Annotatio LV
”And God made for Adam tunics of skin.” — Genesis 3:21
Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, in question 39 on Genesis, digressing upon this little clause, after many things which he said in passing, at last brought in a certain somewhat harsh opinion, in these plain words: “One must not adhere to the bare letter of holy Scripture as [if it were] true, but must seek the treasure hidden in the letter — for the reason that the very letter of divine Scripture sometimes says something false.”1 These words, indeed, are not so to be understood that we should think the letter of divine Scripture — which is truth itself — pronounces anything false; but that, to us who consider only the bare sound of the letter and do not look into the meaning hidden in it, it seems to say something false.2
Footnotes
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Left margin: Whether the letter of divine Scripture sometimes says something false. (An litera divinae scripturae aliquoties falsum dicat.) ↩
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Left margin: Scripture, to those who consider only the bare letter, seems to say something false. (Scriptura ijs qui tantùm literam sanam [nudam] considerant, videtur dicere falsum.) ↩