OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

OF GOOD AND EVIL.

§. I.

THE TREE ITSELF OF HOLY SCRIPTURE,

The books composing the entire Biblical work.

A decorative woodcut initial 'S' features a landscape with a central tree and dense foliage.

I. Holy Scripture, which is reasonably and properly called Holy Page, Bible, and Testament and Covenant, besides its allusive and encomiastic praising names, is—according to the mind of the Holy Fathers, and especially Ambrose in his explanation of the Prologue of St. Luke, Gregory the Great in the Prologue to the Morals, chapter 1, and Augustine, book 1, On Genesis to the Letter, and others—a written work whose proximate Author is God, either because He wrote it immediately, or mediately, because He used the ministry of some person to write it; and He prompted that person to do so, and directed his mind in each sentence, and dictated every word.

II. Not every Prophetic spirit pertaining to the Holy Page, whether it concerns the entire book or a part of it, was equal. For Balaam, Saul, and Caiaphas prophesied differently; they, beyond their character, were prophesying and were acted upon rather than acting. The Prophets and seers of the Lord in the Old Testament prophesied differently, as they indeed had an infused and injected spirit, one insinuating itself and permeating the mind—the master of itself and voluntarily receiving—yet it was not perpetual and constant, although as long as it was present, it illuminated, taught, and showed Divine things; nevertheless, it approached and retreated at its own times and intervals. The Apostles prophesied differently, as they had a remaining and constant spirit with an infused light, perhaps held in the manner of a fire kindle-able by the additions of inspiration, not subject to the discretion of the one who possessed it, but to the Divine will, from which it awaited the impulse and motion by which it might be excited and stirred, and without which it would rest. Finally, Christ the Lord acted differently, as He had this gift as His own, and much more excellently than the Apostolic gift, inasmuch as it was owed to Him and committed to His discretion, so that He not only had the use and act of prophecy in His power, but so that the knowledge and awareness of things, both hidden and future, never failed Him; He was always beholding all things, and predicting and announcing them when He willed.