At the beginning of the fourth century
Lactantius struck the key-note of this mode of subordinating all
other things in the study of creation to the literal text of
Scripture, and he enforces his view of the creation of man by a bit
of philology, saying the final being created "is called man because
he is made from the ground--_homo ex humo_."
In the second half of the same century this view as to the literal
acceptance of the sacred text was reasserted by St. Ambrose, who,
in his work on the creation, declared that "Moses opened his mouth
and poured forth what God had said to him." But a greater than
either of them fastened this idea into the Christian theologies.
St. Augustine, preparing his _Commentary on the Book of Genesis_,
laid down in one famous sentence the law which has lasted in the
Church until our own time: "Nothing is to be accepted save on the
authority of Scripture, since greater is that authority than all
the powers of the human mind." The vigour of the sentence in its
original Latin carried it ringing down the centuries: "_Major est
Scripturae auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas_.
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