Second Commentary on the Doctrine of Abstinence

to choose a different subject of writing. But by the same points of reasoning that I have brought forward, that [doubt] was torn from me by great men in the Academy of Leipzig and Wittenberg, who incited me more sharply while I was still hesitating to pursue the purpose that I was agitating in my mind, and so compelled me that at last, among other labors to be undertaken by the cultivators of letters, this lucubration was born, by which—in these and the following academic exercises—I shall strive to prove, as much as my modest powers permit, that the first Elector Princes of Saxony practiced great abstinentia in embracing the purer sacred rites.

XI

Before, however, I come to my purpose, it seems necessary to examine briefly the meaning of the word ABSTINENTIA, which we have placed immediately at the beginning of our dissertation, having followed as guides primarily ANTONIUS SCHORUS, a) LAURENTIUS VALLA, b) AUSONIUS POPMA. c) Not a few, who are indeed little acquainted with the Latin language, persuade themselves that ABSTINENTIA and CONTINENTIA are one and the same virtue, and they express by the name of ABSTINENTIA those things which, speaking properly, [constitute] CONTINENTIA.

a) In the Thesaurus Ciceronianus, also in the phrases of the Latin language | b) On the elegance of the Latin language | c) On the differences of words