Nisi et si quis hoc arbitretur ad Stultitiam non pertinere, ridiculis dictis excitare cachinnos, idque arte.

Huius farinæ sunt et isti, qui libris edendis famam immortalem aucupantur. Hi cum omnes mihi plurimum debent, tum præcipue qui meras nugas chartis illinunt.

adding, changing, putting in, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do they purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of sleep, the most precious of all things.

Nam qui erudite ad paucorum doctorum iudicium scribunt, quique nec Persium, nec Lælium iudicem recusant, mihi quidem miserandi magis, quam beati videntur, ut qui sese perpetuo torqueant: addunt, mutant, adimunt, reponunt, repetunt, recudunt, ostendunt, nonum in annum premunt, nec umquam sibi satisfaciunt, ac futile præmium, nempe laudem, eamque perpaucorum, tanti emunt, tot vigiliis, somnique, rerum omnium dulcissimi, tanta iactura, tot sudoribus, tot crucibus.

Add to this the waste of health, spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the like;

Adde nunc valetudinis dispendium, formæ perniciem, lippitudinem, aut etiam cæcitatem, paupertatem, invidiam, voluptatum abstinentiam, senectutem præproperam, mortem præmaturam, et si qua sunt alia eiusmodi.

so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two blear-eyed fellows.

Tantis malis sapiens ille redimendum existimat, ut ab uno aut altero lippo probetur.

But how much happier is this my writer’s dotage who never studies for anything but puts in writing whatever he pleases or what comes first in his head, though it be but his dreams; and all this with small waste of paper, as well knowing that the vainer those trifles are, the higher esteem they will have with the greater number, that is to say all the fools and unlearned.

At meus ille scriptor, quanto delirat felicius, dum nulla lucubratione, verum utcumque visum est animo, quidquid in calamum incidit, vel somnia sua, statim litteris prodit, levi dumtaxat chartarum iactura, non ignarus futurum, ut quo nugaciores nugas scripserit, hoc a pluribus, id est, stultis et indoctis omnibus probetur.

And what matter is it to slight those few learned if yet they ever read them?

Quid enim est negotii, treis illos doctos, si tamen ea legerint, contemnere?

Or of what authority will the censure of so few wise men be against so great a cloud of gainsayers?

Aut quid valebit, tam paucorum sapientum calculus, in tam immensa reclamantium turba?

But they are the wiser that put out other men’s works for their own, and transfer that glory which others with great pains have obtained to themselves; relying on this, that they conceive, though it should so happen that their theft be never so plainly detected, that yet they should enjoy the pleasure of it for the present.

sed magis etiam sapiunt, qui aliena pro suis edunt, et alieno magnoque partam labore gloriam, verbis in se transmovent, hoc videlicet freti, quod arbitrentur futurum, ut etiam si maxime coarguantur plagii, tamen aliquanti temporis usuram sint interim lucrifacturi.

And ’tis worth one’s while to consider how they please themselves when they are applauded by the common people, pointed at in a crowd, “This is that excellent person;” lie on booksellers’ stalls; and in the top of every page have three hard words read, but chiefly exotic and next degree to conjuring;

Videre est operæ pretium, quam hi sibi placent, cum vulgo laudantur, cum digito ostenduntur in turba, houtos estin ho deinos ekeinos cum apud bibliopolas prostant, cum in omnium paginarum frontibus leguntur tria nomina, præsertim peregrina, ac magicis illis similia.

which, by the immortal gods! what are they but mere words?

Quæ, per Deum immortalem, quid aliud sunt quam nomina?

And again, if you consider the world, by how few understood, and praised by fewer! for even among the unlearned there are different palates.

Deinde quam a paucis cognoscenda, si mundi vastitatem respicias: tum a quanto paucioribus laudanda, ut sunt etiam indoctorum diversa palata.

Or what is it that their own very names are often counterfeit or borrowed from some books of the ancients?

Quid quod ea ipsa nomina non raro confinguntur, aut e priscorum libris adoptantur?

When one styles himself Telemachus, another Sthenelus, a third Laertes, a fourth Polycrates, a fifth Thrasymachus. So that there is no difference whether they title their books with the “Tale of a Tub”, or, according to the philosophers, by alpha, beta.

