to give more point to Luther’s antithesis here: but “Gentiles “is the more authentic reading. See Griesbach’s text and note in loc.
[←264]
Exordium, an introduction or preface to a topic.
[←265]
Putet, sentiat. Put. is rather the matter of reasoning and argument; sent. is rather the matter of sense. Both are intermixed here, though each has its distinct appropriation: he thinks about the sun, he handles the stone. — A double error is pointed out by the illustration. These ungodly men assert what is not, and deny what is.
[←266]
Luther does not distinguish here, as he ought to do, between what Satan has made of us, and what Satan personally does in us. The soul of man, in its natural state, is so blinded and hardened and satanized, that even if there were no immediate agency of his upon any individual soul, the effect of ‘one’ or even ‘many’ words of God (unaccompanied by his quickening Spirit) would not be such as Luther describes; but it would still reject the truth!
[←267]
A forced application of the words. The Lord is there speaking of the words being a sure index of the mind. Luther seems to have some confusion in his mind, from Luke 19.22. “Out of your own mouth I will judge you,” etc.
[←268]
A Greek term, which may express either affirmation or negation; but here it clearly denotes affirmation, with an allusion either to the ‘explicit avowal of private opinion,’ or to ‘the judge delivering his sentence in court.’
[←269]
Praejudiciis. A forensic term, expressing either, 1. ‘precedents which apply to an undecided cause;’ or 2, ‘matters relating to the cause in hand, which have already been decided;’ or 3, ‘a previous judgment of the cause itself;’ as here. These men had sat in judgment upon this question before, and had decided it.
[←270]
Jam et tu pone. Luther here retorts Erasmus’ own words upon him. “Et tamen illud interim lectorem admonitum velim, si etc. …ut tum denique sibi ponat ob oculos tam numerosam seriem eruditissimorum virorum, etc. …tum illud secum expendat, utrum plus tribuendum esse judicet tot eruditorum, tot orthodoxorum, etc. …praejudiciis, an unius aut alterius privato judicio.’
[←271]
Privatus etc. The substance is, ‘Insignificant Luther, whom Erasmus taunted with his obscurity, and with his contempt of these great men (though, in fact, he had only shaken off the yoke of their undue authority without expressing any sentiment of contempt), would never have so vilified them in his privacy, as Erasmus the man of name and fame was doing by his public extolment of them.’
[←272]
Cornuto syllogismo. Corn. syll. Dilemma; so called, because the horns of the argument are, in this kind of syllogism, so disposed that to escape the one, you must run upon the other. The term ‘horns’ is applied to argumentation, from a certain disposition of forces, naval as well as military, in which they resemble the horns of the crescent moon.
[←273]
Disputatiunculam. Disp. The diminutive implies a discussion subordinate to the main point in debate.
[←274]
See Part i. Sect. 5. note q. Lucian, the Epicurean philosopher of Samosata, in Syria, ridiculed all religions; and he served Christianity, without meaning it, pretty much as Erasmus was doing — by depreciating the fashionable and reigning idolatry. He died wretchedly, A. D. 180. — Much of his writings is in dialogue — Erasmus’ favourite composition — with which he interweaves many ‘true stories’ of very doubtful credit.
[←275]
Bald and bare; without any appendage of amplification, resolution of parts, or illustration.
[←276]
The idea is that of a mould not filled up: the definition is not commensurate with the thing defined.
[←277]
See Part i. Sect xxv. note.
[←278]
Vertible: able to turn or be turned; changeable.
[←279]
‘A fixed rule,’ as opposed to whim, taste or chance; ‘sober,’ as opposed to ‘extravagant,’ ‘plain,’ or ‘proper,’ as opposed to figurative,’ ‘strictness of speech,’ (i.e. words used in their own genuine and natural sense) as opposed to ‘metaphor;’ logic’ as opposed to rhetoric.’
[←280]
Andabatae. A man fighting in the dark, with his eyes blinded: a name given (quasi anabatai sive antanabatai) to certain fencers, or gladiators, who fought on horseback with their eyes covered; or more properly, to the man who went into the chariot to fight with the charioteer. It was one of the games of the Circus, where the peculiarity consisted in the conflict being maintained in the dark. Jerome has the expression, ‘More andabatarum, gladium in tenebris ventilans;’ alluding to the former of these customs.
[←281]
Scotus. The celebrated Duns Scotus, a Franciscan; the great opponent of Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican. He acquired the name of the ‘subtile doctor,’ as his opponent did that of the ‘angelic doctor.’ Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, was characterised as ‘tenebrosus,’ or ‘obscure;’ from the enigmatic style in which he communicated his reveries. Socrates is said to have expressed an admiration of some of his pieces, so far as he could understand them; but to have intimated the danger there was of being drowned in his incomprehensible depths.
