Chapter 15 14. Rabelais

Social turmoil creates strange companions. Erasmus' name could be printed in a respectable book for the whole family to read, but it would be indecent to speak of Rabelais in public.Indeed, the fellow is dangerous, and a law has been passed in our country to keep innocent children from his wicked writings, which in many countries are only available from more daring book dealers. Of course, this is just one of the many absurdities foisted on us by a crooked bureaucracy with a reign of terror. First, Rabelais's book is as dull to twentieth-century commoners as "Tom Jones" and "The House with Seven Gables."Few people make it through the lengthy first chapter.

Second, his words were not clearly intended to be enlightening.Rabelais used a vocabulary that was popular at the time, but is not commonly used today.However, in that blue pastoral age, 90% of people had an indissoluble bond with the land, so a shovel is still a shovel, and a bitch will not be misunderstood as "your lady's dog". No, the present objections to the writings of the great surgeon are not limited to the rich but somewhat frank diction he employs, but are much deeper.This stems from the fact that many good people feel an overwhelming distaste for anyone who is a blow to life.

According to my analysis, human beings can be divided into two types: those who say "yes" to life, and those who say "no".The former accept life and have the courage to make the most of what cheap fortune has bestowed on them. The latter also accept life (how can they extricate themselves?), but despise gifts and bother about them, like a child who wants a puppet or a train and gets a little brother instead. The happy brethren of the "yes" are happy to believe what their unhappy neighbors say about them, and take care to bear them, even if the "no"s sprinkle the earth with sorrow, and pile up terrible mountains of disappointment. stop.However, the "no" partner rarely pays attention to the first type.

If the "Yes" faction wants to go its own way, the "No" faction will immediately wipe them out. This is not easy to do, and the No's gratify their jealousy by endlessly persecuting those who believe that the world belongs to the living and not to the dead. Dr. Rabelais belongs to the first category.His patient, or his mind, never yearns for the cemetery.It was undoubtedly a pity at the time, but people couldn't all be gravediggers.There must be some optimism, the world would be scary to live in if it was full of Hamlets. As for Rabelais's life, there was nothing mysterious about it.A few incidents are omitted from the books of his life written by his friends, but can be found in those written by his enemies, and a fairly accurate picture of his life can be obtained.

Rabelais was the generation following Erasmus, but he was born into a world still dominated by monks, nuns, deacons and countless dervishes.Born in Chinon, his father was either an apothecary or a wine merchant (these two occupations were not the same in the fifteenth century), and he was well-to-do enough to send his son to a good school.There the young Francis met the descendants of the Dubella-Lange family.That family is quite well-known in the local area. The boy is like his father, with a little talent, can write, and can occasionally fight.They're worldly—the word "sophisticated" is often misinterpreted, and I mean it in a positive way.They are loyal servants of the king, holding countless public offices, and a single title can drive them into a life of many responsibilities and duties, but little fun.They became bishops, cardinals, and ambassadors, translated ancient texts, edited artillery and infantry training materials, and performed well the many useful services of nobles.

The Dubella family's later friendship with Rabelais showed that Rabelais was not just a fun eater to accompany them in their drinking and merriment.There are many ups and downs in his life, but he can always rely on the help and support of his old classmates.When he had a conflict with his superiors, the gates of the Dubella family castle were thrown open to him; and occasionally in France, when circumstances were not favorable to the young and stubborn moralist, one of the Dubella family happened to be ordered to go. Abroad, there is an urgent need for a secretary who not only knows a little about medicine, but is also an accomplished Latin scholar.

I won't go into details here.More than once, the career of our learned doctor seemed to end suddenly and in misfortune, and the power of old friends rescued him from the wrath of the Seminary of the Sorbonne or the wrath of the Calvinists.The Calvinists considered him their accomplice, but he publicly mocked the prejudiced enthusiasm of the Calvinist masters as mercilessly as he mocked his old colleagues at Fontinant and Mayesas. like. Of the two enemies, the Divinity School of the University of Paris is certainly the most dangerous.Calvin could shout as much as he wanted, but his lightning bolts lost their meaning like firecrackers as soon as they crossed the small Swiss cantonal border.

