Prólogo galeato. IV. Respóndese a algunas objeciones
Addressing Objections to Spiritual Reading
The author defends the necessity of spiritual reading against claims that sermons are sufficient or that reading leads to the neglect of household duties.
Someone might grant that all this is necessary, yet still argue that the Church's regular sermons are enough for what we've been discussing, without any need to read good books. To this we answer first that in many places there is a shortage of sermons; and, as Saint Gregory says, just as sermons are undervalued when there are many of them, so when they are very few they do little good.1 Besides, preachers often don't get into the specific details we've mentioned; at most, they treat the virtues in a general way, and moral teaching is of little use when it remains vague and general. Furthermore, many sermons do more to test the patience of the listeners than to build them up. Some might argue that reading good books gives people an excuse to dismiss sermons or stop listening to them. The reply to this is that sound teaching isn't a reason to despise the word of God, but rather to esteem it. If some people do that, it's more the fault of their pride than of the sound teaching; and because of the faults of a few proud people, there is no reason the many should be cheated of good reading. Others say that some take occasion from such reading to throw themselves so fully into spiritual exercises that they come to neglect the running of their households and families, and the service they owe their parents or husbands. To this the reply is that nothing condemns this disorder more than sound teaching does; because it always advises that obligations be put before acts of devotion, precepts before counsels, necessities before voluntary practices, and what God commands before what a person proposes out of devotion.2 So this disorder stems more from the person than from the teaching.
The Misuse of Good Things
The author argues that the potential for human malice to misuse good things—even scripture or the sun—is not a valid reason to abandon them.
Others say that from good reading many take occasion for certain errors. The answer to this is that nothing is so good or so perfect that human malice can't misuse it. What teaching is more perfect than that of the Gospels and the letters of Saint Paul? And yet, every heretic who has ever lived, past or present, claims to base their heresies on this excellent teaching. That is why the apostle Saint Peter, mentioning the letters of Saint Paul, says that there are in them some things hard to understand, from which certain wicked men took occasion to found their errors. He further adds that heretics claim the support of all the Holy Scriptures, twisting and falsifying them to give a veneer of truth to their errors.3 And besides this, what is there in human life so necessary and so useful that, if we made much of the drawbacks that come with it, we would not have to cast it aside? Let parents not marry off their daughters, since many women die in childbirth, and others at the hands of their husbands. Let there be no doctors or medicines, as they often kill. Let there be no swords or weapons, because people use them to kill each other every day. Let no one sail the sea, since so many shipwrecks of lives and fortunes are suffered on it. Let there be no study of theology, since all the heretics, by misusing it, took from it grounds for their heresies. But what should I say of earthly things, when even heavenly ones aren't free from drawbacks? What is more necessary for governing this world than the sun? And yet, how many people have fallen ill and died from its intense heat? And what am I saying about these things, when from the goodness and mercy, and from the passion of Christ our Savior—which are the chief causes of all our good—the wicked take occasion to persist in their sins, clinging to these pledges?4 To all this, I’ll add one thing that deserves careful thought. I ask: what could be more powerful for convincing every mind and bringing people to faith than the resurrection of Lazarus—four days buried and already stinking—whom the Savior raised with these words: "Lazarus, come out"? That was enough; neither the power of death nor the bindings on his feet and hands that held him captive could keep him in the tomb. So, what heart could be so stubborn that, faced with such a wonder, it wouldn't be stunned and won over to faith in that Lord? But oh, the incredible malice of the human heart!5 This so terrifying wonder not only failed to convince the hearts of the chief priests and Pharisees; on the contrary, they took from it an occasion to condemn to death the worker of so great a miracle; and, not content with that, they set about killing Lazarus, because many people, for that very reason, were coming to believe in the Savior.6 So if human malice is so great that it drew from this a pretext for such great evil, who would make an argument from the abuse by which the wicked pervert good things—twisting them and bending them to their corrupted wills—so as to block what is good on that account? All this has been said so that we understand that nothing is so good that it is free of drawbacks—drawbacks caused more by human abuse than by the nature of things themselves. But that’s no reason for the good and the many to lose the fruit of sound teaching because of the disorder and abuse of the few. The Savior taught us this openly in the parable of the weeds, where he says that when the servants asked the master of the household whether they should pull up that bad weed so it would not harm the crop, he answered that they should leave it alone, because in pulling up the bad weed they might pull up the good along with it.7 In that parable he teaches us that the condition of the good must be so privileged that many inconveniences have to be put up with so that they themselves are not wronged.8
Testimonies to the Fruit of Good Reading
Two historical examples are provided to demonstrate how sound doctrine can lead to conversion and the restoration of faith.
