Behold, Leo, my father, with what purpose and on what principle it is
that I have stormed against that seat of pestilence. I am so far from
having felt any rage against your person that I even hoped to gain
favour with you and to aid you in your welfare by striking actively and
vigorously at that your prison, nay, your hell. For whatever the efforts
of all minds can contrive against the confusion of that impious Court
will be advantageous to you and to your welfare, and to many others with
you. Those who do harm to her are doing your office; those who in every
way abhor her are glorifying Christ; in short, those are Christians who
are not Romans.
But, to say yet more, even this never entered my heart: to inveigh
against the Court of Rome or to dispute at all about her. For, seeing
all remedies for her health to be desperate, I looked on her with
contempt, and, giving her a bill of divorcement, said to her, "He that
is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him
be filthy still," giving myself up to the peaceful and quiet study of
sacred literature, that by this I might be of use to the brethren living
about me.
While I was making some advance in these studies, Satan opened his
eyes and goaded on his servant John Eccius, that notorious adversary of
Christ, by the unchecked lust for fame, to drag me unexpectedly into the
arena, trying to catch me in one little word concerning the primacy of
the Church of Rome, which had fallen from me in passing.
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