Chapter II.—The Christian Has Sure and Simple Knowledge Concerning the Subject Before Us.

Of course we shall not deny that philosophers have sometimes thought the same things as ourselves. The testimony of truth is the issue thereof. It sometimes happens even in a storm, when the boundaries of sky and sea are lost in confusion, that some harbour is stumbled on (by the labouring ship) by some happy chance; and sometimes in the very shades of night, through blind luck alone, one finds access to a spot, or egress from it. In nature, however, most conclusions are suggested, as it were, by that common intelligence wherewith God has been pleased to endow the soul of man. This intelligence has been caught up by philosophy, and, with the view of glorifying her own art, has been inflated (it is not to be wondered at that I use this language) with straining after that facility of language which is practised in the building up and pulling down of everything, and which has greater aptitude for persuading men by speaking than by teaching. She assigns to things their forms and conditions; sometimes makes them common and public, sometimes appropriates them to private use; on certainties she capriciously stamps the character of uncertainty; she appeals to precedents, as if all things are capable of being compared together; she describes all things by rule and definition, allotting diverse properties even to similar objects; she attributes nothing to the divine permission, but assumes as her principles the laws of nature. I could bear with her pretensions, if only she were herself true to nature, and would prove to me that she had a mastery over nature as being associated with its creation. She thought, no doubt, that she was deriving her mysteries from sacred sources, as men deem them, because in ancient times most authors were supposed to be (I will not say godlike, but) actually gods: as, for instance, the Egyptian Mercury,13    Mentioned below, c. xxxiii.; also Adv. Valent. c. xv. to whom Plato paid very great deference;14    See his Phædrus, c. lix. (p. 274); also Augustin, De. Civ. Dei, viii. 11; Euseb. Præp. Evang. ix. 3. and the Phrygian Silenus, to whom Midas lent his long ears, when the shepherds brought him to him; and Hermotimus, to whom the good people of Clazomenæ built a temple after his death; and Orpheus; and Musæus; and Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras. But why need we care, since these philosophers have also made their attacks upon those writings which are condemned by us under the title of apocryphal,15    Or spurious; not to be confounded with our so-called Apocrypha, which were in Tertullian’s days called Libri Ecclesiastici. certain as we are that nothing ought to be received which does not agree with the true system of prophecy, which has arisen in this present age;16    Here is a touch of Tertullian’s Montanism. because we do not forget that there have been false prophets, and long previous to them fallen spirits, which have instructed the entire tone and aspect of the world with cunning knowledge of this (philosophic) cast? It is, indeed, not incredible that any man who is in quest of wisdom may have gone so far, as a matter of curiosity, as to consult the very prophets; (but be this as it may), if you take the philosophers, you would find in them more diversity than agreement, since even in their agreement their diversity is discoverable. Whatever things are true in their systems, and agreeable to prophetic wisdom, they either recommend as emanating from some other source, or else perversely apply17    Subornant. in some other sense. This process is attended with very great detriment to the truth, when they pretend that it is either helped by falsehood, or else that falsehood derives support from it. The following circumstance must needs have set ourselves and the philosophers by the ears, especially in this present matter, that they sometimes clothe sentiments which are common to both sides, in arguments which are peculiar to themselves, but contrary in some points to our rule and standard of faith; and at other times defend opinions which are especially their own, with arguments which both sides acknowledge to be valid, and occasionally conformable to their system of belief. The truth has, at this rate, been well-nigh excluded by the philosophers, through the poisons with which they have infected it; and thus, if we regard both the modes of coalition which we have now mentioned, and which are equally hostile to the truth, we feel the urgent necessity of freeing, on the one hand, the sentiments held by us in common with them from the arguments of the philosophers, and of separating, on the other hand, the arguments which both parties employ from the opinions of the same philosophers. And this we may do by recalling all questions to God’s inspired standard, with the obvious exception of such simple cases as being free from the entanglement of any preconceived conceits, one may fairly admit on mere human testimony; because plain evidence of this sort we must sometimes borrow from opponents, when our opponents have nothing to gain from it. Now I am not unaware what a vast mass of literature the philosophers have accumulated concerning the subject before us, in their own commentaries thereon—what various schools of principles there are, what conflicts of opinion, what prolific sources of questions, what perplexing methods of solution. Moreover, I have looked into Medical Science also, the sister (as they say) of Philosophy, which claims as her function to cure the body, and thereby to have a special acquaintance with the soul. From this circumstance she has great differences with her sister, pretending as the latter does to know more about the soul, through the more obvious treatment, as it were, of her in her domicile of the body. But never mind all this contention between them for pre-eminence!  For extending their several researches on the soul, Philosophy, on the one hand, has enjoyed the full scope of her genius; while Medicine, on the other hand, has possessed the stringent demands of her art and practice. Wide are men’s inquiries into uncertainties; wider still are their disputes about conjectures. However great the difficulty of adducing proofs, the labour of producing conviction is not one whit less; so that the gloomy Heraclitus was quite right, when, observing the thick darkness which obscured the researches of the inquirers about the soul, and wearied with their interminable questions, he declared that he had certainly not explored the limits of the soul, although he had traversed every road in her domains. To the Christian, however, but few words are necessary for the clear understanding of the whole subject. But in the few words there always arises certainty to him; nor is he permitted to give his inquiries a wider range than is compatible with their solution; for “endless questions” the apostle forbids.18    1 Tim. i. 4. It must, however, be added, that no solution may be found by any man, but such as is learned from God; and that which is learned of God is the sum and substance of the whole thing.