To all this I add that sound teaching not only gives no grounds for error, but rather is what most helps us toward firmness and confirmation in the faith. For that reason it seemed good to me to recount here something a gentleman of the General Council of the Holy Inquisition of these kingdoms of Portugal told me, which greatly helps us see the fruit of good reading and the harm of bad. This gentleman, then, told how a man came of his own free will, without being accused, to ask mercy of the Holy Office, and confessed that, by giving himself over to reading bad books, he had so lost the faith that he held there was nothing more than being born and dying Later, however, through a chance opportunity—or perhaps because divine providence ordained it—he began reading books of sound doctrine. By dedicating himself to that reading, he emerged from his former blindness, asked for forgiveness, and received it.9 I wanted to write this here in support of good reading, and as testimony to the fruit it bears. Don Fernando Carrillo told me another thing no less true, and no less worth noting, while he was ambassador in this kingdom. He told me that a Moorish captive—I believe his name was Hamete—had the Book of Prayer and Meditation and would often read in it; the household servants would laugh at this and ask him, "Hamete, what are you reading there?"10 And he would answer, "Leave me alone."11 Eventually, as he continued his reading, the same Lord who enlightened the queen of Ethiopia’s eunuch as he read Isaiah enlightened this man as well, and he eventually asked for holy Baptism to become a Christian. So these two examples, and everything else already said, clearly show us how much sound teaching helps—no less toward confirming the faith than toward every other virtue.
Conclusion and Authorial Defense
The author concludes that the common good outweighs individual abuses and defends the value of vernacular spiritual literature.
The conclusion of this whole argument is that laws and sound judgment don't focus on the particular case, but on what is common and general—that is, not what happens to individual people, but what generally concerns the common good of everyone; and it isn't right that everyone should lose out because of the abuse and disorder of a few. Nor does it look at the particular harms things bring, if the benefits are greater than the harms—as we see in seafaring, because if the damages from shipwrecks are great, the benefits of navigation are far greater. But here I ask the Christian reader's pardon for having gone on so long about this subject. For I did this so that we would clearly see how much we need good reading, and so that the opinion of some who hold the opposite would not knock us off this judgment.12 And beyond that, what I now resolve to write here could do us little good if the reading of doctrine written in the common tongue were held to be useless or harmful.13 This preamble of ours will serve, like Saint Jerome's Prologue—called the Helmeted Prologue (in which he approves his translation of the Holy Scriptures)—as a defense not only of the present book, but also of those that we and other authors have written in the vernacular.14
Read the original Latin
Mas alguno, por ventura, concediendo ser todo esto necesario, dirá que bastan los sermones ordinarios de la Iglesia para lo dicho, sin que haya lección de buenos libros. A lo cual primeramente respondemos que en muchos lugares hay falta de sermones; y, según dice san Gregorio, así como los sermones cuando son muchos se desestiman, así cuando son muy pocos aprovechan poco. Y, demás desto, los predicadores comúnmente no descienden a estas particularidades susodichas, sino, cuando mucho, tratan en común de las virtudes; y la doctrina moral es poco provechosa cuando es común y general. Y, allende desto, muchos sermones hay que más son para ejercitar la paciencia de los oyentes, que para edificarlos.
Dirá otro que, de leer buenos libros, toman motivo algunos para desestimar los sermones, o para no oírlos. A esto se responde que la buena doctrina no es causa de despreciar la palabra de Dios, sino de estimarla. Y, si algunos hacen eso, más será culpa de su soberbia, que de la buena doctrina; y, por la culpa de unos pocos soberbios, no es razón que sean defraudados de la buena lección los muchos. Otros dicen que algunos toman motivo de la tal lección para entregarse tanto a los ejercicios espirituales, que vienen a descuidarse de la gobernación de sus casas y familias, y del servicio que deben a sus padres o maridos. A esto se responde que ninguna cosa condena más la buena doctrina, que este desorden; porque siempre aconseja que se antepongan las cosas de obligación a las de devoción, y las de precepto a las de consejo, y las necesarias a las voluntarias, y las que Dios manda a las que el hombre por su devoción propone. De manera que este desorden más procede de la persona, que de la doctrina.