Cum alius sese Telemachum, alius Stelenum aut Lærtem, hic Polycratem, ille Thrasymachum sese nominari gaudet: ut nihil iam referat, etiam si chamæleonti aut cucurbitæ, sive quemadmodum solent philosophi loqui, alpha aut beta librum inscribas.

But the most pleasant of all is to see them praise one another with reciprocal epistles, verses, and encomiums; fools their fellow fools, and dunces their brother dunces.

Illud autem lepidissimum, cum mutuis epistolis, carminibus, encomiis sese vicissim laudant, stulti stultos, indoctos indocti.

This, in the other’s opinion, is an absolute Alcaeus; and the other, in his, a very Callimachus. He looks upon Tully as nothing to the other, and the other again pronounces him more learned than Plato.

Hic illius suffragio discedit Alceus, ille huius Callimachus: ile huic est M. Tullio superior, hic illi Platone doctior.

And sometimes too they pick out their antagonist and think to raise themselves a fame by writing one against the other;

Nonnumquam etiam antagonistam quærunt, cuius æmulatione famam augeant.

while the giddy multitude are so long divided to whether of the two they shall determine the victory, till each goes off conqueror, and, as if he had done some great action, fancies himself a triumph.

Hic scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus, donec uterque dux re bene gesta victor discedit, uterque triumphum agit.

And now wise men laugh at these things as foolish, as indeed they are.

Rident hæc sapientes, ut, veluti sunt, stultissima.

Who denies it?

Quis enim negat?

Yet in the meantime, such is my kindness to them, they live a merry life and would not change their imaginary triumphs, no, not with the Scipioes.

Sed interim meo beneficio suavem vitam agunt, ne cum Scipionibus quidem suos triumphos commutari.

While yet those learned men, though they laugh their fill and reap the benefit of the other’s folly, cannot without ingratitude deny but that even they too are not a little beholding to me themselves.

Quamquam docti quoque interim dum hæc magna cum animi voluptate rident, et aliena fruuntur insania, non paulum mihi debent et ipsi, quod inficari possunt, nisi sint omnium ingratissimi.

LI

LI

And among them our advocates challenge the first place, nor is there any sort of people that please themselves like them: for while they daily roll Sisyphus his stone, and quote you a thousand cases, as it were, in a breath no matter how little to the purpose, and heap glosses upon glosses,

Inter eruditos iurisconsulti sibi vel primum vindicant locum, neque quisquam sibi placet, dum Sisyphi saxum assidue volvunt, ac sexcentas leges eodem spiritu contexunt, nihil refert quam ad rem pertinentes, dumque glossematis glossemata, opiniones opinionibus cumulantes, efficiunt ut studium illud omnium difficillimum esse videatur.

and opinions on the neck of opinions, they bring it at last to this pass, that that study of all other seems the most difficult.

Quidquid enim laboriosum, idem protinus et præclarum existimant.

Add to these our logicians and sophists, a generation of men more prattling than an echo and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense.

Adiungamus his dialecticos ac sophistas, hominum genus quovis ære Dodonæo loquacius, ut quorum unusquivis cum vicenis delectis muleribus garrulitate decertare possit, feliciores tamen futuri, si tantum linguaces essent, non etiam rixosi, adeo ut de lana caprina pertinacissime digladientur, et nimium altercando plerumque veritatem amittant.

And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon as they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly enter the lists against any man upon any point,

Hos tamen sua Philautia beatos reddit, dum tribus instructi syllogismis incunctanter audent quavis de re, cum quovis manum conserere.

as not doubting but to run him down with noise, though the opponent were another Stentor.

Cæterum pertinacia reddit invictos, etiamsi Stentorem opponas.

LII

LII

And next these come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred gowns and starched beards that they look upon themselves as the only wise men and all others as shadows.

Sub hos prodeunt philosophi, barba pollioque verendi, qui se solos sapere prædicant, reliquos omnes mortales, umbras volitare.

And yet how pleasantly do they dote while they frame in their heads innumerable worlds; measure out the sun, the moon, the stars, nay and heaven itself, as it were, with a pair of compasses; lay down the causes of lightning, winds, eclipses, and other the like inexplicable matters; and all this too without the least doubting, as if they were Nature’s secretaries, or dropped down among us from the council of the gods

Quam vero suaviter delirant, cum innumerabiles ædificant mundos, dum solem, dum lunam, stellas, orbes, tamquam pollice filove metiuntur, dum fulminum, ventorum, eclipsium ac cæterarum inexplicabilium rerum causas reddunt, nihil usquam hæsitantes, perinde quasi naturæ rerum architectrici fuerint a secretis, quasive e Deorum consilio nobis advenerint: quos interim Natura cum suis coniecturis, magnifice ridet.

