 Part six of The Praise of Folly. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Anosimon. The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus, translated by John Wilson. Part six. But no man, you'll say, ever sacrificed to Folly, or built me a temple. And trough, as I said before, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude. Yet because I am easily to be untreated, I take this also in good part, though truly I can scarce request it. For why should I require incense, wafers, a goat, or so, when all men pay me that worship everywhere, which is so much approved, even by our very divines? Unless perhaps I should envy Diana that her sacrifices are mingled with human blood. Then do I conceive myself most religiously worshipped when everywhere, as this generally done, men embrace me in their minds, express me in their manners, and represent me in their lives? Which worship of the saints is not so ordinary among Christians? How many are there that burn candles to the Virgin Mother, and that too at noonday when there is no need of them? But how few are there that study to imitate her impureness of life, humility, and love of heavenly things, which is the true worship and most acceptable to heaven? Besides, why should I desire a temple when the whole world is my temple? And I am deceived, or it is a goodly one. Nor can I want priests, but in a land where there are no men. Nor am I yet so foolish as to require statues or painted images, which do often obstruct my worship, since among the stupid and gross multitude those figures are worshipped for the saints themselves. And so it would fare with me, as it does with them that are turned out of doors by their substitutes. No, I have statues enough, and as many as there are men, everyone bearing my lively resemblance in his face. How unwilling so ever he be to the country. And therefore there is no reason why I should envy the rest of the gods, if in particular places they have their particular worship, and that too on sad days, as Phoebus at Rhodes, at Cyprus, Venus, at Arcos, Juno, at Athens, Minerva, in Olympus, Jupiter, at Tarentum, Neptune, and near the Hellespont, Priapus, as long as the world in general performs me every day much better sacrifices. Wherein notwithstanding, if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken more boldly than truly, let us, if you please, look a little into the lives of men, and it will easily appear not only how much they owe to me, but how much they esteem me even from the highest to the lowest. And yet we will not run over the lives of everyone, for that would be too long, but only some few of the great ones, from ones we shall easily conjecture the rest. For to what purpose is it to say anything of the common people, who without dispute are wholly mine? For they abound everywhere but so many several sorts of folly, and are every day so busy in inventing new, that a thousand democrati are too few for so general a laughter, though there were another democratis to laugh at them too. It is almost incredible what sport and pastime they daily make the gods, for though they set aside their sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet when they begin to be well whittled with nectar and cannot think of anything that serious, they get them up into some part of heaven that is better prospect than other, and thence look down upon the actions of man. Nor is there anything that pleases them better. Good, good, what an excellent sight it is! How many several hurly burlies of fools! For I myself sometimes sit among those poetical gods. Here is one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she slights him, the more outrageously he loves her. Another marries a woman's money, not herself. Another's jealousy keeps more eyes on her than Arcos. Another becomes a moaner, and how foolishly he carries it. He hires others to bear him company to make it more ridiculous. Another weeps over his mother-in-law's grave. Another spends all he can, rep and run on his belly to be the more hungry after it. Another thinks there is no happiness but in sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself about other men's business and neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in taking up monies and changing securities, as we say, borrowing of Peter to pay Paul, and in a short time becomes bankrupt. Another tarves himself to enrich his heir. Another, for a small and uncertain gain, exposes his life to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore. Another had rather get riches by war than leave peaceably at home. And some there are that think them easiest attained by courting old, childless men with presence. And others again, by making rich old women, believe they love them, both which afford the God's most excellent pastime, to see them cheated by those persons they thought to have overcourt. But the most foolish and baseless of all others are our merchants, to wit such as venture on everything be it never so dishonest and managed no better. Who though they lie by no allowance, swear and frisswear, steal, cousin and cheat, yet shuffle themselves into the first rank, and all because they have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are they without their flattering friars that admire them and give them openly the title of honorable, in hopes, no doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves. There are also a kind of Pythagoreans, with whom all things are so common that if they get anything under their cloaks, they make no more scruple of carrying it away than if it were their own by inheritance. There are others, too, that are only rich and concede, and while they fancy to themselves pleasant dreams, conceive that enough to make them happy. Some desire to be accounted wealthy abroad, and are yet ready to starve at home. One makes what hasty can to set all going, and another rakes it together by right or wrong. This man is ever laboring for public honors, and another lies sleeping in a chimney corner. A great many undertake endless suits and outvi one another who shall most enrich the literary judge or corrupt advocate. One is all for innovations, and another for some grade he knows not what. Another leaves his wife and children at home and goes to Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James's, where he has no business. In short, if a man like Manipas of old could look down from the moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he would think he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among themselves, fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching, playing, wantoning, growing up, falling and dying. Nor is it to be believed what stir, what broils this little creature raises, and yet in how short a time it comes to nothing itself, while sometimes war, other times pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together. But let me be most foolish myself, and one whom democratists may not only laugh at, but flout, if I go one foot further in the discovery of the follies and madnesses of the common people. I'll betake me to them that carry the reputation of wise man, and hunt after that golden bow, assess the proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a generation of man, then whom nothing would be more miserable, nothing more perplexed, nothing more hated of the gods, did not I allay the troubles of that pitiful profession with a certain kind of pleasant madness. For they are not only subject to those five curses with which Homer begins his illiates, assess the Greek epigram, but six hundred, as being ever hunger-staffed and slovens in their schools. Schools, did I say? Nay, rather cloisters, brightwells, or slaughterhouses. Grown old among a company of boys, deaf with their noise, and pined away with stench and nastiness. And yet by my curtsy it is that they think themselves the most excellent of all men. So greatly do they please themselves in frighting a company of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks, tormenting them with ferriels, rods and whips, and laying about them without fear or wit, imitate the ass in a lion's skin. In the meantime all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and that miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change their tyranny for valorous or Dionysius empire. Nor are they less happy in that new opinion they have taken up of being learned. For whereas most of them beat into boys' heads nothing but foolish toys, yet you good gods, what Pleymon, what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of themselves? And so I know not by what tricks they bring it about that to their boys' foolish mothers and old-headed fathers they pass for such as they fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure there's, that if any of them happen to find out who was Ancus' mother, or pick out of some worm-eating manuscript a word not commonly known, as suppose it burpsiqua for a cowherd, bovenator for a wrangler, manticulator for a cut-purse, or dig up the runes of some ancient monument with the letters half eaten out. Ho Jupiter, what towerings, what triumphs, what commendations, as if they had conquered Africa or taken in Babylon. But what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses and their want not others that admire them as much? They believe presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them. But nothing like this when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one another, whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted than the rest discover it by accident. Oh, Hercules, what uproars, what bick-rings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill-will of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many arts, a Grecian, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, a man, master of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying by all the rest, perplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of grammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long till he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to be distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully cleared, as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made an adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many grammars as grammarians. Nay more, for as much as my friend Eldus has given us above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or tediously so ever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined, envying every man's attempts in this kind, how to be pitted than happy, as persons that are ever tormenting themselves, 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 pressures of all things. Add to this the waste of health, spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes, or rather blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasure, overhaste the old age, untimely death, and alike. So highly does this wise man value the appropriation of one or two blair-eyed fellows. 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. And what matter is it to slight those few learned, if yet they ever read them? Or of what authority will the sender of so few wise men be, against so great a cloud of gainsayers? 