Spectacles and masks

Meaning

Dark spectacles and sophistical masks are obstructions to seeing, not useful instruments of correction. The author wishes them removed from supposed learned men, especially the Aristotelian disputants he attacks over the union of Christ’s natures and communication of properties. Their interpretive equipment has become the barrier. The English keeps the contrast between eyes opened and spectacles put on, as well as masks hung before the face. This is the author’s confessional polemic, not a neutral verdict that every distinction in theology is illegitimate. The chemical conjunction is offered as a corrective illustration, but the image does not independently settle the theological controversy.