; while in the meantime Nature laughs at them and all their blind conjectures. For that they know nothing, even this is a sufficient argument, that they don’t agree among themselves and so are incomprehensible touching every particular.

Nam nihil apud illos esse comperti, vel illud satis magnum est argumentum, quod singulis de rebus inexplicabilis inter ipsos est digladiatio.

These, though they have not the least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have mastered all; nay, though they neither know themselves, nor perceive a ditch or block that lies in their way, for that perhaps most of them are half blind, or their wits a wool-gathering, yet give out that they have discovered ideas, universalities, separated forms, first matters, quiddities, haecceities, formalities, and the like stuff; things so thin and bodiless that I believe even Lynceus himself was not able to perceive them.

Ii cum nihil omnino sciant, tamen omnia se scire profitentur: cumque se ipsos ignorent, neque fossam aliquoties, aut saxum obvium videant, vel quia lippiunt plerique, vel quia peregrinantur animi, tamen ideas, universalia, formas separatas, primas materias, quidditates, ecceitates videre se prædicant, res adeo tenues, ut neque Lynceus, opinor, possit perspicere.

But then chiefly do they disdain the unhallowed crowd as often as with their triangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devices, more confounded than a labyrinth, and letters disposed one against the other, as it were in battle array, they cast a mist before the eyes of the ignorant.

Ium vero præcipue profanum vulgus adspernantur, quoties, triquetris, et tetragonis, circulis, atque huiusmodi picturis mathematicis, aliis super alias inductis, et in labyrinthi speciem confusis, præterea litteris velut in acie dispositis, ac subinde alio atque alio repetitis ordine, tenebras offundunt imperitioribus.

Nor is there wanting of this kind some that pretend to foretell things by the stars and make promises of miracles beyond all things of soothsaying, and are so fortunate as to meet with people that believe them.

Neque desunt ex hoc genere qui futura quoque prædicant consultis astris, ac miracula plusquam magica polliceantur, et inveniunt homines fortunati, qui hæc quoque credant.

LIII

LIII

But perhaps I had better pass over our divines in silence and not stir this pool or touch this fair but unsavory plant, as a kind of men that are supercilious beyond comparison, and to that too, implacable; lest setting them about my ears, they attack me by troops and force me to a recantation sermon, which if I refuse, they straight pronounce me a heretic.

Porro Theologos silentio transire fortasse præstiterit, kai tautên kamarinan ou kinein, nec hanc anagyrim tangere, utpote genus hominum mire superciliosum atque irritabile, ne forte turmatim sexcentis conclusionibus adoriantur, et ad palinodiam adigant, quod si recusem, protinus hæreticam clamitent.

For this is the thunderbolt with which they fright those whom they are resolved not to favor.

Nam illico solent hoc terrere fulmine, si cui sunt parum propitii.

And truly, though there are few others that less willingly acknowledge the kindnesses I have done them, yet even these too stand fast bound to me upon no ordinary accounts; while being happy in their own opinion, and as if they dwelt in the third heaven, they look with haughtiness on all others as poor creeping things and could almost find in their hearts to pity them; while hedged in with so many magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions explicit and implicit, they abound with so many starting-holes that Vulcan’s net cannot hold them so fast, but they’ll slip through with their distinctions, with which they so easily cut all knots asunder that a hatchet could not have done it better, so plentiful are they in their new-found words and prodigious terms.

Sane quamquam non alii sunt, qui minus libenter agnoscant meam in se beneficentiam, tamen hi quoque non mediocribus nominibus obstricti sunt, dum felices sua Philautia perinde quasi ipsi tertium incolant coelum, ita reliquos mortaleis omneis ut humi reptantes pecudes, e sublimi despiciunt, ac prope commiserantur, dum tanto magistralium definitionum, conclusionum, corollariorum, propositionum explicitarum et implicitarum agmine septi sunt, tot exuberant krêsphugetois, ut nec Vulcaniis vinculis sic possint irretiri, quin elabantur distinctionibus, quibus nodos omneis adeo facile secant, ut non Tenedia bipennis melius, tot nuper excogitatis vocabulis, ac prodigiosis vocibus scatent.

