DEDICATION

...I had formerly revered and held in very high regard those men of that most distinguished order referring to the professorial rank mentioned on the previous page. Indeed, I was pursuing that path and thinking in such a way, when You, most Serene Prince, and You, most Splendid Gentlemen, out of your most favorable goodwill and your kindness toward all those for whom you have conceived good hope, called me to your Academy of Sacred Philology Athenæum Philologiæ sacræ: a prestigious school or university dedicated to the study of the languages and historical context of the Bible for the purpose of teaching. This occurred at an age that is very close to youth original: "proxima ephebis," a classical reference to the transition from adolescence to adulthood, from which I had only just emerged.

Truly, I derived an enormous pleasure from this—the kind of pleasure that accompanies a mind very much content with its own fortune, and than which nothing more blessed is achieved even by the happiest mortals here on earth. But even if there were some limit to my own prayers and desires, you did not wish there to be a limit to your kindness. For you have made my lot and condition at your University Academia: the higher institution of learning far more extensive and more worthy; for you recently entrusted to me the Professorship not of Divine Languages original: "Linguæ," referring to his initial role teaching Hebrew and Greek anymore, but of Divine Wisdom Sapientiæ Professionem: a Chair of Theology, representing a promotion from teaching the "tools" of scripture (languages) to its actual substance (wisdom/theology). This is an office truly venerable and, considering the place and the times, very distinguished. Indeed, these things affect my mind more greatly when...