Note 347 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 3)

Milton, in his Areopagitica, or Argument for Unlicensed Printing (vol. i. p. 149, Birch’s edition of Milton’s Prose Works), has some strenuous protestations against the rigour of the Platonic censorship in this tenth Book. In the year 1480 Hermolaus Barbarus wrote to George Merula as follows:— “Plato, in Institutione De Legibus, inter prima commemorat, in omni republicâ præscribi caverique oportere, ne cui liceat, quæ composuerit, aut privatim ostendere, aut in usum publicum edere, antequam ea constitute super id judices viderint, nec damnarint. Utinam hodieque haberetur hæc lex: neque enim tam multi scriberent, neque tam pauci bonas litteras discerent. Nunc et copiâ malorum librorum offundimur, et omissis eminentissimis autoribus, plebeios et minutulos consectamur. Et, quod calamitosissimum est, periti juxta imperitique de studiis impuné ac promiscué judicant” (Politiani Opera, 1553, p. 197).

I transcribe the above passage from an interesting article upon Book-Censors, in Beckmann’s History of Inventions (Ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 93 seq.), where numerous examples are cited of the prohibition, combustion, or licensing of books by authority, from the burning of the work of Protagoras by decree of the Athenian assembly, down to modern times; illustrating the tendency of different sects and creeds, in proportion as they acquired power, to silence all open contradiction. The Christian Arnobius, at a time when his creed was under disfavour by the Emperors, protests against this practice, in a liberal and comprehensive phrase which would have much offended Plato (at the time when he wrote the Leges) and Hermolaus:— “Alios audio mussitare indignanter et dicere:— Oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta quibus Christiana religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. … Nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere” (Arnob. adv. Gentes, iii. p. 104. Also iv. p. 152).

“We are told by Eusebius (Beckmann, ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 96; Bohn’s ed., vol. ii. p. 514) that Diocletian caused the sacred Scriptures to be burnt. After the spreading of the Christian religion, the clergy exercised against books that were either unfavourable or disagreeable to them, the same severity which they had censured in the heathens as foolish and prejudicial to their own cause. Thus were the writings of Arius condemned to the flames at the Council of Nice; and Constantine threatened with the punishment of death those who should conceal them. The clergy assembled at the Council of Ephesus requested the Emperor Theodosius II. to cause the works of Nestorius to be burnt; and this desire was complied with. The writings of Eutyches shared the like fate at the Council of Chalcedon: and it would not be difficult to collect examples of the same kind from each of the following centuries.”

Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:— “If there be any opinion which it would be just to punish as a crime, it is the opinion which makes it to be a virtue not to tolerate opinion." (Revolutions in English History, vol. ii. p. 178.)

I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom. xiii. p. 567 seq.; Vie et Travaux de Nicolas Cleynaerts par M. Thonissen. Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495 — died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author of Grammaticæ Institutiones, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages. He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.

At Grenada, in Spain (1538), “Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l’inquisition les manuscrits et les livres” (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) “qu’elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade. Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu’il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre ‘ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu’à Vulcain’.… L’inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie. Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses vœux pourraient être exaucés, s’il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du cœur. Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l’époque où elle fut émise: ‘C’est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon œuvre. Je cherche des compagnons d’armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche. Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n’oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l’inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens. Le combat est impossible, là où personne n’ose assumer le rôle de l’ennemi’ — .” Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books — ad Julianum — Vol. xviii. p. 247 Kühn.