XXV–XXVIII. Critical/judicial interpretation; its didactic core; assessor's help
XXV. Critical or judicial interpretation is that by which, as by a judge's sentence, law is fitted with authority to a fact, a rule to an example, a universal precept to singular cases. Examples: 2 Sam. 12:5, when David is pronounced guilty of death because every murderer is guilty of death; 1 Tim. 1:20, when Hymenaeus is pronounced a son of Satan because every heretic is a son of Satan. Such interpretation cannot be done by the law, which is not laid down about singulars, but is left to the judge as judge, who pronounces about singulars according to the law.
XXVI. Judicial interpretation is commonly joined with didactic. So when it is asked whether Hymenaeus is a heretic, he is condemned of heresy because he denies the future resurrection. But the Scripture places that speak of the resurrection of the flesh were to be understood not of a spiritual rising from sins only, as Hymenaeus seems to have taken them, but of the resurrection from the dead properly so called. That interpretation was so clear and certain, handed down by the Apostles themselves, that it could not be denied without open malice and obstinacy (2 Tim. 2:17–18).
XXVII. This interpretation that unfolds the sense of the text or rule is indeed required for the judge's sentence and concurs with it, and so by a certain metonymy of the adjunct can be called judicial; yet properly and formally it is not judicial but didactic — which the judge offers not as a judge having power to fit law to fact, but as a teacher understanding the law's sense by equivalence or consequence or some authentic knowledge. XXVIII. But if the judge lacks knowledge and doctrine, this didactic interpretation can and ought to be supplied by another more skilled — namely, the judge's assessor and counselor.
Latin
XXV. Interpretatio critica seu judicialis est, qua tanquam per judicis sententiam jus ad factum, regula ad exemplum, praeceptum universale ad casus singulares cum auctoritate accommodatur. Exempla sunt 2. Sam. 12.5. cum David pronunciatur reus mortis, quia omnis homicida reus est mortis. 1. Tim. 1.20. Hymenaeus pronunciatur filius Satanae, quia omnis haereticus est filius Satanae. Nam hujusmodi interpretatio non potest fieri a lege, quae non statuitur de singularibus, sed relinquitur judici, qua judex, qui de singularibus pronuntiat secundum legem. XXVI. Caeterum interpretatio judicialis cum interpretatione didascalica plerunque conjungitur. Sic, cum quaeritur de Hymenaeo, an sit haereticus? damnatur haereseos, quia negat resurrectionem futuram. Atqui loca Scripturae, quae de resurrectione carnis loquuntur, non de resurrectione spirituali a peccatis duntaxat, ut Hymenaeus accepisse videtur, sed de resurrectione a mortuis proprie dicta intelligenda erant. Quae interpretatio tam clara fuit ac certa, ab ipsis Apostolis tradita, ut sine manifesta malitia & contumacia negari non posset, 2. Tim. 2.17.18. XXVII. Haec vero interpretatio exponens sensum textus sive regulae requiritur quidem ad sententiam judicis, & cum illa concurrit, eoque per metonymiam quandam adjuncti judicialis dici potest: proprie tamen & formaliter non est judicialis, sed didascalica, quam judex profert, non qua judex habens potestatem accommodandi jus ad factum: sed quatenus doctor per aequipollentiam vel consequentiam, vel authenticam aliquam notitiam intelligens sensum legis. XXVIII. At, si judici notitia & doctrina desit, interpretatio haec didascalica ab alio peritiori, assessore videlicet & consiliario judicis, suppleri potest ac debet.