The higher clergy were often sunk in deep ignorance. A Bishop of Dunfeld congratulated himself that he had never learned either Greek or Hebrew, while the monks contended that all heresies sprung out of these languages, and especially out of the Greek. "The New Testament," said one of them, "is a book full of briers and serpents. "The Greek," continued he, "is a new language recently invented, and of it we ought specially to beware. As to Hebrew, my dear brethren, it is certain that all who learn it, that very instant become Jews." We quote from Heresbach, a friend of Erasmus, and a respectable writer. Thomas Linacer, a learned and celebrated ecclesiastic, had never read the New Testament. In the last days of his life, (in 1524,) he caused a copy of it to be brought, but immediately dashed it from him with an oath, because, on opening it, he had lighted on these words, "I say unto you, Swear not at all." Now he was a great swearer. "Either this is not the gospel," said he, "or we are not Christians."[45] Even the Theological Faculty of Paris did not hesitate at this time to say, in presence of the Parliament, "It is all over with religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew is allowed." If, among ecclesiastics, there were a scattered few who had made some attainments, it was not in sacred literature. The Ciceronians of Italy affected great contempt for the Bible because of its style. Men calling themselves priests of the Church of Jesus Christ, translated the writings of holy men inspired by the Spirit of God into the style of Virgil and Horace, in order to adapt them to the ears of good society. Cardinal Bembo, instead of _the Holy Spirit_, wrote _the breath of the heavenly zephyr_; instead of to _forgive sins_,--to _bend the manes and the Sovereign God_; and instead of _Christ the Son of God_,--_Minerva sprung from the forehead of Jupiter_. Having one day found the respectable Sadolet engaged in translating the Epistle to the Romans, he said to him, "Leave off this child's play; such trifling ill becomes a man of gravity."[46] [45] Müller's Reliq. tom. iii, p. 253. [46] Felleri, Mon. ined., p. 400. Such are some of the consequences of the system under which Christendom then groaned. Our picture, undoubtedly, proves both the corruption of the Church and the necessity of a Reformation; and it was this we proposed in sketching it. The vital doctrines of Christianity had almost entirely disappeared, and with them the light and life which constitute the essence of genuine religion. The strength of the Church had been wasted, and its body, enfeebled and exhausted, lay stretched almost without life, over the whole extent which the Roman empire had occupied. CHAP. IV.