Thus I come, most blessed Father, and in all abasement beseech you
to put to your hand, if it is possible, and impose a curb to those
flatterers who are enemies of peace, while they pretend peace. But there
is no reason, most blessed Father, why any one should assume that I am
to utter a recantation, unless he prefers to involve the case in
still greater confusion. Moreover, I cannot bear with laws for the
interpretation of the word of God, since the word of God, which teaches
liberty in all other things, ought not to be bound. Saving these two
things, there is nothing which I am not able, and most heartily willing,
to do or to suffer. I hate contention; I will challenge no one; in
return I wish not to be challenged; but, being challenged, I will not be
dumb in the cause of Christ my Master. For your Blessedness will be able
by one short and easy word to call these controversies before you and
suppress them, and to impose silence and peace on both sides--a word
which I have ever longed to hear.
Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens who
make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so that you can
command and require whatever you will. It will not happen so, nor will
you prevail. You are the servant of servants, and more than any other
man, in a most pitiable and perilous position. Let not those men deceive
you who pretend that you are lord of the world; who will not allow any
one to be a Christian without your authority; who babble of your having
power over heaven, hell, and purgatory.
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