A Discourse on the Albigensian Heresy

...these contests our people have succeeded), we are most accustomed to seek and desire that someone might stand by us and preside over us as a sort of Master of the Games original: "Agonothetam"; the official in ancient Greece who oversaw public games or festivals.; by whom either our industry may be honored, or the weakness of our intellect may be supported. But it happened that this year, and at this very time—when we were about to enter this literary arena before the formal school holidays original: "Scholasticæ feriæ"; the academic break or vacation. are announced—we heard that the Supreme Magistracy of your Order and Family likely referring to the head of a religious order, such as the Dominicans or Jesuits, often called a "family." had been conferred upon You, MOST REVEREND FATHER, to the great applause of the entire City and the greatest consensus of Your people.

Indeed, I do not think it happened by chance, at this particular juncture of time, in this City, and in that place so close and almost joined to our schools and walls, that such a great event occurred; and that this School original: "Athenæum"; a term for an academy or university, here specifically referring to the Collegium Germanicum or a similar institution in Rome or Louvain founded under papal authority., built by the authority of Gregory XIII for Religion and the Liberal Arts—and especially for what was necessary in those times: to defend and confirm the Christian Religion—ought almost to overhear the voices of those over whose Order you were being placed. This is an Order which, in the most difficult times for the Christian Religion—when the most foul heresies referring to the challenges of the Protestant Reformation. had infected the greater part of the world—was born, tested, and confirmed.

But who, indeed, was being put in charge? There is nothing among those qualities that can entice men to seek for themselves the patronage original: "patrocinium"; the protection or legal support of a high-ranking person. of some supreme and most distinguished man, which (I pray, MOST REVEREND FATHER, that there be room for a voice of truth, entirely free from all flattery) is not found most abundantly in You. For even those praises which are external—and which wise men are accustomed to despise or rank below other virtues—are so heaped upon You, that they alone [would] adorn anyone else...