It need hardly be added that, when the obligations of Latinity had reached this point, to read Cicero was of far more importance than to study the Fathers of the Church. Bembo, it is well known, advised Sadoleto to 'avoid the Epistles of S. Paul, lest his barbarous style should spoil your taste: _Omitte has nugas, non enim decent gravem virum tales ineptiæ_.' The extent, however, to which formal purism in Latinity was carried, may be best observed in the 'Christiad' of Vida, and the poem 'De Partu Virginis' of Sannazzaro.[373] Sannazzaro not only invokes the muses of Helicon to sing the birth of Christ, but he also makes Proteus prophesy his advent to the river-god of Jordan. The archangel discovers Mary--described by the poet as _spes fida Deorum_--intent on reading nothing less humanistic than the Sibyls; and after she has received his message, the spirits of the patriarchs are said to shout because they will escape from Tartarus and Acheron and the hideous baying of the triple-throated hound. [Footnote 373: Lilius Gyraldus, in his dialogue 'De Poetis Nostri Temporis,' _Opp._ vol. ii. p. 384, mentions a critic who was so stupid as to _desiderare in Pontano et si deis placet in Sanazario Christianam elocutionem, hoc est barbaram_!] It might be reasonably urged against Milton that in the 'Paradise Regained' he somewhat impairs the religious grandeur of his subject by investing it with the forms of the classical epic. If he has erred in this direction, it is as nothing compared with the pseudo-Pagan travesty of Vida. God the Father in the 'Christiad' is spoken of as _Superum Pater nimbipotens_ and _Regnator Olympi_--titles which had their real significance in Latin mythology, being transferred with frigid formalism to a Deity whose essence is spiritual, and whose cult has no admixture of nature worship. Jesus is invariably described as _Heros_; this absurdity reaches its climax in the following phrase about the bad thief on the cross:-- Ipse etiam verbis morientem heroa superbis Stringebat.