Besides, while they explicate the most hidden mysteries according to their own fancy—as how the world was first made; how original sin is derived to posterity; in what manner, how much room, and how long time Christ lay in the Virgin’s womb; how accidents subsist in the Eucharist without their subject.

Præterea dum arcana mysteria suo explicant arbitratu, qua ratione conditus ac digestus sit mundus. Per quos canales labes illa peccati in posteritatem derivata sit: quibus modis, qua mensura, quantulo tempore in Virginis utero sit absolutus Christus, quemadmodum in synaxi accidentia subsistant sine domicilio.

But these are common and threadbare; these are worthy of our great and illuminated divines, as the world calls them! At these, if ever they fall athwart them, they prick up—as whether there was any instant of time in the generation of the Second Person;

Sed hæc protrita. Illa demum magnis et illuminatis, ut vocant, Theologis digna putant, ad hæc si quando incidunt, expergiscunter.

whether there be more than one filiation in Christ;

Num quod instans in generatione divina? Num plures in Christo filiationes?

whether it be a possible proposition that God the Father hates the Son;

Num possibilis propositio, Pater Deus odit filium?

or whether it was possible that Christ could have taken upon Him the likeness of a woman, or of the devil, or of an ass, or of a stone, or of a gourd;

Num Deus potuerit suppositare mulierem, num Diabolum, num asinum, num cucurbitam, num silicem?

and then how that gourd should have preached, wrought miracles, or been hung on the cross;

Tum quemadmodum cucurbita fuerit concionatura, editura miracula, figenda cruci?

and what Peter had consecrated if he had administered the Sacrament at what time the body of Christ hung upon the cross;

Et, quid consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi pendebat in cruce?

or whether at the same time he might be said to be man; whether after the Resurrection there will be any eating and drinking, since we are so much afraid of hunger and thirst in this world.

Et, num eodem tempore Christus homo dici potuerit: et num post resurrectionem edere aut bibere fas sit futurum, iam nunc famem sitimque præcaventes.

There are infinite of these subtle trifles, and others more subtle than these, of notions, relations, instants, formalities, quiddities, haecceities, which no one can perceive without a Lynceus whose eyes could look through a stone wall and discover those things through the thickest darkness that never were.

Sunt innumerabiles leptoleschiai, his quoque multo subtiliores, de instantibus, de notionibus, de relationibus, de formalitatibus, de quidditatibus, ecceitatibus, quas nemo possit oculis adsequi, nisi tam Lynceus, ut ea quoque per altissimas tenebras videat, quæ nusquam sunt.

Add to this those their other determinations, and those too so contrary to common opinion that those oracles of the Stoics, which they call paradoxes, seem in comparison of these but blockish and idle—

Adde nunc his gnômas, illas, adeo paradoxous ut illa Stoicorum oracula, quæ paradoxa vocant, crassissima præ his videantur, et circumforanea, velut levius esse crimen, homines mille iugulare, quam semel in die Dominico calceum pauperi consuere.

as ’tis a lesser crime to kill a thousand men than to set a stitch on a poor man’s shoe on the Sabbath day; and that a man should rather choose that the whole world with all food and raiment, as they say, should perish, than tell a lie, though never so inconsiderable.

Et potius esse committendum, ut universus orbis pereat una cum victu et vestitu, quod aiunt, suo, quam unicum quantumlibet leve mendaciolum dicere.

And these most subtle subtleties are rendered yet more subtle by the several methods of so many Schoolmen, that one might sooner wind himself out of a labyrinth than the entanglements of the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Occamists, Scotists. Nor have I named all the several sects, but only some of the chief;

Iam has subtilissimas subtilitates subtiliores etiam reddunt tot scholasticorum viæ, ut citius e labyrinthis temet explices, quam ex involucris Realium, Nominalium, Thomistarum, Albertistarum, Occanistarum, Scotistarum, et nondum omneis dixi, sed præcipuas dumtaxat.

in all which there is so much doctrine and so much difficulty that I may well conceive the apostles, had they been to deal with these new kind of divines, had needed to have prayed in aid of some other spirit.

In quibus omnibus tantum est eruditionis, tantum difficultatis, ut existimem ipsis Apostolis alio spiritu opus fore, si cogantur hisce de rebus cum hoc novo Theologorum genere conserere manus.

Paul knew what faith was, and yet when he said, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen,” he did not define it doctor-like.

