De locis theologicis

WHERE THE ARGUMENTS SET OUT IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER ARE REFUTED

I would not envelop Catholic doctrines in the thick darkness of these arguments if I could not kindle a light by which they would be driven away like the sun rising in the east. Otherwise, the advice of my friends is simply to point one’s fingers to the sources when reciting heretics’ arguments, so that their muddy waters do not flow into our writings. It is good advice, but, if affection does not deceive me, it comes from people who fear where there is no danger. For the unlearned would think the arguments too great to be refuted by us if we either touched on them only in summary and briefly, or passed them over altogether. Therefore, we ourselves will blunt the point of the weapons we have sharpened for our adversaries. Answer to the first. To the first argument we could answer that not all canonical books were received all at once by the whole Church, so that later Councils could have confirmed what earlier Councils had not received. But we answer, and more truly, that the ancients counted the prophecy of Baruch as a part of Jeremiah. To keep this from seeming our own invention, it must be supported by testimonies from antiquity. Augustine first reports this in City of God 18, in these words: “Jeremiah, prophesying about Christ, says: ‘This is my God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him. Afterward he appeared on earth and lived among human beings.’” Immediately afterward Augustine says that some attribute this testimony not to Jeremiah but to Baruch, his scribe, though it is more commonly attributed to Jeremiah. The author of Questions on the Old and New Testaments, question 102—whether he was Augustine or whoever else he may have been—does so as well. Cassiodorus does so in his commentary on Psalm 81. Chrysostom too cites the same testimony under Jeremiah’s name in a certain homily De Trinitate. The Sixth Council, session 8, also cites that same testimony under Jeremiah’s name from another homily of Chrysostom’s, which begins “A profound section.” Clement of Alexandria likewise attributed to Jeremiah, in book 1 of the Instructor, chapter 10, the passage “Hear, O Israel, the commandment of life,” etc., which we have in Baruch 3; and in book 2, chapter 3, he calls Divine Scripture the passage “Where are they?” etc. Basil, in book 4 Contra Eunomium, cites the passage “That they may know you, the only true God”; Ambrose too, in book 1 of De paenitentia, chapter 8; book 3 of Hexaemeron, chapter 14; and book 1 of De fide, chapter 2, cites testimonies from the same book under Jeremiah’s name. Add to these Pope Sixtus in his first letter to all the faithful of Christ; Felix, condemned in the Fifth Synod, in his letter to Peter, Bishop of Antioch; and finally Pelagius in his letter to Vigilius. Behold: the little book now read under the name of Baruch was once attributed by the ancients to Jeremiah. It would be difficult to believe this if we did not have the most reliable witnesses to it, on whose authority we have, with difficulty but sufficiently, evaded the first argument. The confirmation can be answered more easily. For I admit that in St. Jerome’s time what we now hold was not so certain. But just as, before Jerome’s time, although some claimed that the Letter of James had been published by someone else under James’s name, it gradually gained authority as time went on, as Jerome himself says; and the Letter of Jude, which Jerome says most people had rejected, gained authority through use, so too this book of Baruch, although some did not once receive it, has now been judged worthy of reception by the Church and the universal Councils.

Answer to the second. The second argument is easily dissolved too. It is not true that Jerome is the Church’s rule for deciding which books are canonical, as Cajetan wrongly, not to say perniciously, thought. As John Cochlaeus rightly said, Jerome followed Josephus in his enumeration of the canonical books of the Old Testament; in book 1 of Adversus Appionem, Josephus enumerates twenty-two books according to the tradition of his ancestors, as he says. Eusebius attests this in book 3, chapters 9 and 10. Augustine, however, follows not the Jews but the Christians in this matter, and rightly so. For the Church of the Gentiles is the pillar and foundation of truth. Gelasius’s approval of Jerome’s judgment concerns not the establishment of the canon of Sacred Scripture but the condemnation of those authors whom Jerome criticized out of zeal for God and reverence for the faith. Let these points suffice in answer to the second argument. In reply to its first confirmation, I answer, as most teachers believe, that the book in question is not Cyprian’s but Rufinus’s. St. Cyprian certainly cites Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom as Divine Books in his Epistola ad Rogatianum and in De habitu virginum. As for Rufinus’s assertion that, according to the tradition of the Fathers, these books must be rejected from the canon, let it be said, with the reader’s permission, that Rufinus was ignorant of the traditions of the Fathers. For the Third Council of Carthage, which counted these books among the canonical books, says that it received this from the Fathers. And Augustine, in book 1 of De praedest. sanctorum, says that those nearest to the apostles cited the book of Wisdom as divine. Dionysius also cites testimony from the same book with the great honor of a preface, saying: “At the beginning of the instruction in the Scriptures you will find someone saying about Divine Wisdom, ‘I became a lover of her beauty.’” Why should I mention them all? Jerome cites it as a book of the prophet in his commentary on the first chapter of Jeremiah; Ambrose in book 1 of De fide; Gregory in Moralia 18; and the Council of Sardica in its letter to all the bishops refer to the book of Wisdom as divine. Finally, the Eleventh Council of Toledo asserts in its confession of faith that it is Sacred Scripture. What of Ecclesiasticus? Clement of Alexandria cites it as divine in Stromata 7; Ambrose in sermon 31 and book 4 of De fide; Pope Evaristus in his first letter to the African bishops; and Sixtus II in his letter to Bishop Gratian. Epiphanius teaches as a certain matter of faith that both books are Divine Scripture in Heresy 76, “Of the Anomoeans.” Rufinus, then, rejected these books not on the basis of the tradition of the Fathers but rather according to his own opinion, at a time when the matter had not yet been defined. We excuse the others on the same grounds. As for St. Thomas being summoned to support that view, this is altogether untenable, as may be gathered from Part I, question 1, article 3, and from his commentary on chapter 4 of De divinis nominibus. But in that question 89 he said nothing of his own; rather, he repeated Augustine word for word. Augustine plainly declared how constant and firm his own view was in book 2 of De doct. christiana, chapter 8; book 17 of City of God, chapter 8; Ad Horosium contra Priscillianistas, chapter 11; and indeed in chapter 17 of that same book De cura pro mortuis gerenda. The second confirmation, drawn from the authority of the Council of Laodicea, is weak. The Council does not deny that they are canonical, even if it did not wish to number them among the canonical books, since the matter had not yet been sufficiently settled. As we have often said, not all canonical books had been received by the Church with common consent. In answer to the third confirmation—for we do not wish to discuss here the authority of the canons called Apostolic, since that question is separate from the one now before us—we answer in two ways. First, so that no one may try to press us with an argument of this kind,

