to mix these: nay, as far as is
reasonably possible, the diction must be varied in all kinds. For when it is protracted in one
genre, it detains the listener less. But when there is a transition from one thing to another,
even if it goes further, the speech proceeds more decently: although each kind of speaker
has its own varieties in speech, which are not allowed to cool or warm the senses of those
who hear. Nevertheless, a submissive soil can be more easily tolerated than a large soil. For
the more the excitement of the mind is to be excited, so that the listener agrees with us, the
less can it be kept long in it, when it has been sufficiently excited. And therefore we must be
careful, lest, while we wish to raise higher that which has been raised, it should also fall
from that which it had been led to by excitement. But having interposed those things which
need to be said more submissively, it is good to return to those things which need to be said
grandly, so that the impulses of speech alternate like the tide of the sea. From this it follows
that a great kind of speech, if it is to be said longer, should not be alone, but is varied by the
interposition of other kinds: yet the whole speech is given to that kind, the abundance of
which prevails.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIII.-- How to intermingle the kinds of speech.

52. For it is important that a genus be interposed, or used, in specific and necessary places.
For even in the great class it is always, or almost always, necessary for principles to be
moderated. And it is in the power of the speaker that certain things may be said to be
submitted, even things which might be said grandly; so that those things which are said
grandly, may become greater in comparison with them, and be made more luminous as
their shadows. But in whatever kind of problem some chain of questions is to be solved, it is
necessary to be sharp, which properly claims the kind submitted to it. And by this means it
must be used in the other two kinds, when these things fall upon them: as when something
is to be praised or blamed, where neither the condemnation of any nor the deliverance of
any one, nor any assent to the action is required; . The other two, therefore, find their place
in the great class, and likewise in the submissive. Now the moderate race, indeed, does not
always, but sometimes needs to be subdued, if, as I said, the question of whose knot is to be
untied, arises; or when some things which could be adorned, are therefore not adorned, but
are spoken of in a subdued language, so as to give some a more prominent place as
ornaments of the Torah. But the word does not require a great degree of moderation: for it
is intended to please the mind, not to move it.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIV.--What does the sublime kind of saying accomplish?

53. Of course, if the speaker is more frequently and vehemently applauded, it must
therefore be thought grandly to be said: for this is also the point of a submissive kind, and
the temperate make ornaments. But the great race generally suppresses their voices with
their weight, but sheds tears. Finally, when at Caesarea I dissuaded the people of Mauritania
from a civil war, or rather more than a civil war, which they called a party; for not only the
citizens, but also the relatives, the brothers, and lastly the parents and the children were
divided into two parts by stones, and for several consecutive days, at a certain time of the
year, they fought solemnly, and each one killed as much as he could. I would tear out the
cruel and inveterate evil from their hearts and manners, and drive them away by saying; yet
I did not think that I had done anything when I heard them cheering, but when I saw them
weeping. For they were taught and delighted with acclamations, but they showed
themselves to be bowed down with tears. Where I looked, that monstrous custom, handed
down from their fathers and grandfathers, and far from their elders, which hostilely
besieged, or rather possessed, their breasts, I believed conquered, before they showed it in
reality. And as soon as the discourse was finished, we turned our hearts and lips to the
business of giving thanks to God. And behold, it has been almost eight years or more, by the
propitiation of Christ, since that time nothing of the kind has been attempted there. There
are also many other experiences by which we have learned, men, what the greatness of the
wise man's speech has done in them, not with cries rather than with groans, sometimes
even with tears, and finally by a change of life. 54. Most of them were also changed by a
submissive manner of speaking: but that they might know what they did not know, or that
they might believe what seemed to them incredible; but not to do what they already knew
to do, and did not want to do. For in order to bend this kind of hardness, it must be said
grandly. For both praises and reproaches, when they are eloquently spoken, when they are
of a moderate kind, so affect some that they not only delight in eloquence in praises and
reproaches, but they also desire praiseworthy things, and avoid living reproachfully. But do
all those who are pleased change, as in a great race all those who are bent do? and in the
submissive class, do all those who are taught know, or believe that what they do not know is
true?

