Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries Part 7

In his _Turkenchronik_, or "Chronicle and Description of Turkey,"

published in 1530, he had already declared his dissatisfaction with ceremonies and outward forms of any sort, his refusal to be identified with any existing, empirical Church, his solemn dedication to the invisible Church, and his determination to be an apostle of the Spirit.

"There already are in our times," he writes, "three distinct Faiths, which have a large following, the Lutheran, Zwinglian and Anabaptist; and a _fourth_ is well on the way to birth, which will dispense with external preaching, ceremonies, sacraments, bann and office as unnecessary, and which seeks solely to gather among all peoples an invisible, spiritual Church in the unity of the Spirit and of faith, to be governed wholly by the eternal, invisible Word of G.o.d, without external means, as the apostolic Church was governed before its apostasy, which occurred after the death of the apostles."[6]

The year that dates his autobiographical letter to Campa.n.u.s saw the publication in Strasbourg of Franck's best-known literary work: _Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel_ ("A Universal Chronicle of the World's History from the Earliest Times to the Present").[7] It has {50} often been pointed out that much of the material of this great Chronicle is taken over from earlier Chroniclers, especially from the Nuremberger Schedel, and it is furthermore true that Franck's _Book of the Ages_ contains large tracts of unhistorical narrative, set forth after the manner of Chroniclers without much critical insight, but the book, nevertheless, has a unique value. It abounds in Franck's peculiar irony and paradox, and it unfolds his conception of the spiritual history of the race, under the tuition of the Divine Word. At the beginning are patriarchs living in the dawn of the world under the guidance of inward vision, and at the end are saints and heretics, whom Franck finds among all races, bravely following the same inward Light, now after the ages grown clearer and more luminous, and sufficient for those who will patiently and faithfully heed it, while the real "heretics" for him are "heretics of the letter." "We ought to act carefully before G.o.d"--this is Franck's constant testimony--"hold to G.o.d alone and look upon Him as the cause of all things, and we ought always in all matters to notice what G.o.d says in us, to pay attention to the witness of our hearts, and never to think, or act, against our conscience. For everything does not hang upon the bare letter of Scripture; everything hangs, rather, on the spirit of Scripture and on a spiritual understanding of the inner meaning of what G.o.d has said. If we weigh every matter carefully we shall find its true meaning in the depth of our spiritual understanding and by the mind of Christ. Otherwise, the dead letter of Scripture would make us all heretics and fools, for everything can be bedecked and defended with texts, therefore let n.o.body confound himself and confuse himself with Scripture, but let every one weigh and test Scripture to see how it fits his own heart. If it is against his conscience and the Word within his own soul, then be sure he has not reached the right meaning, according to the mind of the Spirit, for the Scriptures must give witness to the Spirit, never against it."[8]

{51}

The _Chronica_ naturally aroused a storm of opposition against this bold advocate of the inner Way. Even Erasmus, who had been canonized in Franck's list of heretics, joined in the outcry against the chronicler of the world's spiritual development. His book was confiscated, he was temporarily imprisoned, and for the years immediately following he was never secure in any city where he endeavoured to pursue his labours. He supported himself and his family, now by the humble occupation of a soap-boiler, now by working in a printing-house, sometimes in Strasbourg, sometimes in Esslingen, and sometimes in Ulm, only asking that he "might not be forced to bury the talent which G.o.d had given him, but might be allowed to use it for the good of the people of G.o.d."

In 1534 his _Weltbuch_ appeared from a press in Tubingen, and the same year he published his famous _Paradoxa_, which contains the most clear and consistent exposition of his mystical and spiritual religion. Other significant books from his pen are his translation of Erasmus' _Moriae Encomion_ ("Praise of Folly"), with very important additions; _Von der Eitelkeit aller menschlichen Kunst und Weisheit_ ("The Vanity of Arts and Sciences"), following the treatise by Agrippa von Nettesheim; _Von dem Baum des Wissens Gutes und Boses ("Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil");[9] the _Germaniae Chronicon_ ("Chronicle of Germany"), 1538; _Die guldin Arch_ ("Golden Arch"), 1538; and _Das verbutschiert mit 7 Siegeln verschlossene Buch ("The Seven-sealed Book"), 1539.

The closing years of his life were pa.s.sed in Basle, where he peacefully worked at his books and at type-setting, while the theologians fired their paper guns against him, and here in Basle he "went forth with G.o.d"

on his last journey to find a safe and quiet "city with foundations,"

probably about the end of the year 1542. Three years before his {52} death he had written in his "Seven-sealed Book" of the soul's journey toward G.o.d in these words: "The longer one travels toward the city he seeks the nearer and nearer he comes to the goal of his journey; exactly so is it with the soul that is seeking G.o.d. If he will travel away from himself and away from the world and seek only G.o.d as the precious pearl of his soul, he will come steadily nearer to G.o.d, until he becomes one spirit with G.o.d the Spirit; but let him not be afraid of mountains and valleys on the way, and let him not give up because he is tired and weary, _for he who seeks finds_."[10] "The Sealed Book" contains an "apology" by Franck which is one of the most touching and one of the most n.o.ble doc.u.ments from any opponent of the course which the German Reformation was taking. "I want my writings accepted," he declares, "only in so far as they fit the spirit of Scripture, the teaching of the prophets, and only so far as the anointing of the Word of G.o.d, Christ the inward Life and Light of men, gives witness to them. . . . n.o.body is the master of my faith, and I desire to be the master of the faith of no one.

