Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

Since Aristotle in the Topicis set forth certain common principles from which philosophers could draw the material of their arguments, as from a storehouse, and which for this reason he judged should be called the places, seats, and dwellings of arguments; so theologians establish certain principles for themselves, from which they derive arguments in drawing out and confirming their truths.

Note moreover 1. The Theological loci can be considered either according to a looser or according to a stricter usage. In the former way, ten are commonly numbered, namely the authority of 1. Sacred Scripture; 2. the Traditions of Christ the Lord and of His Apostles; 3. the Catholic Church; 4. the Councils, especially the approved general ones; 5. the Supreme Pontiff decreeing deliberately and with Pontifical authority; 6. the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church; 7. the Scholastic Doctors and the experts in pontifical law; 8. the natural philosophers, and the counsellors of Caesarean law; 9. human and civil history; 10. natural reasoning. For the theologian flies and ranges through all the aforementioned loci, like a bee, so as to draw out from them the honey of truth by his discourse. — But if the Theological loci are taken strictly, only three will be numbered, namely: 1. Sacred Scripture written in the Old and New Testament; 2. the Tradition of Christ and of the Apostles, to which is referred the common sense of the Fathers in teaching and of the faithful in believing; for by these two things Tradition becomes known; 3. the authority of the Church, which comprises the decrees of the Councils and of the Supreme Pontiffs. These three, moreover, are called the proper and domestic loci of theology; the rest, however, foreign and improper, for the reason that these are supported only by human faith or reason, whereas those rest upon divine revelation and the heavenly illumination and help of the holy Spirit. Since, however, the authority of the Traditions and of the Church must be treated ex professo in the treatise on Faith (God willing), therefore here only certain things concerning Sacred Scripture, from which Theology chiefly draws its truths, are to be sampled.

Note 2. Sacred Scripture cannot be called the principle or the locus of theological arguments except according to its genuine signification. Since, however, words are signs of concepts, and concepts signs of things, it follows that the signification or sense of Sacred Scripture is the concept of the things expressed through the words and terms of the same Scripture. This sense, moreover, is customarily distinguished as threefold, namely 1. the historical or literal, which the letter first impresses upon the mind from the customary signification of the words and the primary institution of men. 2. The mystical or spiritual, which is expressed not indeed by the words, but by the things themselves signified through the words. 3. The accommodative, or by accommodation, when the words of Scripture signifying one thing are taken to signify another, according to the good pleasure and estimation of the one taking them, on account of some suitability which he judges to intervene between the two things.

Note 3. These three senses are again subdivided into others: for the accommodative is one thing by extension, by which the words of Scripture determined to one person are extended also to another: Thus for example the words of Psalm 68, The reproaches of those who reproached you have fallen upon me, which David uttered concerning himself, Paul extends and applies, to the Romans cap. 15., to signify the passion of Christ and the persecution of Christians; whence he adds: Whatever things were written, were written for our doctrine, that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope. And another is by allusion, when we attribute and accommodate the words of Scripture to another thing, although no natural or moral similarity intervenes between those things per se; for example, if someone adapted these words of Psalm 62 to litigating men: They shall enter into the lower parts of the earth, that is, they shall be thrust down into prisons: they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword: that is, the officers shall lay violent hands upon them: they shall be the portions of foxes, that is, their goods and riches shall be squandered by the Procurators and Patrons. — The literal likewise is one thing, the proper, when things are signified by words according to the customary power of signifying and the primary institution of men: the other, the metaphorical, when things are signified by a word from an improper and transferred signification; thus Christ is called metaphorically a lamb, a lion, a rock, etc. — The mystical or spiritual sense likewise, which is contained in the historical and literal as the soul in the body, is threefold: the first is allegorical, when namely the history of the Old Testament signifies something to be done in the New, for example the exaltation of the serpent by Moses, which designated Christ to be exalted on the cross. 2. The tropological or moral, when from the page of the history of the Old Testament we are provoked to compose our morals. 3. The anagogical or bearing upward, when for example the beatitude of the future life is designated through the entrance into the land of promise. All these senses, moreover, are made manifest by the single word Jerusalem, for example; for to the letter it signifies the city of Judea; allegorically, the Church; tropologically, the soul of the just; anagogically, the heavenly homeland. Our Lyranus likewise embraced those senses in these two verses:

The letter teaches deeds: what you should believe, Allegory: The moral, what you should do: what you should hope, Anagogy:

Some have expressed these verses more fully and significantly in the following:

That is called Historic, which the express words designate. And Allegoric, which plays in the ancient shadows. The Moral, by which the norm of living is held. What you should hope, indeed, the Anagogic offers more deeply.

