Gregory IX, 1227-1241

you do not do this, and that you do not allow it to be done in your province.

GREGORY IX 1227-1241

The Necessity of Preserving Theological Terminology and Tradition¹

[From the letter "Ab Aegyptiis" to the theologians of Paris, July 7, 1228]

442. "Touched inwardly with sorrow of heart" [Gen. 6:6], "we are filled with the bitterness of wormwood" [cf. Lam. 3:15], because as it has been brought to our attention, certain ones among you, distended like a skin by the spirit of vanity, are working with profane novelty to pass beyond the boundaries which thy fathers have set [cf. Prov. 22:28], the understanding of the heavenly page limited by the fixed boundaries of expositions in the studies of the Holy Fathers by inclining toward the philosophical doctrine of natural things, which it is not only rash but even profane to transgress; (they are doing this) for a show of knowledge, not for any profit to their hearers; so that they seem to be not taught of God or speakers of God, but rather revealed as God. For, although they ought to explain theology according to the approved traditions of the saints and not with carnal weapons, "yet with (weapons) powerful for God to destroy every height exalting itself against the knowledge of God and to lead back into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" [cf. II Cor. 10:4 f.], they themselves "led away by various and strange doctrines" [cf. Heb. 13:9] reduce the "head to the tail" [cf. Deut. 28:13, 44] and they force the queen to be servant to the handmaid, that is, by earthly documents attributing the heavenly, which is of grace, to nature. Indeed relying on the knowledge of natural things more than they ought, returning "to the weak and needy elements" of the world, which they served while they were "little" and "serving them again" [Gal. 4:9] as foolish in Christ they feed on "milk and not solid food" [Heb. 5:12 f.], and they seem by no means to have established "the heart in grace" [cf. Heb. 13:9]; and so despoiled of their rewards "plundered and wounded by their natural possessions² they do not reduce to memory that (saying) of the Apostle which we believe they have already frequently read: "Avoiding the profane novelties of words, and the oppositions of knowledge falsely so called, which some seeking have