Synderesis

Use in the book

Burton reaches these terms after distinguishing acts of apprehension from habits, the lasting intellectual dispositions available for use. He enumerates fourteen kinds of understanding, adding synderesis, the dictate of reason and conscience as the three innate kinds; the others are acquired by instruction, learning and use. He then reports other arrangements and attempts to reconcile them. The list is an inherited classificatory scheme, not fourteen separately embodied mental organs. Habit here means an enduring disposition, not simply frequent repetition.

The following account develops precisely what the earlier enumeration leaves compressed. Synderesis preserves knowledge of the law of God and nature, distinguishing good and evil, and belongs, “as our Divines hold,” to understanding rather than will. It supplies the major proposition in a practical syllogism. The dictate of reason supplies the minor proposition, and conscience the conclusion, justifying or condemning an action. Burton’s general wording says that the dictate admonishes a person to do “good or evil”; the edition does not silently make this an infallible command always to choose good.

Regulus makes the distinction concrete. Captured by the Carthaginians and allowed to visit Rome on condition of returning or paying a ransom, he faces the obligation of a promise. Synderesis supplies the general rule that promises, even to enemies, should be kept, joined to the principle of not doing to others what one would not wish done to oneself. The dictate applies that reciprocity to Regulus: he would not wish another person to break an oath to him. Conscience concludes that he acts rightly in fulfilling his promise and ought to keep it. The stages are general principle, personal application and judgment; the example is not merely a repetition of three names for an inward voice.

The rational-soul discussion has just said that nothing enters understanding before sense, then described the passive understanding as a blank tablet. Earlier, however, understanding is explicitly said to possess innate notions, while sense has none; the first object moving understanding is sensible. Those adjacent distinctions are part of the context for the later moral habits. Its subsequent inclusion of innate moral principles is part of Burton’s presentation of several inherited schemes. The supplied edition preserves these claims rather than harmonizing them into a single account of innateness.

Dictating, inspiring and inwardly testifying

The English verb dictates in Regulus’s example means says or formulates an admonition: “this or the like” leaves the wording illustrative. Outside that technical example, related words have broader uses. Origen’s dictats are words delivered for scribes to take down, while Paul’s letters are said to have been dictated in prison. Burton claims that most of those letters were so composed; the supplied note identifies this as an overstatement. Neither use names an innate moral habit.

Latin dictavit, a perfect form of dicto, means dictated or prompted words. Burton says that he poured out whatever his genius dictated, making inner inspiration a literary voice. His catalogue of scholastic reputations includes an angel who dictated to Thomas; it is reported praise within an argument about how vulnerable even learned authorities are to censure. In Martial’s poem Lesbia dictates to Catullus: the beloved inspires poetry. Burton’s following English version rearranges this effect and omits Nemesis, who remains in the Latin poem. Dictation is therefore also a figure for authorship and inspiration, without being the philosophical dictate of reason.

Religious dictation must be read with its claimed authority and speaker. Burton calls God’s word dictated by the Holy Spirit, but treats rulers’ laws attributed to divine dictation within his argument about political stratagems, preserving an “or else” appeal to divine instinct. He attacks innovators who accept no interpretation except what their allegedly infallible spirit dictates, and people who do everything their private spirit dictates and nothing else. His grouping of distinct opponents, including Socinian right reason and Anabaptists, is polemical rather than an agreed doctrinal classification. The tutelary gods dictating oracles appear in a conditional argument beginning with infinitely many worlds “as some will”; Burton later offers his own more restrictive middle course.

Finally, dictating can mean inwardly telling or bearing witness rather than commanding. Conscience tells people that God exists in Burton’s natural-theology argument, qualified by the following alleged exceptions and limits on knowledge. In the prayer attributed to Anselm, conscience tells the speaker he deserves condemnation, before he appeals to surpassing mercy. Yet the distressed person’s soul can also truly testify that unwanted thoughts are abhorrent: Burton takes resistance and the wish to think otherwise as evidence against settled consent. That affirmed testimony differs from the presumptuous infallibility he mocks.