let him understand that in the same canon 84 three books of Maccabees are counted among the canonical books. If we are compelled to receive these eighty-five canons of the Apostles, let those who reject the books of Maccabees answer us here. But if, in order not to admit that these books are canonical, they dismiss the testimony of this canon, then there is certainly no reason for them to try to overwhelm us with its weight. We reserve this dispute for another time, as we said, and offer the other answer, which is sufficient for the present point: Clement, who is said to have gathered those scattered canons into one volume, did not collect all the canonical books that the apostles handed on to the Church orally. For neither Councils nor the Fathers nearest to the apostles learned from any source other than the apostles that these books were sacred. Yet Irenaeus says in book 3, chapter 3, as Eusebius reports in book 5, chapter 6, that Clement, because he had always lived with the apostles and had been instructed by them, retained a fresh memory of their tradition and had their model always before his eyes. If this answer is not satisfactory, then let another be offered: not all those canons were published by Clement, but some were added by the Greeks. Finally, keep this answer to the last confirmation. To deal generously with them and grant that the Synagogue could not err in the faith—which, however, is not as certain as it is in the case of the Catholic Church—we deny that those books were rejected by the Synagogue. For not receiving is one thing; rejecting is another. The Jews, then, did not receive these books into their canon by public authority, although some of them also believed them to be divine and sacred. On this matter, see Cochlaeus in his treatise On the Authority of Canonical Scripture and the Catholic Church. So much for the second argument. Answer to the third. In reply to the third and chief argument, we say that before that time the matter was less clear, the Councils were read less regularly, and the heretics were less brazen in weakening or even rejecting canonical books. Consequently, the faithful were not as concerned about this question, whose definition they could be ignorant of without loss of piety. If we wish to turn the same argument against our adversaries, nothing could be easier. For as we have learned from the First Council of Toledo, anyone who says or believes that writings other than those received by the Catholic Church are to be held authoritative or venerated is anathema. Since, as we showed earlier, most people venerate these books as divine, if the Church did not receive them, all of them would surely likewise incur the anathema of the Council of Toledo. So rather than condemn these people for audacity and rashness, let us admit that those others labored under ignorance. Indeed, since it is more harmful to the Church to receive as sacred books that are not truly sacred than to reject a book that is in fact sacred—as St. Thomas explains more fully in Part I, question 68, article 1, and On the Power of God, question 4, article 1—and since the Council of Carthage, Florence, Trent, Innocent, Gelasius, and nearly all the saints handed these books on to the Church as sacred, we would be most perniciously deceived if they were not sacred. So much for the third argument. Answer to the fourth. In reply to the fourth argument, we first say that Gelasius perhaps includes both books under the name of one. He did the same with Ezra, as did Isidore and Jerome: Jerome interpreted Ezra and published one book, following the custom of the Hebrews, according to which the first and second books of Ezra are one, as Origen teaches in his commentary on the first Psalm, and Eusebius in book 6, chapter 18. That this was Gelasius’s intention is amply proved by

the fact that he himself approves the reading of the Scriptures distributed throughout the course of the year, while the Church reads both books of Maccabees on the Sundays of October. We next answer that Gelasius may have held an uncertain view about the second book and omitted it from his list for that reason. But Augustine in City of God 18 and Isidore in Etymologies 6 assert that both books of Maccabees are received by the Church, as is also asserted in the preface to these books. Nor is it now permissible to call into question what St. Gregory, Eusebius, and others were once permitted to doubt. As for the first reason offered to confirm this fourth argument, John Annius says in his commentary on Philo’s second book De temporibus that Josephus made the books of Maccabees apocryphal by adding dates to them, although they had been written without dates. He proves this by the same argument we have used, and John Lucidus was moved by it as well in book 4 of his Chronography. I frankly admit that I do not know where our Annius learned either that the books of Maccabees were once found without dates or that Josephus added the dates. But if this is true, just as a mistake in numbers, which is very easy to make, is attributed not to the authors but to the copyists, so we shall attribute the errors introduced through Josephus’s carelessness not to the author of the Book of Maccabees but to Josephus; and we shall not therefore consider these books apocryphal. Still, it does not seem plausible to me that Josephus corrupted the genuine and true reading of the Catholics while all the churchmen kept silent or even connived at it—unless we want an enemy to have sown weeds for fifteen hundred years or more while the Church slept with both ears closed. Eusebius of Caesarea therefore gives a much better account. Although he did not believe these books should be included among the sacred books, he nevertheless asserts that their author does not reckon the Greek kingdom from Alexander, but from Seleucus Nicator, who reigned in Syria in the eleventh year after Alexander’s death. If you add five years to that number—the years Alexander ruled the Greeks as monarch—the total comes to sixteen years, the amount by which the reckoning of the Greek monarchy under the Hebrew system was shorter. For the Greeks reckoned from Alexander. Therefore, when Greek annals say that Antiochus reigned in the 153rd year, while First Maccabees gives the 137th year, the disagreement is in words, not in facts. For if you add sixteen to the 137th year, you arrive at the 153rd. John Lucidus differs from Eusebius in writing that Alexander reigned seven years after acquiring the monarchy, while Seleucus’s eighth year had elapsed after Alexander’s death. But for the present question it does not much matter which of these is true, since the principal reckoning under discussion here does not vary. In support of this argument, Ambrosius Catharinus says that Cajetan committed as many sins as he uttered words. This is how he speaks. Yet this man, so quick to find fault, does not notice that he too has often and greatly erred in criticizing Cajetan. In this place he certainly made three errors. But it is neither my task nor the time to refute his errors. What, then? Did Cajetan not err here? He certainly did. First, because he rashly and thoughtlessly—not to say proudly and arrogantly—says that the author of the Book of Maccabees was mistaken in understanding Daniel, although it is established that the author, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote that book

