Meanwhile, it was no easy matter to appoint responsible and learned scholars to the post. The inefficient censors proceeded with their work of destruction and suppression. A commentator on a Greek Father, or the Psalms, was corrected by an ignoramus who knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, anxious to discover petty collisions with the Vulgate, and eager to create annoyances for the author. Latino Latini, one of the students employed by the Vatican, refused his name to an edition of Cyprian which he had carefully prepared with far more than the average erudition, because it had been changed throughout by the substitution of bad readings for good, in defiance of MS. authority, with a view of preserving a literal agreement with the Vulgate.[124] Sigonius, another of the Vatican students, was instructed to prepare certain text-books by Cardinal Paleotti. These were an Ecclesiastical History, a treatise on the Hebrew Commonwealth, and an edition of Sulpicius Severus. The MSS. were returned to him, accused of unsound doctrine, and scrawled over with such remarks as 'false,' 'absurd.'[125] [Footnote 124: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 74.] [Footnote 125: Id. _op. cit._ p. 54.] In addition to the intolerable delays of the Censure, and the arrogant inadequacy of its officials, learned men suffered from the pettiest persecution at the hands of informers. The Inquisitors themselves were often spies and persons of base origin. 'The Roman Court,' says Sarpi, 'being anxious that the office of the Inquisition should not suffer through negligence in its ministers, has confided these affairs to individuals without occupation, and whose mean estate renders them proud of their official position.'[126] It was not to be expected that such people should discharge their duties with intelligence and scrupulous equity. Pius V., himself an incorruptible Inquisitor, had to condemn one of his lieutenants for corruption or extortion of money by menaces.[127] There was still another source of peril and annoyance to which scholars were exposed. Their comrades, engaged in similar pursuits, not unfrequently wreaked private spite by denouncing them to the Congregation.[128] Van Linden indicated heresies in Osorius, Giovius, Albertus Pighius. The Jesuit Francesco Torres accused Maes, and threatened Latini. Sigonius obtained a license for his _History of Bologna_, but could not print it, owing to the delation of secret enemies. Baronius, when he had finished his Martyrology, found that a cabal had raised insuperable obstacles in the way of its publication. I have been careful to select only examples of notoriously Catholic authors, men who were in the pay and under the special protection of the Vatican. How it fared with less favored scholars, may be left to the imagination. We are not astonished to find a man like Latini writing thus from Rome to Maes during the pontificate of Paul IV.[129] [Footnote 126: Discorso dell'Origine, etc. dell'Inquisizione,' _Opp._ vol. iv. p. 34.]