CAPUT II.

Plane non negabimus aliquando philosophos juxta nostra sensisse; testimonium est veritatis etiam inventus ipsius . Nonnunquam et in procella confusis vestigiis coeli et freti aliqui portus offenditur, prospero errore: nonnunquam et in tenebris aditus 0648C quidam et exitus deprehenduntur, caeca felicitate; sed et natura pleraque suggeruntur, quasi de publico sensu, quo animam Deus dotare dignatus est. Hunc 0649A nacta philosophia ad gloriam propriae artis inflavit, prae studio [non mirum si istum ita dixerim] eloquii quidvis struere eruditi, magisque dicendo persuadentis, quam docendo. Formas rebus imponit, eas nunc peraequat , nunc privat, de certis incerta praejudicat, provocat ad exempla, quasi comparanda sint omnia ; omnia praescribit, proprietatibus etiam inter similia diversis; nihil divinae licentiae servat, leges naturae opiniones suas facit; ferrem, si naturalis ipsa, ut compos naturae de conditionis consortio probaretur. Visa est quidem sibi et ex sacris quas putant, literis hausisse, quia plerosque auctores etiam deos existimavit antiquitas, nedum divos, ut Mercurium Aegyptium, cui praecipue Plato adsuevit: ut Silenum Phrygem , cui a pastoribus 0649B perducto ingentes aures suas Midas tradidit: ut Hermotimum , cui Clazomenii mortuo templum contulerunt; ut Orpheum, ut Musaeum, ut Pherecydem, Pythagorae magistrum. Quid autem, si philosophi etiam illa incursaverunt quae penes nos apocryphorum confessione damnantur, certos nihil recipiendum quod non conspiret germanae et ipso jam aevo pronatae propheticae paraturae, quando et pseudoprophetarum meminerimus, et multo prius apostatarum spirituum, qui hujusmodi quoque ingeniorum calliditate omnem faciem saeculi instruxerint? Postremo, si etiam ad ipsos Prophetas adisse credibile est indagatorem quemque sapientiae ex negotio curiositatis, tamen plus diversitatis invenias inter philosophos quam societatis, cum et in ipsa societate 0649C diversitas eorum deprehendatur. Siquidem vera quaeque 0650A et consonantia Prophetis aut aliunde commendant, aut aliorsum subornant, cum maxima injuria veritatis, quam efficiunt aut adjuvari falsis, aut patrocinari. Hoc itaque commiserit nos et philosophos in ista praesertim materia, quod interdum communes sententias propriis argumentationibus vestiant, contrariis alicubi regulae nostrae; interdum sententias proprias communibus argumentationibus muniant, consentaneis alicubi regulae illorum; ut prope sit exclusa veritas a philosophia per veneficia in illam sua, et ideo utroque titulo societatis adversario veritatis urgemur, et communes sententias ab argumentationibus philosophorum liberare, et communes argumentationes a sententiis eorum separare, revocando quaestiones ad Dei literas, exceptis plane quae 0650B sine laqueo alicujus praejudicii ad simplex testimonium licebit adsumere: quia et ex aemulis nonnunquam testimonium necessarium, si non aemulis prosit. Nec ignoro quanta sit sylva materiae istius apud philosophos pro numero etiam ipsorum commentatorum, quot varietates sententiarum, quot palaestrae opinionum, quot propagines quaestionum, quot implicationes expeditionum. Sed et medicinam inspexi, sororem, ut aiunt, philosophiae, sibi quoque hoc negotium vindicantem, ut ad quam magis animae ratio pertinere videatur per corporis curam, unde et plurimum sorori refragatur, quod animam quasi coram in domicilio suo tractando magis norit. Sed viderit utriusque praestantiae ambitio. Habuit et philosophia libertatem ingenii, et medicina necessitatem artificii ad extendendos 0650C de anima retractatus: late quaeruntur incerta, 0651A latius disputantur praesumpta. Quanta difficultas probandi, tanta operositas suadendi: ut merito Heraclitus ille tenebrosus vastiores caligines animadvertens apud examinatores animae, taedio quaestionum pronuntiarit, terminos animae nequaquam invenisse omnem viam ingrediendo. Christiano autem paucis ad scientiam hujus rei opus est: nam et certa semper in paucis; et amplius illi quaerere non licet, quam quod inveniri licet; infinitas enim quaestiones Apostolus prohibet. Porro non amplius inveniri licet, quam quod a Deo discitur; quod autem a Deo discitur, totum est.