A14461:832
The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wiseThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise
The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wise: set out with such grace, that it cannot be, but that a man shall take great pleasure in the reading thereof. Translated out of French into English, by John Brooke of AsheThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise: set out with such grace, that it cannot be, but that a man shall take greate pleasure in the reading thereoff. Translated out of French into English, by Iohn Brooke of Ashe
London: printed by Thomas East, 1579
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Hillarius. There is nothing truer, then that thou sayest, as I will yet declare more particularly First, as touching the purifications & sprinklings of water, that is already too much proved, & of the same is taken that which Ovid writeth of Deucalion and Pyrrha his wife, willing to enter into the Temple of the Goddess Themis, of whom he speaketh after this manner, after the translation of the English Poet. Whose sacred liquor straight they took1 and sprinkled with the same Their heads and clothes: and afterward to Themis Chapel came. In like manner Ovid rehearsing the things which were 2called Februa, because that the ancients used it in their purgations, maketh mention of the wool, salt, meal, and boughs which they caused to be consecrated for divers purifications of men, beasts and houses: the which things the Papists have almost altogether the like. For besides the water and the fire, the war and the salt, they have as ⟨image 172⟩many holy wools, holy linen clothes and sacred vestments. They have the holy bread, and the bread of Saint 3Agatha, which hath also great power: and the holy boughs upon the day of Palm Sunday, and of Caster flowers. But the Paynims do approach nearer to the ancient law of Moses in their holy ashes, then the Papists. For 4the Jews did it with a red Cow, young and which never carried yoke. The Paynims did theirs with a young Calf, newly taken from his mothers belly, the which the most ancientest of the virgins of the Goddess Vesta, as we may say the mother of the Prioress burned in that holy fire which was made upon the altar of the said goddess, as it appeareth by these verses of Ovid saying. The eldest virgin amongst them then, those calves doth burn with fire5 To have the ashes not to seek, when time shall then requite. That when the feast of Pales doth, approach at hand so fast, The people may be pure and clean, when it is on them cast.