20. That is wont to be ‘gnawed,’ which cannot be eaten. Now heretics because they apply themselves to make out Scripture by their own power, assuredly never can comprehend it, which same whilst they do not make out, they, as it were, do not eat. And because, not being aided by grace from on high, they are unable to eat it, they as it were ‘gnaw’ it with certain efforts. Since they handle it outwardly, when indeed they endeavour but do not attain to the interior parts of it. Which same because they are separated from the society of the Church Universal, are mentioned as gnawing not any where, but ‘in solitude.’ To which same ‘solitude’ that the false teachers draw their followers, Truth long before forewarned, saying, If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth. [Matt. 24, 26] And these are rightly recorded as ‘scurvy with affliction and misery,’ because they are despicable at once by the destructiveness of their practices, and the badness of their perceptions....
