The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil According to the Holy Scriptures

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will be able to serve us in declaring and establishing the present truth. This Canonical Scripture is contained in our Latin Vulgate, for the infallible judgment of our Church was declared in the Council of Trent, session 4: the same sacred Synod... ordains and declares that this same old and vulgate edition, which has been approved by the long use of so many centuries in the Church itself, shall be held as authentic in public readings, disputations, preachings, and expositions; and that no one dare or presume to reject it under any pretext. Therefore, in order to deduce our present question solidly from scripture, no other version besides our Latin vulgate should be looked to by us. And this institution has certainly been made most wisely and most holily. For who, being learned in either the Hebrew or Greek languages, is ignorant, or would dare to deny, what a variety and diversity of codices, what discord of interpretation in them, what frequent depravation of the text itself and truncated presentation of the same, what variety of reading and punctuation is to be found? What, therefore, could be hoped for as firm or solid from such variety of codices and readings, when such variety is usually an easy occasion for depravation? I do not deny that knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek text carries with it great utility and very rich fruit; for if both texts agree with the text of our vulgate, a great and new confirmation of truth is obtained against the enemies and depravers of Holy Scripture, since they continually provoke us to this fundamental text, asserting that the literal sense of our vulgate poorly coheres with it, or does not express it at all. Therefore, one who possesses knowledge of these languages would uncover and show the clarity and truth for the greater confusion of these men and to detect their malice in seducing others. Otherwise, we always adhere more firmly and securely to that version which the Church proposes to us to be kept and retained as uncorrupted and canonical, which, because of the special assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to it by its Spouse