登陆注册
15330300000022

第22章

OF THE GRADUAL PERFECTING OF BOOKS

While assiduously seeking out the wisdom of the men of old, according to the counsel of the Wise Man (Eccles.xxxix.): The wise man, he says, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, we have not thought fit to be misled into the opinion that the first founders of the arts have purged away all crudeness, knowing that the discoveries of each of the faithful, when weighed in a faithful balance, makes a tiny portion of science, but that by the anxious investigations of a multitude of scholars, each as it were contributing his share, the mighty bodies of the sciences have grown by successive augmentations to the immense bulk that we now behold.For the disciples, continually melting down the doctrines of their masters, and passing them again through the furnace, drove off the dross that had been previously overlooked, until there came out refined gold tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times to perfection, and stained by no admixture of error or doubt.

For not even Aristotle, although a man of gigantic intellect, in whom it pleased Nature to try how much of reason she could bestow upon mortality, and whom the Most High made only a little lower than the angels, sucked from his own fingers those wonderful volumes which the whole world can hardly contain.But, on the contrary, with lynx-eyed penetration he had seen through the sacred books of the Hebrews, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, the Persians and the Medes, all of which learned Greece had transferred into her treasuries.Whose true sayings he received, but smoothed away their crudities, pruned their superfluities, supplied their deficiencies, and removed their errors.And he held that we should give thanks not only to those who teach rightly, but even to those who err, as affording the way of more easily investigating truth, as he plainly declares in the second book of his Metaphysics.Thus many learned lawyers contributed to the Pandects, many physicians to the Tegni, and it was by this means that Avicenna edited his Canon, and Pliny his great work on Natural History, and Ptolemy the Almagest.

For as in the writers of annals it is not difficult to see that the later writer always presupposes the earlier, without whom he could by no means relate the former times, so too we are to think of the authors of the sciences.For no man by himself has brought forth any science, since between the earliest students and those of the latter time we find intermediaries, ancient if they be compared with our own age, but modern if we think of the foundations of learning, and these men we consider the most learned.What would Virgil, the chief poet among the Latins, have achieved, if he had not despoiled Theocritus, Lucretius, and Homer, and had not ploughed with their heifer? What, unless again and again he had read somewhat of Parthenius and Pindar, whose eloquence he could by no means imitate? What could Sallust, Tully, Boethius, Macrobius, Lactantius, Martianus, and in short the whole troop of Latin writers have done, if they had not seen the productions of Athens or the volumes of the Greeks?

Certes, little would Jerome, master of three languages, Ambrosius, Augustine, though he confesses that he hated Greek, or even Gregory, who is said to have been wholly ignorant of it, have contributed to the doctrine of the Church, if more learned Greece had not furnished them from its stores.As Rome, watered by the streams of Greece, had earlier brought forth philosophers in the image of the Greeks, in like fashion afterwards it produced doctors of the orthodox faith.The creeds we chant are the sweat of Grecian brows, promulgated by their Councils, and established by the martyrdom of many.

Yet their natural slowness, as it happens, turns to the glory of the Latins, since as they were less learned in their studies, so they were less perverse in their errors.In truth, the Arian heresy had all but eclipsed the whole Church; the Nestorian wickedness presumed to rave with blasphemous rage against the Virgin, for it would have robbed the Queen of Heaven, not in open fight but in disputation, of her name and character as Mother of God, unless the invincible champion Cyril, ready to do single battle, with the help of the Council of Ephesus, had in vehemence of spirit utterly extinguished it.Innumerable are the forms as well as the authors of Greek heresies; for as they were the original cultivators of our holy faith, so too they were the first sowers of tares, as is shown by veracious history.And thus they went on from bad to worse, because in endeavouring to part the seamless vesture of the Lord, they totally destroyed primitive simplicity of doctrine, and blinded by the darkness of novelty would fall into the bottomless pit, unless He provide for them in His inscrutable prerogative, whose wisdom is past reckoning.

Let this suffice; for here we reach the limit of our power of judgment.One thing, however, we conclude from the premises, that the ignorance of the Greek tongue is now a great hindrance to the study of the Latin writers, since without it the doctrines of the ancient authors, whether Christian or Gentile, cannot be understood.And we must come to a like judgment as to Arabic in numerous astronomical treatises, and as to Hebrew as regards the text of the Holy Bible, which deficiencies, indeed, Clement V.

provides for, if only the bishops would faithfully observe what they so lightly decree.Wherefore we have taken care to provide a Greek as well as a Hebrew grammar for our scholars, with certain other aids, by the help of which studious readers may greatly inform themselves in the writing, reading, and understanding of the said tongues, although only the hearing of them can teach correctness of idiom.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 十年境缘

    十年境缘

    讲述民国时期关中夏家三男一女,在抗战爆发前十年的曲折命运
  • 五经算术

    五经算术

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 异界猿王

    异界猿王

    无论人或兽,只要是生命形态的存在,就有为生存而抗争的权利!世界排名第二的杀手代号白虎的熊铮,厌倦了被操控的杀戮而背离了组织,逃亡回国的路上在帕米尔高原跟组织派来追剿的两百多名高端杀手同归于尽,在熊铮弥留之际许了一个愿“下一世绝不做人”,于是…………
  • 梦幻奇迹之颠覆时代

    梦幻奇迹之颠覆时代

    一代神才的他,不求家财万贯,不求天下第一。他,只想好好的守护着他最疼爱的妹妹。然而命运多舛,变幻莫测,实力的诱惑,他遭到了背叛。身逃妹亡,落魄不堪,他想死,又不敢死,绝望之际,被绝色如她的救起。但命运如此捉弄人,他发现,她竟是仇人的妹妹...
  • 转魄

    转魄

    胜人者力,自胜者强。一个剑客,辅佐三代帝王,殚精竭虑,只为一个梦想。两大帝国的对抗,是他的舞台,却也是他的失意场。屡屡拼尽全力,又往往功败于垂成;连连失落,依然毫不气馁;愈挫愈奋,只有再接再厉。一位不成功的将军,却是一个真正的强者。剑名“转魄”,书名《转魄》。《转魄》,献给每一位强者!
  • 天地封师

    天地封师

    一手天魔,一手轮回,武魂与文心共存,成就万世天师!
  • 灵能界夜谈

    灵能界夜谈

    你们,也经历过这样的事情吗?存在着红衣女鬼的老宅子,索要孩子的街头无女,马路上行走的人们没有影子,午夜的12点抬着纸轿越墙前来的冥婚,空荡的电梯里无人却拥挤,镜子里的自己会突然微笑……来自轩辕家族的轩辕夜是一个不详的孩子。因为,她坐上了轩辕家那个被强行替换掉的本永远不可能属于她的位子。有一个灵媒告诉她,你还不够强大。所以,成长吧,在那之前我会一直保护你。
  • 瀛涯胜览

    瀛涯胜览

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 治安疏

    治安疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 九烛

    九烛

    诸神相争,恶魔生,为了解决诸多关于元界的问题,数千年来逐渐苏醒的诸神决定,我们来召唤九个小伙伴,让他们相爱相杀吧!不不不……那当然只是无聊的小事,世界可是要靠他们拯救的!月兔神说:“他们像蜡烛一样燃烧自己,拯救世界,我们就命名为九烛吧~”诸神(他们是被你强行召唤来的吧……还燃烧自己,这样真的好吗?)不管怎么说,故事就这样开始了……