to have written. Next, Cajetan wrongly thinks that if the author of Maccabees uses Daniel's words, he is therefore interpreting Daniel—as though Bernard could not freely use words from Scripture everywhere; if someone were to accuse him of understanding them badly because he did not give them the true and proper sense they had in Scripture, that person would seem foolish. Certainly, later poets have used even whole verses of the ancients with great elegance, yet those earlier verses are not thereby understood by later poets in the same sense. Cajetan is also mistaken in thinking that Daniel's prophecy could not refer to the idol of Antiochus because the Lord declared that it was to be referred to future times. For the same passage concerns Lucifer, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Antichrist. It was therefore utterly futile to criticize the author of Maccabees for alluding to Daniel's words, or at least using them in a similar case, in connection with the idol, the abomination, and the desolation of Antiochus. For even if he had applied Daniel to that sense, he would have done so admirably, as Paul and the other apostles often did. The second argument is refuted in two ways. First, nothing prevents the Holy Spirit from assisting a writer who nevertheless speaks in some matters with human modesty. Thus Paul says, “Though unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge”; and again, “I speak as one less wise”; and again, “Forgive me this wrong.” Second, it is one thing to speak about the truth of the history itself, and another to speak about its interpretation into another language. The translator therefore asks pardon not for falsehood, of which there was none, but for expression, which was human. Thus that second argument is overturned by this twofold reply. The third can likewise be refuted in two ways: there is no need to admit that the letter mentioned earlier is the one that immediately follows; and if someone insists that it is, he has a ready answer: the punctuation was wrongly placed through the carelessness of scribes. The words “in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year” are not the beginning of the following letter but the end of the preceding one, so that the following letter begins, “The people who are in Jerusalem.” The reason is that we customarily place the day and year in which a letter is written not at its very beginning but at its end, whereas the greeting comes at once at the beginning—although Constantine joined both in his letter to Pope Donus and in his letter to George, Patriarch of Constantinople. The letter placed second, then, was written in the one hundred and sixty-ninth year, as the earlier letter says; while the one that precedes it in the written order but was actually sent later was written in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year. To the fourth argument, therefore, it could easily have been said, as we noted before, that this was not the letter mentioned by the earlier one. Nor is it necessary to admit that it was written in the one hundred and sixty-ninth year. Indeed, the compiler of that second book—whether he was Josephus, as Annius thinks, or someone else—perhaps placed at the beginning of the book whatever letters written by Jews he could find, without preserving any order. If we admit that this is the second letter mentioned by the first, we must say that its number follows not the Hebrew but the Greek reckoning. For it could quite reasonably have happened that those who sent the letters followed the Greek reckoning of the monarchy, which the person said to have abridged that book did not wish to alter, but copied the number as he found it written. In other matters, however, he always followed the Hebrew reckoning. Judas, then, died, according to the Hebrew reckoning, at the end of the one hundred and fifty-second year—that is, in the one hundred and fifty-third year. If you add to this the sixteen years of the Greek reckoning, the number one hundred and sixty-nine is established, ¹

which is the same as the earlier number. For he wrote the letter in the year Judas died. Thus there is no need, with Rupert in his book On the Victory of the Word, to conjecture another Judas, distinct from the Maccabee, as the author of that letter. As to the fifth argument, some think it was not Antiochus who was dismembered, but a commander sent by him; for this is what chapter 1 seems to indicate. The commander, they say, escaped by flight but later died of a wasting disease, as chapter 9 says. Some also maintain that the particle “and” in that chapter 1 was inserted through scribal error, and that the true reading is: “They struck the commander, and dismembered him and those who were with him,” and so forth. I know that the verb “to strike” sometimes means the same as “to kill,” as in “He struck the Philistine,” and “Saul struck a thousand.” But here we are not compelled to abandon the proper meaning of the word and resort to a figurative usage, especially since Daniel, chapter 2, says of Antiochus, “The Romans will come upon him, and he will be struck”; on which passage Jerome says that he is called “struck,” not because he died, and so forth. And 2 Kings 2 says, “David's servants struck three hundred and sixty of Benjamin, who also died.” Nor does what Lyra objects against this interpretation—that Antiochus fell, as it says here—contradict it. The verb does not always signify death; one who has been defeated is rightly said to have fallen: “They fell as they fled down the slopes.” Nor does it matter that the text says, “When he had entered the precinct of the temple, they shut the temple; but when Antiochus had entered …,” which seems to indicate that, once Antiochus was shut in, no escape was left. We should not understand that the temple was shut after the commander entered, but that the doors were shut while the soldiers were within the temple precinct; as, for example, if we said that the priests shut the temple doors while they were in the atria. But when Antiochus's soldiers had broken open the temple entrance, as the account relates, the Jews stoned them. Therefore, if the commander is understood to be Antiochus, he could have gone out and fled by the entrance he had opened; and because of this flight chapter 9 says that he returned shamefully and disgracefully from Persia. Yet, lest we seem to be looking for loopholes, there is a clearer and truer answer, supported by the authority of serious historians: the Antiochus described in chapter 1 is not the same as the one described in chapter 9. There the death of Antiochus the Great is recorded, but here that of Antiochus Epiphanes, whose end is also related in chapter 6 of the First Book of Maccabees. Strabo says in book 16 that the latter tried to plunder the temple of Bel and killed the neighboring barbarians. As to the sixth argument, although Rupert wants all those things understood figuratively of the ark of the New Testament, that is, the humanity of Jesus Christ, the miracle can nevertheless already have taken place when the Jews, after the nations were expelled from Judea, gathered from the various places where they were dispersed; or perhaps it will take place at the conversion of the Jews before the Day of Judgment. We must not weaken the divine promise with our conjectures. For God is truthful, but every human being a liar. The final argument, at last, is answered in various ways. Some imagine that the Maccabees derived their descent from the tribe of Judah through their mother, and on this basis defend the claim that the scepter had not departed from Judah. Others, following the traditions of the Talmud, assert that while the Maccabees were leaders there were also certain judges from the tribe of Judah, in whose hands rested supreme authority to decide and command; in Hebrew they were called Sanhedrin, in Latin Senate, as among the Romans. Hence the saying, “The people who are in Jerusalem, the Senate, and Judas,” and so forth. When Herod, the first foreigner to obtain the kingdom of the Jewish people, out of hatred for the Davidic kingdom

