Homo Unius Libri

Beloved,

As tradition has it, the Latin phrase homo unius libri was coined by Thomas Aquinas. It simply means “a man of one book.” Aquinas wrote that he feared such a person. Why? Because to devote one’s life to the study of a single book entails a mastery of that field, making that man or woman a formidable debate partner.

Aquinas understood that given our finitude, it is not possible for a scholar to master everything, and when one attempts to do so, they end up mastering nothing. It is the one with laser-like focus upon a singular book or discipline who is to be feared. It is a good reminder for us that though we have access to more information than any prior age, we may be the worse off for it. 

Centuries after Aquinas died, John Wesley would champion the cause of homo unius libri, exclaiming, “I want to know one thing,—the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri.”

A life devoted to a singular bookthe book of God.

It has been my meditation after reading Psalm 147 in private worship this morning. It is a song of praise to God for His peculiar care toward His covenant people, and here is how it ends: “He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules. Praise the LORD!”

Under the old covenant, there was only one nation that had the privilege of possessing God’s special revelatory word, and it was reason to shout with loud, happy, grateful praise! For without this word, fallen humans like us are left in idolatrous darkness. The Israelite who truly grasped the blessedness of having the word of God would make it his continual meditation (see Ps. 1:2). He would obsess over it (see Ps. 119 in its entirety). He would declare long before Wesley, “Let me be a man of one book!” 

It was precisely what the majority of old covenant Israel failed to do. They didn’t prize God’s revelation. They didn’t devote their lives to it. They couldn’t affirm what Wesley wrote in a private letter concerning himself and his faithful friends: “I receive the written word as the whole and sole rule of my faith. From the very beginning, from the time that four young men united together, each of them was homo unius libri. They had one, and only one, rule of judgement with which to regard all their tempers, words and actions; namely, the oracles of God.”

The devil has nothing to fear in those who possess the word but don’t prize it and devote their lives to it. But what strikes dread in the kingdom of darkness is one who is given over to God’s book with a whole-souled, hungry, aggressive, humble, believing receptivity.

I want to be such a man because my Lord Jesus was such a man! 

Oh friend, do you realize what an awesome (i.e., full-of-awe) privilege it is to possess the word of God? How many billions of people throughout human history have been without it, and thus without hope and without God? But you and I have been blessed with it. Let us not squander this superlative blessing. Let us follow Jesus, learning what it means to be homo unius libri.

For those who seek to master God’s book by a zealous faith end up being mastered by it. Truly, that is the one thing needful.

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick