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| Of the Method to Be Pursued in Catechising Those Who Have Had a Liberal Education.
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Chapter
8.—Of the Method to Be Pursued in Catechising Those Who Have Had
a Liberal Education.
12. But there is another case which
evidently must not be overlooked. I mean the case of one coming to
you to receive catchetical instruction who has cultivated the field
of liberal studies, who has already made up his mind to be a
Christian, and who has betaken himself to you for the express
purpose of becoming one. It can scarcely fail to be the fact that a
person of this character has already acquired a considerable
knowledge of our Scriptures and literature; and, furnished with
this, he may have come now simply with the view of being made a
partaker in the sacraments. For it is customary with men of this
class to inquire carefully into all things, not at the very time
when they are made Christians, but previous to that, and thus early
also to communicate and reason, with any whom they can reach, on
the subject of the feelings of their own minds. Consequently a
brief method of procedure should be adopted with these, so as not
to inculcate on them, in an odious fashion1381
| 1381 Reading odiose, for which
several mss. give otiose =
idly. | things which they know already,
but to pass over these with a light and modest touch. Thus we
should say how we believe that they are already familiar with this
and the other subject, and that we therefore simply reckon up in a
cursory manner all those facts which require to be formally urged
upon the attention of the uninstructed and unlearned. And we should
endeavor so to proceed, that, supposing this man of culture to have
been previously acquainted with any one of our themes, he may not
hear it now as from a teacher; and that, in the event of his being
still ignorant of any of them, he may yet learn the same while we
are going over the things with which we understand him to be
already familiar. Moreover, it is certainly not without advantage
to interrogate the man himself as to the means by which he was
induced to desire to be a Christian; so that, if you discover him
to have been moved to that decision by books, whether they be the
canonical writings or the compositions of literary men worth the
studying,1382
you may
say something about these at the outset, expressing your
approbation of them in a manner which may suit the distinct merits
which they severally possess, in respect of canonical authority and
of skillfully applied diligence on the part of these expounders;1383
| 1383 Reading exponentium.
Various codices give ad exponendum = in
expounding. | and, in
the case of the canonical Scriptures, commending above all the most
salutary modesty (of language) displayed alongside their wonderful
loftiness (of subject); while, in those other productions you
notice, in accordance with the characteristic faculty of each
several writer, a style of a more sonorous and, as it were more
rounded eloquence adapted to minds that are prouder, and, by reason
thereof weaker. We should certainly also elicit from him some
account of himself, so that he may give us to understand what
writer he chiefly perused, and with what books he was more
familiarly conversant, as these were the means of moving him to
wish to be associated with the church. And when he has given us
this information, then if the said books are known to us, or if we
have at least ecclesiastical report as our warrant for taking them
to have been written by some catholic man of note, we should
joyfully express our approbation. But if, on the other hand, he has
fallen upon the productions of some heretic and in ignorance, it
may be, has retained in his mind anything which1384
| 1384 Reading quod, with
Marriott. But if we accept quod with the Benedictine
editors, the sense will = and in ignorance it may be that the true
faith condemns them, has retained them in his mind. | the true faith condemns, and yet
supposes it to be catholic doctrine, then we must set ourselves
sedulously to teach him, bringing before him (in its rightful
superiority) the authority of the Church universal, and of other
most learned men reputed both for their disputations and for their
writings in (the cause of) its truth.1385
| 1385 Aliorumque doctissimorum
hominum et disputationibus et scriptionibus in ejus veritate
florentium. It may also be = bringing
before him the authority of the Church universal, as well as both
the disputations and the writings of other most learned men well
reputed in (the cause of) its truth. | At the same time, it is to be
admitted that even those who have departed this life as genuine
catholics, and have left to posterity some Christian writings, in
certain passages of their small works, either in consequence of
their failing to be understood, or (as the way is with human
infirmity) because they lack ability to pierce into the deeper
mysteries with the eye of the mind, and in (pursuing) the semblance
of what is true, wander from the truth itself, have proved an
occasion to the presumptuous and audacious for constructing and
generating some heresy. This, however, is not to be wondered at,
when, even in the instance of the canonical writings themselves,
where all things have been expressed in the soundest manner, we see
how it has happened,—not indeed through merely taking certain
passages in a sense different from that which the writer had in
view or which is consistent with the truth itself, (for if this
were all, who would not gladly pardon human infirmity, when it
exhibits a readiness to accept correction?), but by persistently
defending, with the bitterest vehemence and in impudent arrogance,
opinions which they have taken up in perversity and error,—many
have given birth to many pernicious dogmas at the cost of rending
the unity of the (Christian) communion. All these subjects we
should discuss in modest conference with the individual who makes
his approach to the society of the Christian people, not in the
character of an uneducated man,1386
as they say, but in that of one
who has passed through a finished culture and training in the books
of the learned. And in enjoining him to guard against the errors of
presumption, we should assume only so much authority as that
humility of his, which induced him to come to us, is now felt to
admit of. As to other things, moreover, in accordance with the
rules of saving doctrine, which require to be narrated or
discussed, whether they be matters relating to the faith, or
questions bearing on the moral life, or others dealing with
temptations, all these should be gone through in the manner which I
have indicated, and ought therein to be referred to the more
excellent way (already noticed).1387
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