Chapter XII.—A Proper Seeking After Divine Knowledge, Which Will Never Be Out of Place or Excessive, is Always Within the Rule of Faith.

As for us, although we must still seek, and that always, yet where ought our search to be made?  Amongst the heretics, where all things are foreign139    Extranea. and opposed to our own verity, and to whom we are forbidden to draw near? What slave looks for food from a stranger, not to say an enemy of his master? What soldier expects to get bounty and pay from kings who are unallied, I might almost say hostile—unless forsooth he be a deserter, and a runaway, and a rebel? Even that old woman140    Although Tertullian calls her “anus,” St. Luke’s word is γυνή not γραῦς. searched for the piece of silver within her own house. It was also at his neighbour’s door that the persevering assailant kept knocking. Nor was it to a hostile judge, although a severe one, that the widow made her appeal. No man gets instruction141    Instrui potest. from that which tends to destruction.142    Unde destruitur. No man receives illumination from a quarter where all is darkness. Let our “seeking,” therefore be in that which is our own, and from those who are our own: and concerning that which is our own,—that, and only that,143    Idque dumtaxat. which can become an object of inquiry without impairing the rule of faith.

CAPUT XII.

Si tamen adhuc quaerendum sit, non apud haereticos, ad quos vetamur accedere, sed a nostris, et de nostro quaeramus.

Nobis et si quaerendum esset adhuc et semper, ubi tamen quaeri oportet? apud haereticos? ubi omnia extranea et adversaria nostrae veritati, ad quos vetamur accedere? Quis servus cibaria ab extraneo, ne dicam 0026A ab inimico domini sui sperat? quis miles ab infoederatis, ne dicam ab hostibus regibus, donativum et stipendium captat, nisi plane desertor, et transfuga, et rebellis? Etiam anus illa intra tectum suum drachmam requirebat; etiam pulsator ille vicini januam tundebat; etiam vidua illa non inimicum, licet durum judicem interpellabat. Nemo inde instrui potest, unde destruitur: nemo ab eo illuminatur, a quo contenebratur. Quaeramus ergo in nostro, et a nostris, et de nostro; idque duntaxat, quod, salva regula fidei, potest in quaestionem devenire.