Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/265

ICHTIIYOPHAGIA ; OR, FISH-EATING. 261- contrivance of wicked doctors, that they might get the more money. Fi. I do not know what doctors they are that you speak of; for I am sure none are greater enemies to fish than they are. Bu. Goodman coxcomb, to set you right in this matter, it is not for your sake nor the love of fish; for none are more adverse than they to the eating it, but it is their own game they play. The more people are troubled with coughs, consumptions, and chronic distempers, the more they get by it.

Fi. I will not advocate for doctors in this matter, let them avenge their own quarrel when they get thee into their clutches. The ancient sanctimony of life, the authority of the most approved, the majesty of bishops, and the public usage of Christian nations are enough for my purpose; all which, if you tax with madness, I had rather be mad with them than be sober with butchers. Bu. You decline being an advocate for doctors, and so do I to be an accuser or censurer of the ancients, or common custom. Those it is my custom to revere, but not revile. Fi. You are more cautious than pious in this point, or I am mistaken, in you, butcher. Bu. In my opinion, they are the wisest that have least to do with those that carry thunderbolts in their hands. But, however, I will not conceal what I understand from my Bible, translated into my mother tongue, that I sometimes read. Fi. What now, the butcher is turned parson too.

Bu. I am of the opinion that mankind, in the first ages, being newly formed out of primitive clay, were of more healthful constitutions. This appears by their vivacity. More than that, I believe paradise was a place commodiously situated, and in a very healthy climate. Such bodies, in such a situation, might be sustained without food, by breathing the very air and fragrancy of herbs, trees, and flowers, that exhaled everywhere, and especially the earth, spontaneously producing all things in abundance without man’s sweating or toiling, who was neither infected with distempers nor old age. The dressing of such a garden was not a toil, but rather a pleasure. Fi. Hitherto you seem to be right. Bu. Of the various increase of so fertile a garden nothing was prohibited but the use of one single tree. Fi. That is true too. Bu. And that for this reason only, that they might pay their acknowledgment to their Lord and Creator by obedience. Fi. All this is very right.

Bu. Moreover, I verily believe that the new earth produced everything better in its kind, and of a more nutritive juice than it does now, grown old and almost past bearing. Fi. Well, I grant it. Take that for granted. Bu. And that especially in paradise. Fi. It is very probable. Bu. If so, then eating was rather for the sake of pleasure than necessity. Fi. I have heard so. Bu. At that time to abstain from eating flesh was rather humanity than sanctity. Fi. I do not know. I read that the eating of flesh was permitted after the flood, but I do not read it was forbidden before. But to what purpose were it to permit it if it were permitted before? Bu. Why do not we eat frogs? Not because they are forbidden, but because we have an aversion to them. How can you tell whether God might not instruct man what food human nature required, and not what He permitted? Fi. I cannot divine.

Bu. But, presently after man’s creation, we read, “Rule ye over