Apology Against the Calumnies of the Louvain Theologians

telling or doing it, he should not fall into a crime or punishment; and in the way he does not fall, it ought always to be interpreted so that he does not fall. And Hilarius says: The intelligence of things said must be taken from the causes of the speaking, because the matter is not subject to the speech, but the speech to the matter. And the scholastic theologian Occham, in his dialogue, shows by many reasons that which is commonly said to be false, that words are to be taken not from the opinions of individuals but from common usage, concluding that in words of ambiguous and multiple intelligence, one must not have recourse to the common intelligence, but rather to the intentionem loquentis intention of the speaker. There was once that blessed Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, reported to Pope Iulius concerning the Ariana haeresi Arian heresy because he had called the Son of God a creature. He, neither denying the statement nor defending the dogma, but declaring his own sincere mind and freeing himself from suspicion, was received by the fathers of the Church with the highest benevolence and commendation, with an apology published (by Athanasium) for his defense against detractors, teaching that not words, but the mind and the sentiment are to be judged and explained by the one who wrote or said something. For who among men knows what are the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? 1 Corinthians 2:11 If it will now be granted to me, I will show that nothing of mine is heretical, or impious, or scandalous against the Church of God, if it has been understood rightly or candidly, and not hostily perverted, and that I shall do this