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. And is worth once while to consider how they please themselves when they are applauded by the common people, pointed at in the crowd, to 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, which by the immortal gods what are they but mere words? And again, if you consider the world, by how few understood, and praised by fewer, for even among the unlearned there are different pellets. Or what is it that their own very names are often counterfeit or borrowed from some books of the ancients, when one styles himself Telemachus, another Stenilus, a third Laratus, a fourth Polycritus, 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. 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. This, in the other's opinion, is an absolute alcheist, 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. And sometimes, too, they pick out their antagonist and think to raise themselves a fame by writing one against the other, 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. And now wise man laugh at these things as foolish as indeed they are, who denies it. Yet in the meantime, such as my kindness to them, they live a merry life and would not change their imaginary triumphs, no, not with the Scipios. While yet those learned man, 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. 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, and opinions on a neck of opinions, they bring it at last to this pass, that that study of all others seems the most difficult. Add to these are logicians and sophists, a generation of man more prattling than an echo, and the worst of them able to out-chat a hundred of the best-picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better where 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. 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, as not doubting but to run him down with noise, though the opponent were another stental. And next to these come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred gowns and starched beards, that they look upon themselves at the only wise man, and all others as shadows. 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 even 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 counsel of the gods, 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. These, though they have not the least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have massed 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 methods, quiddities, hexiities, formalities, and the like stuff. Things so thin and borrelous that I believe even Lincius himself was not able to perceive them. But then chiefly do they disdain the unhallowed crowd as often as with their triangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devises, more confounded than a labyrinth, and let us disposed one against the other, as it were in a battle array, they cast a mist before the eyes of the ignorant. Nor is there a wanting of this kind some that pretend to foretell things by the stars and make promises of miracles beyond all things were soothsaying, and are so fortunate as to meet with people that believe them. But perhaps I'd 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. For this is the thunderbolt with which they fright those whom they are resolved not to favour. And, truly, though there are few others that less willingly acknowledge the kindnesses I've done them, yet even these, too, stand fast bound to me upon no ordinary counts. While being happy in their own opinion, and as if they dwelt in the Third Heaven, they look with heartiness on all others as poor creeping things, and could almost find in their hearts to pity them, while hatched 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 newfound words and prodigious terms. 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. 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 full-eth with them, they prick up, as whether there was any instant of time in the generation of the Second Person, whether there be more than one affiliation in Christ, whether it be a possible proposition that God the Father hates the Son, 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 gold, and then how that gorge should have preached, wrought miracles, or been hung on the cross, and what Peter had consecrated if he had administered the sacrament at what time the body of Christ hung upon the cross, 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. There are infinite of these subtle trifles, and others more subtle than these, of notions, relations, instance, formalities, quiddities, hexiities, which no one can perceive without a lynches whose eyes could look through a stone wall, and discover those things through the thickest darkness that never were. 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, as there's 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. And these most subtle subtleties are rendered yet more subtle by the several methods of so many schoolmen that one might soon 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, 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. Paul knew what faith was, and yet when he said, faith is the substance of things hopeful and the evidence of things not seen, he did not define it doctor-like, and as he understood charity well himself, so he did as illogically divide and define it to others in his first episode to the Corinthians, chapter the thirteenth, and devoutly, no doubt, did the apostles consecrate the Eucharist, yet had they been asked the question touching the terminus at quo, and the terminus at quem, of transubstantiation, of the manner of 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, of this in the sacrament, in what point of time transubstantiation is, whereas prayer, by means of which it is, as being a discreet quantity, is transient. They would not, I conceive, have answered with the same subtlety as the Scottists dispute and define it. 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. 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 suddenly he never attained to that subtlety to determine how he could have the key of knowledge that had no knowledge himself. They baptised 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. They worshipped distrue, 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. 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 worshipped 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. For who can conceive these things, unless he has spent at least six and thirty years in the philosophical and supracelestial whims of Aristotle and the schoolman? In like manner the apostles pressed to his grace, but which of them distinguishes between free grace and grace that makes a man acceptable? They exhort us to good works, and yet they determine not what is the work working, and what are resting in the work done? They incite us to charity, and yet make no difference between charity infused and charity wrought in us by our own endeavours. Nor do they declare whether it be an accident or a substance, a thing created or uncreated. 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 Scots. Nor can I be broad 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, strives 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 crispian subtleties of our masters. 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, so great respect and honour do they give, partly to antiquity and partly to the name of a apostle. And truly it was a kind of injustice to require so great things of them that never heard the least word from their masters concerning it. And so, if the like happen in Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, they think it enough to say they are not obliged by it. The apostles also confuted the heathen philosophers and Jews, a people then 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 quat libid of the Scottish. 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 the conjurer, or fight with one hallowed sword against another, which would prove no other than a work to no purpose. 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 Scottists, the most obstinate Ochemists, 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. For who is so faint whom their devices will not enliven? Who so stupid whom such spurs can't quicken? Or who so quick-sighted before whose eyes they can't cast a mist? But you'll say, I jest. 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. There are some that attest them as a kind of sacrilege and counted the height of impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be adored than explicated, to dispute with them with such profane and heathenish niceties, to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty of divinity with such pitiless and sordid terms and opinions. 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 simple epistles. And while they play the fool at this rate in their schools, they make account the universal church will otherwise perish, unless, as the poet's fancied of Atlas, that he supported heaven with his shoulders, they underpropped the other with their so logistical buttresses. And how great a happiness is this, thank you, while as if holy writ were a nose of wax, they fashion and re-fashion 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 by the 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 Saint Jerome, nor Saint Augustine, nor most Aristotelian Thomas himself, can make a man a Christian, without these bachelors too, be pleased to give him his grace, and alike in their subtlety in judging. For who would think he were no Christian that should say these two speeches, Matola Puthes and Matola Puthet, or Olai Ferver and Olam Ferver, were not both good Latin, unless their wisdoms had taught us the contrary? Who had levied 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? 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 did 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. And with these and a thousand alike properties 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 midwivery of Vulcan's axe. 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. I've sometimes laughed myself to see them so tower in their own opinion when they speak most barbarously, and when they hum and whore so pitifully that none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they call it heights which the vulgar can't reach. For they say it is beneath the dignity of divine mysteries to be cramped and tied up to the narrow rules of grammarians. 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. 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 that lies as much as in the Jews Jehovah, and therefore they reckon it a crime if Magister Noster be written other than in capital letters, and if anyone should preposterously say Noster Magister, he has at once overturned the whole body of divinity. And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious amongst. Most falls in both titles, when both a great part of them are farthest from religion, and no man swarms thicker in all places than themselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did not I support them so many several ways. 