SECT. 3.-Their chief Studies to be the Holy Scriptures, and the approved Writers and Canons of the Church.

But it was not all sorts of studies that they equally recommended, but chiefly the study of the Holy Scriptures; as being the fountains of that learning, which was most proper for their calling, and which upon all occasions they were to make use of." For," as St. Chrysostom observes,1 "in the way of administering spiritual physic to the souls of men, the Word of God was instead of every thing that was used in the cure of bodily distempers. It was instrument, and diet, and air; it was instead of medicine, and fire, and knife; if caustics or incisions were necessary, they were to be done by this; and if this did not succeed, it would be in vain to try other means. This was it, that was to raise and comfort the dejected soul, and take down and assuage the swelling tumors and presumptions of the confident. By this they were both to cut off what was superfluous, and supply what was wanting, and do every thing that was necessary to be done in the cure of souls. By this all heretics and aliens were to be convinced, and all the plots of Satan to be countermined: and therefore it was necessary, that the ministers of God should be very diligent in studying the Scriptures, that the word of Christ might dwell richly in them." This was necessary to qualify them especially for preaching; since, as St. Jerom rightly notes, "the best commendation of a sermon was to have it seasoned well with Scripture rightly applied," Besides, the custom of expounding the Scripture occasionally, many times as it was read, required a man to be well acquainted with all the parts of it, and to understand both the phrase and sense, and doctrines, and mysteries of it, that he might be ready upon all occasions to discourse pertinently and usefully upon them. And to this purpose some canons appointed,3

2 Hieron. Ep. 2. ad Nepot.

1 Chrys. de Sacerd. lib. iv. c. 3. et 4. Sermo Presbyteri Scripturarum lectione conditus sit. Nolo te declamatorem esse et rabulam, garrulumque sine ratione, sed mysteriorum peritum, &c. 3 Con. Tolet. 3. c. 7. Quia solent crebrò mensis otiosæ fabulæ interponi, in omni sacerdotali convivio lectio Scripturarum divinarum misceatur: per hoc enim et animæ ædificantur in bonum, et fabulæ non necessariæ prohibentur.

"that their most vacant hours, the times of eating and drinking, should not pass without some portion of Scripture read to them; partly to exclude all other trifling and unnecessary discourse, and partly to afford them proper themes and subjects to exercise themselves upon to edification and advantage." St. Jerom1 commends his friend Nepotian for this, "that at all feasts he was used to propound something out of the Holy Scripture, and entertain the company with some useful disquisition upon it. And next to the Scriptures he employed his time upon the study of the best ecclesiastical authors, whom by continual reading and frequent meditations he had so treasured up in the library of his heart, that he could repeat their words upon any proper occasion, saying, thus spake Tertullian, thus Cyprian, so Lactantius, after this manner Hilary, so Minucius Felix, so Victorinus, these were the words of Arnobius, and the like." But among ecclesiastical writings, the canons of the Church were always reckoned of greatest use; as containing a summary account not only of the Church's discipline, and doctrine, and government, but also rules of life and moral virtues; upon which account, as some laws directed, that the canons should be read over at every man's ordination; so others required the clergy afterward to make them part of their constant study together with the Holy Scripture. For the canons were then a sort of directions for the pastoral care, and they had this advantage of any private directions, that they were the public voice and rubrics of the Church, and so much the more carefully to be read upon that account. In after ages in the time of Charles the Great, we find some laws obliging the clergy to read, together with the canons, Gregory's book, De Curd Pastorali.

Hieron, Epitaph. Nepot. Ep. 3. ad Heliodor. Sermo ejus (leg. per) omne convivium de Scripturis aliquid proponere, &c. Con. Tolet. 4. c. 24. Sciant Sacerdotes Scripturas sanctas, et Canones meditentur - - - ut ædificent cunctos tam fidei scientiâ, quàm operum disciplinâ.

Con. Cabillon, c. 1.

3 Con. Turon. c, 3,

SECT. 4.-How far the Study of Heathen or Heretical Books was allowed. As to other books and writings, they were more cautious and sparing in the study and use of them. Some canons forbad a bishop to read heathen authors. Nor would they allow him to read heretical books, but only upon necessity, that is, when there was occasion to confute them, or to caution others against the poison of them. But the prohibition of heathen learning, though it seem to be more peremptory, was to be understood likewise with a little qualification. For men might have very different views and designs in reading heathen authors. Some might read them only for pleasure, and make a business of that pleasure, to the neglect of Scripture and more useful learning; and all such were highly to be condemned. St. Jerom says of these, "that, when the priests of God read plays instead of the Gospels, and wanton bucolics instead of the Prophets, and loved to have Virgil in their hands rather than the Bible, they made a crime of pleasure, and turned the necessity of youthful exercise into a voluntary sin." Others could not relish the plain and unaffected style of Scriptures, but conversed with heathen orators to bring their language to a more polite or Attic dialect. And these also came under the censures of the Church. It is remarkable what Sozomen tells us of Triphyllius, a Cyprian bishop, (who was one of these nice and delicate men, who thought the style of Scripture not so elegant as it might be made), that having occasion in a discourse before Spiridion, and some other Cyprian bishops, to cite those words of our Saviour, "Apov σ5 Tо κράββατον και περιπάτει, take up thy bed and walk, he would not use the word, kpáßßarov, but instead of it put, okiμπoda, as being a more elegant word in his opinion. To whom Spiridion with an holy indignation and zeal replied, “art thou better than him that said, κρáßßarov, that thou

