Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the SorbonneLolme, Jean Louis de
History
Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne
Lolme, Jean Louis de
Boileau, Jacques, 1635-1716. Historia flagellantium; Flagellants
[8] The Hebrew words in the text are: בקרת תהיה the Greek words
for these, in the LXX. are, ἐπισκοπὴ ἔσται αὐτοῖς.--As I do not
understand Hebrew, I shall not try to make any remark on the above
Hebrew words, but trust for that to the sagaciousness of the reader;
however, with respect to the Greek words that follow them, I think I
should be greatly wanting in my duty to the Public, in my capacity
of Commentator, if I did not communicate to them an observation with
which those words supply me, which is, that there is a material error
in the passage above recited, in our common translation of the Bible;
for the Reader may see that the punishment of scourging, in case
of fornication, is confined, in that passage, to the Woman solely;
whereas the word αὐτοῖς, which is a plural word, shews that both the
Man and Woman were to be punished alike; and instead of _she shall_,
as our Bible is worded in that passage, it ought to be, _they shall_
be scourged. This remark on the above singular alteration of the
true sense of the Bible, to the prejudice of Women (supposing it is
not an error of the press) naturally leads me to take notice here of
the unjust disposition of Men towards Women in general, in all that
relates to the mutual intercourse of the Sexes: a disposition that
has induced them in modern times to impose humiliating penalties on
such Women as are guilty of sins which the Men themselves commit with
the utmost freedom, and thus to establish a mortifying difference, in
that respect, between the two sexes, instead of that amiable equality
which obtained between them under the Jewish law, according to which
the Man and Woman who had committed together the sin of Fornication,
were lashed with equal numbers of stripes.
[9] The _Miserere_ is the 51st Psalm; and the _De Profundis_ is the
130th, which is none of the shortest.
The singing of the _Miserere_ seems to be particularly appropriated,
among Catholics, to regulate both the duration of religious
flagellations, and the _time_ to which they are to be performed,
as we may conclude from the above passage of our Author; and also
from a passage of M. de Voltaire in his _Candide_, in which he says,
that, when _Candide_ was flagellated at Lisbon, by order of the
Inquisition, he was all the while entertained with a _Miserere en
faux bourdon_; which is a kind of Church Music.
[10] The expressions of the _Vulgate_ are, _fui flagellatus_, _I have
been whipped_. The _Vulgate_ of the Old Testament is a very ancient
Latin version of it from the Hebrew, corrected afterwards by St.
Jerom, which is followed in all Catholic Countries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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