Paulus fidem præstare potuit, at idem cum ait: ‘Fides est substantia rerum sperandarum, argumentum non apparentium’: parum magistraliter definivit.

And as he understood charity well himself, so he did as illogically divide and define it to others in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter the thirteenth.

Idem ut caritatem optime præstitit, ita parum dialectice vel dividit, vel finit, in priore ad Corinthios epistola, cap. 13.

And devoutly, no doubt, did the apostles consecrate the Eucharist; yet, had they been asked the question touching the “terminus a quo” and the “terminus ad quem” of transubstantiation; of the manner how the same body can be in several places at one and the same time; of the difference the body of Christ has in heaven from that of the cross, or this in the Sacrament; in what point of time transubstantiation is, whereas prayer, by means of which it is, as being a discrete quantity, is transient; they would not, I conceive, have answered with the same subtlety as the Scotists dispute and define it.

Ac pie quidem illi consecrabant synaxim, et tamen rogati de termino a quo, et termino ad quem: de transsubstantiatione: de modo quo corpus idem sit in diversis locis: de differentia, qua corpus Christi est in coelo, qua fuit in cruce, qua in sacramento synaxeos: quo puncto fiat transsubstantiatio, cum oratio per quam ea fit, ut quantitas discreta sit in fluxu, non pari, sicut opinor, respondissent acumine, quo Scotidæ disserunt hæc, ac definiunt.

They knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has so philosophically demonstrated how she was preserved from original sin as have done our divines?

Noverant illi Iesu matrem, sed quis eorum tam philosophice demonstravit, quomodo fuerit ab Adæ macula, præservata, quam nostri Theologi?

Peter received the keys, and from Him too that would not have trusted them with a person unworthy; yet whether he had understanding or no, I know not, for certainly he never attained to that subtlety to determine how he could have the key of knowledge that had no knowledge himself.

Petrus accepit claves, et accepit ab eo, qui non committat indigno, et tamen an intellexerit, nescio, certe nusquam attigit subtilitatem, quomodo scientiæ clavem habeat is quoque, qui scientiam non habeat.

They baptized far and near, and yet taught nowhere what was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, nor made the least mention of delible and indelible characters.

Baptizabant illi passim, et tamen nusquam docuerunt, quæ sit causa formalis, materialis, efficiens, et finalis baptismi, nec characteris delebilis, et indelebilis apud hos ulla mentio.

They worshiped, ’tis true, but in spirit, following herein no other than that of the Gospel, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship, must worship him in spirit and truth;”

Adorabant quidem illi, sed in Spiritu, nihil aliud sequentes, quam illud Evangelicum, spiritus est Deus, et eos qui adorant eum in spiritu et veritate oportet adorare.

yet it does not appear it was at that time revealed to them that an image sketched on the wall with a coal was to be worshiped with the same worship as Christ Himself, if at least the two forefingers be stretched out, the hair long and uncut, and have three rays about the crown of the head.

Verum haud apparet eis tum fuisse revelatum, una eademque adoratione adorandam imagunculam carbone delineatam in pariete, ut Christum ipsum, si modo duobus sit porrectis digitis, intonsa coma et in umbone qui adhæret occipitio, treis habeat notas.

For who can conceive these things, unless he has spent at least six and thirty years in the philosophical and supercelestial whims of Aristotle and the Schoolmen?

Quis enim hæc percipiat, nisi triginta sex annos totos in physicis, et ultramundanis Aristotelis et Scoticis contriverit?

In like manner, the apostles press to us grace; but which of them distinguishes between free grace and grace that makes a man acceptable?

Idemtidem inculcant Apostoli gratiam, at iidem nusquam distinguunt, quid intersit inter gratiam gratis datam, et gratiam gratificantem.

They exhort us to good works, and yet determine not what is the work working, and what a resting in the work done.

Hortantur ad bona opera, nec discernunt opus, opus operans et opus operatum.

They incite us to charity, and yet make no difference between charity infused and charity wrought in us by our own endeavors. Nor do they declare whether it be an accident or a substance, a thing created or uncreated.

Passim inculcant caritatem, nec secernunt infusam ab acquisita, nec explicant, accidens ne sit, an substantia, creata res an increata.

They detest and abominate sin, but let me not live if they could define according to art what that is which we call sin, unless perhaps they were inspired by the spirit of the Scotists.

