System of Sacred Theology · §2.1.8 · Ludwig Crocius

V. The good suited to the rational immortal soul; proof that man has a rational soul

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V. Since therefore man is endowed with a rational soul, which is immaterial, indissoluble, and immortal, such a good suits him as exceeds the measure and duration of the body and endures with the immortal soul itself after departure from the body: when he has obtained it he will be happy and blessed; but if he falls from it he will be extremely wretched.

Man has a rational soul: this is confessed among all, and we all experience it from the operations of the soul in us. For we understand that we arrive from known things at knowledge of unknowns, which is to reason.

From which we gather that there is in us some principle from which this operation flows. This is the soul, which from so excellent an effect we call rational; concerning its nature the following rules are to be observed here in passing.

Latin

V. Cum itaque homo praeditus sit anima rationali, quae immateriata, indissolubilis & immortalis est, ejusmodi bonum ei convenit, quod mensuram & durationem corporis excedat, & cum ipsa anima immortali post discessum a corpore perennet: quo potita fuerit, felix & beata; sin vero exciderit, extreme misera erit. HOMINI anima rationalis est: id quod tum apud omnes in confesso est, tum ex operationibus animae in nobis omnes experimur. Nam intelligimus, nos e notis in ignotorum notitiam pervenire, quod est ratiocinari. Ex quo colligimus, esse in nobis principium aliquod, a quo operatio isthaec fluat. Hoc vero est anima, quam a tam excellenti effectu rationalem appellamus, de cujus natura hic obiter sequentes regulae observandae sunt.

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About this text

Ludwig Crocius's System of Sacred Theology (Bremen, 1636), all four books: theology and its rule in Scripture; man's last end, death and the resurrection; God, the Trinity, creation, providence and sin; and the grace of Christ, the Word and sacraments, faith, the Christian life and prayer.

Ludwig Crocius (1586–1655) taught theology and philosophy at Bremen and sat as a delegate at the Synod of Dort (1618–1619). A Calvinist of the irenic school, he spent his career seeking common ground between the Reformed and Lutheran churches.

His System of Sacred Theology (Bremen, 1636) is a full Reformed dogmatics in the high-orthodox style: precise definitions, ordered questions, objections raised and answered.

Date1636 AD (Bremen; Reformed professor)

EditionSyntagma sacrae theologiae (Bremen: Berthold Villerian, 1636)

English follows the 1636 Bremen Latin (Berthold Villerian), read chapter by chapter from the SLUB Dresden page images, with a machine reading of the same pages as a check. No modern English was copied. The author index at the end of the volume is not translated.

Reference

VD17 14:684303C. SLUB id335860389.

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