removed these men; then, they say, the scepter was truly taken from the tribe of Judah. Others solve this difficulty by affirming that Jacob's prophecy was a promise to be understood according to the law governing threats, which are changed when people's conduct changes; just as the sentence against the Ninevites was withdrawn after their repentance, so this divine promise was changed because the sons of Judah sinned. They derive this rule for explaining both threats and promises from Ezekiel, where God's threat and promise are altered according to whether human beings turn toward or away from him. We, however, who intend neither to attack nor to reject other people's interpretations with hostility, can explain this passage more easily if we understand from the First Book of Maccabees that the Jewish people entrusted leadership to the Maccabees, not as their own hereditary possession, but in order to preserve the law of a deposit: that is, to protect the people of Israel in the meantime until a faithful prophet should arise, either to instruct them or the one whom they expected to come from the tribe of Judah. In this way the scepter was not taken from the tribe of Judah, especially since the tribe itself is believed, at least from the beginning, to have agreed to this arrangement and decision of the people. Thus the fourth argument, with its supporting points, has been refuted. As for Cajetan's argument in Matthew 24, that the author of Maccabees erred in interpreting Daniel's prophecy by referring it to Antiochus, whereas Luke clearly referred it to the Roman army, it has no force. For the same passage can concern both Nebuchadnezzar and the Antichrist. Likewise it concerns Antiochus, the Roman idol, and the Antichrist. Since this matter is entirely clear, it needs no explanation from us. Reply to the fifth. Let us refute the fifth argument. Not only the Council of Carthage and Innocent, but most others as well, assigned Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus to Solomon. Tertullian cites the Book of Wisdom under Solomon's name in De praescriptionibus haereticorum; Origen in his Super epist. ad Romanos, book 8; Cyprian in his fourth sermon De iinmortalitate; Basil in book 5 Contra Eunomium; Ambrose in sermon 8 on “Blessed are the undefiled,” in book 3 of the Hexaemeron, chapter 15, and in book 4 De fid., chapter 6; and Eusebius in book 11 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 5. Moreover, Eusebius himself, in book 4 of Eccl. hist., chapter 22, says that Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and all the ancients attributed the Book of Wisdom to Solomon. It was also attributed to him by Evaristus in his Letter to the African Bishops; Felix I in To All the Bishops of Gaul; Felix II in To Athanasius and the Other Bishops of Egypt; Epiphanius in Heresy 76, “The Anomoeans”; John of Damascus in book 4 of his Theology, where Jodocus Clichtoveus argues at length with many proofs that the book was not by Philo but by Solomon. His strongest argument is that the words the author says of himself in chapter 9 of that same book can apply to no one but Solomon. The most eminent authorities also cited Ecclesiasticus under Solomon's name: Clement of Alexandria in book 7 of the Stromata; Gregory Nazianzen in Oration 8; Basil in book 4 Contra Eunomium; Chrysostom—or whoever it was—in homily 3 of the imperfect work on Matthew; Ambrose on chapter 7 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; Jerome on Ecclesiastes 10; Cyprian in To Rogatianus, book 3 To Quirinus, and sermon 1 De eleemosyna; Cassiodorus on Psalms 55, 66, and 93; Gregory in book 10 of the Moralia, and in question 1, chapter 1, “It must not be thought”; Sixtus I in his Epist. ad omnes fratres; Marcellinus in To Bishop Solomon; Fabian in his Epist. ad omnes Orientales episcopos; Sixtus II in To Gratus; Damasus in To the Bishops of Italy; and Pope John in To Bishop Valerius. ²