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. 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. 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 brain. And some there are among them that put off their trumperies at vast rates, yet robe 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. 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. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule and, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which were a crime beyond forgiveness, as how many knots their shoes must be tied with, or what colour everything is, what distinction of habits, of what stuff made, how many straws brought their girdles, and of what fashion, how many bushels white their cowl, how many fingers long their hair, and how many hours sleep. Which exact quality, how disproportionate it is, among such variety of bodies and tempers, who is there that does not perceive it? And yet, by reason of these fooleries, they not only set slight by others, but each different order, man otherwise professing apostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing of a habit, or that is of darker colour, they put all things in combustion. And among these there are some so rigidly religious that their upper garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest linen, and on the contrary, others wear linen without and hair next to their skins. Others again are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet neither for bear wine nor dallying with women. In a word, does their only care that none of them come near one another in their manner of living, nor do they endeavour how they may be like Christ, but how they may differ among themselves. And another great happiness they conceive in their names, while they call themselves cordilliers, and among these two some are colleagues, some minors, some minims, some crossed. And again these are benedictines, those Bernadines, those Carmelites, those Augustines, these Williamites, and those Jacobines, as if it were not worth the while to be called Christians. And of these a great part build so much on their ceremonies and petty traditions of men that they think one heaven is too poor a reward for so great merit, little dreaming that the time will come when Christ, not regarding any of these trifles, will call them to account for his precept of charity. One shall show you a large trough full of all kinds of fish, another tumble you out so many bushels of prayers, another reckon you so many myriads of fasts, and fetch them up again in one dinner by eating till he cracks again. Another produces more bundles of ceremonies than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry. Another brags he has not touched a penny these three school years without two pair of gloves at least upon his hands. Another wears a cow so lined with grease that the poorest tarpaulin would not stoop to take it up. Another will tell you he has lived these fifty-five years like a sponge continually fastened to the same place. Another has grown horse with his daily chanting. Another has contracted a lethargy by his solitary living. And another the palsy in his tongue for want of speaking. But Christ, interrupting them in their vanities, which otherwise were endless, will ask them, whence this new kind of Jews? I acknowledge one commandment which is truly mine, of which alone I hear nothing. I promised this true my father's heritage, and that without parables, not to cows, old prayers, and fastings, but to the duties of faith and charity. Nor can I acknowledge them that least acknowledge their faults. They that would seem holier than myself, let them, if they like, possess to themselves those three hundred and sixty-five heavens of bazilities, the heretics, invention, or command them whose foolish traditions they have preferred before my precepts to erect them a new one. When they shall hear these things and see common, ordinary persons preferred before them, with what countenance think you, will they behold one another? In the meantime, they are happy in their hopes, and for this also they are beholding to me. And yet these kind of people, though they are, as it were, of another commonwealth, no man dares despise, especially those begging friars, because they are privy to all man's secrets by means of confessions, as they call them. Which yet were no less than treason to discover, unless, being got drunk, they have a mind to be pleasant, and then all comes out, that is to say, by hints and conjectures, but suppressing the names. But if any one should anger these wasps, they'll sufficiently revenge themselves in their public sermons, and so point out their enemy by circumlocutions, that there's no one but understands whom dis they mean, unless they understand nothing at all. Nor will they give over their barking till you throw the dogs a bone. And now tell me, what juggler or mount-bank you'd rather behold than hear them rhetorically play the fool in their preachments, and yet most sweetly imitating what rhetoricians have written touching the art of good speaking? Good God, what several posters they have! How they shift their voice, sing out their words, skip up and down, and are ever and anon making such new faces that they confound all things with noise, and yet this neck of theirs it no lesser mystery that runs in succession from one brother to another, which though it be not lawful for me to know, however I'll venture at it by conjectures. And first they invoke whatever they have scraped from the poets, and in the next place, if they are to discourse of charity, they take their rise from the river Nileus, or to set out the mystery of the cross from Belle and the dragon, or to dispute of fasting from the twelve signs of the zodiac, or, being to preach of faith, ground their matter on the square of a circle. I've heard myself one, and he no small fool, I was mistaken, I would have said scholar, that being in a famous assembly explaining the mystery of a trinity, that he might both let them see his learning was not ordinary, and with all satisfied some theological ears, he took a new way to wit from the letters, syllables and the word itself, then from the coherence of the nominative case in the verb, and the adjective in substantive, and while most of the audience wondered, and some of them muttered, that of Horace, what does all this jumpery drive at? At last he brought the matter to this head, that he would demonstrate that the mystery of the trinity was so clearly expressed in the very rudiments of grammar, that the best mathematician could not chalk it out more plainly. And in this discourse did this most superlative theologian beat his brains for eight whole months, that at this hour he's as blind as a beetle, to wit all the sight of his eyes being run into the sharpness of his wit. But for all that he thinks nothing of his blindness, rather taking the same for too cheaper price of such a glory as he won thereby. Besides him I met with another, some eight years of age, and such a divine that he'd have sworn Skoda himself was revived in him. He, being upon the point of unfolding the mystery of the name Jesus, did with wonderful subtlety demonstrate that there lay hidden in those letters whatever could be said of him, for that it was only declined with three cases, he said, it was a manifest token of the divine trinity, and then that the first entered in S, the second in M, the third in U. There was in it an ineffable mystery, to wit those three letters declaring to us that he was the beginning, middle, and end, sumum, medium, and ultimum of all. Nay, the mystery was yet more obstruous, for he so mathematically split the word Jesus into two equal parts that he left the middle letter by itself, and then told us that that letter in Hebrew was shin or sin, and that sin in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered, signified as much as sin. From whence he gathered that it was Jesus that took away the sins of the world? At which new exposition the audience were so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially the theologians, that they wanted little, but that Niobi-like they had been turned to stones, whereas the like had almost happened to me as befell the Priepers in Horus, and not without cause, for when were the Grecian, the Mosternus, or Roman Cicero ever guilty of the like? They thought that introduction faulty, that was wider the matter, as were not the way of carters and swine-huts that have no more wit than God send them. But these learned men think they are preamble, for so they call it, then chiefly rhetorical, when it has least coherence with the rest of the argument, that the admiring audience may in the meanwhile whisper to themselves, what will he be at now? In the third place they bring in, instead of narration, some texts of scripture, but handled them cursorily, and as it were by the by, when yet it is the only thing they should have insisted on. And fourthly, as it were changing a part in the play, they bold out with some question in divinity, and many times relating neither to earth nor heaven, and this they look upon as a piece of art. Here they erect their theological crests, and beat into the people's ears those magnificent titles of illustrious doctors, subtle doctors, most subtle doctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors, holy doctors, unquestionable doctors, and alike, and then throw abroad among the ignorant people, syllogisms, mages, minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and those so weak and foolish that they are below pedantry. There remains yet the fifth act in which one would think they should show their mastery. And here they bring in some foolish insipid fable out of spéculum historiale, or geste romanorum, and expound it allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically. And after this manner do they end their chimera, and such as horrors despair of compassing when he wrote humano capiti, etc. END OF PART SEVEN PART EIGHT OF THE PRAISE OF FOLLEY This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Anna Simon, the praise of folly by Desiderius Erasmus, translated by John Wilson, part eight. But they have heard from somebody, I know not whom, that the beginning of a speech should be sober and grave, and at least given to noise, and therefore they begin theirs at that rate they can scarce hear themselves, as if it were not matter whether anyone understood them. They have learned somewhere that to move the affections a louder voices requisite, whereupon they that otherwise would speak like a mouse in a cheese, start out of a sudden into a downright fury, even there, too, where there's the least need of it. A man would swear they were past the power of hella-bowl, so little do they consider where it is they run out. Again, because they have heard that as a speech comes up to something, a man should press it more earnestly. They, however they begin, use a strange contention of voice in every part, though the matter itself be never so flat, and end in that manner as if they'd run themselves out of breath. Lastly, they have learned that among