Vita clarissimi viri D. Iosiae Simleri Tigurini, S. Theologiae in Schola Tigurina Professoris fidelissimi

metry to perfection, and Diodorus the Stoic, as Cicero is a witness, could easily maintain the duty of Geometry without eyes, so our Simler, without external eyes as it were—that is, masters and demonstrators—by that internal eye, the τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμματι eye of the soul (as it is called by Aristotle), that is, by the sharpness of the mind, excellently knew and perceived these arts. Above all, he was endowed with an exact knowledge of Arithmetic and Geometry, which are as it were the pillars or foundations of the others. But someone might say, what has a theologian to do with mathematics? For there are some who judge them to be most alien to a theologian, when instead there is a great affinity and kinship between them and Theology, nor do they bring small aids to a Theologian for the better carrying out of his duty. For first of all, many obscure places of Sacred Scripture cannot be properly understood without the exact art of counting and measuring. Hence Augustine, book 2 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 16 and 38, says: "Ignorance of numbers makes many things not understood which are placed figuratively and mystically in the Scriptures. And we find number and music placed honorably in many places in the holy Scriptures." So he says. Let the same judgment be held concerning Geometry, without which many places of Sacred Scripture pertaining to architecture cannot be grasped. Furthermore, who doubts that it becomes a Theologian not to be entirely rude in physical, ethical, economic, and political matters? Yet, by the testimony of Pythagoras, Plato (who calls mathematical matter ὕλην κατὰ πάντων material for all things), as well as Aristotle, and experience itself, mathematical disciplines provide the principles and elements for perceiving all these arts, and thus open the way and the entrance. Moreover, great sharpness is required in a Theologian, by which he can skillfully discern and judge the true from the false, the good from the bad. Yet these arts, by the confession of all, are like certain whetstones for wonderfully sharpening the souls and minds of men, by which even the slow and dull are rendered more acute and prompt for easily understanding any matters whatsoever. Finally, these arts (to say nothing of their varied, multiple, and popular use in the common life of men) obtain the greatest moment and weight for contemplating well, for abstracting the soul and mind of man from sense and things that fall under sense, for seeing the truth, and for more easily knowing the number, measure, and weight of works—not only human, but also divine—by which all things and individual things were once created from nothing by that omnipotent architect of heaven and earth, and are still most constantly ruled and governed. And who would doubt that all these things are proper to a Theologian?