If, after so many and such weighty authorities, we assert that those books are Solomon's, there will certainly be no reason for us to fear. Moreover, it matters little to the Catholic faith whether a book is by this or that writer, provided the Holy Spirit is believed to be its author. Gregory teaches and explains this learnedly in the preface to his commentary on Job, chapter 1. For it makes no difference with what pen a king wrote a letter, if he truly wrote it. Thus nothing would prevent Innocent and the Council of Carthage from following the common opinion of the ancients in a matter that does not pertain to faith. Nor could they therefore have erred in listing the canonical books, since it is certain that this does pertain to faith. Further, even if we set aside these two replies, we have another much stronger one, which John Driedo drew from Eusebius, book 11 of the Preparation for the Gospel. Since Solomon, according to Scripture, spoke three thousand proverbs and five thousand songs, which he did not gather into any one volume, different people collected his scattered sayings, as is clear from Proverbs 25. Thus Augustine of Eugubio, following Rabbi Moses and the Talmudists, believed Isaiah had written Solomon's books; I regard this as uncertain. But this much is certain: the sayings in the books commonly called Wisdom books were first collected from Solomon, but were not gathered by the same author. Hence Jesus son of Sirach says in Ecclesiasticus not that he brought forth wisdom from his own heart, but that he renewed it. Innocent and the Council of Carthage, therefore, knowing this, rightly assigned all these books to Solomon. This is what we have said about the fifth argument. Reply to the sixth. Cajetan's sixth argument is at the end of his commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. It is shameful that a man otherwise ingenious and learned, devout and a pillar of our religious family, should have tried to evade a firm argument with an empty new distinction and, in repelling a lighter blow, have received a heavier one. Since all writers except Cajetan use the name “canonical book” to mean sacred and divine, it cannot even be conceived, much less entertained as a suspicion, that the Popes and all the Councils used the word differently from the way it was used by everyone. Moreover, to prevent anyone from interpreting it otherwise, the Council of Carthage declared what it meant by “canonical Scriptures,” saying: “Apart from the canonical Scriptures, let nothing be read in the Church under the name of Divine Scripture. The canonical Scriptures are …” And Innocent says, “These books are received into the canon of the Holy Scriptures.” At the Council of Florence, too, under the inspiration of the same Spirit, all those books which the Church receives and venerates, and which are at issue in the present disputation, are asserted to have been written by sacred authors. Further, since all those books are defined as canonical in the same context without distinction, it is ridiculous to take some canonical books in one sense and others in another. If we once admit this distinction, no sacred book can be established by the authority of the Councils and Popes. For by the same pretext, if they wished, heretics could say of every other book that it is not canonical for confirming faith, but for instructing morals. Since this is altogether absurd, we must instead retain the account Cajetan wished to overturn. As I have often said, he is a man of great learning and piety, but who, in

In establishing the Sacred Books, he followed Erasmus's novelties and ingenuity; by trying to walk in another's footsteps, he stained his own reputation. So much for the sixth argument. The supporting point is more easily answered: it was not only Ambrose but also Cyprian in To Pompeianus and Augustine in book 18 of The City of God who cited testimonies from the Third and Fourth Books of Esdras, but not as divinely inspired, such that it would be impious to contradict them. Reply to the seventh. In the seventh principal argument I am troubled that not only outsiders but even our own people—may this be read with due allowance—have fallen into so novel, not to say frivolous, an opinion as to deny that the Epistle to the Hebrews is by the apostle Paul. But it is much more troubling that, if it is not Paul's, it is immediately held not to be canonical. Though its author be unknown, the letter can certainly be canonical. For whether Luke or Barnabas wrote it, as some have thought, it will be canonical, since the Holy Spirit spoke through both Luke and Barnabas. But to the point: since it is heretical to exclude this letter from Sacred Scripture, it is certainly rash, to say no more, to doubt its author, whom the strongest testimonies confirm to have been Paul. First among these is Origen, in book 1 of his Commentaries on Matthew, cited by Eusebius in book 6 of Ecclesiastical History: “I say that it is most clearly the apostle Paul's; and all our ancient predecessors have always received it as the apostle Paul's. The opinion has come down to us that its discourse was composed in the Greek language, either by Clement, bishop of Rome, or by Luke.” Clement of Alexandria likewise says in Eusebius, book 6 of Ecclesiastical History: “It is plainly Paul's, written in Hebrew as to Hebrews, but translated into Greek by Luke.” Eusebius too follows the same view in book 3 of Ecclesiastical History. After saying that Clement, bishop of Rome, used testimonies from this letter in the name of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, he immediately adds: “Hence it is clear that the Apostle wrote this letter in his native tongue, as one to be sent to the Hebrews; and, as some report, Luke the Evangelist translated it, while others say Clement did so. This is more likely, because the style of Clement's letter itself agrees with this one, and the sense of the two writings is very similar.” Thus Eusebius. And in chapter 3 of the same book: “Paul's letters are plainly fourteen.” I would run out of days if I wished to enumerate the Greek authors who attributed this letter to Paul, and no less so if I wished to mention the Latins. Why mention Athanasius in his Letter to the African Bishops and book 2 On the Faith of the Trinity? Why Cyril in book 12 of the Treasury? Why Chrysostom in almost countless places? Why Ignatius, Irenaeus, John of Damascus, Anacletus in his Letter on the Ordination of Bishops, Hyginus in his Letter to All the Faithful, the Council of Laodicea, or finally the Council of Ephesus, since all Greek writers—as Jerome says in his letter to Dardanus—unanimously acknowledge that this letter is by the apostle Paul? Theophylact certainly marvels at the impudence of those who deny it is Paul's, and asserts that they sin no less than if they denied that Christ was with Paul. What of the Latins? They too acknowledge it. Ambrose acknowledges it in his commentary on the psalm “Blessed are the undefiled,” and in chapter 8 of On the Initiation into the Mysteries; Augustine also in book 2 of On