<3+> CHAPTER 25.--The temperate kind of speech which ought to be referred to at the end.

55. Whence it is gathered that what those two kinds intend to accomplish, this is most
necessary for those who wish to speak wisely and eloquently. But that which is done in a
moderate kind, that is, that eloquence itself may delight, is not to be usurped for its own
sake; but that things which are usefully and honestly said, if they need neither a teacher of
speech nor a moving one, because they have both a knowing and a favorable audience, may
come a little more readily from the pleasure of the speech itself, or adhere more tenaciously
to the assent. For since it is the universal duty of eloquence, in any of these three kinds, to
speak fitly for persuasion; and the end, that which is intended, by saying to persuade: in
whatever of these three kinds, indeed, the eloquent says that he is fit for persuasion, but
unless he persuades, he has not reached the end of eloquence. Now he will persuade in the
submissive class that what he says is true; he persuades in a great way that things should be
done which are already known to be done, and are not done; he persuades himself to say in
a moderate manner, and in a beautiful ornament: to what end what do we need? Let him be
desired by those who glory in their tongues, and boast of themselves in panegyrics and such
sayings, where they are neither taught, nor moved to act, but only the listener is
entertained. But let us relate this end to the other end, so that what we wish to accomplish,
when we say grandly, we also wish for this, that is, that good morals may be loved, or evils
avoided; if men are not so alienated from this action, that they seem to be compelled to it by
a great kind of speech; Thus it happens that we use even the ornament of a moderate kind,
not boastfully, but judiciously; but rather by doing this, so that he himself may be helped to
the good of which we wish to persuade.

<3+> CHAPTER 26.-- In each type of speech the speaker must aim to be heard intelligently,
willingly and obediently.

56. Therefore, those three things which we have stated above, he who speaks wisely, if he
also wants to speak eloquently, must do so, so as to be heard intelligently, willingly,
obediently, they are not to be taken as if they were individually assigned to those three
kinds of speaking, so as to the submissive intelligently, the temperate willingly, the great
must be heard obediently; but rather so that he always intends these three, and does as
much as he can, even when he is involved in each of them. For we do not want to be
disgusted, even when we say that we are submitted; and by this we want to be heard not
only intelligently, but also willingly. But what do we do, by teaching what we say with divine
testimonies, except that we may be heard obediently, that is, that they may be believed,
relying on him to whom it was said, Your testimonies have become widely believed (Psal.
92:5)? What else does he want, if not to be believed, who tells something to his students,
even though in a subdued speech? and who will listen to him, unless he holds back the
listener with some gentleness? For if it is not understood, who does not know that he can
neither willingly nor obediently be heard? Generally, however, the expression itself is
submissive, while it solves the most difficult questions, and shows it by an unexpected
manifestation; while he excavated and pointed out the most acute sentences from I do not
know which caves, whence it was not expected; while he convinces his adversaries of error,
and teaches that what was said by him to be invincible is false; especially when there is a
certain grace to him, not desired, but in a certain way natural, and some, not boastful, but as
if necessary, and, so to speak, the numerousness of the clauses extorted from the things
themselves; it arouses such acclamations that it is scarcely understood that it is subdued.
For it is not because he walks neither adorned nor armed, but meets as if naked, that he
does not strike his adversary with nerves and lizards; and he subverts and destroys the
opposition with the strongest members of falsehood. And why is it that those who say so are
often and much acclaimed, unless it pleases the truth thus demonstrated, thus defended,
thus invincible? And in this kind of submission, this our teacher and orator must do so, so
that he is heard not only intelligently, but also willingly and obediently. 57. That eloquence,
too, is of a moderate kind in the case of an ecclesiastical eloquent, and is neither left
unadorned, nor indecently adorned; But even in those things which he praises or
reproaches, by desiring these or holding them more firmly, and avoiding or rejecting them,
he certainly wants to be heard obediently. But if it is not heard intelligently, it cannot be
done willingly. Accordingly, those three things, that those who hear may understand, that
they may be delighted, that they may obey, must be acted upon even in this class, where
delight holds the principality. 58. Now, however, when it is necessary to move and sway the
listener in a great way (which is then the need, when it is said both truthfully and sweetly
confesses, and yet does not want to do what is said), it must be said without a doubt in a
great way. But who is moved if he does not know what is being said? or who is obliged to
listen, if he is not pleased? Hence also in this class, where the hard heart must be bent to
obedience by the greatness of speech, unless he who speaks is heard both intelligently and
willingly, he cannot be heard obediently.