[←282]
Moderni. Quasi hodierni. The subtile doctor and his contemporaries, together with those who preceded them, from Peter Lombard downwards, were but men of ‘today,’ compared with the ancient logicians and with the Fathers. Also, the Schoolmen were divided into three classes, like the Academics: old, middle, and new. Scotus was of the last.
[←283]
Crassè. ‘Dull, heavy, fat-headed ,’ as contrasted with their wire-drawn refinements.
[←284]
Luther speaks here, as theological writers commonly do. But the truth is, the Law required faith, and the Gospel requires works: though the form of the two several dispensations was as Luther represents them. The Law was designed to shut the Church up unto faith; the Gospel, to open it by that faith which is itself a work (for “this is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.” John 6.29) to those works which alone are acceptable to God; viz. the actings and manifestations of a self-emptied, contrite, and believing soul.
[←285]
He does not speak of any particular word or work of God, but of His whole word, and of His whole work; excepting only what he does by His special grace, in and upon the hearts of his people.
[←286]
Babbler. Spermologov (spermologos) is a term of contempt, applied properly to persons who went about the forum picking up the seeds and crumbs, or whatever else might fall between buyer and seller, and making a living out of them. Hence it is applied to a loose, ignorant, unordered, and unmeasured speaker; one who retails the sort of refuse, or common-place scraps, which he has picked up in the streets. New Gods [foreign gods, Gr. xenos] not in the invidious, or disparaging sense of demons, or of xaimoned (xaimoned), but some additional deities: objects of worship, having the same sort of claim to reverence which the rest of their multiplied divinities had.
[←287]
He says Acts 24; but the allusion is manifestly to Acts 26.
[←288]
Intrà extrà. On this side of it, or beyond it; when joined with the preceding words ‘infrà, suprà,’ these express the universal comprehension of the word and work of God; as containing all that is above, beneath, and on all sides of us —with only one exception.
[←289]
That is, adherents to the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
[←290]
Erasmus has made Freewill greater than itself. Luther makes a pun on this, and intimates that he has even out-heroded Herod here; not only exceeding philosophers, etc. but even his own extravagant self.
[←291]
Peter Lombard (c. 1096–1160) – a scholastic theologian, and Bishop of Paris. When he arrived in Paris about 1134, Bernard of Clairveax recommended him to the officials of the church of St. Victor. He taught at the cathedral school of Notre Dame for ten years, where he met Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor. He authored Four Books of Sentences, which became a standard textbook of theology. Martin Luther wrote glosses on the Sentences, and John Calvin quoted from it over 100 times in his Institutes. Lombard’s most controversial doctrine in the Sentences was identifying charity with the Holy Spirit (Book I, dist 17). He said that when a Christian loves God and his neighbour, this love literally is God; the Christian thus becomes divine and partakes in the life of the Trinity. This form of mysticism was widespread in the Middle Ages.
[←292]
They ascribed the power of discerning, out of hand; but the power of choosing good, conditionally.
[←293]
Catholicum . Cath. ‘Ad omnes pertinens,’ ‘quod ubique et apud omnes disseminatum est, et ab omnibus recipi debet.’ ‘What all are bound to receive as true.’
[←294]
A sarcastic allusion to Rev 13.10; 14.12.
[←295]
Master, etc. A title with which Peter Lombard was dignified, from his work entitled ‘The Sentences,’ by which he was svipposed to have rendered the same service to Divinity, which Gratian, his contemporary, had done to Law. He was the father of scholastic theology, which succeeded that of the Fathers; his work being considered as the great source of that science in the Latin church. He died A. D. 1164.
[←296]
Turning words topsy-turvy.
[←297]
For example, ‘Nothing is all things.’ Why, God made all things out of nothing. You might call that ‘nothing,’ ‘all things;’ but this is by referring the term ‘nothing’ to the thing itself, and ‘all things’ to the existent One — who being present, communicates being (which He has in himself) to this ‘nothing.’
[←298]
Velut externè affingunt. The gift of the Spirit, though of course not inherent, they represented as inseparably attached to the free will; and so it is communicated as matter of course.
[←299]
Inflatura. A figure taken from blowing a bladder, or raiding a bubble, or making a musical instrument sound aloud: ‘to give size, or substance, or sound, to this empty, speechless thing.’
[←300]
Ecclesiasticus: also known as Wisdom or Sirach, in the Apocrypha.
[←301]
The Greek text, from which