Detestantur peccatum, at, emoriar, si potuerunt scientifice definire, quid sit illud, quod peccatum vocamus, nisi forte Scotistarum spiritu fuerunt edocti.

Nor can I be brought to believe that Paul, by whose learning you may judge the rest, would have so often condemned questions, disputes, genealogies, and, as himself calls them, “strifes of words,” if he had thoroughly understood those subtleties, especially when all the debates and controversies of those times were rude and blockish in comparison of the more than Chrysippean subtleties of our masters.

Nec enim adduci possum, ut credam Paulum, e cuius unius eruditione licet omneis æstimare, toties, damnaturum fuisse quæstiones, disceptationes, genealogias, et ut ipse vocat, logomachias, si eas percalluisset argutias, præsertim cum omnes illius temporis contentiones, pugnæque rusticanæ fuerint, et crassæ, si cum magistrorum nostrorum plus quam Chrysippeis subtilitatibus conferantur.

Although yet the gentlemen are so modest that if they meet with anything written by the apostles not so smooth and even as might be expected from a master, they do not presently condemn it but handsomely bend it to their own purpose,

Quamquam homines modestissimi, si quid forte scriptum sit ab Apostolis indolatius parumque magistraliter, non damnant quidem, sed commode interpretantur.

so great respect and honor do they give, partly to antiquity and partly to the name of apostle.

Hoc videlicet honoris, partim antiquitati, partim Apostolico nomini deferentes.

And truly ’twas a kind of injustice to require so great things of them that never heard the least word from their masters concerning it.

Et, hercle, parum æquum erat, res tantas ab illis requirere, de quibus ex præceptore suo, ne verbum quidem umquam audissent.

And so if the like happen in Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, they think it enough to say they are not obliged by it.

Idem si eveniat in Chrysostomo, Basilio, Hieronymo, tum sat habent adscribere: ‘Non tenetur’.

The apostles also confuted the heathen philosophers and Jews, a people than whom none more obstinate, but rather by their good lives and miracles than syllogisms: and yet there was scarce one among them that was capable of understanding the least “quodlibet” of the Scotists.

Et illi quidem confutarunt Ethnicos Philosophos ac Iudæos, suapte natura pertinacissimos, sed vita magis ac miraculis quam syllogismis, tum eos quorum nemo fuerit idoneus, vel unicum Scoti Quodlibetum ingenio consequi.

But now, where is that heathen or heretic that must not presently stoop to such wire-drawn subtleties, unless he be so thick-skulled that he can’t apprehend them, or so impudent as to hiss them down, or, being furnished with the same tricks, be able to make his party good with them? As if a man should set a conjurer on work against a conjurer, or fight with one hallowed sword against another, which would prove no other than a work to no purpose.

Nunc quis Ethnicus, quis Hæreticus non continuo cedat tot tenuissimis subtilitatibus, nisi tam crassus, ut non adsequatur, aut tam impudens ut exsibilet, aut iisdem instructus laqueis, ut iam par sit pugna, perinde quasi magum cum mago committas, aut si gladio fortunato pugnet aliquis cum eo, cui gladius sit fortunatus: tum enim nihil aliud quam tela Penelopes retexeretur.

For my own part I conceive the Christians would do much better if instead of those dull troops and companies of soldiers with which they have managed their war with such doubtful success, they would send the bawling Scotists, the most obstinate Occamists, and invincible Albertists to war against the Turks and Saracens; and they would see, I guess, a most pleasant combat and such a victory as was never before.

Ac meo quidem iudicio saperent Christiani, si pro pinguibus istis militum cohortibus, per quas iam olim ancipiti Marte belligerantur, clamosissimos Scotistas, et pertinacissimos Occanistas, et invictos Albertistas una cum tota Sophistarum manu, mitterent in Turcas et Saracenos: spectarent, opinor, et conflictum omnium lepidissimum, et victoriam non ante visam.

For who is so faint whom their devices will not enliven? who so stupid whom such spurs can’t quicken?

Quis enim usque adeo frigidus, quem istorum non inflamment acumina? quis tam stupidus, ut tales non excitent aculei?

or who so quick-sighted before whose eyes they can’t cast a mist?

Quis tam oculatus, ut hæc illi non maximas offundant tenebras?

But you’ll say, I jest.

Verum hæc omnia videor vobis propemodum ioco dicere.

