Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities by Arthur O. Norton
page 69 of 182 (37%)
page 69 of 182 (37%)
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A bishop should not read the books of the heathen: those of heretics he may read carefully, either of necessity (_k_) or for some special reason. So Jerome to Pope Damasus on the prodigal son: =Priests are blameworthy who, to the neglect of the Gospels, read comedies.= We see priests of God, to the neglect of the Gospels and the Prophets, reading comedies, singing the Amatory words of bucolic verses, keeping Vergil in their hands, and making that which occurs with boys as a necessity (_k_) ground for accusation against themselves because they do it for pleasure. Idem: =They walk in the vanity and darkness of the senses who occupy themselves with profane learning.[B]= Does he not seem to you to be walking in the vanity of the senses, and in darkness of mind, who day and night torments himself with the dialectic art; who, as an investigator of nature, raises his eyes athwart the heavens and, beyond the depths of lands and the abyss, is plunged into the so-called void; who grows warm over iambics, who, in his over zealous mind, analyses and combines the great jungle of metres; and, (to pass to another phase of the matter), who seeks riches by fair means and foul means, who fawns upon kings, grasps at the inheritances |
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