We have completed what had been set for us, and have investigated the doctrine of the whole Catholic name concerning the salvific will of God and the universal order of restoration with such care and zeal that we may appear not to have been altogether wanting to the work undertaken. For we have not brought forward only a few obscure witnesses, but have questioned nearly all—Syrians, Greeks, Latins, Easterners, and Westerners; nor have we reported a few mutilated and doubtful judgments of theirs—
—but have transcribed, weighed, and illustrated very many entire and most certain testimonies, so that we judge ourselves guilty rather of prolixity and satiety than of deficiency and scarcity. Indeed, what names of any reputation and celebrity have we passed over? What churches have we not traversed? Or what have we omitted by which it might become known what the individual churches, or what all of them, thought, handed down, and defended?
These things alone, therefore, appear to remain which may not undeservedly be required of us: first, that those things which we gave ἀναλυτικῶς, analytically—that is, separately and dispersed—we comprehend συνθετικῶς, synthetically, in one sum and one summit; and then, that we show what errors are destroyed by these things and what truths in turn are established. We shall carry out both by a certain series of πορίσματα, corollaries, and consequences, and we shall carry them out in this order: let those corollaries precede by which the way is leveled; let those follow which conduce to establishing the truths; and let those succeed in the final place by which the opposing errors are overthrown. Let the παρασκευαστικά, the preparatory conclusions, precede; let the καταφατικά, the affirmative, follow; and let the ἀποφατικά and ἐριστικά, the negative and disputative, close the column.