On the contrary, the Divinity School of the University of Paris, together with Oxford University, firmly supported the orthodoxy and the "old school", which was merciless when their authority was challenged, and always cooperated with the king of France and the hangman. . Heck, once Rabelais was out of school, he was a sight to behold.It wasn't because he loved good wine and told funny stories about his fellow monks.What he did was worse.He succumbs to the temptation of the wicked Greek. As soon as the abbot of his monastery heard the rumors, he decided to search the cellar where he lived.They found piles of written contraband, a copy of Homer, a New Testament and a book of Herodotus.

It was a terrible discovery, and it was the multifarious activities of his powerful friends that brought him out of this predicament. In the history of the development of the church, this is a wonderful stage. In the beginning, as I have said, monasteries were the forerunners of civilization, and monks and nuns made invaluable efforts to advance the interests of the Church.But more than one pope foresaw the dangers of a monastic system growing too powerful.But as always, it was the knowledge that something should be done about the Abbey that delayed action. There seems to be an opinion among Protestants that the Catholic Church is a stable organization, silently and naturally run by a handful of defiant aristocrats, never troubled within, while all other organizations of ordinary commoners are necessarily Infighting is inseparable.

Of all things in the world, only the truth is the furthest away from us. Perhaps, as before, this perception is due to a wrong understanding of a word. A world full of democratic ideals would be surprised to hear that there are "infallible men." People say, "A big organization is easy to manage if only one person is in charge, and everyone else kneels down and says amen and obeys him." It is extremely difficult for someone who has been brought up in a Protestant country to gain a sound and comprehensive understanding of this erroneously complex subject.However, if I'm not mistaken, the Pope's "infallible" statements are as long-standing as the amendments to the US Constitution.