Related entries

Conscience; Reason; Intellect; Will and nill; Faculty; Action; Habit; Judgment

Places to read

1. Scribes and authorial inspirationOrigen’s dictats, Burton’s lack of helpers and what his genius dictated
2. An angel’s reputed dictationScholastic praise within a conditional satire of learned authority
3. Acts, habits and innate understandingInnate notions, sensory beginnings, active and passive powers, lasting dispositions, fourteenfold list and original marginal note 1768
4. A compressed reconciliationPlato, Aristotle and the editorially supplied art clause
5. The practical syllogismGeneral principle, personal application and concluding judgment in Regulus’s case
6. Letters composed in confinementDictation, prison consolation and the overstated most
7. The beloved as poetic voiceLesbia’s dictavit and the separate English poem
8. Authority of God’s wordDivine dictation in the contrast with superstition
9. Laws claiming divine authorityPolitical stratagems and the alternative divine-instinct explanation
10. Conscience’s inward testimonyDictate as tell, with the natural-theology argument’s limits
11. Self-authorizing interpretationThe attacked claim of infallibility and the exclusion of other readings
12. Private spirits and exclusive obedienceInterpretations and actions dictated in Burton’s polemical catalogue
13. Oracles in a conditional plurality argumentTutelary gods dictate, before Burton’s qualified response
14. Anselm’s prayer voiceDictated judgment, the different marginal construction and surpassing mercy
15. Truthful aversion to unwanted thoughtsThe soul’s testimony, resistance and absence of settled consent

In this edition

“Synteresis” becomes “synderesis,” and “Dictamen rationis” becomes “the dictate of reason.” The shorter “Dictamen” at the example’s application is expanded to the same English phrase, making its relation to the full term explicit. “A conservation of the knowledge” becomes “the preservation of knowledge”; “admonish us to doe good or evil” becomes “prompts us to do good or evil.” Those choices preserve the general wording rather than rewriting it into the particular promise-keeping example.

In the intervening account of Aristotle, the modern column supplies “art, whose end is” where the 1651 wording passes from prudence’s practice directly to making. The supplied editorial note reports support from the earlier 1621 text; this lexicon has not independently collated that witness. The small textual repair does not by itself settle the larger compressed classification.

The original marginal gloss says the pure part of conscience, while the body says purer; both are retained. The indexed Latin words Dictamen rationis sit within English sentences, and the shorter Dictamen receives a supplied English article as well as the restored of reason. The related English verb becomes says in Regulus’s case and tells in the two conscience passages. In the sufferers’ testimony, original plural souls becomes a singular soul and the recipient him is supplied. These are construction-level choices, not additional meanings of synderesis.

conscience

Printed “Conscience” (English; lemma).

The concluding moral judgment approving or condemning a proposed action.

Context: Here it approves Regulus’s keeping his promise, after the general principle and particular application.

Source: original body

Source wording: Conscience concludes

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

conservation of knowledge

Printed “a conservation of the knowledge” (English; definitional noun phrase).

Preservation or retention of knowledge; the following complement identifies divine and natural moral law, whose preservation defines synderesis here.

Context: Attributed placement in understanding rather than will; supplies the major proposition.

Source: original body

Source wording: a conservation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictamen rationis · Dictamen rationis

Printed “Dictamen rationis” (Latin; phrase).

The dictate or prompting of reason, supplying the particular premise of practical moral reasoning.

Context: Burton’s following wording permits good or evil; the Regulus instance gives a right application.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: The Dictamen rationis

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: The dictate of reason

Alignment convention

Qualification: The indexed Dictamen rationis is Latin within an English sentence. The aligned construction includes the original English article The, preserved in the modern; the phrase means dictate of reason.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictamen rationis · Dictamen

Printed “Dictamen” (Latin; phrase).

A dictate, prompting or admonition; here reason’s particular application of a general moral rule to an individual case.

Context: Regulus is the recipient; the rule concerns keeping an oath even to an enemy.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Dictamen applies it to him

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: The dictate of reason applies this to him

Alignment convention

Qualification: The Latin noun Dictamen stands within an English clause. The modern supplies The and restores of reason from the full phrase Dictamen rationis; the complete clauses otherwise align.

