Teaching Christianity (continued)
how to be pronounced, you should refer it to the rule of faith, which you have received from the plainer passages of scripture and from the authority of the Church, about which we dealt sufficiently when we were talking in the first book about things. But if both possibilities, or all of them, if it is a multiple ambiguity, are consonant with the faith, it remains to refer to the whole context, to the sections that precede and that follow the ambiguous passage, holding it in the middle between them, so that we may see which of the several meanings that present themselves the context will vote for and allow to fit in with itself.
3. Straightaway now, consider some examples.[1] There is that heretical phrasing: In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat, adopted in order to give another meaning to the next phrase: Verbum hoc erat in principio apud Deum; this is a refusal to confess that the Word is God. But this is to be refuted by the rule of faith, which prescribes for us the equality of the three divine persons, so that we have to say, et Deus erat Verbum; and then add, Hoc erat in principio apud Deum[2] (Jn 1:1–2).
4. But there is another ambiguity of phrasing in which neither possibility is against the faith, and therefore the matter has to be settled by the context, where the apostle says: And I do not know which to choose; but I am being constrained from two sides having a desire to cast off and be with Christ; for it is much the best; to remain in the flesh is necessary on your account (Phil 1:23–24). It is uncertain, you see, whether it should be read from two sides having a desire or I am being constrained from two sides, to which is then added, having a desire to cast off and be with Christ. But since it goes on like this: for it is much the best, it is apparent that he is saying he has a desire for what is best, so that while he is being constrained from two sides, still he has a desire for the one, is under necessity from the other; desire, namely, to be with Christ, necessity to remain in the flesh.