CCLXXXI. By internal and external arguments it is established that this testimony must be regarded as principal

Those who discuss more subtly the laws of right interpretation skillfully admonish, among many other things, this also: that care must altogether be taken lest several testimonies which perhaps occur concerning the same matter be held in the same rank; but if some are fuller and more evident, they should be preferred to the others, and light should be derived from them unto the others. They call these the principal passages of interpretation and not rarely classical passages. Now that the apostolic testimony which we have reported and whose various readings we have indicated must be numbered among these in the present controversy is proved by both internal and external arguments.

For the internal arguments demand that that passage be regarded as principal whose reading is indubitable as regards the substance of the matter, which consists of perspicuous and common words, whose construction is simple and impeded by no roughness, and in which the matter itself is not indicated in passing but accurately declared and purposely explained. For if these things flow together, everything is present by which the account of a principal passage is completed. But there is none of these things which does not most fittingly agree with the testimony of Paul: for its reading is certain and fixed as regards the substance; it is composed of perspicuous words worn by use; it exhibits a clear syntax freed from knots; and the salvific will is so treated in it that whatever things contribute to its knowledge are proposed fully and lucidly. Therefore, when the internal arguments are considered, the account of a principal passage cannot be denied to the testimony of the Apostle.

Nor can it be denied to the same testimony if the external arguments are weighed. But I call external those arguments which are sought from authority and which extend in two directions. For either they are drawn from an authority which simply creates persuasion, or they are drawn from an authority to which the force of producing faith belongs only hypothetically. Of the former kind are those which flow from the fountain of Christian tradition; but of the latter, those which the consensus of parties otherwise contending supplies. But the force and dignity of a principal passage are vindicated for the apostolic testimony no less by Christian tradition than by the consensus of the disputants.

It is vindicated, I., by Christian tradition, both because a) all the Greek—

—Fathers without exception had recourse to this testimony in controversies concerning the salvific will of God, the state of restoration, redemption through Christ, the amplitude of grace, predestination, and reprobation; explained it with one and the same commentary; and derived from it an open and excellent solution of the questions¹; and because b), before the Pelagian and Semipelagian controversies had arisen, not even one Latin writer can be found who did not agree entirely with the Orientals in the same interpretation²; and because c), when the Pelagian and Semipelagian dissensions were growing stronger, the most weighty and especially orthodox writers asserted and strenuously defended the ancient and universal interpretation which had proceeded from the very age of the Apostles³; and because d), in the ninth century, this same original and apostolic interpretation was defended and confirmed by published canons⁴; and because e) the whole School drew especially from this oracle the division of the divine will into antecedent and consequent, and with one voice taught the infinite amplitude and fecundity of the antecedent will and the state of restoration joined with each will⁵.

To this is added the consensus of the disputants, by which, II., the dignity of a principal passage is vindicated for the apostolic words. For all the Calvinists, whether they are supralapsarians or infralapsarians, the Lutherans, Jansenists, and orthodox⁶, readily confess that the substance of the controversy depends upon these words; and therefore they leave no stone unmoved so that they may persuade themselves that these words support them and their tenets, or at least do not oppose them. It is clear, therefore, that the internal and external arguments tend to this: that in the kind of controversies which we have here, we attribute the principal place and supreme seat to the words of Paul to Timothy⁷.