# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1861_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6   Theological Axioms.

pastoral conference to urge us to publish our collection in print. Now that the latter has been done, we hereby comply with that request, in the hope that our collection — still very incomplete, drawn especially from Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Kromayer, Danhauer, Calov, Quenstedt, Balduin, Scherzer, Hülsemann, Conr. Dietrich, Aug. Pfeiffer and others, as well as from the symbolical books and the church fathers — may be of some use to the less well-versed reader.

We follow, in our arrangement, the order in which Johann Gerhard presents his Loci. As for the selection, it is to be hoped that no one will be surprised that so many self-evident statements occur in it. For the fault of more recent theology lies not in the fact that the theological axioms are unknown, but rather in the fact that they are not heeded. It is therefore necessary to keep them not merely read once, but continually before one's eyes. Since most axioms were originally written in Latin or also in Greek, and very often contain, only in that their original idiom, exceedingly charming and ingenious plays on words, we give them also in their own language, but then always immediately add beneath them the German translation, for the sake of those readers who are not versed in the Latin and Greek languages. Later we intend to give a few hints concerning several of them — their origin, correct understanding, and proper use. Until then we leave it to the readers themselves to weigh their rich and important content.

I. Of Theology.

1. Theologia est habitus intellectus θεόσδοτος practicus per verbum a Spiritu sancto collatus.

Theology is a God-given practical aptitude of the understanding, imparted through the Word by the Holy Spirit.

2. "Oratio, meditatio et tentatio faciunt theologum."

Prayer, meditation, and trial make a theologian.

3. "Credimus, ut intelligamus, non intelligimus, ut credamus."

We believe, that we may understand; we do not understand, that we may believe.

4. Fides praecedit intellectum.

Faith precedes understanding.

5. Theologia nihil aliud est, atque grammatica, in Spiritus sancti verbis occupata.

Theology is nothing other than a grammar occupied with the words of the Holy Spirit.

6. Majestate theologica indignum non est, habere in gynecaeo ancillas etiam peregrinas.

It is not unworthy of the dignity of theology to have, in its household, foreign handmaids as well.