rhetoricians there is some mention of laughter, and therefore they study to prick in a jest here and there. But, oh Venus, so void of wit, and so little to the purpose, that it may be truly called an ass is playing on the harp. And sometimes also they use somewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that they rather tickle than wound, nor do they ever more truly flatter than when they would seem to use the greatest freedom of speech. Lastly, such is their whole action that a man would swear they'd learned it from our common tumblers, though yet they come short of them in every respect. However, they are both so alike that no man will dispute but that either these learned their rhetoric from them, or they theirs from these. And yet they light on some that, when they hear them, conceive they hear very dimostinous and cisros, of which so chiefly are our merchants and women, whose ears only they endeavor to please, because as to the first, if they stroke them handsomely, some part or other of their ill-gotten goods is one to fault their share. And the women, though for many other things they favour this order, this is not a least that they commit to their breasts whatever discontents they have against their husbands. And now I conceive you see how much this kind of people are beholding to me, that with their petty ceremonies, ridiculous trifles, and noise, exercise a kind of tyranny among mankind, believing themselves very Poles and Antony's. But I willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful dissemblers of the curtsies I have done them, and such impudent pretenders to religion which they haven't. And now I have a mind to give some small touches of princes and courts, of whom I am had in reverence, aboveboard and, as it becomes gentlemen, frankly. And truly, if they had the least proportion of sound judgment, what life were most unpleasant than theirs, or so much to be avoided. For whoever did but truly weigh with himself how great a burden lies upon his shoulders that would truly discharge the duty of a prince, he would not think it worth his while to make his way to a crown by perjury and parasite. He would consider that he that takes a scepter in his hand should manage the public, not his private interest, study nothing but the common good, and not in the least go contrary to those laws whereof himself is both the author and exacter, that he is to take an account of the good or evil administration of all his magistrates and subordinate officers, that though he is but one, all men's eyes are upon him, and in his power it is, either like a good planet to give life and safety to mankind by his harmless influence, or like a fatal comet to send mischief and destruction, that the vices of other men are not alike felt, nor so generally communicated, and that a prince stands in that place that is least deviation from the rule of honesty and honour reaches farther than himself and opens a gap to many men's ruin, besides that the fortune of princes has many things attending it that are but too apt to train them out of the way, as pleasure, liberty, flattery, excess, for which cause he should the more diligently endeavor and set a watch over himself, lest perhaps he be led aside and fill in his duty. Lastly, to say nothing of treason's ill will and such other mischiefs he is in jeopardy of, that that true king is over his head, who in a short time will call him to account for every the least trespass, and that so much the more severely, by how much more mighty was the empire committed to his charge. These and the like, if a prince should duly weigh, and weigh it he would, if he were wise, he would neither be able to sleep, nor take any hearty repast. But now by my curtsy they leave all this care to the gods, and are only taken up with themselves, not admitting anyone to their ears, but such as know how to speak pleasant things, and not trouble them with business. They believe they've discharged all the duty of a prince, if they hunt every day, keep a stable of fine halls, sell dignities and commanderies, and invent new ways of draining the citizen's purses, and bringing it into their own ex-chicker. But under such dainty, newfound names that though the thing be most unjust in itself, it carries yet some phase of equity, adding to this some little sweetenings that whatever happens they may be secure of the common people. And now suppose someone such as they sometimes are, a man ignorant of laws, little less than an enemy to the public good, and minding nothing but his own, given up to pleasure, a hater of learning, liberty and justice, studying nothing less than the public safety, but measuring everything by his own will and profit, and then put on him a golden chain that declares the accord of all virtues linked one to another, a crown set with diamonds that should put him in mind how he ought to exel all others in heroic virtues, besides a scepter, the emblem of justice, and an untainted heart, and lastly a purple robe, a batch of that charity he owes the commonwealth. All which, if a prince should compare them with his own life, he would, I believe, be clearly ashamed of his bravery, and be afraid, lest some or other guybing expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous laughing-stock. And as to the court-lords, what should I mention them? There most of them, though, there be nothing more indebted, more servile, more witness, more contemptible, yet they would seem as they were the most excellent of all others. And yet, in this only thing, no man more modest in that they are contented to wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks of virtue and wisdom. But for the study of the things themselves they remitted to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can call the king master, have learned the cringe à la mode, know when and where to use those titles of your grace, my lord, your magnificence, in a word that they are past all shame and can flutter pleasantly. For these are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact curteur. But if you look into their manner of life, you'll find them mere sots, as debauched as Penelope's woes. You know the other part of the verse, which the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon, and have their mercenary levide come to their bedside, where he chops over his matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce done, but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dyes, tables, carts, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambles, and horse-tricks. In the meantime they have one or two beverages, and then supper, and after that a banquet. And well well, by Jupiter, there were no more than one. And in this manner do their hours, days, months, years, age, slide away without the least irksomeness. Nay, I've sometimes gone away many inches fatter to see them speak big words, while each of the ladies believes herself so much nearer to the gods by how much the longer train she trails after her, while one nobleman edges out another that he may get the nearer to Jupiter himself, and every one of them pleases himself the more by how much more massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders as if he meant to show his strength as well as his wealth. Nor are princes by themselves in their manner of life, since popes, cardinals, and bishops have so diligently followed their steps that they've almost got the start of them, for if any of them would consider what their albie should put them in mind of, to wit a blameless life, what is meant by their forked mitres, whose each point is held in by the same knot, will suppose it a perfect knowledge of the old and new Testaments, what those gloves on their hands but a sincere administration of the sacraments and free from all touch of worldly business, what their crozier but a careful looking after the flock committed to their care, what the cross borne before them, that victory over all earthly affections. These I say, and many of the like kind, should anyone truly consider, would he not live a sad and troublesome life? Whereas now they do well enough while they feed themselves only, and for the care of their flock either put it over to Christ or laid all on their suffragants, as they call them, or some poor vigours. Nor do they so much as remember their name, or what the word bishop signifies, to wit labour, care, and trouble. But in wrecking to gather money they truly act a part of bishops, and herein quit themselves to be no blind seers. In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of the apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other did are acquired of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if they also would a little philosophise on their habit, and think wit themselves, what's the meaning of their linen rushet? Is it not a remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple? Is it not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose plates and long train fall round its reverence's mule, and are large enough to cover a camel? Is it not charity that spreads itself so white to the sucker of all man? That is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend, admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not only their wealth, but their very lives for the flock of Christ. Though yet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor apostles? These things I say did they but duly consider, they would not be so ambitious of that dignity. Or if they were they would willingly leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the ancient apostles. And for popes that supply the place of Christ, if they should endeavour to imitate his life, to wit his poverty, labour, doctrine, cross, and contempt of life, or should they consider what the name pope, that his father, or holiness, imports, who would live more disconsolate than themselves? Or who would purchase that chair with all his substance? Or defend it so purchased, with sorts, poisons, and all force imaginable? So great a profit with the excess of wisdom deprive him of! Wisdom did I say? Nay, the least corn of that sort which Christ speaks of! So much wealth, so much honour, so much riches, so many victories, so many officers, so many dispensations, so much tribute, so many pardons, such horses, such mules, such guards, and so much pleasure would it lose them? You see how much I have comprehended in a little, instead of which it would bring in watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, good endeavours, sighs, and a thousand the like troublesome exercises. Nor is this least considerable, so many scribes, so many copying clerks, so many notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so many militeers, so many grooms, so many bankers, ensured that vast multitude of men that overcharged the Roman sea, I mistook, I meant honour, might back their bread. A most inhuman and economical thing, and more to be executed, that those great princes of the church and true lights of the world should be reduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now, if there be anything that requires their pains, they leave that to Peter and Paul that have leisure