On the Syrian Gods

OF THE FIRST EDITION

...conjectures, and the rest, and if he leans so often upon that crowd of the unrefined original: "ἀμούσων" (amousoi) — literally "those without the Muses," referring to the uncultured or uneducated. who are so greatly hated by others, then he must necessarily have reached such a pitch of impiety that he shamelessly babbles that something futile and negligible is often repeated in Holy Scripture; he is a monster that ought to be carried away to be purified. Let the pious piously believe that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, The author quotes 2 Timothy 3:16 in the original Greek: "πᾶσαν γραφὴν θεόπνευστον καὶ ὠφέλιμον πρὸς διδασκαλίαν." that is, all scripture has been inspired by God, the Best and Greatest, and is useful for instruction; let them recognize the depraved nature of man in the manifold disease of wandering and suffering original: "πολυπλανῦς καὶ πολυπαθῦς" (polyplanous kai polypathous) — suggesting a superstition that leads one astray into many errors and causes much distress. superstition, and let them learn humility of mind from that.

As for the fact that I so mix profane letters with the sacred that they might illuminate them, no one should find fault with this unless he is unskilled and likewise exceedingly peevish (to say nothing more serious). Such a man might think that everything in these texts can be understood in every respect without the help of those secular writings—an opinion held by some of the stubborn Cathars Cathari: Literally "the Pure." Here, the author uses the term derisively to refer to contemporary radical Puritans or sectarians who believed that only the Bible should be read and that classical learning was "polluted" or unnecessary for faith. of our age. The learned, and those who have devoted themselves to the more sound branches of literature rei literariæ: The "republic of letters" or the study of classical and humanist scholarship., know that the matter stands otherwise in both Testaments original: "Instrumento" — a legalistic term often used by early scholars to refer to the Old and New Testaments.. Regarding the Old, the more skilled Chronologists Scholars who studied the timeline of world history to align biblical events with secular records. sufficiently admit it. Regarding the New, examples are not lacking. For without the solemn...