down that which God, speaking to men, signified in a way which men could understand, and to which they were accustomed. The strenuous defence of the Holy Scripture, however, does not require that we should equally uphold all the opinions which every one of the Fathers, or which subsequent commentators have set forth in explaining it. It may be that, in commenting on passages where physical matters are in question, they have sometimes expressed the ideas of their own times, and have thus made statements which in these days have been abandoned as unfounded. In their interpretations, therefore, we must carefully note that which they lay down as belonging to faith, or as intimately connected with faith, or that in which they are unanimous. "In those things which do not come under the obligation of faith, the Saints were at liberty to hold divergent opinions, even as we ourselves are," says St. Thomas. In another place he says most admirably: "When philosophers are agreed upon a point, and that point is not contrary to faith, it is safer, in my opinion, neither to lay down such a point as a dogma of faith, even though it is perhaps so presented by the philosophers, nor to reject it as against faith, lest we thus give to the wise of this world an occasion of despising the doctrine of the faith." The Catholic commentator, although he should show that those facts of natural science which investigators affirm to be now in these days absolutely certain are not contrary to Scripture rightly explained, must nevertheless always bear in mind that much which has been held as proved and certain has afterwards been called in question and rejected. If writers on physics travel outside the boundaries of their own department, and carry their erroneous teaching into the domain of philosophy, let them be handed over by the theological commentator to philosophers for refutation.