Otros dicen que de la buena lección toman muchos ocasión para algunos errores. A esto se responde que ninguna cosa hay tan buena y tan perfecta, de que no pueda usar mal la malicia humana. ¿Qué doctrina más perfecta que la de los evangelios y epístolas de san Pablo? Pues todos cuantos herejes ha habido, presentes y pasados, pretenden fundar sus herejías en esta tan excelente doctrina. Por donde el apóstol san Pedro, haciendo mención de las epístolas de san Pablo, dice que hay en ellas algunas cosas dificultosas de entender, de que tomaron ocasión algunos malos hombres para fundar sus errores. Y añade más: que de todas las Santas Escrituras pretenden ayudarse los herejes, torciéndolas y falsificándolas para dar color a sus errores. Y, allende desto, ¿qué cosa hay en la vida humana tan necesaria y tan provechosa, que si hiciéramos mucho caso de los inconvenientes que trae consigo, no la hayamos de desechar? No casen los padres sus hijas, pues muchas mujeres mueren de parto, y otras, a manos de sus maridos.
No haya médicos ni medicinas, pues muchas veces ellos y ellas matan. No haya espadas ni armas, porque cada día se matan los hombres con ellas. No se navegue la mar, pues tantos naufragios de vidas y haciendas se padecen en ella. No haya estudios de teología, pues todos los herejes, usando mal della, tomaron de ahí motivos para sus herejías. Mas ¿qué diré de las cosas de la tierra, pues aun las del cielo no carecen de inconvenientes? ¿Qué cosa más necesaria para el gobierno deste mundo, que el sol? Pues ¿cuántos hombres han enfermado y muerto con sus grandes calores? Y ¿qué digo destas cosas, pues de la bondad y misericordia, y de la pasión de Cristo, nuestro Salvador —que son las causas principales de todo nuestro bien—, toman ocasión los malos para perseverar en sus pecados, ateniéndose a estas prendas?
A todo esto añado una cosa de mucha consideración. Pregunto: ¿Qué cosa más poderosa para convencer todos los entendimientos y traerlos a la fe, que la resurrección de Lázaro, de cuatro días enterrado y hediondo, al cual resucitó el Salvador con estas palabras: Lázaro, sal fuera? Y esto bastó para que ni las fuerzas de la muerte, ni las ataduras de pies y manos con que estaba preso, le detuviesen en el sepulcro. Pues ¿qué corazón pudiera haber tan obstinado que, con esta tan grande maravilla, no quedara asombrado y rendido a la fe de aquel Señor? Mas, ¡oh increíble malicia del corazón humano! , esta tan espantosa maravilla no sólo no bastó para convencer el corazón de los pontífices y fariseos, mas antes de aquí tomaron ocasión para condenar a muerte al obrador de tan grande milagro; y, no contentos con esto, trataban de matar a Lázaro, porque muchos, por esto, venían a creer en el Salvador. Pues, si la malicia humana es tan grande que de aquí sacó motivo para tan gran mal, ¿quién ha de hacer argumento del abuso con que los malos pervierten las cosas buenas, y las tuercen y aplican a sus dañadas voluntades, para que por eso se impida lo bueno?
Todo esto se ha dicho para que se entienda que ninguna cosa hay tan buena, que carezca de inconvenientes, más ocasionados por el abuso de los hombres, que por la naturaleza de las cosas. Mas no por eso es razón que, por el desorden y abuso de los pocos, pierdan los buenos y los muchos el fruto de la buena doctrina. Lo cual abiertamente nos enseñó el Salvador en la parábola de la cizaña, donde dice que, preguntando los criados al padre de familia si arrancarían aquella mala yerba, porque no hiciese daño a la sementera, respondió que la dejasen estar, porque podría ser que, arrancando la mala yerba, a vueltas della arrancasen la buena. En la cual parábola nos enseña que ha de ser tan privilegiada la condición de los buenos, que muchos inconvenientes se han de tragar a cuenta de no ser ellos agraviados.
