Epistle

AS it is my nature, by the constitution of my life (O most ornate men, most desired judges), to spend my time primarily for my God, and thereafter for humanity, in a manner grateful, tranquil, and full of charity, in accordance with that argument of the Mosaic Decalogue contracted by our Savior into two parts: namely, honor and fear God with your whole heart, and love your neighbor as yourself: so indeed (as I hope) I have behaved myself in those five volumes of mine now published (with divine grace assisting) both before God and men, so that no place can be found in them where I have spoken a taunt or injury against anyone, or, puffed up by empty vanity or foolish and impious desire to disparage anyone, have ever thought, because of the most wicked opinions trumpeted to the world, that what is true in the harvest of others should be thought lies, because they perhaps seem rare to the ear, or crude at first glance to the eye, or arduous beyond the grasp of the thoughts of common men. Without the small detriment of other writers (I say), or the depravity of their dignity (my pen being armed not with a viperous tooth, but guided by a peaceful mind with all bitterness set aside, hatred and envy relegated to Orcus, and accompanied only by honest reason), I desired to sing that matter in the world, as great as it is small, in a harmonic way, to the praise of God and the solace of men, so that I might render the harmony begun by me conformable to the condition of my mind, which exists by itself and in itself quiet, and in its own supercelestial fatherland, a most rich Symphony full of divine splendor: Hence, therefore, my mind, sincerely occupied in the sweet speculation of true harmonic consonances, was delighted to fill its volumes not with quarrels, brawls, calumnies, lies, or cavils, but with a real subject, fortified and confirmed by reason, authority, and ocular demonstration.

For what, I ask, can be devised more futile or more inept among mortals than to explain peace through the means of war, or Sympathy through the din of Antipathy, or to contaminate the peaceful proportions of God and nature itself with the discords of Litigation and the Diabolical dissonances in an impious and unjust manner?

No one (as Christ bears witness) can justly serve two masters. What moment, therefore, is to be expected in the elucidation of true worldly music, where the mind (which the worldly harmony has adorned from the root) is now infected by the stain of Litigation and soiled with the filth of dissension due to the pollution of the malignant body? For the more human nature is prone to litigation, the more we judge it removed from the divine thought of harmony (by which the compassions of the world and its elements are disposed toward one another in peace and concord), and consequently we suspect its soul is immersed more deeply in the sad valley of darkness. Solomon seems to agree with this opinion, bursting forth in these words: "The body which is prone to corruption weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation depresses the mind full of many cares, so that we barely conceive those things which are on earth, and we find with labor those things which are at hand; but who shall investigate those things which are in the heavens, and who shall know the counsel of God, unless God gives him wisdom? Thus the paths of those who dwell on the earth have been corrected, and men have been taught those things which please God, and thus they have been saved by Wisdom." Hence, therefore, we see that the holy Wisdom of God is the foundation of universal harmony, by which we are led to know the mystery seated in true concord. The said wise man seems to confess this in the thread of his discourse: "To me," he says, "knowledge certain was given by Wisdom, so that I might know the constitution of the world, and the power of the elements, the beginning, the end, and the middle of the times, the changes of the solstices and the varieties of the seasons, the circuits of the year and the positions of the stars: the natures of living creatures, and the minds or angers of beasts, the strengths of winds or spirits, and the thoughts of men, the differences of plants, and the faculties of roots, and even to know whatsoever