Note 163 — Chapter III · The Society of Jesus.—Religious as Educators.

Much of what Luther said on the subject of vows, as well as of matrimony, does not bear translation. See Janssen, Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, pp. 93–97. Professor Paulsen indignantly repudiates the vile calumnies of the humanists against the religious orders. He points out that the writings of many humanists exhibit a licentiousness which would have made most religious throw these books aside with utter disgust. Some Protestant critics severely blamed the Berlin Professor for this defence of the outlawed monks. Professor Ziegler even accused him that, in alliance with Janssen and Denifle, he endeavored to restore the old Catholic fable convenue. Professor Paulsen answers this charge of his co-religionists by saying that he is entirely free from any such tendency. “I do not want to restore or maintain any fables, neither Catholic nor Protestant; but I wish, as far as possible, to see things as they are. It is true, this endeavor has led me to doubt whether the renaissance and its apostles deserve all the esteem, and the representatives of medieval education all the contempt which, up to this day, has been bestowed on them.” L. c., vol. I, p. 89.