Six reasons God willed some obscurity; Flacius; Augustine; Constantine at Nicaea
We therefore distinctly set out several reasons for this assertion.
1. Because God willed that there should be cause to say with David: "Give me understanding, and I will search your law" (Psalm 119:34).
2. That human arrogance might be beaten back.
3. That distaste might be removed.
4. That our diligence might be stirred.
5. That Sacred Scripture itself might be held in greater price — which Theodoret in the preface to Ezekiel declares by various examples.
6. That a keener desire for the other life might be kindled in us, where we will no longer know in part and prophesy in part, but what is imperfect will be done away, and we will see face to face, not through a mirror or in a riddle (1 Corinthians 13:9 and following).
Consult Flacius Illyricus, Clavis part 2 treatise 1 on the way of knowing the sacred letters. Wisely Augustine adds to the words cited above: "Almost nothing is drawn from those obscurities that is not found said most clearly elsewhere." Before all things, therefore, one must be turned by the fear of God to knowing his will. And in the same book chapter 9: to illustrate obscurer locutions, examples are to be taken from the clearer ones, and the testimonies of certain sentences are to remove doubt about the uncertain.
Here also belongs the law of Constantine the Great in Theodoret (Church History book 1), passed with the votes of three hundred eighteen bishops in the Nicene council: the Evangelical and Apostolic books and the oracles of the ancient prophets perspicuously instruct us in the sense of the Deity — that is, what we ought to think about God and divine things. Therefore, hostile discord laid aside, let us take from the divinely inspired Scriptures the solution and decision of the controversies that are to be handled.
Latin
Nos igitur hujus assertionis rationes aliquot distincte proponimus. 1. Quia Deus voluit, ut esset, cur cum Davide diceremus: Da mihi intellectum & scrutabor legem tuam, psal. 119. v.34. 2. Ut retunderetur arrogantia humana. 3. Ut removeretur fastidium. 4. Ut diligentia nostra excitaretur. 5. Ut ipsa sacra scriptura in majori pretio haberetur, id quod Theodoretus praefatione in Ezechielem variis exemplis declarat. 6. Ut desiderium vehementius vitae alterius in nobis accenderetur, ubi non amplius ex parte cognoscemus, & ex parte prophetabimus, sed quod imperfectum est, tolletur, & cernemus coram, non per speculum aut per aenigma, 1. Cor. 13.v.9. & seqq. Consule Flacium Illyricum in clavis parte altera tract. 1. de ratione cognoscendi sacras literas. Scite Augustinus verbis supra allegatis subnectit: Nihil fere de illis obscuritatibus eruitur, quod non alibi clarissime dictum reperiatur. Ante omnia igitur opus est Dei timore converti ad cognoscendam ejus voluntatem. Et lib. eodem c.9. Ad obscuriores locutiones illustrandas de manifestioribus sumantur exempla & certarum sententiarum testimonia dubitationem de incertis auferant. Huc etiam facit lex Constantini Magni apud Theodoretum lib. 1. hist. Eccl. lata suffragantibus trecentis & octodecim episcopis in concilio Niceno: Εὐαγγελικαὶ καὶ ἀποστολικαὶ βίβλοι καὶ τῶν παλαιῶν προφητῶν τὰ θεσπίσματα σαφῶς ἡμᾶς ἐκπαιδεύουσι τὸ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ φρονεῖν. τὴν τοίνυν πολεμικὴν ἀποθέμενοι ἔριν ἐκ τῶν θεοπνεύστων λογίων λάβωμεν τῶν ζητουμένων τὴν λύσιν. Euangelici & Apostolici libri & antiquorum prophetarum oracula perspicue nos instruunt sensu numinis, hoc est, quid de Deo rebusque divinis nos sentire oporteat. Igitur hostili deposita discordia sumamus ex scripturis divinitus inspiratis solutionem decisionemque controversiarum, de quibus agendum est.