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| Chapter XXVI.—“Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXVI.—“Knowledge puffeth up,
but love edifieth.”
1. It
is therefore better and more profitable to belong to the simple and
unlettered class, and by means of love to attain to nearness to God,
than, by imagining ourselves learned and skilful, to be found [among
those who are] blasphemous against their own God, inasmuch as they
conjure up another God as the Father. And for this reason Paul exclaimed,
“Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth:”3200 not that he meant to inveigh against a true knowledge of God, for
in that case he would have accused himself; but, because he knew that
some, puffed up by the pretence of knowledge, fall away from the love of
God, and imagine that they themselves are perfect, for this reason that
they set forth an imperfect Creator, with the view of putting an end to
the pride which they feel on account of knowledge of this kind, he says,
“Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” Now there can be
no greater conceit than this, that any one should imagine he is better
and more perfect than He who made and fashioned him, and imparted to him
the breath of life, and commanded this very thing into existence. It is
therefore better, as I have said, that one should have no knowledge
whatever of any one reason why a single thing in creation has been made,
but should believe in God, and continue in His love, than3201
3201 “Aut;” ἤ having been thus
mistakenly rendered instead of “quam.” | that,
puffed up through knowledge of this kind, he should fall away from that
love which is the life of man; and that he should search after no other
knowledge except [the knowledge of] Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was
crucified for us, than that by subtle questions and hair-splitting
expressions he should fall into impiety.3202
3202 [This seems anticipatory of the dialects of
scholasticism, and of its immense influence in Western Christendom, after
St. Bernard’s feeble adhesion to the Biblical system of the
ancients.] |
2. For how would it be, if any one, gradually elated by
attempts of the kind referred to, should, because the Lord said that
“even the hairs of your head are all numbered,”3203 set about inquiring into the number of hairs
on each one’s head, and endeavour to search out the reason on
account of which one man has so many, and another so many, since all have
not an equal number, but many thousands upon thousands are to be found
with still varying numbers, on this account that some have larger and
others smaller heads, some have bushy heads of hair, others thin, and
others scarcely any hair at all,—and then those who imagine that
they have discovered the number of the hairs, should endeavour to apply
that for the commendation of their own sect which they have conceived? Or
again, if any one should, because of this expression which occurs in the
Gospel, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of
them falls to the ground without the will of your Father,”3204 take occasion to reckon up the number of
sparrows caught daily, whether over all the world or in some particular
district, and to make inquiry as to the reason of so many having been
captured yesterday, so many the day before, and so many again on this
day, and should then join on the number of sparrows to his [particular]
hypothesis, would he not in that case mislead himself altogether, and
drive into absolute insanity those that agreed with him, since men are
always eager in such matters to be thought to have discovered something
more extraordinary than their masters?3205
3205 [Illustrated by the history of modern thought in
Germany. See the meritorious work of Professor Kahnis, on German
Protestantism (translated). Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1856.]
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3. But if any one should ask us whether every number of
all the things which have been made, and which are made, is known to God,
and whether every one of these [numbers] has, according to His
providence, received that special amount which it contains; and on our
agreeing
that such is the case, and acknowledging that not
one of the things which have been, or are, or shall be made, escapes the
knowledge of God, but that through His providence every one of them has
obtained its nature, and rank, and number, and special quantity, and that
nothing whatever either has been or is produced in vain or accidentally,
but with exceeding suitability [to the purpose intended], and in the
exercise of transcendent knowledge, and that it was an admirable and
truly divine intellect3206 which could both distinguish and
bring forth the proper causes of such a system: if, [I say,] any one, on
obtaining our adherence and consent to this, should proceed to reckon up
the sand and pebbles of the earth, yea also the waves of the sea and the
stars of heaven, and should endeavour to think out the causes of the
number which he imagines himself to have discovered, would not his labour
be in vain, and would not such a man be justly declared mad, and
destitute of reason, by all possessed of common sense? And the more he
occupied himself beyond others in questions of this kind, and the more he
imagines himself to find out beyond others, styling them unskilful,
ignorant, and animal beings, because they do not enter into his so
useless labour, the more is he [in reality] insane, foolish, struck as it
were with a thunderbolt, since indeed he does in no one point own himself
inferior to God; but, by the knowledge which he imagines himself to have
discovered, he changes God Himself, and exalts his own opinion above the
greatness of the Creator.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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