Christian Teaching, chapter 8, and often elsewhere. Gregory does so in book 5, chapter 3 of the Moralia; so do Gelasius with a Council of seventy bishops, Pope Innocent, and the Councils of Carthage, Florence, and Trent. Why delay? For fifteen hundred years the Church has read this letter under the name of the apostle Paul. Do we dare call into doubt what all Catholics have held without ambiguity through so many past centuries? I omit the fact that Peter, unless I am greatly mistaken, testifies that Paul wrote a letter to the Hebrews. For the greeting itself shows so clearly that Peter's First Letter was written to Hebrews that even Cajetan could not deny it. Peter's Second Letter was also written to them, for he says: “Behold, I am now writing this second letter to you.” At its end Peter says: “As our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, as he does in all his letters,” and so forth. “To you” means the Hebrews to whom Peter was writing. Hence, making a distinction, he adds, “as he does in all his letters,” so that you may understand clearly that Paul wrote to the Hebrews about the patience and salvation of Christ, as he also did in his other letters. There is therefore no reason for anyone to doubt the author of this letter. Jerome, however, has doubts. Certainly, even if he had doubted, that would not make our certain and unquestioned faith uncertain. But we deny that Jerome held the indecisive opinion wrongly attributed to him here. To pass over countless passages in which Jerome cites testimonies from this letter under Paul's name, and to set aside the fact that in de viris illustribus, in his entry on Paul, he refutes the arguments of those who expressed the contrary view, that passage in Jerome's letter to Dardanus, De terra promissionis, is a very clear witness to his opinion, in these words: “The chosen vessel speaks to the Hebrews: ‘By faith, he who is called Abraham,’ and so forth. Nor does the perfidy of the Jews escape me, for they did not accept these testimonies. Our people must be told that this letter entitled To the Hebrews is received as the apostle Paul's not only by the churches of the East, but by all Greek writers from of old; and it makes no difference whose it is, since it belongs to a churchman and is read daily in the churches. If Latin custom does not receive it among the canonical Scriptures, neither do the churches of the Greeks receive John's Apocalypse with the same freedom; yet we receive both, following not the custom of the present age but the authority of the ancient writers, who use testimonies from both not as they sometimes do from apocrypha, but as from canonical and ecclesiastical books.” Thus far Jerome. And in his Epistolam ad Titum he says: “Read the letter of Paul the apostle to the Hebrews—or of whoever else you think it may be—for it has now been received among the ecclesiastical writings.” To the first argument, then, there is no need to reply now, since those apostolic passages were explained with great accuracy and care in the disputation De paenitentia. We must reply to the second, and in the order in which each part of the objection was proposed against the established truth. The first part is easily answered, since it may have happened that the translator left the Hebrew words in the text, while an interpretation was added in the margin, as often happens, and a scribe later inserted it into the text. Perhaps the same thing also happened in Matthew with the words “Eli, Eli,” and so forth. Nicholas of Lyra rightly observes at 2 Kings 8 that what some commentator may have added in the margin is sometimes inserted into the text through scribal error. For it is established that these words—“Of which Solomon made all the golden vessels in the temple, and the bronze sea, the pillars, and the altar”—were added and inserted in this way.

It could also have happened for another reason: the Apostle or Evangelist, writing in Hebrew, may have added an interpretation of certain words, since among the Jews there were words that were Chaldean or Syriac and could suitably be translated into Hebrew, such as Golgotha and Ephpheta. Here, then, are two reasons by which Cajetan's argument can for now be evaded. Otherwise, Cajetan would persuade himself that even the Book of Genesis was not written in Hebrew. For there Rachel is said to have called her son Benoni, that is, “son of my sorrow,” while his father named him Benjamin, that is, “son of the right hand”; and in Exodus: “For it is the Passover,” that is, “the Lord's passing over.” Let those who try to trouble us with a similar quibble answer us; and if they cannot, we shall give a third reason. Some names are compounded from several simple words, which sometimes remain whole in the compound and sometimes are altered. If I wanted to explain them in other words in the same language, nothing absurd would follow; for example, if I said that Deicola means “worshipper of God,” and paterfamilias means “the household's ruler and father.” The same could have happened with the names Benoni and Melchizedek. Yet lest we flee to these as though to an altar, the strongest and truest reason is that the translator had the right to do this when it was necessary for the Hebrew words to remain. For if the translator had rendered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Latin, the Latins would not have understood why the bystanders said, “This man is calling Elijah.” Therefore, compelled to retain the Hebrew words, he supplied their interpretation, which he could equally well have done without retaining the Hebrew words. Certainly, in Genesis 35 and Exodus 12 the Hebrew does not contain an interpretation of the names, but the translator added it himself. If you object that this phrase is not Sacred Scripture, then, if that is true, the conclusion is first conceded, and I do not see why we should recoil from it. Second, that inference is denied: if the phrase comes from the translator, it is outside Sacred Scripture. For a phrase added in translating Sacred Scripture to preserve either proper construction or intelligibility is not considered foreign to Scripture. Hence Jerome says in his commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians: “Scripture preserves this practice in many places, of setting down the Hebrew word together with its interpretation: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus; Asher, riches; Tabitha, Dorcas; and Meshech, vernacular.” See, Jerome calls Scripture even that phrase which, as is known, the translator added. This applies especially to the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose translator was either Luke or Clement; it seems more likely that this was done while the Apostle was alive and present. I would assert it as true, were I not persuaded by the Academic restraint in a matter of conjecture. Therefore that first reason should not move us to believe that this letter was not written in Hebrew. Nor does the second reason move us: it would also be turned against the Apostle, who, speaking to the Jews in the Acts of the Apostles, cites the ancient Scripture according to the Septuagint translation. Thus the translator, whether Luke or Clement, though Paul was a Hebrew and spoke in Hebrew, nevertheless wished to render the Septuagint translation more closely, lest the Greeks be disturbed by unfamiliar wording. For the same reason, writing to the Romans, the Apostle uses Habakkuk's testimony according to the Septuagint translation, so as not to present the Romans with unfamiliar speech, as Jerome testifies in his commentary on Habakkuk.

