System of Sacred Theology · §3.4.3 · Ludwig Crocius

Reasons 1-3: order of the universe; supreme unity/truth/goodness; if many, absurdities

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The first is taken from the order of the universe's parts. Where there is order, there must be something one to which the rest are reduced. Aristotle: a plurality of rulerships is not good; let there be one ruler. Athanasius: a multitude of gods is a nullity of gods.

THE SECOND: God is highest unity, highest truth, highest goodness, which cannot be except unique and pure.

THE THIRD: if there were many gods, they either differ altogether, or are altogether one, or partly both: the first is absurd; if the second, they were already not many but one.

Latin

PRIMA sumitur ab ordine partium universi. Ubi ordo est, unum esse aliquid oportet ad quod cetera reducantur. Aristoteles: Non est bonum pluralitas principatuum: unus princeps esto. Athanasius: Multitudo deorum nullitas est deorum. SECUNDA: Deus summa est unitas, summa veritas, summa bonitas, quae non potest esse nisi unica & pura. TERTIA: si plures dii sint, aut omnino differunt, aut omnino unum sunt, aut partim differunt partim unum: primum absurdum; si alterum, jam non plures sed unus.

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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.

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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