“Who is the Father? In Luther’s catechism it is written, ‘Thou shalt
have none other Gods but me.’ But that is the Law of Moses, and it is
Jehovah who is intended there. If you believe in Jehovah, then you are a
Jew, are you not?”
“I believe also on Christ the Son of God.”
“Then you are a Jew-Christian! So you have admitted that you are a
Lutheran, Anabaptist, Jew, and Christian--all this together. You are a
fool, and you don’t know what you are. But that may be passed over, if
you do not seduce others.”
“Give him a flogging,” said the Cardinal, who did not like the turn the
conversation had taken, especially the challenging of the Bible, which
just now he wished to use for his own purposes.
“He has already had that,” answered More, “but besides his doctrine,
this conceited man, who wants to make himself popular, belongs to a
society which circulates a bad translation of the Bible.” “You see
yourself,” he continued, turning to Bainham, “what Bible reading leads
to, and I demand that you give up the names of your fellow-criminals.”
“That I will never do! The just shall live by his faith.”
“Will you call yourself just, when there is no one just? Read the Book
of Job, and you will see. And your belief is really too eccentric to be
counted to you for righteousness.”
“Send him down in the cellar to Master Mats! Must one listen to such
nonsense! Away with him!”
More pointed to the door, and Bainham went out.
“Yes,” said Wolsey, “what is there in front of us? Schisms,
sectarianism, struggles. If we only had an heir to the throne.”
“We cannot get the King divorced.”
“You yourself have spoken the word. There is no need for divorce,
because his marriage is null.”
“Is it? How do you prove that?”
“From the third book of Moses, the twentieth and twenty-first chapters:
‘If any one taketh his brother’s wife, it is evil.’”
“Yes, but in the fifth book of Moses, five and twentieth chapter, fifth
verse, it is commanded.”
“What, in Christ’s name, are you saying?”
“Certainly it is: ‘If brothers dwell together, and one die without
children, his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed to his
brother.”
“Damnation! This cursed book.”
“Moreover: Abraham married his half-sister; Jacob married two sisters:
Moses’ father married his aunt.”
“That is the Bible, is it? Thank you! Then I prefer the Decretals and
the Councils. The Pope must dissolve the marriage.”
“Is it then to be dissolved?”
“Didn’t you know? Yes, it is. If Julius II could grant a dispensation,
Clement VII can grant an absolution.”
“It is not just towards the Queen.”
“The country demands it--the kingdom--the nation! The King’s
conscience....”
“Oh! is it the fair Anne?”
“No, not she!”
“Is it....”
“Don’t ask any more.”
“Then I answer, Margaret of Valois.”
“I give no answer at all, but I am not responsible for your life, if you
talk out of season! The Bible won’t help you there.”
“It would be a useful reform, if we could cancel the Old Testament as a
Jewish book.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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