Apology Against the Calumnies of the Louvain Theologians

to undertake this fight, and to take up such a struggle,
that I would acknowledge a capital crime of impiety if I
remain silent: and it would be too harmful to my reputation
if I neglect, and too dangerous, if I refuse
to fight bravely. Since this cannot happen without the
pain and wounds of my adversaries, it seemed to me dangerous,
without a patron of strenuous erudition, and likewise
of the most equitable judgment, to descend into this arena.
Behold, our apology proceeds against the calumnies
of some rabbis of Louvain, to which how swiftly
I have responded, there are no better witnesses than that
most ornate man, Lord Lucas Bonfius, secretary
of your sublimity, who saw and read no small part
of our apology. And the venerable lord, Bernard
Paltrinerius, steward of your amplitude, in whose
chamber I spent days and nights with importunate study:
thus when the little book of the adversaries was given to me,
on the fifteenth day of December, I rendered this apology
before the last calends of February, and delivered it to the
president of the Mechlin senate, not intending to publish it
in public, unless after having first received the decree
of that senate, from whom a transcript of those calumnious
articles of theirs had been sent to me: although the judgment
and sentence of that business had already been passed, and
the case unknown, I had been condemned by mere suspicion
by those who, having put aside [justice]