Prologue

To our most worshipful master, John Sudoris, corrector of this work.¹

Rigid labours give rough fields to mortals, fields that hold kindly bodies in grassy flower.² The sweats of virtue have the splendid rewards of serene [glory], which kingly honour accompanies. So honour comes from sweat; so the contests of war earn their sweats; all things flow from labour. Only sweats keep the names of fame; honest sweat goes to the stars of the heavenly house. What trumpet, what sound, will refuse to praise holy Sweat? No one proves to have seen it barren. Let a man revere Sweat if he seeks to live, for by constant sweat kindly rest is given. Let the lofty race, then, sing with sounding reeds the deeds that fall out by sweat: that labour is light.

Distich. The doctor Sudoris sweated in the sacred art, lest the Armenian work should carry barbarous writing.

Distich. It is pleasant to remember Sudoris: sweat gives honour. You have sweated; it is enough: sweat has its rewards.

Prologue. Here begins the Summa of the lord Richard Radulphi,³ archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, on the errors of the Armenians, corrected and emended by John Sudoris of Caux[?], of the diocese of Rouen, most deserving doctor of sacred theology[?], formerly bursar in theology of the royal college of Navarre.⁴

To the reverend fathers in Christ, Nerses, archbishop of Manazkert, and brother John, bishop-elect of Khlat, of Greater Armenia,⁵ Richard Radulphi, archbishop of Armagh, primate of Ireland: by grace to thirst after justice, until you draw waters with joy out of the saviour's fountains.⁶

From the disclosure of your holy devotion I have learned that, for want of exercise in the sacred Scriptures, certain ancient heresies condemned by the holy fathers, and a number of new erroneous assertions contrary to sacred Scripture, have sprung up in your parts. On account of these, which are to be cut away by the Latin doctors out of the sacred writings (since their patrons do not admit the authority of the Roman church, judging that its authority cannot be proved from the sacred writings), zeal for the house of God and the charity of Christ brought you[?] to the Roman curia.⁷ And when I had conferred with you there several times on these very errors, you urged my slenderness the more devoutly to write for you on your questions what the Lord should deign to open to me. Your desire, so acceptable to God,⁸ I did not dare to resist, fearing the exaction of spiritual usury if I neglected the office of the steward over the gifts received from the Lord; and, relying on the promise of him who gives the word to them that preach good tidings with great power,⁹ ardently desiring to receive more on this account, so that [?] the more.¹⁰ Nor ought greater men to be indignant with me, since they, by whom it could have been better accomplished, have wholly neglected it; and I, with the widow of the gospel, desire to offer the mites that I have into the house of the Lord, trusting (he is my witness) to penetrate difficult things more by the support of humble prayer than by subtlety of wit. Nor do I refuse the correction of greater men, but desire it.

And the work itself, whose title I wished to be On the Questions of the Armenians, and which I have divided into nineteen parts or books, setting before each book its matter of faith and its occasion, I commit in whole and in part to the approval and reproval of our father the pope, Clement VI, supreme pontiff of the universal church. In the first five books that principal question of the Armenians will be treated: whether Christ had in himself two full natures, namely the divine and the human, so that because of the union of those two natures the Lord Jesus Christ was in himself truly a suppositum, person or hypostasis in each nature, namely[?] true God and true man.

The first book, then, against the Nestorian heresy, introduced by a certain Nestorius,¹¹ which affirms in Christ a human nature only, so that Christ was man and not God (a heresy which Cerinthus, Merinthus[?], Theodotion, and also the blinded Jews and many of the eastern nations have followed down to the present), having first made plain what sense of sacred Scripture is to be reckoned literal, shows from the scripture of the New Testament, according to its literal sense, that the Christ whom we worship is God.

The second book, against the Jews especially, proves from the Old Testament according to its literal sense that the Christ or Messiah promised in their scripture must be God.

The third book shows from the same Old Testament scripture that our Christ, whom we worship, is or was he who was promised to the Jewish people in that scripture.

In the fourth book the objections of the Jewish people against what was shown in books 2 and 3 are treated; and in it rules are given and proved that are sure for resolving these objections and all other Jewish objections.

In the fifth book, against the heresy of Arius and Apollinaris, who affirm that there was no human soul in Christ but that the divinity was in Christ in place of the soul, and also against the heresy of Mani, who says that Christ had not a true human body but a phantasmal body, testimonies of sacred Scripture are brought; and consequently, against the heresy that holds that the human body was in Christ as a kind of garment and clothing of the divinity, as in angels when they assume human bodies, and against the heresy of Dioscorus, who affirms that the human nature in Christ was changed into the divine, testimonies are brought forward from both Testaments.

The sixth book shows from the scriptures of both Testaments that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as from the Father, which is denied by the Greeks and by most of the Armenians.

The seventh book proves from Scripture that the Roman church is the head of the whole Christian church.

The eighth book resolves several questions of the Armenians on the sacrament of baptism and its form.

The ninth book treats several of their questions on the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, of confirmation and of unction.

