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| It Behoves Interpreters, When Disagreeing Concerning Obscure Places, to Regard God the Author of Truth, and the Rule of Charity.
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Chapter XXV.—It Behoves
Interpreters, When Disagreeing Concerning Obscure Places, to Regard
God the Author of Truth, and the Rule of Charity.
34. Let no one now trouble me by saying, Moses
thought not as you say, but as I say.” For should he ask me,
“Whence knowest thou that Moses thought this which you deduce
from his words?” I ought to take it contentedly,1148
| 1148 See p. 48, note, and p. 164, note 2, above. | and reply
perhaps as I have before, or somewhat more fully should he be
obstinate. But when he says, “Moses meant not what you say, but
what I say,” and yet denies not what each of us says, and that
both are true, O my God, life of the poor, in whose bosom there is
no contradiction, pour down into my heart Thy soothings, that I may
patiently bear with such as say this to me; not because they are
divine, and because they have seen in the heart of Thy servant what
they say, but because they are proud, and have not known the
opinion of Moses, but love their own,—not because it is true, but
because it is their own. Otherwise they would equally love another
true opinion, as I love what they say when they speak what is true;
not because it is theirs, but because it is true, and therefore now
not theirs because true. But if they therefore love that because it
is true, it is now both theirs and mine, since it is common to all
the lovers of truth. But because they contend that Moses meant not
what I say, but I what they themselves say, this I neither like nor
love; because, though it were so, yet that rashness is not of
knowledge, but of audacity; and not vision, but vanity brought it
forth. And therefore, O Lord, are Thy judgments to be dreaded,
since Thy truth is neither mine, nor his, nor another’s, but of
all of us, whom Thou publicly callest to have it in common,
warning us
terribly not to hold it as specially for ourselves, lest we be
deprived of it. For whosoever claims to himself as his own that
which Thou appointed to all to enjoy, and desires that to be his
own which belongs to all, is forced away from what is common to all
to that which is his own—that is, from truth to falsehood. For he
that “speaketh a lie, speaketh of his own.”1149
35. Hearken, O God, Thou best Judge! Truth
itself, hearken to what I shall say to this gainsayer; hearken, for
before Thee I say it, and before my brethren who use Thy law
lawfully, to the end of charity;1150
hearken and behold what I shall
say to him, if it be pleasing unto Thee. For this brotherly and
peaceful word do I return unto him: “If we both see that that
which thou sayest is true, and if we both see that what I say is
true, where, I ask, do we see it? Certainly not I in thee, nor thou
in me, but both in the unchangeable truth itself,1151
| 1151 As to all truth being God’s, see vii. sec. 16,
and note 3, above; and compare x. sec. 65, above. | which is
above our minds.” When, therefore, we may not contend about the
very light of the Lord our God, why do we contend about the
thoughts of. our neighbour, which we cannot so see as incommutable
truth is seen; when, if Moses himself had appeared to us and said,
“This I meant,” not so should we see it, but believe it? Let us
not, then, “be puffed up for one against the other,”1152
above that
which is written; let us love the Lord our God with all our heart,
with all our soul, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as
ourself.1153
As to
which two precepts of charity, unless we believe that Moses meant
whatever in these books he did mean, we shall make God a liar when
we think otherwise concerning our fellow-servants’ mind than He
hath taught us. Behold, now, how foolish it is, in so great an
abundance of the truest opinions which can be extracted from these
words, rashly to affirm which of them Moses particularly meant; and
with pernicious contentions to offend charity itself, on account of
which he hath spoken all the things whose words we endeavour to
explain!
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