DEDICATION.

**

...omitting [those things], insofar as I thought it in the interest of the Church to keep my reputation as intact as possible; and especially, insofar as this truth, rightly and solidly demonstrated, commends itself for the excellent uses recounted in the Work itself—besides the remarkable light which Scripture receives from it. Indeed, lest I should seem to have set aside the Divine Writings while I was discussing the opinions and decrees of the Masters The "Masters" likely refers to Rabbinic authorities or established scholastic figures whose traditional views the author is scrutinizing, I applied myself with particular diligence so that, at every given opportunity, I might shed light on many passages of Holy Scripture whose meanings lay hidden in obscurity. In this entire Disputation, however, I have conducted myself with as much modesty as trepidation; having, so far as I know, provoked or offended none of the Learned Men with my words. For I know well that I am here dealing with a work, as they say, full of dangerous hazard original: "periculosae... plenum opus aleae"; a famous quote from the Roman poet Horace (Odes 2.1.6) regarding the risks of writing about sensitive historical or political topics; and in weaving this work together, I had more reason to object to myself than Jerome had when about to write the Epitaph for Nepotianus: Small talents cannot sustain great subjects original: "Grandes materias ingenia parva non sustinent"; Saint Jerome (Hieronymus) was a 4th-century Bible translator and scholar; Nepotianus was his friend and a young clergyman to whom Jerome was very attached. There are many things here that are doubtful and obscure, for which a great expertise in facts, a perspicacity of judgment, and the tools of a vast and solid erudition are required to successfully unearth them from Antiquity and harmonize them. These qualities, I know first of all, are very modest and meager in my case; furthermore, time did not permit, nor, even if it had permitted in the greatest degree, [could I obtain] from my mind...