Then there followed innumerable classical examples of awkward and negligent expressions of thought, which ended with the words of the Apostle, who calls himself, "unskilled, with regard to speech, but not unskilled in knowledge."
"If one therefore examines the behaviour of my antagonist of St. Gall, one feels tempted to believe, that he had once invaded the garden of some wise man; from one of whose hot-beds he had stolen a radish, which had discomposed his stomach and increased his gall. Let everybody therefore keep a sharp look-out on his garden. Evil communications, corrupt good manners.
"Yet it is possible also, that he could not have done otherwise; for having perchance rummaged the whole day long, in the remotest folds of his cowl, to find something wherewith to regale the stranger guest, and not finding anything else, but cunning and malice, he let his guest taste a bit of that. Bad men have evil possessions.
"With his behaviour, his outward appearance,--which we did not fail carefully to investigate,--was in strict harmony. His countenance bore a pale lustre, like bad metal, used for the adulteration of the genuine; his hair was crimped; his hood finer and daintier than necessary, and his shoes of light make,--so that all the signs of vanity were found on him, which were a vexation in the eyes of St. Hieronymus, when he wrote: 'To my great regret, there are some of the clergy in my parish, who are very anxious for their garments to be well scented and their nails well polished; who anoint their curled hair with precious ointments, and who wear dainty, embroidered shoes. Such garments, however, are scarcely fitted for a dandy and bridegroom, let alone for one of the Lord's elected.'
"Further I have reflected, whether the sound of his own name, was not in harmony with his actions likewise. And what now? Ekkhard, or Akhar, was his name,--as if already at his baptism, by dint of a prophetic providence, he had been stigmatized with the name of a malefactor; for who does not know of that Akhar who appropriated to himself a purple mantle, as well as two hundred bags of silver, and a golden wedge, out of the booty at Jericho, so that Joshuah, had him led out into a remote valley, where he was stoned to death, by all Israel; and all he possessed was given up to the flames?--Of such a man his namesake of St. Gall, has shown himself to be a worthy successor; for he who disregards the laws of politeness and good breeding, acts as badly as a thief. He purloins the gold of true wisdom.
"If it were permitted to believe in the transmigration of souls, such as Pythagoras has taught, it would be beyond all doubt, that the soul of the Hebrew Akhar, had entered the frame of this Ekkehard, and in this case one ought to pity it, as it were better to dwell in the body of a fox even, than in that of a crafty and cunning monk. All this which I have said until now, has been said without any personal hatred. My hatred is directed only against the man's inherent wickedness. Consequently I only detest an attribute of his and not the substance itself, which we are bound to honour, as God's likeness, according to Scripture.
"Please to observe now," continued Gunzo in the second part of his book, "how insanely my enemy has acted against the benefits of science and knowledge. More than a hundred written volumes, had I brought with me, over the Alps; weapons of peace, such as Marcianus' flowery instructions in the seven liberal arts; Plato's unfathomable depth in his Timæus; the obscure wisdom of Aristotle, hardly lighted up in our present days, in his book on the hermeneia, and Cicero's eloquence in the Topica.
"How serious and faithful might our conversation not have been, if they had questioned me, about these treasures! How could I imagine that such as I, whom God has so richly gifted, would be ridiculed on account of mistaking a casus! I who know Donat and Priscianus almost by heart!
"It is probable that that empty coxcomb believes, that he carries the whole of the Grammatica, in his hood,--but beloved brethren, believe me--he has scarcely had a glimpse of her back in the distance, and if he were to try, to catch sight of her radiant countenance, he would stumble, and fall to the ground, over his own awkward feet. The Grammatica is a noble woman, who wears for a woodcutter an aspect very different from that she has for an Aristotle.
"But how shall I speak to you of grammar's sister, of dialectics, whom that Greek sage has called, the nurse of intellect? Oh noble art! that entangles the fool in her nets, whilst showing the wise man how to evade them, and discloses to our wondering eyes, the hidden threads, by which being and not-being are linked together! But of that, yon cowl-bearing monk knows nothing! Nothing of that subtle fineness, which with nineteen kinds of syllogisms, knows how to explain all that, which has ever been thought before, as well as all that which can be thought hereafter. God is wise, and deprives him of such knowledge; knowing beforehand that he would only use it for deceitful and wicked ends ..."