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62. But when the student of the Holy Scriptures, prepared in the way I
have indicated, shall enter upon his investigations, let him constantly
meditate upon that saying of the apostle’s, “Knowledge puffeth up, but
charity edifieth.” For so he will feel that, whatever may be the riches
he brings with him out of Egypt, yet unless he has kept the Passover,
he cannot be safe. Now Christ is our Passover sacrificed for us, and
there is nothing the sacrifice of Christ more clearly teaches us than
the call which He himself addresses to those whom He sees toiling in
Egypt under Pharaoh: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of
me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” To whom is it
light but to the meek and lowly in heart, whom knowledge does not puff
up, but charity edifieth? Let them remember, then, that those who
celebrated the Passover at that time in type and shadow, when they were
ordered to mark their door-posts with the blood of the lamb, used
hyssop to mark them with. Now this is a meek and lowly herb, and yet
nothing is stronger and more penetrating than its roots; that being
rooted and grounded in love, we may be able to comprehend with all
saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height,–that
is, to comprehend the cross of our Lord, the breadth of which is
indicated by the transverse wood on which the hands are stretched, its
length by the part from the ground up to the crossbar on which the
whole body from the head downwards is fixed, its height by the part
from the crossbar to the top on which the head lies, and its depth by
the part which is hidden, being fixed in the earth. And by this sign of
the cross all Christian action is symbolized, viz., to do good works in
Christ, to cling with constancy to Him, to hope for heaven, and not to
desecrate the sacraments. And purified by this Christian action, we
shall be able to know even “the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge,” who is equal to the Father, by whom all things, were made,
“that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.” There is besides
in hyssop a purgative virtue, that the breast may not be swollen with
that knowledge which puffeth up, nor boast vainly of the riches brought
out from Egypt. “Purge me with hyssop,” the psalmist says, “and I shall
be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy
and gladness.” Then he immediately adds, to show that it is purifying
from pride that is indicated by hyssop, “that the bones which Thou hast
broken may rejoice.”

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60. Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the
Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith,
we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use
from those who have unlawful possession of it. For, as the Egyptians
had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel
hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver,
and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt
appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing
this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians
themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they
themselves, were not making a good use of; in the same way all branches
of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and
heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going
out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen,
ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction
which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most
excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the
worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to
speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but
dug out of the mines of God’s providence which are everywhere scattered
abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship
of devils. These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself
in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take
away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the
gospel. Their garments, also,–that is, human institutions such as are
adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this
life,–we must take and turn to a Christian use.

61. And what else have many good and faithful men among our brethren
done? Do we not see with what a quantity of gold and silver and
garments Cyprian, that most persuasive teacher and most blessed martyr,
was loaded when he came out of Egypt? How much Lactantius brought with
him? And Victorious, and Optatus, and Hilary, not to speak of living
men! How much Greeks out of number have borrowed! And prior to all
these, that most faithful servant of God, Moses, had done the same
thing; for of him it is written that he was learned in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians. And to none of all these would heathen superstition
(especially in those times when, kicking against the yoke of Christ, it
was persecuting the Christians) have ever furnished branches of
knowledge it held useful, if it had suspected they were about to turn
them to the use of worshipping the One God, and thereby overturning the
vain worship of idols. But they gave their gold and their silver and
their garments to the people of God as they were going out of Egypt,
not knowing how the things they gave would be turned to the service of
Christ. For what was done at the time of the exodus was no doubt a type
prefiguring what happens now. And this I say without prejudice to any
other interpretation that may be as good, or better.

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58. Accordingly, I think that it is well to warn studious and able
young men, who fear God and are seeking for happiness of life, not to
venture heedlessly upon the pursuit of the branches of learning that
are in vogue beyond the pale of the Church of Christ, as if these could
secure for them the happiness they seek; but soberly and carefully to
discriminate among them. And if they find any of those which have been
instituted by men varying by reason of the varying pleasure of their
founders, and unknown by reason of erroneous conjectures, especially if
they involve entering into fellowship with devils by means of leagues
and covenants about signs, let these he utterly rejected and held in
detestation. Let the young men also withdraw their attention from such
institutions of men as are unnecessary and luxurious. But for the sake
of the necessities of this life we must not neglect the arrangements of
men that enable us to carry on intercourse with those around us. I
think, however, there is nothing useful in the other branches of
learning that are found among the heathen, except information about
objects, either past or present, that relate to the bodily senses, in
which are included also the experiments and conclusions of the useful
mechanical arts, except also the sciences of reasoning and of number.
And in regard to all these we must hold by the maxim, “Not too much of
anything;” especially in the case of those which, pertaining as they do
to the senses, are subject to the relations of space and time.

59. What, then, some men have done in regard to all words and names
found in Scripture, in the Hebrew, and Syrian, and Egyptian, and other
tongues, taking up and interpreting separately such as were left in
Scripture without interpretation; and what Eusebius has done in regard
to the history of the past with a view to the questions arising in
Scripture that require a knowledge of history for their
solution;–what, I say, these men have done in regard to matters of
this kind, making it unnecessary for the Christian to spend his
strength on many subjects for the sake of a few items of knowledge, the
same, I think, might be done in regard to other matters, if any
competent man were willing in a spirit of benevolence to undertake the
labour for the advantage of his brethren. In this way he might arrange
in their several classes, and give an account of the unknown places,
and animals, and plants, and trees, and stones, and metals, and other
species of things that are mentioned in Scripture, taking up these
only, and committing his account to writing. This might also be done in
relation to numbers, so that the theory of those numbers, and those
only, which are mentioned in Holy Scripture, might be explained and
written down. And it may happen that some or all of these things have
been done already (as I have found that many things I had no notion of
have been worked out and committed to writing by good and learned
Christians), but are either lost amid the crowds of the careless, or
are kept out of sight by the envious. And I am not sure whether the
same thing can be done in regard to the theory of reasoning; but it
seems to me it cannot, because this runs like a system of nerves
through the whole structure of Scripture, and on that account is of
more service to the reader in disentangling and explaining ambiguous
passages, of which I shall speak hereafter, than in ascertaining the
meaning of unknown signs, the topic I am now discussing.

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56. Coming now to the science of number, it is clear to the dullest
apprehension that this was not created by man, but was discovered by
investigation. For, though Virgil could at his own pleasure make the
first syllable of Italia long, while the ancients pronounced it short,
it is not in any man’s power to determine at his pleasure that three
times three are not nine, or do not make a square, or are not the
triple of three, nor one and a half times the number six, or that it is
not true that they are not the double of any number because odd numbers
have no half. Whether, then, numbers are considered in themselves, or
as applied to the laws of figures, or of sounds, or of other motions,
they have fixed laws which were not made by man, but which the
acuteness of ingenious men brought to light.

57. The man, however, who puts so high a value on these things as to be
inclined to boast himself one of the learned, and who does not rather
inquire after the source from which those things which he perceives to
be true derive their truth, and from which those others which he
perceives to be unchangeable also derive their truth and
unchangeableness, and who, mounting up from bodily appearances to the
mind of man, and finding that it too is changeable (for it is sometimes
instructed, at other times uninstructed), although it holds a middle
place between the unchangeable truth above it and the changeable things
beneath it, does not strive to make all things redound to the praise
and love of the one God from whom he knows that all things have their
being;– the man, I say, who acts in this way may seem to be learned,
but wise he cannot in any sense be deemed.