Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

To you, studious Reader, I present the Academy of the Subtle Doctor, easily the Prince of Scholastic Theologians, celebrated throughout the whole world: an Academy in which, if my opinion does not deceive me, whatever of sublime and subtle wisdom has ever flowed from that most abundant Fountain of all the sciences, you will be able to sip with no difficulty, nay, even to drink in with a full breast.

For I have arranged all his theological dogmas, as far as the weakness of my talent allowed, according to the elegant teaching method of the Academy of Paris, so that in acquiring the doctrine of the Subtle Doctor himself no labor may seem to remain for you, nor should any annoyance of that pretended obscurity draw you back and retard you from its study.

Moreover, for undertaking so arduous a work, I had not one but many a spur. For in the first place, certain most renowned men of our Seraphic Order urged me to spend on the theological dogmas of the same Doctor the same labor I had given to setting in order and committing to the press a second time his philosophical dogmas; so that the younger students of both schools might be exempt from the burdensome weight of continual writing; lest their bodies, already almost broken by the harshness of food and clothing and by the other day and night austerities of our strict Seraphic Religion, should be utterly shattered under the yoke of writing so often repeated, and should turn away the soul panting to search the inmost recesses of sacred theology. For the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul and depresses the mind that meditates on many things.

Many outsiders, too, complained that among so many distinguished and most learned illustrators and interpreters of the Subtle Doctor, no one yet seemed to have come forth who had explained his arduous and subtle doctrine with such order, and with such clarity and richness, that neither brevity of words would blunt its subtlety, nor a confused and undigested variety of less useful matters mixed with necessary ones obscure the truth. Indeed (they said), almost every year many subtle lucubrations of various authors upon the Subtle Doctor come forth: but some are so compressed by compendious brevity that from this immense Ocean of Wisdom they bring forth only certain tiny drops to be sipped with the very edge of the lips; others overflow with so great an excess of words and futile matters, and explain Subtle Theology with so manifold and huge an apparatus of volumes, that a whole course of life scarcely suffices for turning them over. Hence they had it in their wishes that someone would at length some day come forth from the school of the Subtiles, who would explain the theological dogmas of the Subtle Doctor with such a method and such an order, that neither compendious brevity would make the mind hungry and empty, nor excessive prolixity make it fastidious and averse.

Nor were there lacking men conspicuous for piety and learning who spoke against the more recent writers, saying that they proposed to their readers a dry and lean theology, stocked, namely, with none of the oracles of the holy Fathers, enriched with no explanation of the celebrated ecclesiastical controversies, and finally strengthened by no testimony of the sacred Pages, or by one all too rare. Yet by these, as by solid and most firm foundations, an absolute and perfect theology is established. It seemed therefore to be wished that someone would write on the whole of theology in such a way that in the same work the students might have what to propose subtly and lay up on their benches, what, speaking holy words to the people, to proclaim from the fertile storehouse of the holy Fathers concerning every theological truth from their chairs, and with what, finally, to refresh and recreate abundantly, in friendly converse, the lover of Ecclesiastical History. A great work indeed, and one to be celebrated with eternal memory, if it should find an Author worthy of it! But what mortal could fully suffice for so immense a labor?

I am not, then, the man who thinks myself to be held equal to fulfilling so great a charge. But since in arduous matters it is enough to have attempted, and to have gone before others in every great undertaking, even at the cost of one's life, is glorious, no one ought to wonder if, though conscious of my own weakness, I have nevertheless judged that so great a labor should be sketched out, to be completed in all its numbers by another, if God should ever grant it. For to this one end all my labor aims: that, made all things to all men, at least in part, I might draw out and set forth to our students of theology not only that theology which they call Scholastic, from the very storehouse of the Subtle Doctor, but also set forth and explain that which they call Positive, made whole out of the very oracles of the sacred Scriptures, the Councils, and the holy Fathers, as the opportunity of the matter allows; and whether I have in some measure attained this, you, Reader, will yourself judge in the course of this work.

I wish to warn you of one or two things of my own accord: namely, that in writing I take the middle way — not, that is, with a fuller pen, as some, nor with a stricter one, as all others, although with equal learning and ingenuity alike; for this was my plan in the undertaking of this work, that I should neither hand over to beginners a compendious and meager science, nor set before the learned and expert one diffuse and nauseating to the point of disgust. Wherefore I gladly leave to others the task of transcribing the long series of opinions and of approving the reasons on which they rest: for that custom of certain men seems to me in no way to be approved, who, while they sometimes embrace the same assertion as others, nevertheless attack and reject their reasons as weak and feeble, only to establish at length their own, frequently much weaker than those which they rejected: by which means they leave all things doubtful and uncertain, and the sciences which they had undertaken to adorn or explain go to ruin.

But since in defending the opinion of the Subtle Doctor I am wholly devoted in spirit, it will be necessary, I confess, often to depart from the mind of the truly Angelic Doctor, and sometimes to attack his doctrine and his interpreters; yet injury in word will always be far absent, and this will be sacred to me, that mutual contention over attaining the truth may not loosen the strict bond of fraternal charity, by which the Angelic Dominicans are joined with the Seraphic Franciscans in an everlasting covenant.

Although, however, I have given all care that anyone may read my writings more easily than understand them, I do not deny, nevertheless, that perhaps some things will seem to some so abstruse, that they will labor a little in grasping their sense; to whom, with St. Augustine, Book I. De Trinitate, I reply:

Whoever, then, when he reads, says: this is not well said, because I do not understand; let him blame my manner of speech, not my faith: and perhaps it could have been said more plainly: yet no man has so spoken, that he was understood in all things by all men. Let him, therefore, to whom this in my discourse is displeasing, see whether he understands others versed in such matters and questions, when he does not understand me, and let him rather spend his labor and time on those whom he has understood. Let him not, however, on that account think that I ought to have kept silence, because I could not speak as readily and clearly as those whom he understood. For not all things that are written by all men come into the hands of all men; and it can happen that some, who are even able to understand these things of ours, do not find those plainer books and at least fall upon these. Therefore it is useful that many books be made by many men in diverse style, not in diverse faith, even on the same questions, so that the matter itself may reach the very many — reaching some in this way, others in that.

But if that man who complains that he has not so understood me could never understand anything diligently and acutely disputed on such matters, let him deal with himself by vows and studies that he may make progress, not with me by complaints or reproaches that I may be silent.

Moreover, if anything (which God forbid) should slip out in the course of this work less consonant with the doctrine of the holy Roman Church and the judgment of the sacred Faculty of Paris, I wish it all to be expunged and retracted from my heart.