1 Con. Carth. iv. c. 16. Ut Episcopus gentilium libros non legat; hæreticorum autem pro necessitate et tempore. 2 Hieron. Ep. 146. ad Damasum de Filio Prodigo. tom. iii. p. 129. Sacerdotes Dei, omissis Evangeliis et Prophetis, videmus comoedias legere, amatoria bucolicorum versuum verba canere, Virgilium tenere; et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere voluptatis. * Sozom. lib. i. c. 11.

shouldest be ashamed to use his words?" Thereby admonishing him to be a little more modest, and not give human eloquence the preference before the Holy Scriptures. Another sort of men conversed with heathen authors rather than the Scriptures, because they thought them more for their turn, to arm them with sophistry to impose their errors upon the simplicity of others. As the anonymous author in Eusebius,' who writes against the Theodosian heretics, observes of the leading men of that party," that, leaving the Holy Scriptures, they generally spent their time in Euclid and Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen; using the quirks and sophisms of infidel writers to palliate their heresy, and corrupt the simplicity of the Christian Faith." Now in all these cases, the reading of heathen 'authors for such unworthy ends was very disallowable, because it was always done with a manifest neglect and contempt of the Holy Scriptures, and therefore upon such grounds deservedly forbidden by the canons of the Church. But then on the other hand there were some cases, in which it was very allowable to read gentile authors, and the Church's prohibition did not extend to these. For sometimes it was necessary to read them, in order to confute and expose their errors, that others might not be infected thereby. Thus St. Jerom observes of Daniel," "that he was taught in the knowledge of the Chaldæans, and Moses in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; which it was no sin to learn, so long as they did not learn it to follow it, but to censure and refute it." St. Ambrose says,3 "he read some books that others might not read them; he read them to know their errors, tion others against them." This was one reason, why sometimes heathen writers might be read by men of learning, in order to set a mark upon them. Another reason was, that many of them were useful and subservient to the cause of religion, either for confirming the truth of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of Christianity, or for exposing

2 Hieron. Com. in Dan. c. 1.

and cau

Nunquam

1 Euseb. lib. v. c. 28. acquiescerent discere quod non licebat. Discunt autem non ut sequantur, sed ut judicent atque convincant. 8 Ambros. Prooem. in Luc. Evang.

Legimus aliqua, ne legantur; legimus, ne ignoremus ; legimus, non ut teneamus, sed ut repudiemus.

and refuting the errors and vanities of the heathens themselves. Thus St. Jerom observes, "that both the Greek and Latin historians, such as Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, Trogus Pompeius, and Livy, are of great use as well to explain as confirm the truth of Daniel's prophecies." And St. Austin' says the same of the writings of Orpheus and the Sibyls, and Hermes, and other heathen philosophers," that, as they said many things that were true both concerning God and the Son of God, they were in that respect very serviceable in refuting the vanities of the gentiles." Upon which account not only St. Austin and St. Jerom, but most of the ancient writers of the Church, were usually well versed in the learning of the gentiles, as every one knows that knows any thing of them. St. Jerom, in one short Epistle, mentions the greatest part of those that lived before his own time, both Greeks and Latins, and says of them all in general, that their books are so filled with the sentences and opinions of philosophers, that it is hard to say which is most to be admired, their secular learning, or their knowledge in the Scriptures. And herein is comprised the plain state of this matter;-the clergy were obliged in the first place to be very diligent in studying the Scriptures, and after them the Canons, and approved writers of the Church, according to men's abilities, capacities, and opportunities; for the same measures could not be exacted of all. Beyond this, as there was no obligation on them to read human learning, so there was no absolute prohibition of it; but where it could be made to minister as an handmaid to divinity, and not usurp or encroach upon it, there

'Hieron. Prolog, in Dan. Ad intelligendas extremas partes Danielis, multiplex Græcorum historia necessaria est, &c. Et si quando cogimur literarum secularium recordari, et aliqua ex his dicere quæ olim omisimus; non nostræ est voluntatis, sed ut ita dicam, gravissimæ necessitatis.

Ut probemus ea, quæ tam Græcorum quàm 8 Aug. cont. Faust.

à Sanctis Prophetis ante multa secula prædicta sunt, Latinorum et aliarum Gentium literis contineri. lib. xiii. c. 15. Sibyllæ et Orpheus, et nescio quis Hermes, et si qui alii vates, vel theologi, vel sapientes, vel philosophi Gentium de Filio Dei, aut de Patre Deo vera prædixisse seu dixisse perhibentur; valet quidem aliquid ad Paganorum vanitatem revincendam, s Hieron. Ep. 84. ad Magnum,

In tantum philosophorum doctrinis atque sententiis suos referciunt libros, ut nescias quid in illis primum admirari debeas, eruditionem seculi, an scien. tiam Scripturarum,

VOL. I,

3 x