Academic Exercise on the Abstinence of the Early Christians from Reading Profane Books

ans, most elegant. Indeed, he received this extraordinary commendation from Pope Gelasius: We set forth with signal praise the Paschal work of the venerable man, which he composed in heroic verses s). But because, in the course of time, heretical was wrongly read instead of heroic, Pope Hadrian—since he pursued no class of men with greater hatred than poets—judged that name to signify nothing other than impiety t). By a decree of the Council of Paris held in the year 1209, the books of Aristotle himself were committed to the flames, and the transcribing and reading of them were forbidden under the pronouncement of curses; as Jean de Launoy relates u), who reviews the eight turns of fortune which the Philosopher underwent at Paris from the year of Christ 1200.

Th. VIII.

s) Distinct. xv. c. iii. Sect. 25. t) See Joh. Pierius in the dissertation Pro sacerdotum barba p. m. 37 u) De varia Aristotelis in Academia Paris. fortuna.