the arguments which they use we shall afterwards review. Now let the
wise reader consider this, namely, what shame these good-for-nothing
men have who say that marriages [which the Holy Scriptures praise
most highly and command] produce infamy and disgrace to the
government, as though, indeed, this public infamy of flagitious and
unnatural lusts which glow among these very holy fathers, who feign
that they are Curii and live like bacchanals, were a great ornament
to the Church! And most things which these men do with the greatest
license cannot even be named without a breach of modesty. And these
their lusts they ask you to defend with your chaste right hand,
Emperor Charles (whom even certain ancient predictions name as the
king of modest face, for the saying appears concerning you: "One
modest in face shall reign everywhere"). For they ask that, contrary
to divine law, contrary to the law of nations, contrary to the canons
of Councils you sunder marriages, in order to impose merely for the
sake of marriage atrocious punishments upon innocent men, to put to
death priests, whom even barbarians reverently spare, to drive into
exile banished women and fatherless children. Such laws they bring
to you, most excellent and most chaste Emperor, to which no barbarity,
however monstrous and cruel, could lend its ear. But because the
stain of no disgrace or cruelty falls upon your character, we hope
that you will deal with us mildly in this matter, especially when you
have learned that we have the weightiest reasons for our belief
derived from the Word of God to which the adversaries oppose the most
trifling and vain opinions.

And nevertheless they do not seriously defend celibacy. For they are
not ignorant how few there are who practise chastity, but [they stick
to that comforting saying which is found in their treatise, _Si non
caste, tamen caue_ (If not chastely, at least cautiously) and] they