The third reason, which is put against us in the final part of this argument, is no reason at all. I did hear from a Hebrew scholar, whom the Carpentras Hebrews ranked first among their people, that this letter and Matthew's Gospel still exist today in Hebrew. But whether that Jew wished to mock us, or whether they now possess a Hebrew letter of Paul and Matthew's Gospel from some Hebrew translation, while the legitimate Gospel of Matthew to the Hebrews and Paul's Letter to the Hebrews have perished, it is most likely that this happened through the Jews' care. To the third argument, which also aims to make us disbelieve that Paul was the author of this letter, we first reply that the testimony in question refers to Christ in the literal sense. It is no objection that the literal sense also concerns Solomon, since the same text can contain several literal senses at once, as St. Thomas and before him St. Augustine taught. Just as Christ is sometimes literally signified by the name David, as in Ezekiel 34: “I will raise up over them one shepherd, my servant David”; and Jeremiah 30: “Serving the Lord their God, and David their king,” and so forth, so Scripture also signified Christ the Lord by the name Solomon in that passage. To keep us from overlooking this, it added, “I will establish his throne forever.” It is better known than needs explaining that in Luke the angel referred this to Christ: “He will be called the Son of the Most High, and he will sit upon the house of David.” Augustine further testifies that although Psalm 71 is inscribed with Solomon's name, the Jews most firmly defend it as a prophecy about Christ, because certain things are said there that cannot apply to Solomon. The same reason certainly compels us to think the same about Psalm 44. Second, for Paul to use this testimony in an allegorical sense would not be foreign to his custom; for he often argues from the allegorical sense, especially in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It is one thing to draw from the spiritual sense a certain and effective argument, which Augustine, Dionysius, and Jerome denied; it is another to draw from it a probable argument, which no one of sound learning can deny. For just as rhetoricians join plausible arguments to certain and established ones, so too does the Apostle. He could do this all the more suitably and forcefully here, since the Hebrews understood that what God had promised David concerning Solomon was to be fulfilled in Christ. They understood this because they had often been reminded of it in the same Sacred Scriptures, as is clear in Micah 4 and Daniel 7. There would be no need to answer the fourth argument if Paul's sentence were more suitably divided by clauses and pauses. The reading should therefore be arranged as follows: “Since it began to be declared by the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard him”; so that “by those who heard” refers not to the following participle but to the preceding infinitive. If anyone dislikes this, let him have this answer: when Paul says “it was confirmed to us,” he does not refer specifically to himself but to the Jews generally, as the interlinear gloss notes. Moreover, Paul does not say that he received the teaching from those who heard, but that he received confirmation of salvation: for he received the Sacraments from them, and also confirmation in doctrine, both because Ananias told him what he had to do and because he went up to the apostles who preceded him, lest he run in vain, and so forth. The fifth argument must be answered as follows: among Latins the word “testament” sometimes means covenant and promise, as Jerome wrote in Jeremiah 31 and Malachi 2, and Innocent later explained learnedly in the chapter “Cum Marthae,” On the Celebration of Mass. In this sense we must understand what is said in the canon:

“This is the cup of the new and eternal Testament,” that is, of the new and eternal promise; and also what is said in Hebrews: “He is the mediator of a new Testament, so that those who are called may receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.” It is also established that among the Greeks the word διαθήκη sometimes properly means a testament, and sometimes a covenant, agreement, or promise, as Budaeus proves in his commentaries from the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. This latter meaning is also the one in which the word διαθήκη is read in Genesis 9 and Psalms 54, 88, and 105. The Hebrew word berith, found in Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31, although it often means a covenant or agreement, is sometimes also used with the meaning “testament.” For Jerome at Zechariah 9, and the translator of the Psalms at Psalm 44, render berith as “testament.” Indeed, although Aquila always translates that word as “covenant,” the Septuagint usually translates it as “testament,” as Jerome testifies in his commentary on Malachi 2. Therefore Paul could play on the Hebrew word in the manner of rhetoricians and turn a word from its proper to its figurative meaning; he could have done the same had he been speaking in Greek or Latin. This is all the more so because a document, once signed by witnesses, is called a testament, even though some provisions may later be changed or introduced by a codicil, or even the whole thing that had once been secured by the testament may be annulled. Accordingly, that old bequest was indeed a testament, signed by the living Christ, but opened when Christ died, as the torn veil showed, and annulled by the Gospel Law as if by a codicil. Lactantius seems to me to have understood this in De vera sapientia. Nothing, then, prevents Paul, speaking properly of a testament, from citing Exodus as speaking of the old covenant. Indeed, this is a fitting argument: the perfect Testament, namely the New, was confirmed by blood and by the death of the testator, since the imperfect Old one was not confirmed without blood, so that the figure would correspond to what it figured. This reply adequately answers Cajetan's argument, even if the Hebrew word properly means not “testament” but only “covenant,” as Jerome in Jeremiah 31 and learned Hebrews contend. As for the final argument, its own author answers it: all three things were in the ark, as Paul says, but the jar and the rod were hanging outside at its side, while the tablets were inside, as is found in 3 Kings. Perhaps, again, after Solomon's time the priests, wishing to keep the rod and manna in a more secret and secure place, put them inside the ark with the tablets. Paul was not unaware of this; we are the ones ignorant of Hebrew traditions. Theophylact, in his commentary on Hebrews 9, says that Paul had been well instructed in Jewish matters by Gamaliel and knew this through tradition; even today the Pharisees agree that it is so. Chrysostom taught almost the same earlier, in Homily 18. Enough, then, has been said about the seventh argument and its accompanying points. For Cajetan's argument from the words “I will see you sooner,” that it seems unreasonable for Paul, after appealing to Caesar, to promise that he would be given to the Jews, is so weak that it is tiresome even to mention, much less refute. Reply to the eighth. In the eighth principal argument, by which the fourth conclusion is challenged, Cajetan does not deny that the Epistle of James is canonical, but says its author is uncertain. Erasmus adds that it does not bear the mark of apostolic authority. Yet since Jerome in De viris illustr., Pope Urban in his letter De communi vita, Alexander V in his Epist. ad omnes episcopos, Anacletus in his Letter on the Oppression of Bishops, Pope Marcellus to the bishops of the province of Antioch, Gelasius with a Council of seventy, Innocent I, the Council of Milevis in chapter 7, and the Council …

