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The City of God

Chapter 3.--Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit.

This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain the knowledge of present objects by the testimony of our own senses, ¹ whether internal or external, then, regarding objects remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are sensibly present. Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and likewise with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which are perceived ² by the mind and spirit, i.e., which are remote from our own interior sense, it behoves us to trust those who have seen them set in that incorporeal light, or abidingly contemplate them.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput III: De auctoritate canonicae scripturae diuino spiritu conditae.

Hic prius per prophetas, deinde per se ipsum, postea per apostolos, quantum satis esse iudicauit, locutus etiam scripturam condidit, quae canonica nominatur, eminentissimae auctoritatis, cui fidem habemus de his rebus, quas ignorare non expedit nec per nos ipsos nosse idonei sumus. nam si ea sciri possunt testibus nobis, quae remota non sunt a sensibus nostris siue interioribus siue etiam exterioribus - unde et praesentia nuncupantur, quod ita ea dicimus esse prae sensibus, sicut prae oculis quae praesto sunt oculis - , profecto ea, quae remota sunt a sensibus nostris, quoniam nostro testimonio scire non possumus, de his alios testes requirimus eisque credimus, a quorum sensibus remota esse uel fuisse non credimus. sicut ergo de uisibilibus, quae non uidimus, eis credimus, qui uiderunt, atque ita de ceteris, quae ad suum quemque sensum corporis pertinent, ita de his, quae animo ac mente sentiuntur - quia et ipse rectissime dicitur sensus, unde et sententia uocabulum accepit - , hoc est de inuisibilibus, quae a nostro sensu interiore remota sunt, his nos oportet credere, qui haec in illo incorporeo lumine disposita didicerunt uel manentia contuentur.