Nor are you without cause, since even among divines themselves there are some that have learned better and are ready to turn their stomachs at those foolish subtleties of the others.

Nec mirum sane, cum sint et inter ipsos Theologos melioribus instituti litteris, qui ad has frivolas, ut putant, Theologorum argutias nauseent.

There are some that detest them as a kind of sacrilege and count it the height of impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be adored than explicated; to dispute of them with such profane and heathenish niceties; to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty of divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions.

Sunt qui velut sacrilegii genus exsecrentur, summamque ducant impietatem, de rebus tam arcanis et adorandis magis quam explicandis, tam illoto ore loqui, tam profanis Ethnicorum argutiis disputare, tam arroganter definire, ac divinæ Theologiæ maiestatem tam frigidis, imo sordidis verbis simul et sententiis conspurcare.

Meantime the others please, nay hug themselves in their happiness, and are so taken up with these pleasant trifles that they have not so much leisure as to cast the least eye on the Gospel or St. Paul’s epistles.

At interim ipsi felicissime sibi placent, imo plaudunt, adeo ut his suavissimis næniis, nocte dieque occupatis, ne tantulum quidem otii supersit ut Euangelium, aut Paulinas Epistolas vel semel liceat evolvere.

And while they play the fool at this rate in their schools, they make account the universal church would otherwise perish, unless, as the poets fancied of Atlas that he supported heaven with his shoulders, they underpropped the other with their syllogistical buttresses.

Atque interim dum hæc nugantur in scholis, existimant sese universam Ecclesiam, alioqui ruituram, non aliter syllogismorum fulcire tibicinibus, quam Atlas coelum humeris sustinet apud poetas.

And how great a happiness is this, think you? while, as if Holy Writ were a nose of wax, they fashion and refashion it according to their pleasure; while they require that their own conclusions, subscribed by two or three Schoolmen, be accounted greater than Solon’s laws and preferred before the papal decretals; while, as censors of the world, they force everyone to a recantation that differs but a hair’s breadth from the least of their explicit or implicit determinations. And those too they pronounce like oracles. This proposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy; this no very good sound: so that neither baptism, nor the Gospel, nor Paul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor St. Augustine, no nor most Aristotelian Thomas himself can make a man a Christian, without these bachelors too be pleased to give him his grace.

Iam illud quantæ felicitatis esse putatis, dum arcanas litteras, perinde quasi cereæ sint, pro libidine formant ac reformant, dum conclusiones suas, quibus iam aliquot Scholastici subscripserunt, plus quam Solonis leges videri postulant, et vel pontificiis decretis anteponendas, dumque veluti censores orbis ad palinodiam trahunt, si quid usquam cum explicitis et implicitis illorum conclusionibus, non ad amussim quadrarit, ac non secus atque ex oraculo pronunciant: ‘Hæc propositio scandalosa est: hæc parum reverentialis: hæc hæresim olet: hæc male tinnit’: ut iam nec Baptismus, nec Euangelium, nec Paulus aut Petrus, nec sanctus Hieronvmus aut Augustinus, imo nec ipse Thomas aristotelikôtatos Christianum efficiat, nisi Baccalauriorum calculus accesserit, tanta est in iudicando subtilitas.

And the like in their subtlety in judging; for who would think he were no Christian that should say these two speeches “matula putes” and “matula putet,” or “ollae fervere” and “ollam fervere” were not both good Latin, unless their wisdoms had taught us the contrary?

Quis enim sensurus erat eum Christianum non esse, qui diceret has duas orationes, ‘matula putes’, et ‘matula putet’, item ‘ollæ fervere’, et ‘ollam fervere’, pariter esse congruas, nisi sapientes illi docuissent?

who had delivered the church from such mists of error, which yet no one ever met with, had they not come out with some university seal for it? And are they not most happy while they do these things?

Quis tantis errorum tenebris liberasset Ecclesiam, quos ne lecturus quidem umquam quisquam fuerat, nisi magnis sigillis isti prodidissent?

Then for what concerns hell, how exactly they describe everything, as if they had been conversant in that commonwealth most part of their time! Again, how do they frame in their fancy new orbs, adding to those we have already an eighth! a goodly one, no doubt, and spacious enough, lest perhaps their happy souls might lack room to walk in, entertain their friends, and now and then play at football.

