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It follows from this that it can only be true in sensu allegorico and not in sensu proprio.
When the Church says that, in the dogmas of religion, reason is totally incompetent and blind, and its use to be reprehended, it is in reality attesting the fact that these dogmas are allegorical in their nature, and are not to be judged by the standard which reason, taking all things sensu proprio, can alone apply.
Quod si quem etiam ista delectant, ne omnino bellum indixisse videar voluptati, cuius est fortasse quidam naturalis modus, non intellego ne in istis quidem ipsis voluptatibus carere sensu senectutem.
Hence the Augustinian doctrine, confirmed by Luther, is the complete form of Christianity; and the Protestants of to-day, who take Revelation sensu proprio and confine it to a single individual, are in error in looking upon the first beginnings of Christianity as its most perfect expression.
They both start with the supposition that religion must be the truth; and while the former prove that it is not, the latter obstinately maintain that it is; or rather the former cut up and dress the allegory in such a way that it could be true in sensu proprio but would in that case become a platitude.
James Bowyer, the 'Hercules furens' of the phlogistic sect, but else an incomparable teacher, used to translate, 'Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu', first reciting the Latin words, and observing that they were the fundamental article of the Peripatetic school, "You must flog a boy, before you can make him understand;" or, "You must lay it in at the tail before you can get it into the head."
And, what is worse, the day arrives when they are no longer true sensu proprio, and then there is an end of them; so that, in that respect, it would be better to admit their allegorical nature at once. But the difficulty is to teach the multitude that something can be both true and untrue at the same time.
such a man is five hundred cubits above kingdoms and duchies; he is an absolute monarch in and to himself: "Sapiens, . . . Pol! ipse fingit fortunam sibi;" what remains for him to covet or desire? "Nonne videmus, Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut, quoi Corpore sejunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur, Jucundo sensu, cura semotu' metuque?"
But the bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrine in all seriousness as true sensu proprio, and as absurdities form an essential part of these doctrines, you have the great mischief of a continual fraud.
If the allegory were admitted to be such, I should say nothing against it; but in that case it would be deprived of all respect, and consequently of all efficacy. Therefore the allegory must assert a claim, which it must maintain, to be true in sensu proprio while at the most it is true in sensu allegorico.
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