Moreover, it must be known that all these senses are found not only in the Old, but also in the New Testament, as one may gather from many instances: for marriage, for example, signifies the union of Christ with the Church, Ephes. 5.¹ likewise it designates the grace conferred upon spouses, and finally it shadows forth eternal happiness under the signification of nuptials. Furthermore, every action of Christ was our instruction: when he raised the dead, he designated the justification of penitent men; while he enlightened the blind, he figured the effects of evangelical preaching; while he walked upon the sea, he urged us to trample underfoot the storms of this life and to bear the various temptations with a constant mind, etc.

But whether valid arguments can be drawn from all these senses for setting forth and defending the faith is disputed among the theologians: but that what seems truer to us may appear, let it be

First conclusion. — The proper literal sense of Sacred Scripture always affords a firm theological argument.

Proof. And this from St. Paul, 2. to Timothy 3: All Scripture divinely inspired is useful for arguing, etc. But this it chiefly performs through the literal sense; since it is through that sense that it is made most useful for arguing, which points out the truth with easier effort and is evident to all who know the language: but such is the literal sense; inasmuch as for perceiving it the knowledge of the language and of the words with which Sacred Scripture is written suffices alone. For who doubts that from these words of Deuteronomy 6, The Lord our God, the Lord is one, the unity of God is rightly designated? Who does not perceive that those words of John 1, The Word was made flesh, signify the incarnation of the divine Word? Therefore the literal sense is most useful for arguing.

You will say 1. From that sense a firm theological argument cannot be gathered, which is manifold, variable, and wholly uncertain: but such is the literal sense. I prove it: There can be several entirely dissonant literal senses of the same text, as is evident from the first words of the whole of Scripture, In the beginning God created heaven and earth; St. Augustine teaches, lib. 12. of the Confessions cap. 20., that these words can be taken literally in three ways, so that "in the beginning he created" sounds the same as 1. in the Son, or in his eternal wisdom; 2. the same as at the beginning of time; 3. the same as before every other work. Whence he adds at cap. 31:

When one has said: "Moses meant this, which I mean"; and another: "nay, rather that, which I mean"; I judge that I speak more religiously in saying, why not rather both, if both are true? And if a third; if a fourth, and if someone has seen something altogether other and true in these words; why should it not be believed that he saw all those things, through whom the one God tempered the sacred letters with many senses for those who would see true and diverse things?

Therefore he judges that several literal senses can be assigned to the same text. — I answer. The minor can be denied; and as to the authority, I say that of the aforementioned words there is one genuine literal sense, namely that by which it is designated that God from the beginning of times created heaven and earth and the things which are in them; so that the expression "in the beginning" signifies that creatures are not from eternity, but that all were founded together at the beginning of times, as the 4th Lateran Council under Innocent III used the aforementioned words, cap. 1: God, he says, from the beginning of time created both creatures out of nothing, the corporeal and the spiritual, the angelic and the human. Whence the other two senses are foreign, and are not to be called truly literal.

You will say 2. From that sense a firm argument cannot be deduced, which is darkened by such great obscurity that it can scarcely be detected and grasped: but such is the literal sense, as all the holy Interpreters confess, who for that reason affirm Sacred Scripture to be that Book sealed with seven seals, Apocalypse 5., so that no one besides the Lamb is found worthy, neither in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth, to open the book and loose its seals; for the divine truth lying hidden in it made darkness its hiding place: therefore from that sense a valid argument cannot be drawn. — I distinguish the minor. In some contexts, which do not chiefly serve to persuade and open up the Catholic truths, I concede: in those which the theologians need in order to persuade and defend those truths, I deny. I confess indeed that Sacred Scripture is sometimes filled with manifold obscurity, and that for various reasons, which the Holy Fathers gather together and disclose. — First, indeed, says St. Jerome, that we should humbly press upon God with redoubled prayers to attain its understanding. Second, lest it should become cheap to us through too great ease, says St. Gregory Third, that through the labor and difficulty of attaining the sense (says Clement of Alexandria) our pride, too much pleasing to itself, should be broken and blunted. Fourth, finally, says St. Dionysius, lest our mysteries should become manifest to the infidels, and be exposed to their mockery.

