THE
HISTORY
OF THE
FLAGELLANTS.
CHAP. I.
The substance of the reasons given by the Abbé Boileau, for writing his Book. He seems to have been of opinion that voluntary flagellations were no very antient practice.
I AM not, I confess, without fear that the design I have formed of tracing the origin of those Flagellations which have in process of time been introduced among Christians, will be looked upon as a rash undertaking, and that I may be accused of having, in that respect, fallen into the errors of the Protestants, whether Lutherans, or Calvinists.
In fact, those two Sects, under pretence of shewing their obedience to the commands of God, who orders the Israelites not to make incisions in their own flesh for the sake of the dead, trample upon all laws concerning Penitence, extinguish that kind of virtue which consists in repressing the lustful appetites of the flesh, and ridicule those mortifications and penances to which Tertullian advises us to submit.
Indeed, I am far from wishing to favour the relaxed Doctrine of Heretics. That kind of enthusiastic fury which the Calvinists manifestest, in the last Century, against the laborious exercises of the Monastic life, rather heightens, in my opinion, the glory of the Catholic Church. I think that the manner of the antient Anchorites of Syria, of Thebaid, and of Egypt, the purity of their virtue, and the surprising penances to which they submitted, deserve our utmost reverence, however impossible it may be for us to imitate them.