A Revision of Two Letters from George Morley, Bishop of Winchester, to Jan van Vliet

which fair estimators of things, mindful of human frailty, easily forgive when it does not proceed from a wicked will. Hence Possidius has been deservedly called the most diligent collector of Augustine's works, even though it cannot be established from his silence alone that some work is not of Augustine.

Dr. Morley, p. 5: There are certain things in that book of Meditations which cannot be of Augustine: namely, the Hymn in chapter 26, composed in metrical and rhythmic numbers, a kind of verse unknown to the age of Augustine; as it was devised by the Scholastics many hundreds of years after Augustine, as can be gathered from Sixtus of Siena, Bibliotheca, book 3. Now, if this rhythmic kind of meter was an invention of the Scholastics, how absurd it is to attribute such a hymn to Augustine (between whom and Lombard, the master of all Scholastics, at least six centuries intervened), no one can judge better than you, Vliet.

Response: I appeal to your judgment in turn, my Morley, whether it is likely that that work is later than the age of Peter Lombard? Later, I say; for if that kind of rhythm was invented by the Scholastics, since they were his disciples, it is necessary that the work itself be more recent than that Bishop of Paris, who may have some author among the Scholastics. But I do not think you will say this; since the matters treated, the mode of treatment, the thoughts, and the phrases, all protest, being clearly different from the Scholastics. Add that you will not easily name any work composed in the age of the Scholastics that has crept into the name and family of any of the ancient Fathers. Both the heathens and the Christians had their mythical, or fabulous, ages. Therefore, just as there was some time among the heathens beyond which no man was transferred to the Gods of the Major Nations, so also among the Christians there is a time beyond which no one transferred the works of those Fathers to his own writings. I wish this to be understood of just works, lest someone move a dispute with me over some documents, either sacred or profane.

Your error is supported by a futile prop, namely: that the Scholastics invented Rhythmic songs; which is neither true, nor could it have been handed down by Sixtus of Siena. I have not seen Sixtus of Siena for some years. His authority is great with me; yet the manifest truth, which I have shown, causes me not to agree with him in this matter. Saint Bernard, who [wrote] in his Epistle, was older than the whole School, such as it is, which arose from Peter Lombard.