Prologue

It is certainly a difficult matter to recognise the truth and to attack those errors of obscurity or carelessness which most frequently spoil its clear expression. For truly what is more righteous than the examination of unknown matters? The knowledge of such matters, the path to which does not guide those contemptuous of them, stimulates the sting of justice in the punishment of wrongdoers. Therefore, the first step in philosophising – the very genus of those matters it is proper to discuss – is that of prudently understanding what is true of particulars; the second step is that of faithfully comprehending the truth in everything, which illuminates the particulars. But this philosophical preparation is only accessible to those who, in opposition to the kingdom of vanity, freely proclaim they are freed when they are the children of truth, and who serve the Holy Spirit by leading away iniquity and injustice yoked by the neck. For ‘whenever there is the spirit of God, in that place there is liberty’; servility to fear and assent to vice exterminate the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, it is the Holy Spirit which speaks of and is not ashamed by equity in the inspection of rulers and which chooses between spiritually impoverished kings and those who aim to harmonise with God and who learn to know, speak and do the truth. He who does not wish to hear or speak the truth is alienated from the truth of the Spirit.