Supplied words: The (English article supplied); of reason (full phrase restored from Dictamen rationis)

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictates · local use 1

Printed “dictates” (English; verb).

Utters or formulates a prompting or admonition.

Context: The dictate of reason is personified as addressing Regulus. This or the like presents an illustrative formulation, not the required verbatim words of every moral inference.

Source: original body

Source wording: and dictates this or the like

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictats

Printed “dictats” (English; plural noun).

Words delivered for another person to write down.

Context: Ambrose is Origen’s patron, not the later bishop of Milan; Origen supplies the words, the amanuenses write them. Burton contrasts that assistance with his own lack of helpers. The supplied note reports more than seven shorthand writers plus copyists in Eusebius; six or seven remains Burton’s wording.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: allowing him six or seven Amanuenses to write out his dictats

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: providing six or seven copyists to take down his dictation

Alignment convention

Qualification: Plural dictats becomes the collective noun dictation. The full support-and-writing construction preserves the named number and the relation of speaker to scribes.

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictated · local use 1

Printed “dictated” (English; verb).

Spoken for transcription or composed by dictation.

Context: The letters are Paul’s, and the prison setting supports Burton’s consolation. Most is his overstated claim according to the supplied editor, not a verified historical count. The construction’s passive does not change whose correspondence is meant.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.

Source wording: for most of his Epistles were dictated in his bands

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictated · local use 2

Printed “dictated” (English; verb).

Communicated or inspired as authoritative words.

Context: Burton attributes God’s word to the Holy Spirit while contrasting true religion with superstition. The nearby Lucian is the Christian priest, not the satirist; the note establishes a Latin-tradition parallel for his reported declaration, not verbatim authenticity.

Source: original body

Source wording: dictated by the holy Ghost

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictated · local use 3

Printed “dictated” (English; verb).

Communicated or laid down as authoritative instructions.

Context: The laws are attributed to Jupiter in Burton’s survey of rulers’ claims to supernatural authority. The sentence offers political stratagem or divine instinct as alternatives in its framing; the account is not independent verification that Jupiter gave the laws.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: they had their laws dictated, monte sacro, by Jupiter himself

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: their laws were dictated on the sacred mountain by Jupiter himself

Alignment convention

Qualification: The causative have... dictated is recast as a passive laws were dictated; the location is the embedded Latin monte sacro. The alignment explicitly retains these grammatical changes rather than calling the indexed English verb Latin.

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · local use 1

Printed “dictate” (English; verb).

Tells, testifies to or inwardly declares a proposition.

Context: Conscience is the subject and ourselves the recipients; the proposition is that God exists. Burton’s subsequent apparent exceptions and limits on natural knowledge qualify the surrounding universal argument. This use need not command an action.

Source: original body

Source wording: our own conscience doth dictate so much unto us

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictates · local use 2

Printed “dictates” (English; verb).

Prescribes or declares an interpretation as authoritative.

Context: Burton accuses religious innovators of accepting only their own interpretations. Infallible is the presumption he attacks, not his certification of their spirit. The later comparison includes the Socinians’ right reason within a polemical grouping that the note warns is not a precise common doctrine.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: no interpretation good but what their infallible spirit dictates

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: no interpretation is good unless their infallible spirit dictates it

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original negative exceptive no... but becomes no... unless, with is and the object it supplied. The exclusion of every other interpretation is retained.

Supplied words: is (copula supplied); it (object supplied from interpretation)

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictates · local use 3

Printed “dictates” (English; verb).

Commands, directs or prompts conduct.

Context: The clause belongs to Burton’s polemical account of people challenging civil authority, associated here with Anabaptists. All and nothing else mark exclusive obedience. The catalogue conflates distinct groups and must not become a reliable description of every adherent.

Source: original body

Source wording: will do all their own private spirit dictates, and nothing else

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · local use 2

Printed “dictate” (English; verb).

Issue or communicate ordinances, revelations or oracles.

Context: They refers to the supposed tutelary gods or ruling spirits. The infinite-worlds premise is explicitly conditional and attributed to some; the passage develops a reported plurality argument before Burton proposes his limited middle course. It does not assert infinitely many religions as an established fact.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: which they dictate to from time to time, or teach their Priests or Ministers

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: which these gods dictate from time to time or teach their priests or ministers

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original pronoun they becomes these gods to clarify its antecedent; the awkward following to has no separate counterpart. The alternatives dictate or teach and their recipients are retained.

