On the Ecclesiastical Scriptures and Dogmas, in Four Books

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Original title: De ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus libri quatuor A Latin treatise of controversial theology in four books by a theologian of the Leuven faculty, written against the Lutheran appeal to Scripture alone. It asks how the Church knows which books are divine, which Latin text binds, and what binds beyond the written page. Book I treats the canon, its sacred status, and difficulties concerning the authorship and dates of the books, grounding knowledge of the canon in the testimony of the Church across its succession. Book II treats the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the senses of Scripture, and the way to the true sense. It distinguishes the inspired writer from the fallible translator and defends the Vulgate on the basis of its long reception. Book III sets out rules for obscurity, including a digest of Augustinian and Tyconian rules, a treatment of obscurity of diction and of things, and an extended excursus on chronology. Book IV turns to authority beyond the canon: the apocrypha, patristic and scholastic authority, the unity of the Church, the chair of Peter, the relation of Church and Scripture, and custom and unwritten tradition. The first printing was made at Leuven by Rutger Rescius for Bartholomeus Gravius, in folio, and is dated by Nijhoff–Kronenberg to 10 June 1533. The treatise later headed Driedo's collected Opera, recorded in a 1552 Leuven folio edited under the care of Ruard Tapper and in a 1556 first volume from Gravius's press. The collected volume includes a dedication to John III of Portugal and an imperial privilege. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

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