of Laodicea, Carthage, Florence, and Trent have affirmed that this is the letter of the apostle James—of James, I say, the apostle—and the use of the universal Church confirms this. It is rash, not to say erroneous, to try to weaken the certainty of this letter either by claiming its author is uncertain or by appealing to the style of its greeting, and that by an argument too weak to deserve an answer. Reply to the ninth. I answer the ninth argument as follows. It is erroneous, not to say heretical, to deny that the second letter is by the apostle Peter. For it first contradicts all the saints; then Innocent and Gelasius; further, the Councils of Laodicea, Carthage, Florence, and Trent; and finally the practice of the Catholic Church, which reads it on the feast of the Transfiguration under the name of the apostle Peter. It would also contain something false if Peter the Apostle were not its author. For even if its argument from the greeting might perhaps be evaded by saying that some forger added it, what is read in chapter 1 of that letter cannot be evaded in any way: “We heard this voice brought from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.” If Peter did not write the letter—and it is manifestly foolish to attribute it to John or James—the letter contains a falsehood, which is heretical. The argument that moved Erasmus, and indeed most people before Jerome, as Jerome himself reports in De viris illustribus under Peter, is weak. The same author often happens to write not only a different work but even the same thought in a different style. This can be seen, to pass over others, in St. Gregory: if you compare his letters with his other works and judge them by their different styles, you would conclude that they were written by another author. Jerome, however, answers differently in Question 11 to Hedibia: “The two letters that circulate under Peter's name differ in style and character, and in the construction of their words; from this we understand that Peter, as the circumstances required, used different translators.” See: from the dissimilar style Jerome infers not different authors but different translators. For the Apostles preferred to write in a foreign language through a translator rather than misuse the gift of tongues, which they had received not for elegance and display but for necessary uses. I am not unaware that Erasmus twists this passage of Jerome, but he does so in his customary manner, upsetting everything to suit his own desire. Reply to the tenth. Because of the tenth argument, Erasmus and Cajetan deny that those two later letters are by John the Evangelist. I would consider this opinion not only rash but also erroneous. For if they are attributed to John, surnamed the Elder, they are certainly not canonical, since no one has regarded John the presbyter as a sacred author. But they are undoubtedly canonical letters, as we have shown above; therefore they are not by John the presbyter, but by the Evangelist. Origen testifies to this in Psalm 1, as cited by Eusebius in book 6 of Ecclesiast. hist., chapter 18; so do Clement in book 2 of the Strom., John of Damascus in book 4, Isidore in book 6 of the Etymolog., Augustine in book 2 of De doctrina christiana, Jerome to Evagrius, Innocent I, Gelasius, and the Councils of Laodicea, Carthage, Florence, and Trent. At Easter the universal Church reads these two letters to the people under the name of the apostle John. We should entrust ourselves more safely to the Church, the Councils, and the ancient saints than to these recent authors; and since their argument is weak, it needs no further refutation.

Reply to the eleventh. The eleventh argument would not deserve to be counted among the others, were it not for Cajetan's assertion on its basis that this letter has less authority than the other books that are certainly Sacred Scripture. He does not dare expressly to deny the authority of this letter, lest he incur ill will or blame. Since Jerome says that it has already earned authority through its antiquity and use and is counted among the canonical books, I am surprised that Cajetan did not bring the opinion of others under Jerome's judgment, whom he considered a sure standard for Sacred Books. Cajetan's assertion here is therefore dangerous if the comparative force of the word “less” is retained: “It has less authority,” he says, “than those that are certainly Sacred Scripture.” Therefore it is not certainly Sacred Scripture, which is erroneous. But some before Jerome did not approve this letter. I admit it; yet before Jerome there were some disputed matters which it is now heretical to call into question. But it cites an apocryphal book. Perhaps it was not apocryphal among the Hebrews. If it was, as Jerome and most others think, it is no wonder that the Apostle Jude cites it, since Paul cites testimonies from Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides, pagan and profane poets. See Jerome in his Letter to Epiphanius, chapter 5, and to Titus 1. But Cajetan objects to this reply, saying: “This letter has rightly been rejected by many, because although it is much more permissible to cite apocrypha than poets, nevertheless the authority of Sacred Scripture is diminished when an apocryphal prophecy is introduced simply and absolutely as prophecy.” So he says. Yet it is one thing for the whole book to be apocryphal, as Jerome says, because certain things in that book are ambiguous; it is another for the particular passage cited by Jude to be apocryphal, which neither Jerome nor any other Catholic has said. Even if we had no other source for knowing it to be a prophecy, Jude's authority is enough for us to believe that it truly came from the Holy Spirit, just as we believe that these words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” belong to Jesus Christ because Paul said so. But I am foolish to try to refute arguments of this sort. Reply to the twelfth. As for the final argument, where the conjectures of Erasmus and Luther are set out to weaken the authority of the Apocalypse, after what we have said there would be no need to reply. It will be enough to remind students that we pass over manifest matters in order to dwell on the more obscure; and that in this matter Franciscus Titelmann labored most carefully and published a separate disputation, from which the reader can obtain whatever may seem to be missing from our reply. For reason requires that we at last bring this second controversy to a close.