TO THE REVEREND FATHER

A large, detailed woodcut initial letter 'C' within a rectangular frame. The letter is decorated with vine-like foliage. Inside the curves of the 'C', a central figure in clerical vestments is shown standing and surrounded by several small children or putti. The background of the frame is filled with elaborate botanical patterns.

This age is a restless one, Reverend Father, which is so incapable of settling these long-standing disturbances that it sooner stirs up new ones, and daily spreads abroad movements that grow worse and worse. Furthermore, those who trace the origins of such great evils and strive to gradually dismantle their accumulated strength (at which your piety is especially directed), they accuse, as if with one voice, the monstrous madness of self-love original: "philautiæ rabiem" - self-love or vanity; a term often used in Renaissance theology to describe the root of pride and heresy.. They suggest, not without reason, that this disease is both the head and cause of all other problems. From this same source, it seems to me, flows the zeal for writing new books as well, which Ecclesiastes The Preacher; a reference to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes (12:12), warning that "of making many books there is no end." rebukes as a kind of vain curiosity. And from this (which is much more deadly) comes both an ambitious display of learning and a certain stubborn presumption of wisdom, as well as that unbridled passion for inventing new doctrines original: "noua dogmata", through which old teachings begin to be both loathed and rendered obsolete. Through these stages of every kind of impiety, human recklessness has now reached such a point—alas!—that both the dignity and authority of the most holy popes and the most distinguished Fathers The early influential theologians and leaders of the Christian Church. of the ancient Church are held in contempt by most, unless perhaps it is convenient for these new masters to misuse this very authority to confirm their own errors.

For so far does Gennadius serve them regarding communion and transubstantiation original: "transsubstantiatione" – the miraculous change of the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.; Clement regarding the reservation of the Eucharist; Hilary regarding justification by faith original: "fidei iustificatione"; Epiphanius regarding the destruction of sacred images; Prosper regarding confession; Gregory regarding the naming of the Ecclesiastical primacy; Bernard regarding dispensation. But Jerome seems more than rigid, and indeed intolerable, undoubtedly because he cannot help but be unpleasant to the followers of Jovinian and Vigilantius Heretics of the 4th century whom Jerome famously refuted.. Everywhere Cyprian is disliked. And no wonder, since he vigorously commends to these boasters of faith the merits of works and the use of satisfaction The performance of penance to repair the harm caused by sin., being as he is entirely Evangelical, not just in name but in very deed. Augustine, they say, ignores the corrupt morals of his own time, because he gladly instills the received discipline of the Church into those who despise it. Now, will those who with equal "modesty" despise so many and such venerable decrees, laws, and institutions of our ancestors, listen to this Leo Pope Leo I, also known as Leo the Great (reigned 440–461 AD)., I ask, even though he everywhere thunders with a rare majesty of speech and a plainly apostolic tone? Will they look up to a Pope who is otherwise to be respected for so many reasons—for his dignity, gravity, wisdom, and elo—