Victor, conveyed in these ominous
words, "Learn first what is to be believed" (_Disce primo quod
credendum est_), meaning thereby that one should first accept
doctrines, and then find texts to confirm them.
These principles being dominant, the accretions to the enormous
fabric of interpretation went steadily on. Typical is the fact that
the Venerable Bede contributed to it the doctrine that, in the text
mentioning Elkanah and his two wives, Elkanah means Christ and the
two wives the Synagogue and the Church. Even such men as Alfred the
Great and St. Thomas Aquinas were added to the forces at work in
building above the sacred books this prodigious structure of sophistry.
Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the tenacity of the old system
of interpretation than the sermons of Savonarola. During the last
decade of the fifteenth century, just at the close of the medieval
period, he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle at Florence. No
man ever preached more powerfully the gospel of righteousness; none
ever laid more stress on conduct; even Luther was not more zealous
for reform or more careless of tradition; and yet we find the great
Florentine apostle and martyr absolutely tied fast to the old
system of allegorical interpretation.
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