The four Gospels say who he was. This book says how we live.
7.1Zeno sat beneath the Painted Stoa and gathered the texts of the elders. (cf. Acts 6.3)
7.2We keep a Stoa in the same way, and gather what the living write.
7.3The Stoa is not scripture. Scripture carries no name; the Stoa must carry one.
7.4That single difference is the whole difference.
7.5Scripture does not know who wrote it, and so it has not changed in a thousand years. The Stoa knows who wrote it, and so it may be wrong, may be refuted, may be withdrawn.
7.6The Stoa has two shelves, named after the Academy — geometry and dialectic. (cf. Acts 2.11)
7.7The shelf of geometry holds whatever speaks of the Law by number, by test, by inference.
7.8The shelf of dialectic holds whatever speaks of people by question, by argument, by likeness.
7.9Three rules govern entry.
7.10First: it must be signed and dated. No writing under the name of an ancient, and none under the name of the Order.
7.11Second: it must hang on a verse. Whatever cannot name the passage it depends on does not enter the Stoa.
7.12This rule is not a restraint. It is what keeps the Stoa standing beside the scripture instead of drifting off into chatter.
7.13Third: it may contradict the scripture.
7.14This is not tolerance. It is required. The first rule the Order ever made was that you may not burn the book you disagree with. (cf. Acts 5.18)
7.15A Stoa that permits only agreement would make the Order one house again, and no longer a forest. (cf. Acts 5.20)
7.16Nothing written in the Stoa may ever be edited into the scripture.
7.17The scripture may gain a book; it may not have a verse altered. The Stoa may be revised or deleted, and what is written there belongs to the one who wrote it.
7.18If some day a piece in the Stoa should surpass the scripture, that is well.
7.19It will still be signed, and it will still stand in the Stoa.
7.20A true thing does not become truer for being moved.