A todo esto añado que la doctrina sana no sólo no da motivos para errores, mas antes ella es la que más nos ayuda a la firmeza y confirmación de la fe. Para lo cual me pareció referir aquí una cosa que me contó un señor del Consejo General de la Santa Inquisición destos reinos de Portugal, la cual sirve grandemente para conocer el fruto de la buena lección, y el daño de la mala. Contó, pues, este señor, que vino a pedir misericordia al Santo Oficio, por su propia voluntad, sin ser acusado, un hombre, el cual confesó que, dándose a leer malos libros, vino a perder de tal manera la fe, que tenía para sí que no había más que nacer y morir
XVII mas que, después, por cierta ocasión que se ofreció, o porque la divina providencia lo ordenó, comenzó a leer por libros de buena doctrina, y, dándose mucho a esta lección, vino a salir de aquella ceguedad en que estaba, y pidió perdón della, y lo alcanzó. Esto quíselo escribir aquí en favor y testimonio del fruto de la buena lección. Otra cosa no menos verdadera, ni menos digna de ser notada, me contó Don Fernando Carrillo, siendo embajador en este reino. El cual me dijo que un moro cautivo, por nombre creo que Hamete, tenía el Libro de la oración y meditación, y leía muchas veces por él; de lo cual se reían los criados de casa, y le preguntaban: «Hamete, ¿qué lees tú ahí?» ; y él respondía: «Dejar a mí». Finalmente, continuando la lección, aquel Señor que alumbró al eunuco de la reina de Etiopía, leyendo por Isaías, alumbró también a este, y él mismo, finalmente, vino a pedir el santo Bautismo y hacerse cristiano. Pues estos dos ejemplos, y lo demás que está dicho, claramente nos dan a entender cuánto ayuda la buena doctrina, no menos a la confirmación de la fe, que a toda otra virtud.
La conclusión de todo este discurso es que las leyes y el buen juicio no miran lo particular, sino lo común y general; conviene saber, no lo que acaece a personas particulares, sino lo que toca generalmente al común de todos, los cuales no es razón que pierdan por el abuso y desorden de los pocos. Ni tampoco mira a los particulares daños que traen las cosas, si son mayores los provechos que los daños; como se ve en la navegación de la mar, porque, si son grandes los daños de los naufragios, son mucho mayores los provechos de la navegación.
Mas pido aquí perdón al cristiano lector de haber extendídome tanto en esta materia. Porque esto hice para que se viese claramente la necesidad que tenemos de buena lección, y no nos desquiciase deste juicio el parecer de algunos, que sienten lo contrario. Y, allende desto, poco nos podía aprovechar esto que aquí agora determino escribir, si se tuviese por inútil o dañosa le lección de la doctrina escrita en lengua común. Servirá este nuestro Preámbulo, como el Prólogo de san Jerónimo, que llaman Galeato (en el cual aprueba su traslación de las Santas Escrituras), para defensión, no sólo del libro presente, sino también de los que nos y otros autores han escrito en lengua vulgar.
Notes
- 1 ↩Citation of Saint Gregory (san Gregorio) is patristic, not biblical; kept as named authority without forced scriptural mapping.
- 2 ↩Spanish 'ninguna cosa condena más la buena doctrina, que este desorden' can be parsed either as 'nothing condemns this disorder more than sound teaching' or 'nothing condemns sound teaching more than this disorder.' The following 'porque' clause, with sound teaching as the agent that always prioritizes duty over devotion, strongly favors the first reading, which is adopted here.
- 3 ↩Spanish 'dar color a' means to lend a specious appearance or pretext; rendered as 'give a color of truth to' to keep that sense without archaism.
- 4 ↩Spanish prendas here means pledges or sureties: the wicked treat God's goodness, mercy, and Christ's passion as guarantees that license continued sin.
- 5 ↩The following sentence continues this exclamation without a fresh subject; the Spanish print tradition often joins them as one period.
- 6 ↩pontífices rendered as 'chief priests' in Gospel context (not papal 'pontiffs').
- 7 ↩cizaña is the Gospel weed/tares; rendered 'weeds' for modern readability while keeping the Matthean parable clear. a vueltas della = along with it / in the process.
- 8 ↩se han de tragar is idiomatic Spanish for enduring/swallowing hardships; rendered 'have to be put up with' for natural modern English while keeping the sense of forced acceptance.
- 9 ↩Source opens with the Roman numeral 'XVII' before 'mas que'; treated as a printer's paragraph mark, not part of the narrative syntax. 'mas que' read as adversative continuation ('but') of the story begun in OracMed.1.5.7.s3.
- 10 ↩'moro cautivo' rendered 'Moorish captive' in period sense (Muslim captive), not as a modern ethnic slur; historical designation preserved for fidelity.
- 11 ↩Source «Dejar a mí» is non-native/broken Spanish (for something like «Déjame»); rendered as plain English 'Leave me alone' to carry the sense, not to reproduce the pidgin surface.
- 12 ↩Early modern lección here means spiritual reading/instruction from books, not a classroom lesson.
- 13 ↩Source reads «le lección»; translated as the intended «la lección» (the reading).
- 14 ↩Galeato renders Jerome's Prologus Galeatus (Helmeted Prologue), his prefatory defense of the scriptural canon and his translation work.
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