It is a shrewd saying that a one-eyed man may be king among the
blind. With uneducated people a mock-proof has force which a
school of philosophers dismisses with scorn. Many are the
offences of the adversary under this head; but his case is made
out by four fallacies chiefly, fallacies which I would rather
unravel in the University than in a popular audience. The first
vice is [Greek: skiamachia], with mighty effort hammering at
breezes and shadows. In this way: against such as have sworn to
celibacy and vowed chastity, because, while marriage is good,
virginity is better (1 Cor. vii.), Scripture texts are brought
up speaking honourably of marriage. Whom do they hit? Against
the merit of a Christian man, a merit dyed in the Blood of
Christ, otherwise null, testimonies are alleged whereby we are
bidden to put our trust neither in nature nor in the law, but in
the Blood of Christ. Whom do they refute? Against those who
worship Saints, as Christ's servants, especially acceptable to
Him, whole pages are quoted, forbidding the worship of many
gods? Where are these many gods? By such arguments, which I find
in endless quantity in the writings of heretics, they cannot
hurt us, they may bore you.
Another vice is [Greek: logomachia], which leaves the sense, and
wrangles loquaciously over the word. _Find me Mass or Purgatory
in the Scriptures_, they say. What then? Trinity, Consubstantial,
Person, are they nowhere in the Bible, because these words are
not found? Allied to this fault is the catching at letters, when,
to the neglect of usage and the mind of the speakers, war is
waged on the letters of the alphabet. For instance, thus they
say: _Presbyter to the Greeks means nothing else than elder;
Sacrament, any mystery_. On this, as on all other points, St.
Thomas shrewdly observes: "In words, we must look not whence they
are derived, but to what meaning they are put."
The third vice is [Greek: homonumia], which has a very wide
range. For example: _What is the meaning of an Order of Priests,
when John has called us all priests?_ (Apoc. v. 10). He has also
added this: _we shall reign upon the earth_. What then is the use
of Kings? Again: _the Prophet_ (Isaias lviii.) _cries up a
spiritual fast, that is, abstinence from inveterate crimes.
Farewell then to any discernment of meats and prescription of
days._ Indeed? Mad therefore were Moses, David, Elias, the
Baptist, the Apostles, who terminated their fasts in two days,
three days, or in so many weeks, which fasting, being from sin,
ought to have been perpetual. You have already seen what manner
of argument this is. I hasten on.
Added to the above is a fourth vice, Vicious Circle, in this way.
Give me the notes, I say, of the Church. _The word of God and
undefiled Sacraments_. Are these with you? _Who can doubt it?_ I
do, I deny it utterly. _Consult the word of God._ I have
consulted it, and I favour you less than before. _Ah, but it is
plain._ Prove it to me. _Because we do not depart a nail's
breadth from the word of God._ Where is your persecution? Will
you always go on taking for an argument the very point that is
called in question? How often have I insisted on this already? Do
wake up: do you want torches applied to you? I say that your
exposition of the word of God is perverse and mistaken: I have
fifteen centuries to bear me witness stand by an opinion, not
mine, nor yours, but that of all these ages. _I will stand by the
sentence of the word of God: the Spirit breatheth where it will_
(John iii. 8). There he is at it again; what circumvolutions,
what wheels he is making! This trifler, this arch-contriver of
words and sophisms, I know not to whom he can be formidable:
tiresome he possibly will be. His tiresomeness will find its
corrective in your sagacity: all that was formidable about him
facts have taken away.