"
The same author asks who but the churchmen of those days of ignorance
corrupted and perverted the text of the New Testament? Thus, in the
parable of the lost piece of money, _evertit domum_, "she overturned the
house," was substituted for _everrit domum_, "she _swept_ the house."
And in the Acts of the Apostles, where Saul (or Paul) is described as
being let down from the house on the wall of Damascus in a basket, for
_demissus per sportam_ was substituted _demissus per portam_, a
correction which called forth a rather witty Latin epigram to this
effect:
This way the other day did pass
As jolly a carpenter as ever was;
So strangely skilful in his trade,
That of a _basket_ a _door_ he made.
Among the many curious anecdotes told in illustration of the gross
ignorance of the higher orders of the clergy in medieval times the two
following are not the least amusing:
About the year 1330 Louis Beaumont was bishop of Durham. He was an
extremely illiterate French nobleman, so incapable of reading that he
could not, although he had studied them, read the bulls announced to the
people at his consecration. During that ceremony the word
"metropoliticae" occurred. The bishop paused, and tried in vain to repeat
it, and at last remarked: "Suppose that said." Then he came to
"enigmate," which also puzzled him.
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