est fingendo addere.’
[←450]
Utrobique. In both parts of the discussion — the former, where Freewill is maintained; the latter, where its opponents are repelled. Incomprehensibilis. ‘Uncatchable;’ if there were such a word!
[←451]
Superciliousness: the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior.
[←452]
Ubi urgemur, elabi. Elab. The primary idea is that of the snake slipping out of the hand, or water gliding secretly from its source; this is tranferred to a ‘silent escape from a pursuing enemy.’ Urgr. is the state of one driven along by the goad or spear, when he can advance no further. (See Part i. Sect. 9. note d .) In this state, says Erasmus, they cry out “trope,” “trope;” as a sort of new discovery which they have made.
[←453]
Extende manum. Facile vobis. See above, Part iii. Sect. 6. Ezek. 18.31.
[←454]
Non de textu ipso. Since it is not interpretation, it must refer to genuineness. It is not like Ecclesiasticus 15, where the authority of the book quoted is doubtful; or other texts which might be named, where the soundness of some particular verse or word might be disputed, though the book were authorized — but whether the acknowledged text is to be understood tropically, and whether certain proposed interpretations are admissible.
[←455]
Simplicem, purumque. Simp. ‘Free from figure.’ Pur. ‘Free from human additions.’
[←456]
Circumstantia verborum evidens.
[←457]
Absurditas rei manifestae.
[←458]
Quam grammaticae… habet. Luther had no doubt where the use of speech was derived to man (meropev anqrwpoi); however some heathen and demi-heathen philosophers may have made it matter of speculation: even from God who prompted its exercise when he brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them (Gen 2.19,20); and who afterwards came down to confound that one language which he had given. (Gen 11.5-9.)
[←459]
In Roman mythology, Vertumnus is the god of seasons and change.
[←460]
Quod non queas aliquo tropo cavillari. You have but to insinuate that the texts brought to prove it are figurative, and do not mean what they seem.
[←461]
Origen of Alexandria, the great father of mystical and allegorical interpretation, suffered martyrdom in the 69th year of his age, A. D. 254. There was much, no doubt, to condemn in him, but something also to commend. While strangely defective in his perceptions of divine truth, he was learned, upright, disinterested, and laborious: a man of conscience and of magnanimity. Philosophy and literature were his bane. He did much mischief to the church by his style of interpreting Scripture, not only in rendering human fancies for a season fashionable, to the exclusion of plain truth, but, as a remote consequence, by bringing even the sober use of types and figures — that pregnant source of lively and particularizing instruction — into the contempt with which it has now for some ages been loaded. Two sentences of his are worthy to be preserved. On the words, “We conclude that a man is justified by faith” (Rom 3.28) he says, The justification by faith alone is sufficient; so that, if any person only believes, he may be justified, though no good work has been fulfilled by him. On the case of the penitent thief, he writes, He was justified by faith, without the works of the law, because, concerning these, the Lord did not inquire what he had done before; nor did he stay to ask what work he was purposing to perform after he believed; but the man being justified by his confession only, Jesus who was going to Paradise, took him as a companion and carried him there. — His Hexapla furnished the first specimen of a Polyglot.
[←462]
Porphyry, a Platonic philosopher who lived in the same century with Origen, made great use of his fanciful interpretations, in reviling Christianity. From the serious pains taken by the ancient Christians to confute him, it may be presumed that his works (which are now chiefly lost) were subtle and ingenious; but his testimony, like that of most other infidels, has been made to redound to the establishment, instead of the subversion, of the Gospel. (See Chap. xxi. Cent. iii. of Milner’s Ecc. Hist, where a remarkable assemblage of testimonies to this conclusion is skilfully adduced: and see, especially, vol. ii. of Fry’s Second Advent, where Gibbon is made the same sort of unintentional witness.) Porphyry censures Origen for ‘leaving Gentilism, and embracing the barbarian temerity.’ Whereas Origen was, in fact, brought up under Christian parents, and a man of Christian habits from his youth. He compliments Origen on his skill in philosophy, but ridicules his introduction of it into the Scriptures; which, as this enemy justly teaches, abhor such an associate.
