We will add the last clause of our long lament, though far too
short for the materials that we have. For in us the natural use
is changed to that which is against nature, while we who are the
light of faithful souls everywhere fall a prey to painters
knowing nought of letters, and are entrusted to goldsmiths to
become, as though we were not sacred vessels of wisdom,
repositories of gold-leaf. We fall undeservedly into the power
of laymen, which is more bitter to us than any death, since they
have sold our people for nought, and our enemies themselves are
our judges.
It is clear from what we have said what infinite invectives we
could hurl against the clergy, if we did not think of our own
reputation. For the soldier whose campaigns are over venerates
his shield and arms, and grateful Corydon shows regard for his
decaying team, harrow, flail and mattock, and every manual
artificer for the instruments of his craft; it is only the
ungrateful cleric who despises and neglects those things which
have ever been the foundation of his honours.
CHAPTER V
THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE POSSESSIONERS
The venerable devotion of the religious orders is wont to be
solicitous in the care of books and to delight in their society,
as if they were the only riches. For some used to write them
with their own hands between the hours of prayer, and gave to the
making of books such intervals as they could secure and the times
appointed for the recreation of the body.
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