The tenth book treats their questions on the unlawful ways of conferring, acquiring and holding the free gifts of God and the prelacies of the church, and whether the grace of God is required for having lordship.

The eleventh book resolves their questions on the power of absolving of a simple priest and on the punishment of the souls of wicked men before the final judgment.

The twelfth book treats questions of the Armenians on the beatitude of the souls of certain of the just, and also on the purgation of certain souls, before the final judgment.

The thirteenth book, which I added on account of Athanasius the Greek, who denies purgatory,¹² treats four articles on the satisfaction owed for sins in this life and also after this life.

The fourteenth book treats the questions of the Greeks and the Armenians on the naked and clear vision of the divine essence by the truly blessed, which most of them deny.

The five remaining books, lest the proofs brought in the earlier books should seem weak to some who have a law, or who lack a law yet follow reason, make plain the strength of the authority of Christian Scripture by argument open and sufficient to anyone [?] willing to acquiesce in reason.¹³

The fifteenth book objects against the authority of [our?] Scripture from the contingency of the future things foretold in it, which are able not to come to pass; and, on the occasion of a certain new error asserting that all future things come about of necessity or inevitably, it therefore shows the freedom of contradiction in the human will, from the natural writings as well as from the divine, and by manifold argument also the contingency of future things.

The sixteenth book sets out three of the objections touched on before, taken from the infallibility of divine Scripture, from the immutable divine foreknowledge, and from the omnipotent, invincible and also efficacious divine will; and it resolves them from their proper principles, showing evidently the contingency of future things and the freedom of contradiction of the divine and the human will.

The seventeenth book sets out the remaining six objections: from God's special cooperation with the working will of man; from the intrinsic sustaining of things by the omnipotent divine power; from the divine cooperation, general and immediate, with every created agent; from the necessity of the outcome of our external acts; from the assertion of divine Scripture about the outcome of all future things; and from the irrevocable divine providence that disposes all things in the best way. And it resolves those objections, affirming the thesis.

The eighteenth book sets out other objections tending to weaken the authority of our Scripture, and removes them, showing the authority of the old law from the new; and consequently it proves that both [testaments?] carry[?] authority and force from the law of the Saracens;¹⁴ and with this it affirms by manifold argument that our law, as handed down, has not been and is not corrupted in its greater articles.

The nineteenth book compares our law with the old law as regards sacraments and ceremonies, on the basis of a sufficient division, showing from the Old Testament that our evangelical and apostolic law is incomparably firmer and that the Jews are to be condemned; and it treats a certain presupposition of the preceding book and of this one, concerning the miracles of our apostles; and it also shows that our law has more strength than natural reason has when it attacks it, or than any deeds of the gentiles; and with this it completes the whole work.

And since the method of teaching by question and answer seems easier to many, although it is somewhat more long-winded, some of our [writers] use [it ...]¹⁵ I have taken a beloved disciple as though disputing with me, so that John is to be understood to play the part of the one who asks, and Richard the part of the one who teaches, or rather who answers. Receive, then, reverend fathers, the work you asked for, weighing out to me, if you please, the reward of prayer for this labour. The work begins thus: "John. Since from the literal meaning of sacred Scripture."

Here begin the chapters of the first book.

In the first book he treats of the literal sense of sacred Scripture, and consequently shows from the New Testament that our Christ, whom we worship, was true God; and it has seventeen chapters.

The first chapter raises objections on the literal sense of sacred Scripture and resolves them in general.

The second chapter raises the objection who is to be called the author of sacred Scripture, and resolves the objections.

The third chapter raises a more particular objection on the author of Scripture against the preceding chapter, and resolves it.

The fourth chapter raises a harder objection on the double authority[?] and double literal sense of Scripture.¹⁶

The fifth resolves the objections of the preceding one on the double literal sense and the threefold author.

The sixth chapter lists many sayings of our Scripture that some think sufficiently infer that our Christ was God, which nevertheless do not seem to others to do so.

The seventh chapter proves that our Christ was true God from the testimonies of John the Evangelist, from the gospel and from his first epistle.

The eighth chapter contains testimonies from chapters 3 and [5?] of John's gospel.

The ninth chapter is on the sayings of John in chapters 8 and 10 of his gospel.

The tenth chapter has testimonies of the scripture of Saint John from chapters 14, 16 and [17?], and from the Apocalypse.¹⁷

The eleventh chapter contains three testimonies from the gospel of Matthew, chapters 1, 2, 23 and the last.

The twelfth chapter contains proofs from the last chapter of the gospel of Luke and from chapters 16 and 14 of Matthew and Mark.

The thirteenth chapter contains testimonies of Paul the apostle in the epistles to the Corinthians.

The fourteenth chapter contains testimonies of the same apostle from the epistles to the Galatians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians and to Titus.

The fifteenth chapter has proofs taken from the epistle to the Hebrews.

The sixteenth chapter contains testimonies from the Acts of the Apostles and from the epistle of James.

The seventeenth chapter contains testimonies from the epistles of Peter and Jude.