ταυτο [to phônein tauto] inter ecclesiæ veræ notas, fateantur omnes, non est postrema. Ut nulli esse dubium possit, quin tot πολυσχιδεις [polyschideis] semitæ totidem sint errorum diverticula. Quod olim de politicis rebus prudentissimi philosophorum dixerunt, id mihi videtur multo etiam magis in ecclesiasticis locum habere, την αγαν ελευθεριαν εις δουλειαν εξ αναγκης τελευτᾶν, [tên agan eleutherian eis douleian ex anagkês teleutan], et πασαν τυραννιδα αναρχιας [pasan tyrannida anarchias] esse κρειττην [kreittên] [sic!] et optabiliorem.... Ego qui inter pontificios diu sum in patria mea versatus, hoc tibi possum affirmare, nulla re magis stabiliri την τυραννιδα [tên tyrannida] του χξζ [tou chxz], quam dissentionibus nostris et dissidiis. Meric Casaubon’s “Pietas contra Maledicos Patrii Nominis ac Religionis Hostes,” is an elaborate vindication of his father against all charges alleged by his adversaries. The only one that presses is that of wavering in religion. And here Meric candidly owns that his father had been shaken by Perron about 1610. (See this tract subjoined to Almeloveen’s edition of the Epistles, p. 89.) But afterwards, by dint of theological study, he got rid of the scruples the cardinal had infused into him, and became a Protestant of the new Anglican school, admiring the first six centuries, and especially the period after Constantine: Hoc sæculum cum duobus sequentibus ακμη της εκκλησιας [akmê tês ekklêsias], flos ipse ecclesiæ et ætas illius aurea queat nuncupari. Prolegomena in Exercitationes in Baronium. His friend Scaliger had very different notions of the fathers. The fathers, says he, in his blunt way, are very ignorant, know nothing of Hebrew, and teach us little in theology. Their interpretations of scripture are strangely perverse. Even Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostles, is full of errors. It will not do to say that, because they were near the apostolic age, they are never wrong. Scaligerana Secunda. Le Clerc has some good remarks on the deference shown by Casaubon to the language held by the fathers about the eucharist, which shook his Protestantism. Bibl. Choisie, xix. 230. [68] Perroniana. Grot. Epist., pag. 939.