enough. But if there be anything of honour or pleasure, they take that to themselves. By which means it is, yet by my curtsy, that scarce any kind of men live more voluptiously or with less trouble, as believing that Christ will be well enough pleased if in their mystical and almost mimical pontificality, ceremonies, titles of holiness and their like, and blessing and cursing, they play the parts of bishops. To work miracles is old and antiquated, and not in fashion now. To instruct the people troublesome, to interpret the scripture pedantic, to pray, assign one as little else to do, to shed tears silly and womanish, to be poor base, to be vanquished, dishonourable and little becoming him that scarce admits even kings to kiss his slipper, and lastly, to die uncouth, and to be stretched on a cross infamous. There are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions, and of these truly they are bountiful enough, as interdictions, hangings, heavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas, executions in effigy, and that terrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of which they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell, which yet these most holy fathers in Christ and his vikas hurl with more fierceness against none than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt a lesson or rob them of Peter's patrimony. When, though those words in the gospel, we have left all and followed thee, were his, yet they call his patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches, for which, being inflamed with the love of Christ, they contend with fire and sword, and not without loss of much Christian blood, and believe they have then most apostolically defended the church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy, as they call them, are valiantly routed. As if the church had any deadlier enemies than wicked pillots, who not only suffer Christ to run out of request for want of preaching him, but hinder his spreading by their multitudes of laws merely contrived for their own profit, corrupt him by their forced expositions, and murder him by the evil example of their pestilent life. Nay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood, confirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after his wanted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the sword, and whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits beasts than men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all men's manners, so unjust that it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no agreement with Christ, and yet, omitting all the other, they make this their only business. Here you'll see decrepit old fellows acting the part of young men, neither troubled at their costs, nor rared with their labours, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty of turning laws, religion, peace, and all things else quite topsy-turvy. Nor are they destitute of their learned flatters that call that palpable madness, zeal, piety, and valor, having found out a new way by which a man may kill his brother without the least breach of that charity which, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another, and here, in troth, I am a little at a stand, whether the ecclesiastical German electors gave them this example, or rather took it from them. Who, laying aside their habit, benedictions, and all the like ceremonies, so act the part of commanders that they think of the mean thing and at least beseeming a bishop to show the least courage to God would, unless it be in a battle. And, as to the common herd of priests, they accounted a crime to degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates, Haida, how soldier-like they bustle about the years divinum of titles, and how quick-sided they are to pick the least thing out of the writings of the ancients, wherewith they may fright the common people and convince them, if possible, that more than a tenth is due. Yet, in the meantime, at least comes in their heads how many things are everywhere extent concerning that duty which they owe the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish them that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of nothing but heavenly things. Whereas, on the contrary, these jolly fellows say they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow mumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules, I wonder if any God either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves, especially when they thundern them out in that manner they are want. But this they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are vigilant enough to the harvest of their profit, nor is there any of them that is not better read in those laws than the scripture. Whereas, if there be anything burdensome, they prudently lay that on other men's shoulders and shifted from one to the other, as men toss a ball from hand to hand, following herein the example of lay princes who commit the government of their kingdoms to their grand ministers, and they again to others, and leave all study of piety to the common people. In like manner the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if themselves were no part of the church, or that their vow in baptism had lost its obligation. Again the priests that call themselves secular, as if they were initiated to the world, not to Christ, lay the burden on the regulars, the regulars on the monks, the monks that have more liberty on those that have less, and all of them on the mendicants, the mendicants on the Carthusians, among whom, if anywhere, this piety lies buried, but yet so close that scarce anyone can perceive it. In like manner the popes, the most diligent of all others in gathering in the harvest of money, refer all their apostolic work to the bishops, the bishops to the parson's, the parson's to the vigas, the vigas to their brother mendicants, and they again throw back the care of the flock on those that take the wool. But it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of prelates and priests, for fear I seem to have intended rather a satire than a narration, and be thought to tax good princes while I praise the bad, and therefore what I slightly taught before has been to no other end but that it might appear that there's no man can live pleasantly unless he be initiated to my rights and have me propitious to him. For how can it be otherwise when fortune the great directors of all human affairs and myself are so all one that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary so favorable to fools and careless fellows that all things hid luckily to them. You have heard of that Timothyus, the most fortunate general of the Athenians, of whom came that proverb, his net caught fish though he were asleep, and that the owl flies, whereas these others hid properly, wise man born in the fourth month, and again he rides so janus's his horse, and gold to lose, signifying thereby the extremity of ill fortune. But die forbear the further threading of proverbs lest I seem to have pilfered my friend Erasmus at edges. Fortune loves those that have leased wit and most confidence, and such as like that saying of Caesar the die is thrown. But wisdom makes man bashful, which is the reason that those wise men have so little to do unless it be with poverty, hunger, and chimney corners, that they live such neglected, unknown, and hated lives, whereas fools abound in money have the chief commands in the commonwealth, and in a word flourish every way. For if it be happiness to please princes and to be conversant among those golden and diamond gods, what is more unprofitable than wisdom, or what is it these kind of man have may more justly be centred? If wealth is to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do if following the precepts of wisdom he should boggle at perjury, or being taken in a lie blush, or in the least regard the sad scruples of those wise men touching rapine and usury. Again if a man sue for honors or church performance, an ass or wild ox shall soon agate them than a wise man. If a man's in love with a young wench, none of the least humours in this comedy, they are wholly addicted to fools and are afraid of a wise man and fly him as they would scorpion. Lastly whoever intends to live merry and frolic shut their doors against wise man and admit anything sooner. In brief go with it you will, among prelates, princes, judges, magistrates, friends, enemies, from highs to lowest, and you'll find all things done by money, which as a wise man condemns it so it takes a special care not to come near him. What shall I say? There is no measure or end of my praises, and yet disfit my oration have an end. And therefore I'll even break off. And yet before I do it, to all not be amiss if I briefly show you that there has not been wanting even great authors that have made me famous both by their writings and actions, lest perhaps otherwise I may seem to have foolishly pleased myself only, or that the lawyers charge me that I have proved nothing. After their example, therefore, will I allege my proofs, that is to say, nothing to the point. END OF PART VIII and to this purpose is that verse which we teach children, this the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit the fool. And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from the learned. But more candidly does that fat, plump, epicurean, bacon-hog, Horace, for so he calls himself, bid us mingle our purposes with folly, and whereas he adds the word bravem short, perhaps to help out the verse, he might as well have let it alone, and again, there's a pleasant thing to play the fool in the right season, and in another place he had rather be accounted a doterel and sought than to be wise and made mouth-set. And Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and then called napious fool, and by the same name as if there were some good fortune in it, are the tragedians want to call boys and striplings. And what does that sacred book of Iliad's contain but a kind of counter scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how absolute is that praise that Cicero gives of it. All things are full of fools. For who does not know that every good, the more diffusive it is, by so much the better it is? But perhaps their authority may be of small credit among Christians. Will therefore, worthy of you please, support our praises with some testimonies of holy writ also, in the first place, nevertheless, having forespoke our theologians, that they'll give us leave to do it without a fence. And in the next, for as much as we attempt a matter of some difficulty, and it may be, perhaps, a little too saucy to call back again, the muses from Helicon to so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers to, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine, and make my way through such prickly quittities, that I entreat the soul of Scotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave his scorebone a while and come into my breast, and then let him go whether he pleases, or to the dogs. I could wish also that I might change my countenance, or that I head on the square cap and the cassock, for fear some or other would impeach me of theft, as if I had privately riffled our master's desks, in that I have got so much divinity. But it ought not to seem so strange, if after so long and intimate an acquaintance, and converse with them, I have picked up somewhat, when, as that victory-god Priapus hearing his owner read certain Greek words, took so much notice of them, that he got them by heart, and that cock in Lucian, by having lived long among men, became at last a master of their language. But to the point under a fortunate direction, Ecclesiastes says in his first chapter, the number of fools is infinite, and when he calls it infinite, does he not seem to comprehend all man, unless it be some few whom yet is a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously does Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, every man is made a fool through his own wisdom, attributing wisdom to God alone and leaving folly to all man else, and again, let not man glory in his wisdom. And why, good Jeremiah, would you not have a man glory in his wisdom? Because he'll say he has none at all. But to return to Ecclesiastes, who, when he cries out, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What other thoughts had he, do you believe, than that, as I said before, the life of man is nothing else but an interlude of folly? In which he has added one voice more to that justly-received praise of Cicero's, which I quoted before, that is, all things are full of fools. Again, that wise preacher that said, a fool changes as the moon, but a wise man is permanent as the sun. What else did he hint at in it, but that all mankind are fools, and the name of wise only proper to God? For by the moon interpreters understand human nature, and by the sun, God, the only fountain of light, with which agrees that which Christ himself in the gospel denies, that anyone is to be called good but one, and that is God. And then, if he is a fool that is not wise, and every good man, according to the Stoics, is a wise man, it is no wonder if all mankind be concluded under folly. Again, Solomon, Chapter 15. Foolishness, says he, is joy to the fool, thereby plainly confessing that without folly there is no pleasure in life, to which is pertinent that other. He that increases knowledge increases grief, and in much understanding there is much indignation. And as he not plainly confesses much, Chapter 7, the heart of the wise is where sadness is, but the heart of fools follows mirth, by which you see he thought it not enough to have learned wisdom without he had added the knowledge of me also. And if you will not believe me, take his own words, Chapter 1, I gave my heart to no wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly. Where, by the way, disworth your remark, that he intended me somewhat extraordinary, that he named me last. A preacher wrote it, and this, you know, is the order among churchmen, that he that is first in dignity comes last in place, as mindful, no doubt, whatever they do in other things, herein at least, to observe the evangelical precept. Besides, that folly is more excellent than wisdom, the son of Syrac, whoever he was clearly witnesses, Chapter 44, whose words, so help me Hercules, I shall not once utter before you meet my induction with a suitable answer, according to the manner of those in Plato that dispute with Socrates. What things are more proper to be laid up with care, such as are rare and precious, or such as are common and of no account? Why do you give me no answer? Well, though you should dissemble, the Greek proverb will answer for you. Foul water is thrown out of doors, which, if any man shall be so ingratious as to condemn, let him know his heiress totals, the god of our masters. Is there any of you so very a fool as to leave jewels and gold in the street? In truth, I think not, in the most secret part of your house. Nor is that enough, if there be any drawing your iron chests more private than other, there you lay them, but dirt you throw out of doors. And therefore, if you so carefully lay up such things as you value, and throw away what's vile and of no worth, is it not plain that wisdom, which he forbids a man to hide, is of less account than folly, which he commands him to cover? Take his own words. Better is the man that hideth his folly, than he that hideth his wisdom. Or what is that when he attributes an upright mind without craft or malice to a fool, when a wise man the vile thinks no man like himself? For so I understand that, in his tenth chapter, a fool walking by the way, being a fool himself, supposes all man to be fools like him. And is it not a sign of great integrity to esteem every man as good as himself, and when there is no one that leans not too much to the other way, to be so frank yet as to divide his praises with another? Nor was this great king ashamed of the name when he says of himself that he is more foolish than any man. Nor did Paul that great doctor of the Gentiles, writing to the Corinthians, unwillingly acknowledged it. I speak, says he, like a fool. I am more, as if it could be any dishonour to excel in folly. But here I meet with a great noise of some that endeavour to peck out the crowd's eyes, that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out their eyes with new annotations, among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for honours sake I often mention, deserves it not the first place, yet certainly the second. Ho, most foolish instance, they cry, and well becoming folly herself. The apostle's meaning was wide enough from what you dream. For he spoke it not in this sense that he would have them believe him a greater fool than the rest, but when he had said, They are ministers of Christ, the same am I, and by way of boasting herein had equaled himself with two others, he added this by way of correction or checking himself. I am more. As meaning that he was not only equal to the rest of the apostles in the work of the gospel, but somewhat superior. And therefore, while he would have more, somewhat superior. And therefore, while he would have this received as a truth, lest nevertheless it might not relish their ears as being spoken with too much arrogance, he foreshortened his argument with the visit of folly. I speak like a fool, because he knew it was the prerogative of fools to speak what they like, and that too without offence. Whatever he thought when he wrote this, I leave it to them to discuss. For my own part I follow those fat, fleshy and vulgarly approved doctors with whom, by Jupiter, a great part of the learned had rather err than follow them that understand the tongues, though they are never so much in the right. Not any of them may greater account of those smetters at Greek than if they were doors, especially when a no small professor, whose name I wittingly conceal lest those chuffs should tether at me that Greek proverb I have so often mentioned, an ass at a harp, this causing, majesterially and theologically on this text, I speak as a fool, I am more, drew a new thesis, and which without the height of logic he could never have done, made this new subdivision, for I'll give you his own words not only in form but matter also. I speak like a fool, that is, if you look upon me as a fool for comparing myself with those false apostles, I shall see me at a greater fool by esteeming myself before them, though the same person a little after as forgetting himself runs off to another matter. But why do I thus staggeringly defend myself with one single instance, as if it were not the common privilege of the vines to stretch heaven, that is holy writ, like a chevrolet, and when there are many things in St. Paul that thwart themselves, which yet in their proper place do well enough if there be any credit to be given to Saint Jerome there was master of five tongs. Such was that of his at Athens, when having casually aspired the inscription of that altar, he rested it into an argument to prove the Christian faith, and leaving out all the other words because they made against him, took note only of the two last, that is, to the unknown god, and those two not without some alteration. For their whole inscription was thus, to the gods of Asia, Europe and Africa, to the unknown and strange gods. And according to his example do the sons of the prophets, who, forcing out here and there four or five expressions, and if need be corrupting this sense, rested to their own purpose, though what goes before and follows after make nothing to the matter in hand, nay be quite against it, which yet they do with so happy an impudence, that oftentimes the civilians envy them that faculty. For what is it in a manner they may not hope for success in, when this great doctor, I'd almost bolted out his name, but that I once again stand in fear of the Greek proverb, has made a construction on an expression of Luke so agreeable to the mind of Christ as our fire and water to one another. For when the last point of danger was at hand, at which time retainers and dependents are want in a more special manner to attend their protectors, to examine what strength they have, and prepare for the encounter. Christ, intending to take out of his disciples' minds all trust and confidence in such like defence, demand of them whether they wanted anything, when he sent them forth so unprovided for a journey, that they had neither shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of stones and briars, nor the provision of a script to preserve them from hunger. And when they had denied that they wanted anything, he adds, But now he that hath a bag let him take it and likewise a script, and he that had none let him sell his coat and buy a sword. And now, when the sum of all that Christ taught pressed only meekness, suffering, and content of life, who does not clearly perceive what he means in this place, to wit that he might the more disarm his ministers that neglecting not only shoes and script, but throwing away their very coat, they might, being in a manner naked, the more readily and with less hindrance, take in hand the work of the Gospel, and provide themselves of nothing but a sword, not such as thieves and murders, go up and down with, but the sword of the spirit that pierces the most inward parts, and so cuts off as it were at one below all earthly affections, that they mind nothing but their duty to God. But see, I pray, whether this famous theologian rests it. By the sword he interprets defence against persecution, and by the bag sufficient provision to carry it on. As if Christ, having altered his mind in that he sent out his disciples not so royally attended as he should have done, repented himself of his former instructions, or as forgetting that he had said, Blessed are ye when ye are evil spoken of, despised and persecuted, etc., and forbade them to resist evil, for that the meek in spirit, not the proud are blessed, or lest remembering, I say, that he had compared them to sparrows and lilies, thereby minding them what small care they should take for the things of this life, was so far now from having them go forth without a sword that he commanded them to get one, though with the sale of their coat, and at rather they should go naked, than want a brawling iron by their sides. And to this, as under the word sword, he conceives to be comprehended whatever appertains to the repelling of injuries, so under that of scrip he takes in whatever is necessary to the support of life. And so does this deep interpreter of the divine meaning bring forth the apostles to preach the doctrine of a crucified Christ, but furnished at all points with lances, slings, quarter-staffs, and bombards, lading them also with bag and baggage, lest perhaps it might not be lawful for them to leave their inn unless they were empty and fasting. Nor does he take the least notice of this, that he so willed the sword to be bought, comprehended a little after, and commanded to be cheated, and that it was never heard that the apostles ever used or swords or brooklers against the Gentiles, though it is likely they had done it if Christ had ever intended as his doctor interprets. There is another, too, whose name out of respect I pass by, a man of no small repute, who from those tents which Habacock mentions, the tents of the land of Midian shall chumble, drew this exposition, that it was prophesied of the skin of St. Bartholomew who was flayed alive. And why, forsooth, but because those tents were covered with skins? I was lately myself at a theological dispute, for I am often there, where, when one was demanding what authority there was in holy writ that commands heretics to be convinced by fire rather than reclaimed by argument, a craped old fellow, and one whose supercidious gravity spoke him at least a doctor, answered in a great fume that St. Paul had decreed it, who said, reject him that is a heretic, after once or twice abmonition, and when he had sentry times, one after another, thundered out the same thing, and most men wondered what ailed the man, at last he explained it thus, making two words of one, a heretic must be put to death. Some laughed, and yet there wanted not others to whom this exposition seemed plainly theological, which, when some, though those very few, opposed, they cut off the dispute, as we say, with a hatchet, and the credit of so uncontrollable an author. Pray conceive me, said he, it is written, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, but every heretic bewitches the people, therefore, etc. And now, as many as were present, admired the man's wit, and consequently submitted to his decision of the question. Nor came it into any of their heads that had the law concerned only fortune-tellers, and chanters, and magicians, whom the Hebrews call in their tongue, mech aschef him, witches or sorcerers. For otherwise, perhaps, by the same reason, it might as well have extended to fornication and drunkenness. But I foolishly run on in these matters, though yet there are so many of them, that neither chrysalis nor dynamis volumes are large enough to contain them. I would only desire you to consider this, that if so great doctors may be allowed this liberty, you may, the more reasonably, pardon even me also, a raw effeminate divine, if I quote not everything so exactly as I should. And so at last I return to Paul. Ye willingly, says he, suffer my foolishness, and again, take me as a fool, and further, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly. And in another place, we are fools for Christ's sake. You've heard from how great an author, how great praises are folly, and to what other end, but that without doubt he looked upon it as that one thing both necessary and profitable. If any one among ye, says he, seem to be wise, let him be a fool, that he may be wise. And in Luke, Jesus called those two disciples with whom he joined himself upon the way, fools. Nor can I give you any reason why it should seem so strange when Saint Paul imputes a kind of folly even to God himself. The foolishness of God, says he, is wiser than man. Though yet I must confess that origin upon the place denies that this foolishness may be resembled to the uncertain judgment of man, of which kind is that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But why am I so careful to no purpose that I thus run on to prove my method by so many testimonies, when in those mystical psalms Christ speaking to the Father says openly, Thou knowest my foolishness. Nor is it without ground that fools are so acceptable to God. The reason perhaps may be this, that as princes carry a suspicious eye upon those that are over-wise and consequently hate them, as Caesar did Brutus and Cassius, when he feared not in the least drunken Antony, so Nero, Seneca, and Dionysius, Plato, and on the contrary, are delighted in those blunter and unlabored wits, in like manner Christ ever appalls and condemns those wise man and such as put confidence in their own wisdom. And this Paul makes clearly out when he said, God hath chosen the foolish things of this world, as well knowing it had been impossible to have reformed it by wisdom, which also he sufficiently declares himself, crying out by the mouth of his prophet, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and cast away the understanding of the prudent. And again, when Christ gives him things that he had concealed the mystery of salvation from the wise, but revealed it to babes and sucklings, that is to say fools, for the Greek word for babes is fools, which he opposes to the word wise man. To this apportains that throughout the gospel you find him ever accusing the scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law, but diligently defending the ignorant multitude. For what other is that, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, than woe to you, you wise man. But seemed chiefly delighted in little children, women, and fishes. Besides, among brute beasts, he is best pleased with those that have leased in them of the fox of subtlety. And therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass when, if he had pleased, he might have bestowed the lion without danger. And the holy ghost came down in the shape of a dove, not of an eagle or a kite. Add to this that in scripture there is frequent mention of hearts, hinds, and lambs, and such as are destined to eternal life are called sheep, than which creature there is not anything more foolish if we may believe that proverb of Aristotle, sheepish manas, which he tells us is taken for the foolishness of that creature, and is used to be applied to dull-headed people and liquids. And yet Christ professes to be the shepherd of this flock, and is himself delighted with the name of a lamb, according to Saint John, behold the lamb of God. Of which also there is much mention in the revelation. And what does all this drive at, but that all mankind are fools, nay, even the very best. And Christ himself, that he might the better relieve this folly, being the wisdom of the Father, yet in some manner became a fool when taking upon him the nature of man, he was found in shape as a man, as in like manner he was made sin, that he might heal sinners. Nor did he work this cure any other way than by the foolishness of the cross and the company of fat apostles, not much better, to whom also he carefully recommended folly, but gave them a caution against wisdom, and drew them together by the example of little children, lilies, mustard seed and sparrows, things senseless and inconsiderable, living only by the dictates of nature and without either craft or care. Besides, when he forbade them to be troubled about what they should say before governors, and straightly chartered them not to inquire after times and seasons, to it that they might not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend on him. And to the same purpose is it that that great architect of the world, God, gave man an injunction against his eating of the tree of knowledge, as if knowledge were the bane of happiness, according to which also St. Paul is allows it as puffing up and destructive. One's also Saint Bernard seems, in my opinion, to follow when he interprets that mountain where on Lucifer had fixed his habitation, to be the mountain of knowledge. Nor perhaps ought I to omit this other argument, that folly is so gracious above that her errors are only pardoned, those of wise man never. Once it is that they that ask forgiveness, though they offend never so wittingly, cloak it yet with the excuse of folly. So Aaron, in numbers, if I mistake not the book, when he soothes unto Moses concerning his sister's leprosy, I beseech thee, my Lord, not to lay this sin upon us which we have foolishly committed. So Saul makes his excuse of David, for behold, says he, I did it foolishly, and again David himself thus sweetens God. And therefore I beseech thee, O Lord, to take away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done foolishly, as if he knew there was no pardon to be obtained unless he had colored his offense with folly in ignorance. And stronger is that of Christ upon the cross, when he prayed for his enemies, Father forgive them, nor does he cover their crime with any other excuse than that of unwittingness, because, says he, they know not what they do. In like manner, Paul writing to Timothy, But thereof I obtained mercy, for that I did it ignorantly through unbelief. And what is the meaning of I did it ignorantly, but that I did it out of folly, not malice? And what of, therefore I received mercy, but that I had not obtained it had I not been made more allowable through the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical psalmist, though I remembered it not in its right place, remember not the sins of my youth, nor my ignorances. You see what two things he pretends to wit youth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural number, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there was no small company of them. But not to run too far in that which is infinite. To speak briefly, all Christian religion seems to have a kind of alliance with folly, and in no respect they have any accord with wisdom. Of which, if you expect proofs, consider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more delighted with the religious and sacred things than others, and to that purpose are ever next the altars, and this they do by mere impulse of nature. And in the next place, you see that those first founders of it were plain, simple persons, and most bitter enemies of learning. Lastly, there are no sort of fools seem more out of the way than are these whom the zeal of Christian religion has once swallowed up, so that they waste their estates, neglect injuries, suffer themselves to be cheated, put no difference between friends and enemies. A poor pleasure, are crammed with poverty, watchings, tears, labours, reproaches, loathe life and wish death above all things. In short, they seem senseless to common understanding as if their minds lived elsewhere and not in their own bodies. Which, what else is it, them to be mad? For which reason you must not think it so strange if the apostles seem to be drunk with new wine, and if Paul appeared to festus to be mad? But now, having once gotten on the lion's skin, go to, and I'll show you that this happiness of Christians, which they pursue with so much toil, is nothing else but a kind of madness and folly. Far be it that my words should give any offence, rather consider my matter. And first, the Christians and Platonists do as good as agree in this, that the soul is plunged and fettered in the prison of the body by the grossance of which it is so tied up and hindered that it cannot take a view of or enjoy things as they truly are. And for that cause their master defines philosophy to be a contemplation of death, because it takes off the mind from visible and corporeal objects than which death does no more. And therefore, as long as the soul uses the organs of the body in that right manner it ought, so long it is said to be in good state and condition. But when, having broken its fetters, it endeavours to get loose, and assays as it were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they call it madness. And if this happens through any distemper or indisposition of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man, this downright madness. And yet we see such kind of man foretell things to come, understand tongues and letters they never learned before, and seem as it were, big with a kind of divinity. Nor is it to be doubted, but that it proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty from the infection of the body, begins to put forth itself in its native vigour. And I conceive this from the same cause that the like often happens to sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in strain above mortality as if they were inspired. Again, if this happens upon the score of religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind of madness, yet is so near it that the great many man would judge it no better, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ from the rest of the world in the whole course of their life. And therefore, it fairs with them as, according to the fiction of Plato, happens to those that, being cooped up in a cave, sent gaping with admiration at the shadows of things, and that fugitive who, having broke from them and returning to them again, told them he had seen things truly as they were, and that they were the most mistaken in believing there was nothing but pitiful shadows. For as this wise man pitied and bewilled their palpable madness that were possessed with so gross an error, so they in return laughed at him as a doting fool and cast him out of their company. In like manner the common sort of man chiefly admire those things that are most corporeal and almost believe there is nothing beyond them. Whereas, on the contrary, these devout persons, by how much the nearer anything concerns the body, by so much the more they neglect it, and are wholly hurried away with the contemplation of things invisible. For the one gives the first place to riches, the next to their corporeal pleasures, leaving the last place to their soul, which yet most of them do scarce believe, because they can't see it with their eyes. On the contrary the others first rely wholly on God, the most unchangeable of all things, and next him, yet on this that comes nearest him, they bestow the second on their soul. And lastly for their body they neglect that care and condemn and fly money as superfluity that may be well spared, or if they are forced to meddle with any of these things they do it carelessly, and much against their wills, having as if they had it not, and possessing as if they possess it not. There are also in each several things several degrees wherein they disagree among themselves, and first as to the senses, though all of them have more or less affinity with the body, yet of these some are more gross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, some more removed from the body, as memory, intellect, and the will. And therefore to which of these the mind applies itself in that lies its force. But holy man, because the whole bend of their minds is taken up with those things that are most repugnant to these grosser senses, they seem brutish and stupid in the common use of them. Whereas on the contrary the ordinary sort of people are best at these, and can do the least at the other. From whence it is, as we have heard, that some of these holy men have by mistake drunk oil for wine. Again in the affections of the mind some have greater commerce with the body than others, as lust, desire of meat, and sleep, anger, pride, envy, with which holy men are at irreconcilable enmity, and contrary the common people think there is no living without them. And lastly there are certain middle kind of affections, and as it were, natural to every man as the love of one's country, children, parents, friends, and to which the common people attribute no small matter, whereas the others strive to pluck them out of their mind, unless in so much as they arrive to that highest part of the soul, that they love their parents not as parents, for what did they get but the body, though yet we owe it to God, not them? But as good men or women, and in whom shines the image of that highest wisdom, which alone they call the chiefest good, and out of which they say there is nothing to be beloved or desired. And by the same rule do they measure all things else, so that they make less account of whatever is visible, and let it be altogether contemptible, than of those things which they cannot see. But they say that in sacraments and other religious duties there is both body and spirit. As in fasting they count it not enough for a man to abstain from eating, which the common people take for an absolute fast, unless there be also a lessening of his depraved affections, as that he be less angry, less proud than he was want, that the spirit being less clogged with its bodily weight may be the more intent upon heavenly things. In like manner, in the Eucharist, though, say they, it is not to be esteemed the less that is administered with ceremonies, yet of itself there is of little effect, if not hurtful, unless that which is spiritual be added to it, to it that which is represented under those visible signs. Now the death of Christ is represented by it, which all men, vanquishing, abolishing, and as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in their lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life and be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does, and in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary the common people think there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the altar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the ceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only propose by way of example, but in all his life and without hypocrisy, does a holy man fly those things that have any alliance with the body and is wholly ravished with things eternal, invisible, and spiritual, for which cause there is so great contrarity of opinion between them and that too in everything that each party thinks the other out of their wits, though that character in my judgment better agrees with those holy men than the common people, which yet will be more clear if, as I promised, I briefly show you that that great reward they so much fancy is nothing else but a kind of madness. And therefore suppose that Plato dreamt of somewhat like it when he called the madness of lovers the most happy condition of all others, for he that's violently in love lives not in his own body but in the thing he loves, and by how much the farther he runs from himself into another, by so much the greater is his pleasure. And then, when the mind strives to row from its body and does not rightly use its own organs, without doubt you may say this downright madness and not be mistaken, or otherwise what's the meaning of those common sayings he does not dwell at home, come to yourself, he's his own man again. Besides, the more perfect and true his love is, the more pleasant is his madness. And therefore what is that life hereafter after which these holy minds so pantingly breathe like to be? To it the spirit shall swallow up the body as conqueror and more durable, and this it shall do with a greater ease because here to four in its lifetime it had cleansed and thinned it into such another nothing as itself. And then the spirit again shall be wonderfully swallowed up by the highest mind as being more powerful than infinite parts, so that the whole man is to be out of himself, nor to be otherwise happy in any respect, but that being stripped of himself, he shall participate of somewhat ineffable from that chiefest good that draws all things into itself. And this happiness, though it is only then perfected when souls being joined to their former bodies shall be made immortal. Yet for as much as the life of holy man is nothing but a continued meditation, and as it were shadow of that life, it so happens that at length they have some taste or relish of it, which though it be but as the smallest drop in comparison of that fountain of eternal happiness, yet it far surpasses all worldly delight, though all the pleasures of all mankind were all joined together. So much better are things spiritual than things corporeal, and things invisible than things visible, which doubtless is that which the prophet promises. The eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to consider what God has provided for them that love him. And this is that Mary's better part which is not taken away by change of life, but perfected. And therefore they that are sensible of it, and few there are to whom this happens, suffer a kind of somewhat little differing from madness, for they utter many things that do not hang together, and that too not after the manner of man, but make a kind of sound which they neither heed themselves, nor is it understood by others, and change the whole figure of their countenance, one while jockoned, another while dejected, now weeping, then laughing, and again sighing. And when they come to themselves, tell you they know not where they have been, where they're in the body, or out of the body, or sleeping, nor do they remember what they have heard, seen, spoken, or done, and only know this, as it were in a mist or dream, that they were the most happy while they were so out of their wits. And therefore they are sorry they have come to themselves again, and desire nothing more than this kind of madness, to be perpetually mad. And this is a small taste of that future happiness. But I forget myself and run beyond my bounds, though yet if I shall seem to have spoken anything more boldly or impersonately than I ought, be pleased to consider that not only fully, but a woman said it, remembering in the meantime that Greek proverb, sometimes a fool may speak a word in season, unless perhaps you expect an epilogue. But give me leaves to tell you you're mistaken if you think I remember anything of what I have said, having foolishly bolded out such a hodgepodge of words. To an old proverb, I hate one that remembers what's done over the cup. This is a new one of my own making. I hate a man that remembers what he hears. Wherefore, farewell, clap your hands, live and drink lustily, my most excellent disciples of folly. End at the praise of folly by this dearest Erasmus, translated by John Wilson, recorded by Anna Siwon, November 2008.