Moreover, important decisions are always fully discussed, and debates before final decisions often shake the stability of the church.The proclamations thus produced are "invariably true," as are our constitutional amendments, for they are "final," and, when expressly incorporated into the Supreme Law, all disputes come to an end. Whoever says that it is easy to run the United States because people will stand on the side of the Constitution in times of emergency is quite wrong. It is like saying that since Catholics recognize the absolute authority of the Pope on important matters of faith, It must be a group of tame lambs who have given up the right to have their own unique ideas. If so, those who lived in the Lateran and the Vatican palaces had a better life.But a superficial study of fifteen hundred years of history reveals just the opposite.Those who advocated the Reformation seemed to think that those in power in Rome were completely ignorant of the evils that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli condemned with hatred when they wrote their books. Bury their passion for a good cause. Men like Adrian VI and Clement VII knew full well that the Church had a great evil.But it is one thing to point out that there is some corruption in the Kingdom of Denmark, and quite another to correct the ills, which even poor Hamlet has to admit at last. That unfortunate prince was the last victim of the sweet illusion that centuries of wrong rule could be righted overnight by the selfless efforts of one honest man. Many smart Russians knew that the old bureaucratic structures that ruled the empire were corrupt, ineffective, and a threat to national security. They made a stormy effort and failed. How many of your fellow-citizens fail to see, after reflection, that democratic rather than representative government (as the founders of the republic aspired to) will at last lead to a series of chaos! And what can they do? These problems have been very complicated since they were brought to people's attention, and unless there is a major social upheaval, it will be difficult to solve them.Yet such a social upheaval is so dire that it daunts many.These are people who would rather not go to extremes than tinker with old and aging machinery while praying for miracles when it turns on again. The most notorious evil of the late Middle Ages was the arbitrary religious and social despotism established and maintained by the church. Throughout the centuries of history, armies have always been the last to flee with their commander-in-chief.To put it plainly, the situation was completely out of the pope's control.All the Pope could do was to hold his ground, improve his own organization, and at the same time appease those who offended their common enemy, the mendicant friars. Erasmus was often under the patronage of the Pope.Whether Louvain would blow the storm or Dominique would be furious, Rome would not budge, pointing at the man who ignored orders and saying mournfully: "Let the old man go!" After the above introduction, we should not be surprised that the quick-witted but rebellious Rabelais often found the support of the Holy See when his superiors wanted to punish him, and when the continuous interruption of his research work made life intolerable. At that time, he was able to successfully obtain permission to leave the monastery. With a sigh of relief, he dusted off his feet and went to Montpellier and Lyon to study medicine. His talents are indeed extraordinary.In less than two years, the celibate monk became the chief physician of the Lyon City Hospital.But as soon as he received new honors, the restless soul began to seek a new paradise.He did not abandon powders and tablets, but in addition to studying anatomy (a new subject as dangerous as Greek), he took up literature. Lying in the heart of the Rhône Valley, Lyon is the ideal city for those devoted to belles-letter.Italy is adjacent.A brisk walk of a few days will bring you to Provence.Although the ancient paradise of Troubadour fell to ruins at the hands of the Inquisition, the grand tradition of ancient literature was not entirely lost.Besides, Lyon's printing houses are famous for their beautiful products and stock of the latest publications. A man named Sebastian Grievous, one of the leading printers, was looking for someone to edit his collection of medieval antiquities, and naturally the new doctor, who was called a scholar, came to mind.He hired Rabelais and put him to work.After the treatises of Callan and the Hippocratic sect came almanacs and commentaries. It was from such an inconspicuous beginning that the strange large volume emerged, which made the author step into the ranks of famous writers at that time. The talent for novelty made Rabelais not only a famous medical practitioner, but also a successful novelist.He did something that no one before him dared to do: he began to write in the language of the common people.He broke the thousand-year-old tradition, that is, a scholar must write a book in a language that vulgar civilians cannot understand.He used French, and adopted the local dialect of 1532 without any embellishment. As for when, where, and how Rabelais discovered his two beloved heroes, Gargantua and Panguerre, I am content to leave it to professors of literature.Perhaps these two men were pagan gods who, by virtue of their nature, had survived the persecution and contempt of Christianity for fifteen hundred years. Perhaps Rabelais discovered them in a fit of carnival.In any case, Rabelais has contributed much to the joy of the nation, and has been praised for adding color to human laughter than any writer.However, his book, in contrast to the modern dreaded term "fun book," has a serious side and is a daring blow to the cause of tolerance through the description of its characters.The characters in the book are satirical portrayals of the ecclesiastical reign of terror that caused untold suffering in the first half of the sixteenth century. Rabelais was a theologian by training, and he managed to steer clear of troublesome direct comments.He grasped the principle that a lively humorist outside a prison is better than a dozen sour-faced reformers inside; and he therefore avoided overexpressing his deeply unorthodox views. But the enemy was well aware of his intentions.The Divinity School of the University of Paris reprimanded his book to the point, and the Congress of Paris blacklisted his book.Confiscate and burn all texts found within the jurisdiction.But despite the rampage of the hangman (the hangman was also sent by the government to destroy books at the time), it was still a best-selling classic.For almost four centuries, it has inspired those who could derive pleasure from the synthesis of good-natured laughter and witty wit.Some people think that once a smile is on the lips of the goddess of truth, she is no longer a good woman, and this always troubles them. As for the author himself, he was and is regarded as a man "famous for one book".His friends, the Dubella family, have always been loyal to him.However, Rabelais was very cautious all his life. Although he was able to publish his vicious works because of the "special care" he received from the big men, he kept them at a distance. But he ventured to Rome, and encountered no difficulties, but instead received a friendly welcome.In 1550 he returned to France, where he lived in Merton, where he died three years later. Of course, it is impossible to accurately measure the positive impact of such a person. After all, he is a person, not an electric current, nor a barrel of gasoline. Some say he's just destroying. Maybe so. But at a time when he was doing this work, people were clamoring for an army capable of destroying society, led by men like Erasmus and Rabelais. No one could have foreseen that many of the many new buildings they were going to build would be as dirty and unsightly as the old ones. Either way, it's the next generation's fault. The next generation is ours to blame. They would have had a chance to start over, a rare opportunity that comes their way. They have neglected the opportunity; let God forgive them.