220 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



no true insight into the spirit of Scripture, which, in 

 Jerome, led to an increasing dependence not only on the 

 ecclesiastical faith, but on the exegetical labours of his 

 predecessors, and which soon bore fruit in the entire 

 subjection of all interpretation, not simply to the general 

 rule of faith, but to every detail of an authoritative 

 exegetical tradition. In this last step the subordination 

 under human teaching of the still nominally supreme 

 authority of Scripture was really completed. Nor was it 

 possible, without a complete upturning of all established 

 foundations, to vindicate for the Word its true place. 

 [ On purely exegetical ground some advance was made 

 during the middle ages, especially since Nicolaus de Lyra. 

 Hebrew began to be studied. More attention was paid 

 to the literal sense as the foundation of higher meanings. 

 But a radical improvement was impossible except in 

 connection with a religious reformation, which should 

 convince men that the real essence of Christianity lay 

 in something deeper than mere instruction in supernatural 

 things, that Christian faith was not simply a function of 

 the intellect, assenting to higher truths than those of 

 reason.] And these were convictions which the School 

 Theology never reached, even in the person of those 

 doctors who most closely followed Augustin, and thus 

 come nearer to the Reformation, and have least in 

 common with the post-Tridentine forms of Roman 

 doctrine. 



Thus Thomas begins his Summa with the consideration 

 that salvation becomes possible by the existence, in 

 addition to philosophic science, of a doctrine per revela- 

 tionem de Us quae hominis captum excedunt et nonnullis 

 etiam aliis quae humana ratione investigari possunt, a 

 doctrine argumentative indeed in its conclusions, but 

 resting in its principles on the authority of Scripture, 

 and so to be received by faith. Faith, then, and reason 

 stand opposed. They are two methods of reaching 

 truth : even the same truth, for, as Thomas elsewhere 