You will ask, by what indications can the literal sense be distinguished and detected? — I answer. For detecting it, the following rules are especially to be observed: 1. If the text openly coheres with the antecedents and consequents. 2. That is to be judged the genuine and literal sense which has been determined either by the Councils, or by the Supreme Pontiffs, or has been used by the Apostles themselves to express something literally. 3. When it is received and understood with the consensus of the Fathers. 4. If it does not directly conflict with another text; for it cannot happen that truth is opposed to truth. 5. Finally, when the words enunciate nothing which disagrees and differs from the doctrine of faith and the right rule of morals, as St. Augustine indicates, lib. 2. De Doctrina Christiana, cap. 10: Whatever, he says, in the divine discourse can be referred properly neither to the honesty of morals nor to the truth of faith, let him know that it is figurative.

Second conclusion. — The mystical sense serves sometimes to prove something; the accommodative, however, never.

Proof of the 1st part. Every true sense intended by the Holy Spirit in the reading of the sacred Scriptures can serve to strengthen and explain the truth: but the mystical sense is true and intended by the Holy Spirit: For prophecy was never brought by human will, says St. Peter, 2. c. 1., but holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is also ordered to our instruction; For whatever things were written, says St. Paul Rom. 15., were written for our doctrine: therefore, etc. — It is confirmed. That sense which is called the sense and signification of Scripture was designed and sealed together with the literal by the Holy Spirit: but the spiritual and mystical sense is called the sense of Scripture and its signification. I prove it from John 19., where when he had said that Christ's legs had not been broken by the soldiers, he adds: For these things were done that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him. But these words were said in the literal sense, Exod. 12., of the paschal lamb: therefore together with the literal sense designating that the bone of the paschal lamb was not to be broken, the mystical and spiritual sense was also confirmed by the Holy Spirit, signifying that the bone of Christ dying on the cross was not to be shattered: for how would Scripture be said to be fulfilled, if it did not involve this sense?

2. That sense can serve for the proof of truth which Christ the Lord and the Apostles for the most part used, that they might intimate the truth and repel falsehood and error: but they for the most part used the mystical sense. Thus John 10., when the Jews accused Christ and wished to stone him, because he had said that he was God and the Son of God, he answers and argues: Is it not written in your law: I said, you are gods? If then he called them gods to whom the word of God was made, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world: you blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God? Thus everywhere from the parables he either gathers what is to be followed and what is to be fled, or he argues against and beats back the accusation of the Pharisees insulting him. Likewise the Apostles frequently argue in the mystical sense. Thus St. Paul from these words of Deuteronomy 25, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn, gathers, 1. Corinth. 9., that the evangelical preacher ought to live by the Gospel. Thus from the fact that Abraham had two sons, Ismael by the handmaid, and Isaac by the free woman, he gathers allegorically, to the Galatians 4., that God is the author of both Testaments, the Old and the New, and the father of two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles.

3. Just as men use words to bring forth their concepts, so God uses things to disclose and signify future or mystical realities. Nor is there less truth in the things designated and employed by God to signify something, than in the words instituted by men: but words through the literal sense can serve to prove something; therefore also things through their mystical sense. Whence rightly St. Paul, 1. to the Corinthians 10., when he had premised that the Fathers of the Old Testament were all under the cloud, adds: But all these things happened to them in figure. And to the Hebrews 10., after a long and accurate discussion through several chapters of the signs and symbols of the Old Testament with respect to the New, he subjoins this causal supposition: For the law having a shadow of future goods; namely of future goods in the evangelical law, to persuade which he is wholly engaged in that Epistle.

