Ondersoek en antwoord [...] op 't request door de gedeputeerden der Noordhollandsche synode tot Edam

already said, then neither the reader nor the listener, nor the teacher himself, knows what to make of it. If I have not yet said enough on this, the reader will find the rest in my Answer to the Articles of Alkmaar, in the Fourfold Responses original: "Viervoudige Beantwoordingen", pages 11, 69, 70.

If the history was not known at that time, then one did not know what Judas the Apostle Jude meant to say by it, just as we do not know it now.

This will again be called quite irreverent toward the Apostle Jude, to say that one does not know what he means when he speaks of the dispute of Michael with the Devil. Now, these gentlemen are obliged to explain to me what he does mean by it. If those two men know that better than so many learned people, than our own and so many other translators who equally admit they do not know it, I would gladly learn it from them. I would then replace those words with these: that I know very well what the Apostle wants to say. Likewise with what follows.

What then do I make of this dispute? No more than of various other things mentioned in Scripture of which nothing can be made.

First, it is certain that the writers still do not know today what they should make of that dispute which Jude says took place between Michael and the Devil. Furthermore, no one will deny me that this is not the only place where the interpreters differ so much among themselves that it is an art to choose what one should make of it. Accordingly, I may say that there are several other things in the Scripture of which nothing can be made meaning they remain obscure or incomprehensible.

I admit the certainty and truth of the history, although many since ancient times have doubted it. But to make a greater impression of such a remarkable occurrence on the reader's heart: