Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/21

 PREFACE. xvii Young students may learn many such things out of my Colloquies, against which these men make such a murmuring. But, say they, it does not become a divine to jest; but let them grant me to do this, at least among boys, which they themselves take the liberty to do among men in their Vesperice, as they call them, a foolish thing by a foolish name. As for those foolish calumnies that some Spaniards have cast upon me, I have shewn that they are mere dreams of men that are neither sober nor well understanding the Latin tongue; nor has that less of learning in it, where one has said that it is an heretical expression that in the creed the Father is called simply the Author of all things ; for he, being deceived by his ignorance of the Latin tongue, thinks that author signifies nothing else but creator or framer. But if he shall consult those that are well skilled in the Latin tongue, if he shall read Hilary and other ancient authors, he will find that authority is taken for that which the schoolmen call the most perfect cause of the beginning, and therefore they attribute it peculiarly to the Father, and by the name of Author often mean the Father, when they compare the persons among themselves. Whether the Father can rightly be called the cause of the Son does not concern me, seeing I have never used the word Son; unless that this is most true, that we cannot speak of God but in improper words, nor are the Fountain, or Beginning, or Original more proper words than the Cause. Now, reader, consider with me what sort of persons sometimes they are, who by their notions bring men to the stake. There is nothing more base than to find fault with that thou dost not under- stand. But that vice of vilifying everything, what does it produce but bitterness and discord 1 Therefore let us candidly interpret other men's works, and not esteem our own as oracles, nor look upon the judgments of those men as oracles who do not understand what they read. Where there is hatred in judging, judgment is blind. May that Spirit which is the Pacifier of all, who uses his instruments various ways, make us all agree and consent in sound doctrine, and holy manners, that we may all come to the fellowship of the new Jerusalem that knows no discords. Amen. In the Year 1526, at Basil.