<3+> CHAPTER XXVII.--He who lives more obediently is heard by the word.

59. But he has to be heard obediently, whatever the greatness of the speech, the greater
weight is the life of the speaker. For he who speaks wisely and eloquently, but lives
carelessly, indeed educates many who are eager to learn, although he is useless to his soul
(Eccl. 37:22), as it is written. Whence the Apostle also says: Whether by occasion or by
truth, Christ will be announced (Philippians 1:18). But Christ is the truth, and yet the truth
can be proclaimed even without the truth: that is, that things which are right and true may
be prophesied by a wicked and deceitful heart. Thus Jesus Christ is proclaimed by those
who seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. But since good believers listen obediently
not to any man, but to the Lord Himself, who says, Do what they say; but what they do, do
not do: for they say, and do not do; therefore they are usefully heard, who also do not act
usefully. For they seek to seek their own, but they dare not teach their own, namely, from
the higher place of the ecclesiastical seat than that established by sound doctrine. Because
of this, the Lord himself, before saying what I mentioned about such people, said, They sat
on the seat of Moses (Matthew 23, 2, 3). That chair, then, not theirs but Moses', forced them
to say good things, even when they were not doing good things. They therefore did their
own thing in their lives; but the chair of another would not permit them to teach their own.
60. Therefore many benefit by saying what they do not do; but they would benefit far more
by doing what they say. For there are many who seek the defense of their bad life from their
own superiors and teachers, answering with their hearts, or even if they break out to this,
with their mouths, and saying: What you command me, why do you not do it yourself? So it
happens that they do not listen obediently to him, who do not listen to themselves, and they
despise the word of God that is preached to them, together with the preacher himself.
Finally, the apostle writing to Timothy, when he said, Let no one despise your youth; He
submitted so that he would not be despised, and said: But be the form of the faithful in
speech, in conversation, in love, in faith, in chastity (1 Tim. 4, 12).
<3+> CHAPTER XXVIII.--To study truth rather than words. To contend with words for what it is.

61. Such a teacher, so that he may be heard obediently, speaks not only submissively and
temperately, not impudently, but also grandly, because he does not live contemptuously.
For in this way he chooses a good life, so that he does not neglect a good reputation, but
provides for good things before God and men (II Cor. 8:21), as much as he can, fearing him
and consulting them. In speech itself he prefers to please things rather than words; nor does
he esteem it to be said better, unless it is said more truly; nor let the teacher serve the
words, but the words the teacher. For this is what the Apostle says: Not in the wisdom of the
word, lest the cross of Christ be emptied (1 Cor. 1:17). What he says to Timothy is also valid
for this: Do not contend with words; for it is useful for nothing, except for the subversion of
those who hear it (2 Tim. 2:14). For this was not said for the reason that we should say
nothing to the adversaries who attack the truth in favor of the truth. And where will it be
that when he was showing what a bishop ought to be, he says among other things: That he
may be able in sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict him (Tit. 1:9)? For to
contend with words is not to care how error may be overcome by truth, but how your
speech may be preferred to the speech of another. Moreover, he who does not contend with
words, whether he speaks submissively, moderately, or grandly, does so with words so that
the truth may be revealed, the truth may please, the truth may move; since charity itself,
which is the end of the precept and the fullness of the Law (1 Tim. 1:5; and Rom. 13:10),
cannot be right in any way, if the things that are loved are not true, but false. But just as he
who has a beautiful body and a deformed mind is more to be pitied than if he had a
deformed body. so those who eloquently say things that are false are more to be pitied than
if they said such things in a hideous way. What is it, then, not only to speak eloquently, but
also to speak wisely, if not to use sufficient words in a subdued kind, in a moderate
brightness, in a great intensity, yet true things, which ought to be heard? But he who cannot
do both should say wisely what he does not say eloquently, rather than say eloquently what
he says foolishly.