Note, however. That you may dissolve in one word all the things that could be objected: the mystical sense has no force of proof and argumentation, unless it has openly been established that it was so used by Christ or by his Apostles: for since the things on which the mystical sense is chiefly founded have a varied similarity and suitability with other things, they can also bear a varied and doubtful mystical sense. Thus the lion, for example, on account of its rapacity, is used, 1. Peter, 5., to signify the Devil, who is there called a roaring lion: on account of its strength, it designates Christ, who, Apocalyps. 5.² is called the Lion of the tribe of Juda: on account of its ferocity it shadows forth any adversary whatsoever, who, Psal. 16., is called a lion ready for prey; on account of its firmness and constancy, it designates the just man, Proverb. 28.: The just, confident as a lion, shall be without fear. Whence it comes about that in the mystical sense no force is to be placed in proving and arguing, unless it has been established from elsewhere that the thing was used by Christ or by the Apostles to signify that mystically.

The second part is openly evident; since indeed the accommodative sense was not sealed by the Holy Spirit together with the literal, but is taken up by anyone according to the dexterity of his wit and the arbitrament of his mind, it is certain that in it there is no force for proving the things of faith and defending them against those who attack them. Whence St. Jerome, lib. 2. on Matthew, explaining that passage, e. 13., about the leaven which a woman hid in three measures of flour, after he had adapted this similitude to the adorable mystery of the Trinity, adds: A pious sense indeed; but never can the understanding of parables and the doubtful intelligence of enigmas lead to the authority of dogmas. — St. Dionysius has the same, Epistle 9., which is to Titus, where, treating of the manifold and varied mystical sense which Scripture embraces, he says:

This also, moreover, must be understood: that the tradition of the theologians is twofold: one indeed hidden and mystical; the other plain and better known; and that one is contained in signs and prescribes the norm of ceremonies; this one embracing reasoning and philosophical demonstration. That which is open and that which is hidden are also joined and connected: and that indeed proves and confirms the truth of the things which are said: but this one effects and places in God by obscure and ineffable modes and institutions.

By which he indicates that the mystical sense does not always serve for proof; the accommodative, however, never. — Whence St. Augustine, Epistle 48., inveighing against the Donatists, who wished to persuade that the Church remained unharmed and intact in Africa alone, their homeland, from that verse of the Canticles 1., Where you feed, where you lie at midday, after he had in a wonderful manner bandied about and attacked the depraved use of this text, adds: Who, moreover, would not most imprudently strive to interpret something placed in allegory in his own favor, unless he also has manifest testimonies by whose light the obscure things are illustrated?

From these things it is apparent that the literal sense serves chiefly and almost solely theological arguments that conclude with certainty; for since manifest testimonies are rarely at hand by which the obscurity of the mystical sense might be illustrated, hence it comes about that scarcely anything can be gathered with certainty from it for proving Catholic truths; although it serves preachers in a wonderful way for illustrating and commending those truths.

You will ask first, which Edition of the Scriptures could serve the Theologian for proving and confirming his conclusions?

That this little question may be made sufficiently evident, it must be observed that Sacred Scripture was, for the most part, written in the Hebrew idiom. Moreover, that various versions of it existed; the earlier ones indeed were the Chaldean and the Syriac: the Chaldean is called by another name Targum, that is, a paraphrase or interpretation; but the Targum is one thing Babylonian, another Hierosolymitan, which is also called the Samaritan, as our Galatinus observes, lib. 1. Arcanorum cap. 3. The author of the Syriac version is unknown; for that some wish the New Testament to have been translated by Blessed Mark into the Syriac idiom rests on no foundation, for the holy Fathers would without doubt have made mention of this version; yet none of them makes even a slight mention of it, which is an open indication that this version is later than he himself.

But various Greek versions are in circulation, chiefly twelve. For the first is believed to have been before Alexander the Great, as St. Clement of Alexandria indicates, lib. 1. Stromatum, and Eusebius, lib. 9. Praeparationis Evangelicae cap. 3. Whence it happened that the Philosophers drew many things from the Sacred Scriptures; wherefore not without reason B. Cyril, lib. cit., asserts that Plato seems to be a second Moses speaking Attic, and accordingly it is established that in the times of Plato and before Alexander a Greek version already existed, at least of some books of Scripture. But after Alexander several others are counted, namely the Layiana in the times of Ptolemy Lagus; but, as Serrarius notes, cap. 16., this one, like the Herodiana, was supposititious and fabricated by heretics.

