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| Chapter IX.—Human Knowledge Necessary for the Understanding of the Scriptures.
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Chapter IX.—Human Knowledge Necessary for the Understanding of the Scriptures.
Some, who think themselves naturally gifted, do not
wish to touch either philosophy or logic; nay more, they do not wish to
learn natural science. They demand bare faith alone, as if they wished,
without bestowing any care on the vine, straightway to gather clusters
from the first. Now the Lord is figuratively described as the vine,
from which, with pains and the art of husbandry, according to the word,
the fruit is to be gathered.
We must lop, dig, bind, and perform the other
operations. The pruning-knife, I should think, and the pick-axe, and
the other agricultural implements, are necessary for the culture of
the vine, so that it may produce eatable fruit. And as in husbandry,
so also in medicine: he has learned to purpose, who has practiced the
various lessons, so as to be able to cultivate and to heal. So also here,
I call him truly learned who brings everything to bear on the truth;
so that, from
geometry, and music, and grammar, and
philosophy itself, culling what is useful, he guards the faith against
assault. Now, as was said, the athlete is despised who is not furnished
for the contest. For instance, too, we praise the experienced helmsman
who “has seen the cities of many men,” and the physician
who has had large experience; thus also some describe the empiric.1894
| 1894 The empirics were a class of
physicians who held practice to be the one thing essential. |
And he who brings everything to bear on a right life, procuring examples
from the Greeks and barbarians, this man is an experienced searcher
after truth, and in reality a man of much counsel, like the touch-stone
(that is, the Lydian), which is believed to possess the power of
distinguishing the spurious from the genuine gold. And our much-knowing
gnostic can distinguish sophistry from philosophy, the art of decoration
from gymnastics, cookery from physic, and rhetoric from dialectics,
and the other sects which are according to the barbarian philosophy,
from the truth itself. And how necessary is it for him who desires to
be partaker of the power of God, to treat of intellectual subjects by
philosophising! And how serviceable is it to distinguish expressions which
are ambiguous, and which in the Testaments are used synonymously! For
the Lord, at the time of His temptation, skilfully matched the devil by
an ambiguous expression. And I do not yet, in this connection, see how
in the world the inventor of philosophy and dialectics, as some suppose,
is seduced through being deceived by the form of speech which consists in
ambiguity. And if the prophets and apostles knew not the arts by which the
exercises of philosophy are exhibited, yet the mind of the prophetic and
instructive spirit, uttered secretly, because all have not an intelligent
ear, demands skilful modes of teaching in order to clear exposition. For
the prophets and disciples of the Spirit knew infallibly their mind. For
they knew it by faith, in a way which others could not easily, as the
Spirit has said. But it is not possible for those who have not learned to
receive it thus. “Write,” it is said, “the commandments
doubly, in counsel and knowledge, that thou mayest answer the words of
truth to them who send unto thee.”1895
What, then, is the knowledge of
answering? or what that of asking? It is dialectics. What then? Is not
speaking our business, and does not action proceed from the Word? For
if we act not for the Word, we shall act against reason. But a rational
work is accomplished through God. “And nothing,” it is
said, “was made without Him”—the Word of God.1896
And did not the Lord make all things by the
Word? Even the beasts work, driven by compelling fear. And do not those
who are called orthodox apply themselves to good works, knowing not what
they do?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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