on faith, or on revealed religion; consequently that men may be in complete
error on the subject without incurring the charge of sinfulness. (42) We
need now no longer wonder that God adapted Himself to the existing opinions
and imaginations of the prophets, or that the faithful held different ideas
of God, as we showed in Chap. II.; or, again, that the sacred books speak
very inaccurately of God, attributing to Him hands, feet, eyes, ears, a
mind, and motion from one place to another; or that they ascribe to Him
emotions, such as jealousy, mercy, &c., or, lastly, that they describe
Him as a Judge in heaven sitting on a royal throne with Christ on His
right hand. (43) Such expressions are adapted to the understanding of the
multitude, it being the object of the Bible to make men not learned but
obedient.

(44) In spite of this the general run of theologians, when they come upon
any of these phrases which they cannot rationally harmonize with the Divine
nature, maintain that they should be interpreted metaphorically, passages
they cannot understand they say should be interpreted literally. (45) But if
every expression of this kind in the Bible is necessarily to be interpreted
and understood metaphorically, Scripture must have been written, not for the
people and the unlearned masses, but chiefly for accomplished experts and
philosophers.

(46) If it were indeed a sin to hold piously and simply the ideas about God
we have just quoted, the prophets ought to have been strictly on their guard
against the use of such expressions, seeing the weak-mindedness of the
people, and ought, on the other hand, to have set forth first of all, duly
and clearly, those attributes of God which are needful to be understood.

(47) This they have nowhere done; we cannot, therefore, think that opinions
taken in themselves without respect to actions are either pious or impious,