The first celebrated version of the Scriptures after Alexander, then, is that which was made by the seventy Interpreters under Ptolemy Philadelphus, the son of Lagus, who three hundred years before Christ, as Genebrardus notes, lib. 2. Chronolog., asked from Eleazar and the whole Church of the Jews and obtained seventy-two Jewish Doctors, namely six from each tribe, who, as the more common opinion holds, placed separately in various cells, translated the Sacred Scriptures in seventy days from the Hebrew into the Greek idiom.

Another is the edition under the name of Aquila, who seems to be the same as Rabbi Onkelos, as Serrarius proves, cap. 11. q. 4., and he was first a Christian from a Gentile and soon from a Christian a Jew, who, as St. Epiphanius relates, translated the whole Old Testament at the time of the Emperor Hadrian. Likewise another version is called that of Symmachus, who, since he was a heretical Ebionite, or as some will have it a Samaritan, and aspired to ecclesiastical dignity, which he could not obtain, went over from the Christians to the Jews; he lived, however, in the times of the Emperor Lucius Verus, as appears from the Latin Roman preface to the seventy Interpreters. Another also is called that of Theodotion of Ephesus, who at the time of the Emperor Commodus from a heretical Marcionite became a Jewish Proselyte, as St. Jerome observes in the Preface to Daniel.

Several other Versions are in circulation; namely the Hiericuntine, which was found in the city of Jericho at the time of the Emperor Caracalla: the Nicopolitan, found at Nicopolis, at the time of the Emperor Alexander, the son of Mammea: that of Lucian the Martyr, which was found at the time of Constantine, as Eusebius relates, lib. 9. Historiae cap. 6: the Hesychian through Hesychius the presbyter:

Origen's, which is the very edition of the seventy Interpreters, but by Origen in various places now changed, now corrupted, now corrected.

But this Origen selected from all the Editions which existed in his time four principal ones, namely those of the seventy Interpreters, of Aquila, of Symmachus and of Theodotion, and reduced them into one volume in four distinct columns, so that all could be seen at the same glance and verses answered to verses and periods to periods; the copies of which edition were called Tetrapla from those four columns, as St. Jerome notes, Epist. 89. Afterwards the same Origen placed before these four editions also the Hebrew one opposite, and that in two columns, of which the former contained the Hebrew text written in Hebrew letters; the latter presented the same text, but written in Greek letters; and so from those two added columns these copies were called Hexapla. Finally he added to the former two other Greek Editions afterwards; namely the Hiericuntine and the Nicopolitan, so that there were eight columns parallel to one another, whence they were called the Octapla of Origen.

But the most celebrated of all versions is the old Latin edition, which we commonly call the Vulgate; which now seems to be entirely St. Jerome's, a few verses or parts of verses excepted; nay, it seems simply his, if you remove the faults and errors of the copyists, as Serrarius rightly notes, cap. 19. For although St. Jerome did not translate all the books of Sacred Scripture from the Hebrew or Greek: nevertheless he translated very many, and besides corrected all the other Latin versions, as he himself affirms in the Preface to the Evangelists. These things then having been premised:

I answer. That this Vulgate edition is plainly authentic and to be preferred to all the other Latin ones, as the Council of Trent decrees in session 4 in these words:

The sacred and holy Synod, considering that no small advantage may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known from all the Latin Editions of the sacred books which are in circulation which one is to be held as authentic, has ordained and declares that this same old and Vulgate edition, which has been approved by the long use of so many ages in the Church itself, be held as authentic in public Readings, Disputations, preachings and expositions, and that no one dare or presume to reject it on any pretext.

Yet by these things the Council does not weaken the authority of the Hebrew Edition, or of the seventy Interpreters; since it makes no mention of them, but only prefers the Vulgate to the other Latin editions.

You will ask secondly, whether it is lawful for the Theologian to use the authorities and opinions of profane writers, of Philosophers, and of Poets, and of the other pagans?

