The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wiseThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise

Theophilus. He understandeth by those Martyrs, the seven brothers of the Maccabees, ¹with their mother, who loved rather that Antiochus should dismember and torment them cruelly, then they would obey his commandments for to violate the law of God. It is easy to understand by those words, that the Church hath not received those books, in such authority, as those which have been holden alway sin the Prophetical & Apostolical church, nor to be sufficient, for to allow & confirm, or for to build any doctrine, which ought to be holē for an article of faith, & for to vanquish the heretics: But only in such stead, as we have at this day the ecclesiastical histories, & legends of martyrs: not a heap of foolish & fabulous legends, made by a heap of dreaming ²and deceiving Caphards and Monks, as are the lives of the fathers, the golden legend, and other like, more worthy to be numbered with the Roman of Fierobras, Orson, & Valentine, the erring knights, Mandeville, or the true narrations of Lucian, and others like, made for pleasure, then among the Ecclesiastical histories. But they have ⟨image 222⟩been in such reputation among the wise men, as the books of Josephus, Eusebius, Sozomenus, Theodoritus, Socrates, and such other which have written the Ecclesiastical histories, and the lives of Martyrs, for to keep the remembrance in the Church, as in a Chronicle for to edify and comfort with good examples: But not that they are of such authority, that they are sufficient for to set forth any new doctrine, of which we have no certain witness in the Apostolical doctrine. And that it is even so as I do say, I will not prove it by any other witness, then by the same which thou bringest forth against me: That is to say, Saint Augustin, who hath written in an other place after this manner, saying: The Jews have not the scripture of the Maccabees, as the Law, the Prophets and Psalms, to the which the Lord Jesus rendereth witness, as unto this witnesses, saying: All must be fulfilled which are written of me in the ³Law of Moses and in the Prophets nad in the Psalms. But that Scripture is received of the Church, not without profit, if one do read and mark it soberly. Doth he not evidently declare by those words, how much the authority of the same is abased in comparison of the others, the which Jesus Christ taketh for witnesses?