He harms the mental acumen of readers, and causes it to wane, who thinks that they should in every way be prevented from reading profane books; for whatever useful things _(k)_ are found in them it is lawful to adopt as one's own. Otherwise Moses and Daniel would not have been allowed to become learned in the wisdom and literature of the Egyptians and ... (_h_) I.e. Ethics, natural philosophy, rational philosophy. (_i_) Compared with other knowledge. John. (_k_) He argues that the useful is not vitiated by the useless as XVII. q. IV. questi s. dist. IX. si ad scripturas. Contra Joan. ...Chaldeans, whose superstitions and wantonness nevertheless they shuddered at. And the teacher _(l)_ of the gentiles himself would not have introduced _(m)_ some verses of the poets into his own writings or sayings. [On this Gratian comments:] Then why[R] are those [writings] forbidden to be read which, it ... (_l_) For we read that when Paul had come to Athens he saw an altar of the Unknown God on which it was written: "This is an altar of[S] the Unknown God in whom we live and move and have our being." And with this inscription the Apostle began his exhortation and made known to those Athenians the meaning of this inscription,--continuing about our God and saying: "Whom you pronounce Unknown, Him declare I unto you and worship." Then Dionysius,[T] the Areopagite, seeing a blind man passing by said to him (i.e. Paul), "If you will give sight to that blind man I will believe you." Immediately, when the name of Christ had been invoked, he was restored to sight and Dionysius believed. (_m_) E.g. In the Epistle of Paul to Titus,[U] the quotation from Epimenides the poet: "The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." I. quaest, i. dominus declaravit. Also he introduced in the first Epistle to the Corinthians this from Menander: "Evil communications often corrupt good manners." XXVIII. quaestio I. saepe. He used also this verse: "I shall hate if I can: if not, I shall love against my will." But Jerome in his fifth division on Consecration often used verses from Virgil and Augustine, this of Lucan's: "Mens hausti nulla" &c. XXVI. quaestio V. nee mirum. And, as a lawyer, he uses the authority of Vergil, ff. de rerum divisione, intantrum Sec. cenotaphium; and also, of Homer, insti. de Dontrahen. emp. Sec. pretium.