Si percussisti personam religiosam,
Vel quem de Clero; nisi percussio sancta,
Doctor discipulum, Confessor probra fatentem.
[91] Cap. XV. Episcopus, Presbyter & Diaconus, peccantes fideles diverberare non debeant.
[92] Card. Pulli sententiarum L. vii. Cap. 3. p. 220. Est ergo satisfactio quædam, aspera tamen, sed Deo tanto gratior quanto humilior, cum quilibet sacerdotis prostratus ad pedes, se cædendum virgis exhibet nudum.
[93] I have in the course of this Work frequently produced the original words of the Authors who are quoted therein, as I thought this precaution would not be disagreeable to the critical part of Readers. In regard to the Abbé Boileau himself, no occasion has offered of doing the same, as he seldom introduces any fact, in his Book, but in the words of the Writer from whom he borrows it: however, as in relating the above story, which he has extracted from a much longer account, he speaks for himself, I shall take this opportunity of introducing him personally to the Reader, and of transcribing his own words, in order to enable the Reader to judge of the goodness of his Latin.——‘Inter exempla tam infaustæ notitiæ non pertimescam Historiam narrare hominis cucullati et cordigeri, Conventus Brugensis, anno circiter MDLXVI, cui nomen erat Cornelius Adriasem, origine Dordracensis, adversus hæreticos Guezios stomachosissimi concionatoris, qui puellas seu fœminas quasdam sacramento fidelitatis & obedientiæ sibi adstrictas, & specie pietatis devotas, non quidem asperatis & nodosis funibus verberabat, sed nudata earum femora & nates, inhonestis vibicibus rorantes, betuleis aut vimineis virgis, ictibus molliter inflictis, perfricabat.’
[94] ‘Domine, tota tenera est; ego pro ipsâ recipio disciplinam: quo flectente genua dixit Mulier, Percute fortiter, Domine, quia magna peccatrix sum.’—Men. Phil. Lib. iv. Cap. 18.
The above story, related by Scot, together with the words he supposes to have been said by the Woman, have since been turned into a French epigram, which I have met with in the Menagiana, as well as in two or three different collections of French Poetry.
Une femme se confessa,
Le Confesseur à la sourdine