System of Sacred Theology · §1.10.15 · Ludwig Crocius

Against ranking pagan learning above Scripture, with Eusebius on the Artemonites

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But those who still today defer somewhat more to gentile writings in the business of faith, with the Scholastics and Jesuits — to these ought to be opposed what Eusebius (book 5, chapter 28) reports concerning the Artemonites: They have corrupted the divine Scriptures, he says, without any reverence of the fear of God; and they boldly and impiously reject the rule of the ancient faith, being ignorant of Christ, whom therefore they do not find, because they have not sought rightly. And they have so far slipped into folly and impiety that, if someone proposes to them a discourse from the Scriptures, they on the contrary oppose: whether this discourse under discussion makes a conjoined or a separated genus of syllogism; and abandoning God's holy Scriptures they treat geometry — as those who truly are of the earth, they speak of the earth; and therefore they are ignorant of him who is from above.

Finally Euclid among them flourishes especially in the disciplines of Geometry. But Aristotle and Theophrastus are held by them in admiration. And Galen by some of them is even adored. Who strive to assert the impiety of their heresy by those arts and doctrines; and by deceiving men ignorant of God they undermine the simplicity of the divine Scriptures and the sincerity of faith. But they do these things because they have not even become neighbors to the faith; therefore they also violate the divine Scriptures without any fear, and corrupting them say that they are emending them.

Latin

Qui vero hodieque gentilium scriptis in negotio fidei plusculum deferunt cum Scholasticis & Jesuitis, his opponi debet, quod Eusebius lib. 5. cap. 28. de Artemonitis refert. Scripturas, inquiens, divinas absque ulla timoris Dei reverentia corruperunt: antiquae vero fidei regulam proterve & impie respuunt, ignorantes Christum, quem idcirco non inveniunt, quia non recte quaesiverunt. Et in tantum stultitiae impietatisque prolapsi sunt, ut, siquis eis sermonem de Scripturis proposuerit, illi e contrario opponant: utrum hic sermo, de quo agitur, conjunctum an separatum genus syllogismi faciat: et derelinquentes sanctas Dei scripturas geometriam tractant, tanquam qui vere de terra sint, de terra loquuntur: & ideo eum, qui de sursum est, ignorant. Denique Euclides apud eos vel maxime in Geometriae disciplinis viget. Sed & Aristoteles & Theophrastus ab his in admiratione habentur. Galenus vero a nonnullis eorum & adoratur. Qui earum artibus & doctrinis haereseos suae impietatem nituntur asserere: & deceptionibus hominum ignorantium Deum, simplicitatem divinarum scripturarum, & sinceritatem fidei subruunt. Sed haec faciunt, quia nec vicini facti sunt fidei, propterea & divinas scripturas absque ullo timore contemerant, & corrumpentes eas emendare se dicunt.

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