Verum, an non felicissimi dum hæc agunt? Præterea dum inferorum res omneis sic examussim depingunt, tamquam in ea republica complureis annos sint versati? Præterea dum pro arbitrio novos orbes fabricantur, addito denique latissimo illo, pulcerrimoque: ne scilicet deesset ubi felices animæ commode vel spatiari, vel convivium agitare, vel etiam pila ludere possent.

And with these and a thousand the like fopperies their heads are so full stuffed and stretched that I believe Jupiter’s brain was not near so big when, being in labor with Pallas, he was beholding to the midwifery of Vulcan’s axe.

His atque id genus bis mille nugis horum capita adeo distenta differtaque sunt, ut arbitrer nec Iovis cerebrum æque gravidum fuisse, cum ille Palladem parturiens, Vulcani securim imploraret.

And therefore you must not wonder if in their public disputes they are so bound about the head, lest otherwise perhaps their brains might leap out.

Quare nolite mirari, si videtis caput illorum tot fasciis tam diligenter obvinctum in publicis disputationibus, alioquin enim plane dissilirent.

Nay, I have sometimes laughed myself to see them so tower in their own opinion when they speak most barbarously; and when they humh and hawh so pitifully that none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they call it heights which the vulgar can’t reach;

Illud ipsa quoque nonnumquam ridere soleo, cum ita demum maxima sibi videntur Theologi, si quam maxime barbare spurceque loquantur, cumque adeo balbutiunt, ut a nemine nisi balbo possint intelligi, acumen appellant, quod vulgus non adsequatur.

for they say ’tis beneath the dignity of divine mysteries to be cramped and tied up to the narrow rules of grammarians:

Negant enim e dignitate Sacrarum Litterarum esse, si grammaticorum legibus parere cogantur.

from whence we may conjecture the great prerogative of divines, if they only have the privilege of speaking corruptly, in which yet every cobbler thinks himself concerned for his share.

Mira vero maiestas theologorum, si solis illis fas est mendose loqui, quamquam hoc ipsum habent cum multis cerdonibus commune.

Lastly, they look upon themselves as somewhat more than men as often as they are devoutly saluted by the name of “Our Masters,” in which they fancy there lies as much as in the Jews’ “Jehovah;”

Postremo iam Diis proximos sese ducunt, quoties quasi religiose Magistri Nostri salutantur, in quo quidem nomine, tale quiddam subesse putant, quale est apud Iudæos tetragrammaton.

and therefore they reckon it a crime if “Magister Noster” be written other than in capital letters;

Itaque nefas aiunt esse Magister Noster secus quam maiusculis scribere litteris.

and if anyone should preposterously say “Noster Magister,” he has at once overturned the whole body of divinity.

Quid si quis præpostere, Noster Magister dixerit, is semel omnem Theologici nominis perverterit maiestatem.

LIV

LIV

And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and monks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than themselves.

Ad horum felicitatem proxime accedunt ii, qui se vulgo Religiosos ac Monachos appellant utroque falsissimo cognomine, cum et bona pars istorum longissime absit a Religione, et nulli magis omnibus locis sint obvii.

Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did not I support them so many several ways.

Iis non video quid possit esse miserius, nisi ego multis modis succurrerem.

For whereas all men detest them to that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by chance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves.

Etenim cum hoc hominum genus omnes sic exsecrentur, ut fortuitum etiam occursum ominosum esse persuasum sit, tamen ipsi sibi magnifice blandiuntur.

For first, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so illiterate that they can’t so much as read.

Primum summam existimant pietatem, si usque adeo nihil attigerint litterarum, ut ne legere quidem possint.

And then when they run over their offices, which they carry about them, rather by tale than understanding, they believe the gods more than ordinarily pleased with their braying.

Deinde cum Psalmos suos, numeratos quidem illos, at non intellectos, asininis vocibus in templis derudunt, tum vero se putant Divorum aures multa voluptate demulcere.

And some there are among them that put off their trumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down for the bread they eat; nay, there is scarce an inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not, to the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars.

Et sunt ex his nonnulli, qui sordes ac mendicitatem magno vendunt, proque foribus magno mugitu panem efflagitant, imo in nullis diversoriis, vehiculis, navibus non obturbant, non mediocri profecto reliquorum mendicorum iactura.

And yet, like pleasant fellows, with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and impudence, they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the apostles.

Atque ad eum modum homines suavissimi, sordibus, inscitia, rusticitate, impudentia, Apostolos, ut aiunt, nobis referunt.