Supplied words: these gods (explicit antecedent substituted for they)

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · dictates · local use 4

Printed “dictates” (English; verb).

Tells or declares an inward judgment.

Context: The first person belongs to the prayer attributed to Anselm. The statement of deserved condemnation is followed by insufficient repentance and surpassing mercy. Its Latin margin says conscience has deserved damnation rather than that it dictates a proposition; the two are not identical attestations.

Source: original body

Source wording: My conscience (saith Anselm) dictates to me, that I deserve damnation

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dictate · local use 3

Printed “dictate” (English; verb).

Testifies to or tells an inward attitude or judgment; truely explicitly affirms the truth of that testimony here.

Context: Burton affirms the sufferers’ aversion to unwanted thoughts when asked whether they approve them. Their resistance and wish to think otherwise supply the argument; occurrence of a thought is not approval. Original plural souls becomes singular soul as the modern follows one sufferer.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: their own souls truely dictate as much

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: his own soul truly tells him the same

Alignment convention

Qualification: The original plural their own souls becomes singular his own soul; him is supplied as the recipient of inward telling. The attested truly is retained, distinct from the unendorsed infallibility claim elsewhere.

Supplied words: him (recipient supplied in the modern)

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dicto · dictavit · local use 1

Printed “dictavit” (Latin; perfect indicative verb).

Dictated or suggested words to be written; the perfect verb makes the inner genius an authorial prompter.

Context: Burton’s authorial persona describes rapid, allegedly unpolished composition from notes. The assertion that he avoids ornament is itself richly ornamented; this is a literary self-description, not an account of synderesis commanding a moral act.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: effudi quicquid dictavit genius meus

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: I poured out whatever my genius dictated

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the whole unit carries the rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dicto · dictavit · local use 2

Printed “dictavit” (Latin; perfect indicative verb).

Dictated or communicated words for another to receive or write.

Context: The angel is the grammatical subject; Thomas is the recipient in a catalogue of reputed scholastic excellence. The surrounding if asks what becomes of humanistic learning when even these theologians are censured. Printed Seraphicus for Thomas is retained, and the cited biography is unidentified.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: cui dictavit Angelus

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: to whom an angel dictated

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the whole unit carries the rendering.

Supplied words: an (English article supplied)

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

dicto · dictavit · local use 3

Printed “dictavit” (Latin; perfect indicative verb).

Dictated or inspired poetic composition; the beloved is figured as its prompting voice.

Context: Martial’s poetic speaker addresses Catullus. Burton applies the lines to love as poetic inspiration; his separate English poem merges the lovers’ effects and omits Nemesis. The margin gives book 9, the supplied comparison book 8; neither discrepancy is silently removed.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording, Original construction: Lesbia dictavit docte Catulle tibi

Modern rendering, Modern wording, Modern construction: Lesbia dictated to you, learned Catullus

Alignment convention

Qualification: Equal-scope phrase or construction alignment; the whole unit carries the rendering.

Notes: Historical source attributions and factual claims remain Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

pure part of conscience

Printed “The pure part of the conscience” (English; phrase).

The morally principled aspect of conscience; the original marginal gloss on Synteresis says pure, while Burton’s body text says purer.

Context: Burton’s already-English marginal label, distinct from the attached editorial identification.

Source: original marginal wording in Burton-labelled note

Source wording, Original wording, Modern rendering, Modern wording, Original construction, Modern construction: The pure part of the conscience.

Alignment convention

Qualification: This is original English marginal wording, repeated unchanged for retrieval. The supplied note provides no separate modern translation; the identity field is not a second historical witness.

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.

synderesis

Printed “Synteresis” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Source wording: Synteresis

Innate grasp or preservation of moral principles, listed among the innate kinds of understanding.

Context: Burton distinguishes acquired from innate kinds, then explains the three moral terms.

Source: original body

Notes: Historical source attributions are Burton’s; no fresh collation of the cited works is claimed.