I affirm. For it is right that the philosophical and natural disciplines serve Theology, the Queen of all sciences: it is also glorious to conquer the pagan Philosophers with their own arms and to reduce them, bound by their own barriers, into the captivity of faith. And this is especially urged by the fact that not only the holy Fathers, but also the Apostles employed that manner of arguing, as St. Jerome luculently demonstrates in the Epistle to Magnus the Orator, who had blamed him because he sometimes placed examples of secular literature in his little works, by which, he said, he seemed to pollute the whiteness of the Church with the filth of pagans. — Answering this accusation, St. Jerome says:

Who does not know that both in

Moses and in the volumes of the Prophets certain things were taken from the books of the Gentiles, and that Solomon both proposed some things to the Philosophers of Tyre and answered some things? Whence at the beginning of Proverbs he warns that we understand the words of prudence, and the subtleties of words, parables and obscure speech, the sayings of the wise and riddles, which are properly those of the Dialecticians and Philosophers. But also Paul the apostle used a verse of the Poet Epimenides writing to Titus, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.... And in another Epistle, 1. ad Cor. 15., he sets down the senarius of Menander; Evil conversations corrupt good morals. And at Athens, disputing in the court of Mars, he calls Aratus as a witness, Actor. 17.³ saying: For we are also his offspring.... For he had learned from the true David to wrench the sword from the hands of enemies and to cut off the head of the most proud Goliath with his own blade. He had read in Deuteronomy the precept given by the voice of the Lord, that the head of the captive woman is to be shaved, her eyebrows, all the hairs and nails of the body are to be cut off, and so she is to be taken in marriage. What wonder then, if I too wish to make the secular wisdom, because of the beauty of her eloquence and the comeliness of her members, an Israelite from a handmaid and captive? And if there is anything in her that is dead of Idolatry, pleasure, error, lusts, do I either cut it off or shave it?

These things he pursues with equal elegance of speech, but with wonderful erudition, opening up how all the sacred Writers and Doctors sometimes made use of the letters and opinions of profane writers.

St. Basil agrees with him, Homilia 24. ad Adolescentes, urging them to imitate Daniel and Moses learning the wisdom of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans; not that they should rest in the mere knowledge of it, but that they should convert it to the worship of God and to the utility and splendor of the Church.

St. Augustine likewise subscribes to these things, lib. 2. De Doctrina Christiana, cap. 10. The Philosophers, he says, if by chance they have said some things true and suited to our faith, especially the Platonists, are not only not to be feared, but are also to be claimed by us, as from unjust possessors, for our use. He adds, however, the example of the Israelites, who carried off the golden and silver vessels of the Egyptians, leaving behind their Idols, and he concludes that since the doctrine of the Philosophers is not only filled with perverse Dogmas, but also contains the liberal disciplines more apt for the use of truth, and some true things are found among them concerning the worship of the true God himself, their gold and silver, which they did not themselves institute, but dug out of certain mines, as it were, of divine providence, which is everywhere poured out, and which they perversely and injuriously abuse for the services of demons; when the Christian separates himself in mind from their miserable fellowship, he ought to take them away from them for the just use of preaching the Gospel.

The same, ibid. cap. 18:

We ought not to flee music on account of the superstition of profane people, if we can seize from it something useful for understanding the holy Scriptures, nor be turned to their theatrical trifles, if we discuss something concerning harps and organs that may avail for desiring spiritual things. For neither should we have not learned letters, because they say their inventor was Mercury, or because they dedicated temples to justice and virtue and preferred to adore in stones what ought to be carried in the heart — on that account justice and virtue are not to be fled by us. Nay rather, whoever is a good and true Christian, let him understand that whatever truth he has found anywhere belongs to his Lord, and, confessing and acknowledging it, let him reject superstitious fictions even in sacred letters, and let him grieve for and beware of men, who, knowing God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks, etc., says St. Paul ad Rom. 1. — Whence St. Augustine, ibid. cap. 19., distinguishes a twofold kind of doctrine among the infidels: one of those things which men instituted: the other of those which they observed as already accomplished or divinely instituted: that which is according to the institution of men is partly superstitious, partly not superstitious. Whatever has been instituted by men for the worship of Idols is superstitious, etc. cap. 25. he adds:

Next are to be considered the superstitious institutions of men, that is, those instituted not with Demons, but with men themselves. For all things which are of force among men for this reason, because it pleased them among themselves that they should be of force, are institutions of men, of which some are superfluous and luxurious institutions; some convenient and necessary.

He concludes cap. 27: But those things which men have brought to light by investigating, not by instituting, but either as accomplished in times past or as divinely instituted, wherever they are learned, are not to be thought institutions of men. Thence he opens up how all the natural sciences and arts serve the understanding of Scripture and of Sacred Doctrine. Let these things said concerning Theology in general suffice.