PRAECONIS EVANG.

Since this is the sentiment of the divine Paul, it follows that the three things which we know to have great power when well-affected in every kind of life—the mind, the life, and the method of conducting business—are what Paul also wishes to be rightly instituted and prepared in the evangelical herald. You see what the Apostle’s mind and sentiment is. Now consider what must be done, whence one must begin, and by what way one must proceed. First, it seems to me that one must discuss the mind, then the life and morals, and then the correct method of conducting the matter.

And first indeed, the Apostle wishes the mind of the evangelical herald to be conformed into that state by which it may be approved by God, and he declares this by the very fact that he commands him to be presented approved to God. For whom the Latins call probus honest/virtuous or probatum approved, Paul calls δόκιμον approved in Greek. But δόκιμος to them is the same as χρήσιμος, that is, useful, and τέλειος, that is, adult, of just size, of full age. And those are said to be δοκιμάζεσθαι tested/approved who are permitted to their own guardianship, who were once called by the Romans those who take the manly toga, and by the Greeks ἀνδρεῦσθαι to become men. And because the active verb has the very same force as the words for exploring, searching, approving, and assessing, it also