Books Fatal to Their AuthorsDitchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
History
Books Fatal to Their Authors
Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
Authors; Prohibited books
Infected with the same notions was Bernardino Ochino, a Franciscan, and
afterwards a Capuchin, whose dialogue _De Polygamiâ_ was fatal to him.
Although he was an old man, the authorities at Basle ordered him to
leave the city in the depth of a severe winter. He wandered into Poland,
but through the opposition of the Papal Nuncio, Commendone, he was
again obliged to fly. He had to mourn over the death of two sons and a
daughter, who died of the plague in Poland, and finally Ochino ended his
woes in Moravia. Such was the miserable fate of Ochino, who was at one
time the most famous preacher in the whole of Italy. He had a wonderful
eloquence, which seized upon the minds of his hearers and carried them
whither he would. No church was large enough to contain the multitudes
which flocked to hear him. Ochino was a skilled linguist, and, after
leaving the Roman Church, he wrote a book against the Papacy in English,
which was printed in London, and also a sermon on predestination. He
visited England in company with Peter Martyr, but on the death of Edward
VI., on account of the changes introduced in Mary's reign these two
doctors again crossed the seas, and retired to a safer retreat. His
brilliant career was entirely ruined by his fatal frenzy and foolish
fanaticism for polygamy.
The third of this strange triumvirate was Samuel Friedrich Willenberg,
a doctor of law of the famous University of Cracow, who wrote a book
_De finibus polygamiae licitae_ and aroused the hatred of the Poles. In
1715, by command of the High Court of the King of Poland, his book was
condemned to be burnt, and its author nearly shared the same fate.
He escaped, however, this terrible penalty, and was fined one hundred
thousand gold pieces.
With these unhappy advocates of a system which violates the sacredness
of marriage, we must close our list of fanatics whose works have proved
fatal to them. Many of them deserve our pity rather than our scorn; for
they suffered from that species of insanity which, according to Holmes,
is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. At any rate, they
furnish an example of that
"Faith, fanatic faith, which, wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last."
CHAPTER III. ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC.
Henry Cornelius Agrippa--Joseph Francis Borri--Urban Grandier--Dr.
Dee--Edward Kelly--John Darrell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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