Μακαριοι οι ειρηοποιοι'.'"
"And know you nature so ill, as to think either of these high-mettled youths will reck what a poor old Pope saith?"
"Oh! your holiness," broke in Gerard, blushing and gasping, "sure, here is one who will treasure your words all his life as words from Heaven."
"In that case," said the Pope, "I am fairly caught. As Francesco here would say—
ουκ εοτιν ὁοτιϛ εοτ' ανηρ ζλεθεροϛ.'
I came to taste that eloquent heathen, dear to me e'en as to thee, thou paynim monk; and I must talk divinity, or something next door to it. But the youth hath a good, and a winning face, and writeth Greek like an angel. Well then, my children, to comprehend the ways of the Church, we should still rise a little above the earth, since the Church is between heaven and earth, and interprets betwixt them.
"The question is then, not how vulgar men feel, but how the common Creator of man and beast doth feel, towards the lower animals. This, if we are too proud to search for it in the lessons of the Church, the next best thing is to go to the most ancient history of men and animals."
Colonna.] "Herodotus."
"Nay, nay; in this matter Herodotus is but a mushroom. Finely were we sped for ancient history, if we depended on your Greeks, who did but write on the last leaf of that great book, Antiquity."
The friar groaned. Here was a Pope uttering heresy against his demigods.