System of Sacred Theology · §3.4.5 · Ludwig Crocius

Reasons 7-8: confession of the pagan crowd; nothing favors a multitude of gods

Click or tap any sentence to jump there. The side buttons skip a paragraph.

THE SEVENTH is from the sense and confession of the pagan crowd. Orosius: pagans confess that they do not follow many gods, but under one great God venerate many ministers. Tertullian (Apology 17): the soul, when it comes to its senses, names God alone — O testimony of a soul naturally Christian! Lactantius: when they swear or give thanks, they name not Jupiter or many gods but God.

THE EIGHTH: nothing can champion a multitude of gods. Hermes Trismegistus: one performs all these. Therefore God does all things. For this reason God is customarily compared to unity.

Latin

SEPTIMA est a sensu & confessione vulgi ethnicorum. Orosius: Pagani non se plures deos sequi, sed sub uno Deo magno plures ministros venerari fatentur. Tertullianus Apologet. 17: Anima, quum resipiscit, Deum nominat solum — O testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae! Lactantius: Quum jurant, quum gratias agunt, non Jovem aut deos multos, sed Deum nominant. OCTAVA: nihil est quod deorum multitudini patrocinari queat. Hermes Trismegistus: unus haec omnia praestat. Facit igitur omnia Deus. Hacpropter Deus unitati comparari consuevit.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Report a mistake