<3+> CHAPTER XXIX.--An ecclesiastic should not be blamed who takes a written speech from
an expert, which he delivers to the people.

But if he cannot even do this, he should converse in such a way that he not only obtains a
reward for himself, but also sets an example for others, and that his manner of living may be
sufficient to speak of it. 62. There are certainly some who can pronounce well, but they
cannot think what to pronounce. But if they take what has been written eloquently and
wisely by others, and commend it to memory, and bring it before the people; if they wear
that person, they do not do it dishonestly. For thus, which is certainly useful, many
preachers of the truth become, and not many teachers, if all the teachers of one truth say the
same thing, and there are no schisms among them (1 Cor. 1:10). Nor are these to be
deterred by the voice of the prophet Jeremiah, through whom God rebukes those who steal
his words, each one from his neighbor (Jeremiah 23:30). For those who steal take away
what belongs to another; but the word of God is not alien to those who obey it: rather, he
says it is alien to those who, when they speak well, live badly. For whatever good things he
says, they seem to be devised by his genius, but they are alien to his character. Therefore
God said to those who steal his words, who want to be seen as good, speaking the things of
God; when they are evil, doing their own things. And of course they don't mean the good
things they say, if you pay close attention. For how can they say in words what they deny in
deeds? For it is not in vain that the Apostle says of such: They confess that they know God,
but deny it by their deeds (Tit. 1:16). Therefore they say one way, and again they do not say
another way, since both are true what the Truth says. For speaking of such Do what they
say, he says; but do not do what they do; that is, what you have heard from their mouths, do;
What you see in the work, do not do: for they say, he says, and do not do (Matthew 23:3).
Therefore, although they do not do, yet they say. But in another place arguing against such:
Hypocrites, he says, how can you speak good when you are evil (Id. 12:34)? And by this and
what they say, when they say good things, they do not say it themselves, that is, by denying
what they say by will and action. Hence it happens that a eloquent and evil man, when the
discourse in which the truth is foretold, is spoken by another who is not eloquent but good,
himself composes; When this is done, he delivers from himself what is alien, and he receives
what is his from the alien. But when the good faithful lend this work to the good faithful,
they say to both of them their own: because he is their God, whose are the things they say;
and those who live according to those compositions make them their own, which they could
not compose themselves.

<3+> CHAPTER 30.-- The preacher prefaces the prayer to God.

63. Now whether he is going to say before the people or with anyone else, whether what is
to be said before the people or to be read by those who are willing or able, he is going to
dictate; He prays that God may put good words into his mouth. For if the queen prayed to
Esther, she would speak to the king for the temporary safety of her nation, so that God
would put a fitting speech into his mouth (Esther. 14:13); how much more should he pray,
that he may receive such a commission, who works for the eternal salvation of men in word
and doctrine? But those who are about to say what they have received from others, and
before they receive, pray for those from whom they receive, that it may be given to them
what they wish to receive through them; and when they have received it, they pray that they
may present it well themselves, and that those to whom they present it may take it; and for
the successful outcome of the speech let them thank him, from whom they do not doubt that
they received it: so that he who glories may glory in him, in whose hand are both we and
our words (Wisdom 7:16).
<3+> CHAPTER XXXI-- He excuses the length of the book.

64. This book turned out to be longer than I wanted and than I had thought. But to the
reader or hearer, to whom it is pleasing, it is not long: but to whom it is long, let him read it
in parts, who wants to have knowledge; But he who is lazy about his knowledge does not
complain about its length. However, I thank our God that in these four books I have not been
what I was, who lacks many things, but what I ought to be, who in sound doctrine, that is,
Christian, strives not only to work for himself, but also for others, as much as I was able to
argue with my ability.