I mentioned a little while ago how a Canadian episcopal bishop named Michael Bird is now suing a blogger who dared to criticise and satirise him, the Anglican Samizdat blog. Bird has been fervent in promoting non-Christian causes such as homosexuality in his unfortunate church. He has also been zealous in suing his congregations for daring to disapprove, seizing their property and closing the doors. Few will endorse attempts by bishops to silence bloggers. Sadly we live in an era when bishops endorse vice and harass virtue. Not that this kind of thing is actually unknown to history.
This evening I was browsing Anthony Grafton’s Forgers and Critics, and found mention of a work by Erasmus, Julius Excluded From Heaven. An English translation is online here (archived here). It is a satire on Pope Julius II.
Pope Julius II was not a respectable person. He was the kind of self-serving scoundrel who ignores the interests of the church he heads, instead concentrating on increasing his own wealth and power. Such ‘Popes’ were the direct cause of the Reformation.
Erasmus’ witty remarks will strike more than a few as apposite for Bishop Michael Bird, since he seems to keen on turning churches into money and silencing critics by litigation. Indeed they will apply, to a greater or lesser extent, to every worldly prelate. Here are a couple of snippets:
PETER: Fine! but let’s go back a ways: you are the nephew of Sixtus.
JULIUS: Glad to confirm it; I’d like to stop the mouths of those who say I’m his son. That’s slanderous.
PETER: Slanderous indeed-unless perhaps it’s true.
JULIUS: It’s an insult to papal dignity, which must always be protected.
PETER: But I think popes should protect their own dignity by not doing anything offensive to the moral law.
And:
PETER: So the court of Rome is to be, as it were, the treasure chest of the whole world?
JULIUS: Is it such a great matter if we collect all their carnal wealth, seeing we spread our spiritual gifts far and wide?
PETER: What spiritual gifts are you talking about? Up to now I’ve heard only about worldly things. No doubt you attract men to Christ by preaching his holy word?
JULIUS: There are people who preach it, and I don’t prevent them, as long as they don’t in any way question my authority.
The litigious bishop is always a figure of fun. Perhaps we need a new Erasmus!
Ah, Julius II — I was just doing some research the other day when his name came up. If you go to the CSNTM website, and look for Lectionary 117, you’ll see that this lectionary — written entirely in gold, except for some secondary pages — was given to Julius II, probably in late 1511 or early 1512.
If you visit the images, you will see that there are several pages at the front, with a Latin dedicatory letter of some sort. This is from the bishop who gave the lectionary to Julius II (whose picture is in the margin, besides being in the main picture). Do you know of anyone who could translate these pages?
There is a slight chance that their contents might shed some light on how Codex Vaticanus got to the Vatican Library.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
I just discovered your “webessai” (vote now to rename blogs webessais…where? um, haven’t gotten there yet). I’m an Ignostic, who commonly makes jokes about all religions…but to this site I say THANK GOD! It is a thing of beauty, it is thoughtful, it is funny. It’s presence clearly an act of Divine Intervention to the www world.
The discovery came about this way: I’m reading “The Praise of Folly” in the two translations at hand (modern library 1941 / Yale Press 2003, 2d ed), for there’s no better way to read a classic than with more than one version on hand, especially if your possessed of a brain as pathetically monolingual as mine. Notes taken, when I have the time I return to them, and then search out things that have come up in the texts…one such search took me directly here when I plugged into duckduckgo these words: Synesius Encomium Calvitii. BOOM : first link the downloadable PDF you posted from Mr. Alcock. Thank You.
And yes…we do need a new Erasmus.
There’s a podcast called The Great Simplification, where we get to listen in on conversations about ways of seeing the world we’re living in, and it was there I recently overheard the participants noting that given the state of things (including “us”), we’re going to need a new religion. Yea, thought I, one that will keep us laughing at ourselves with generous humour, and forgiving kindness, for all the madness that is afoot, ablaze, and accommodated in the typical discourse called the public sphere of our screen focused eyes. To wit, an Erasmean religion…with perhaps Wodehousean sects in the East…Benchleyists dissidents in the West…that sorta thing.
Again…Thank You. I won’t bother you further, as I’m a small town lawyer, not a scholar, and can add little to the discussion other than the gratitude of one who loves to read.
Thank you for your comment! I had long forgotten this post, and indeed Erasmus’ satire on wicked and worldly church leaders. Sadly the world has got much worse since 2013, in all these respects. But a sense of humour is essential.