[←463]
Jerome, the renowned monk of Stridon, in Pannonia, had a good deal of the spirit of Origen. Luther says even Jerome was a man of prodigious learning, lively eloquence, and vigorous mind, but of small discernment in the truth — one taught of man, more than of God. He was born under Constantine, A. D. 331. He was the contemporary of Augustine, and his opponent; he was ever, and all his days, a controversialist — peevish and vain; self-righteous and superstitious; but sincere and devout. To him, the Romish church owes her Vulgate. In his very voluminous expositions, he speaks at random. He is allegorical beyond all bounds, and almost always without accuracy and precision; he lowers the doctrine of illumination in 1Cor 2 to things that are moral and practical; he hints at something like a first and second justification before God; he asserts predestination and then retracts it, as it were; he owns a good will as from God in one place, in another supposes a power to choose to be the whole of divine grace; he never opposes fundamental truths deliberately, but though he owns them everywhere, he always does so defectively, and often inconsistently. It must be confessed, the reputation of this Father’s knowledge and abilities has been much overrated. There is a splendour in a profusion of ill-digested learning, coloured by a lively imagination which is often mistaken for sublimity of genius. This was Jerome’s case; but this was not the greatest part of the evil. His learned that ignorance availed more than any other cause, to give a celebrity to superstition in the Christian world, and to darken the light of the Gospel. Yet, while he was unruffled by contradiction, and engaged in meditations unconnected with superstition, he could speak with Christian affection concerning the characters and offices of the Son of God. (See Miln. Eccl. Hist, vol ii. p. 481.
[←464]
Deum nuncupativam. A sort of titular God; one called, but not really so. See Part ii. Sect. 8. note r .
[←465]
Luther, as we all know, is not very sound here. His consubstantiation of the sacramental elements avoids a trope; but the trope here falls in with his admitted exception, ‘Scripture herself compels us to receive it.’ The same portion of matter cannot be extended in two places at the same moment. The bread, therefore, which the Lord held in his hand while instituting the ordinance, could not at the same instant be bread and hand; or bread and body. The same is true of the cup: it must have been a distinct substance from the hand which held it; and therefore it could not be really the Lord’s blood; which could indeed only be drunk as poured out, and at the instant when He spoke, was still in his veins. Add to this the simple but decisive illustration which was suggested to Zwingle’s mind in a dream, and which was so greatly blessed in the use he was afterwards led to make of it. ‘You stupid man, why do not you answer him from the twelfth of Exodus, as it is there written, “It is the Lord’s passover.” — Luther calls the Sacramentists promiscuously the new prophets, and not very ingenuously. For even Carolstadt disclaimed all connection with the Celestial Prophets, as they were called — while Zwingle and OEcolampadius, in whom were the sinews of the contest, afforded no pretence for such imputation. Miln. Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. chaps, vi. ix. pp. 772-810, 990, etc. 1127, 8.
[←466]
Distenta et illusa. Dist. ‘Distractus, duplici curâ occupatus; cui duo simul res, diversis partibus, curam injiciunt. Rectiùs à ‘distineo,’ quam ‘distendo,’ ducitur.
[←467]
Nulli grammatico ferendas. Gram. ‘ad grammaticam periens;’ but this term, it seems, was especially applied to those who interpreted classical writers; such as Donatus, Festus, Polinius, Asconius and others; not to teachers of grammar: inferring from grammatista, which is sometimes used invariously.
[←468]
Affectatas. So, in the last section, ‘affectatis proprio ..ebro tropis;’ ‘nimio, aut pravo, affactu et studio cupitus, ..esitus.’ ‘De re majore studio et curâ conquisitâ et elabor..’ Our English term ‘affected,’ as opposed to ‘natural,’ implies the same thing: what is factitious [i.e. artificial], and the result of that. It is not ‘the design with which,’ that is marked in these two passages, but ‘the labour and search employed.’
[←469]
Has. . . . probatissimorum sunt doctorum. The sentence is ungrammatical.
[←470]
Utcunque amoliri dicta. Amol. dier. prop, de iis et magno conatu et molimine dimoventur.

[←471]
Animulae. We are reminded of the Emperor Adrian’s animula vagula blandula. Anim. vel contemptûs, vel blanditiae ..sâ. Here, it implies ‘tenderness;’ a weakling soul, tenderly felt for, by the Lord and by his messengers.
[←472]
Industriâ consentiente. Indust. ‘Vis ingenii quâ quippium cogitamus, et adipiscimur. Itaque supra naturam et ingenium cogit studium, et artem, et laborem.’ He refers to the ‘affectas tropis’ and ‘affectatas interpretationes,’ which he reprehended in the last section. There was much of scholastic art in cloistered industry in them; but he must have light from heaven — the Holy Ghost’s testimony either in the word, or in the palpable, new-wrought miracle — before he