I love any man whom I can help, and I call him brother whether he be Jew or Samaritan. . . . I cannot belong to any separate sect, but I believe in a holy, Christlike Church, a fellowship of saints, and I hold as my brother, my neighbour, my flesh and blood, all men who belong to Christ among all sects, faiths, and peoples scattered throughout the whole world--only I allow n.o.body to have dominion over the one place which I am pledged to the Lord to keep as pure virgin, namely my heart and my conscience. If you try to bind my conscience, to rule over my faith, or to be master of my heart, then I must leave you. Except _that_, everything I am or have is thine, whoever thou art or whatever thou mayest believe."[11]

It was Franck's primary idea--the principle to which he was dedicated and for which he was content to suffer, {53} in the faith that men in future times would come to see as he did[12]--that man's soul possesses a native capacity to hear the inward Word of G.o.d. He often calls Plato and Plotinus and "Hermes Trismegistus" his teachers, who "had spoken to him more clearly than Moses did"[13] and, like these Greek teachers of the nature of the soul's furnishings, he insisted that we come "not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness," but that there is a divine element, an innermost essence in us, in the very structure of the soul, which is the starting-point of all spiritual progress, the mark of man's dignity, the real source of all religious experience, and the eternal basis of the soul's salvation and joy. He names this inward endowment by many names. It is the Word of G.o.d ("Wort Gottes"), the Power of G.o.d ("Kraft Gottes"), Spirit ("Geist"), Mind of Christ ("Sinn Christi"), Divine Activity ("gottliche Wirkung"), Divine Origin ("gottlicher Ursprung"), the inward Light ("das innere Licht"), the true Light ("das wahre Licht"), the Lamp of the soul ("das innere Ampellicht"). "The inward Light," Franck says in the _Paradoxa_, "is nothing else than the Word of G.o.d, G.o.d Himself, by whom all things were made and by whom all men are enlightened." It is, in Franck's thought, not a capricious, subjective impulse or vision, and it is not to be discovered in sudden ecstatic experiences; nor, on the other hand, is the divine Word, for Franck, something purely objective and transcendent. It is rather a common ground and essence for G.o.d and man. It is G.o.d in His self-revealing activity; G.o.d in His self-giving grace; G.o.d as the immanent ground of all that is permanently real, and at the same time this divine endowment forms the fundamental nature of man's soul--"Gottes Wort ist in der menschlichen Natur angelegt"[14]--and is the original substance of our being. Consciousness of G.o.d and consciousness of self have one fundamental source in this deep where G.o.d and man are unsundered. "No man can see or know himself unless he sees and knows, by the Light and Life that is {54} in him. G.o.d the eternally true Light and Life; wherefore n.o.body can ever know G.o.d outside of himself, outside that region where he knows himself in the ground of himself. . . . Man must seek, find, and know G.o.d through an interrelation--he must find G.o.d in himself and himself in G.o.d."[15] This deep ground of inner reality is in every person, so far as he is a person; it shines forth as a steady illumination in the soul, and, while everything else is transitory, this Word is eternal and has been the moral and spiritual guide of all peoples in all ages.

Franck thus differs in a vital point from Schwenckfeld. The latter starts with man as utterly lost and devoid of any inherent goodness. By a sudden, supernatural event, at a temporal moment, divine forces break into the soul from without and supply it with a revitalizing energy.

Man--lost, fallen, sin-blasted and utterly helpless--is by a divine and heavenly creative movement _made_ a new Adam. For Franck, the soul has never lost the divine Image, the pearl of supreme price, the original element which is G.o.d Himself in the soul. We are all, in the deepest centre of our being, like Adam, possessed of a substantial essence, not of earth, not of time and s.p.a.ce, not of the shadow but of the eternal, spiritual, and heavenly type. It may become overlaid with the rubbish of earth, it may long lie buried in the field of the human heart, it may remain concealed, like the grain of radium in a ma.s.s of dark pitchblende, and be forgotten, but we have only to return home within ourselves to find the G.o.d who has never been sundered from us and who could not leave us without leaving Himself. We do not need to cross the sea to find Him, we do not need to climb the heavens to reach Him--the Word is nigh thee, the Image is in thy heart, turn home and thou shalt find Him.[16]

The bottomless and abysmal nature of the human soul comes first into clear revelation in the Person of Christ, who is, Franck declares, truly and essentially both G.o.d and Man. In Christ the invisible, eternal, {55} self-existent G.o.d has clothed Himself with flesh and become Man, has made Himself visible and vocal to our spiritual eyes and ears, and in Christ G.o.d has given us an adequate goal and norm of life, a perfect pattern ("Muster") to walk by and to live by. Here we can see both the character of G.o.d and the measure of His expectation for us. But we must not stop with the Christ after the flesh, the Christ without. He first becomes our life and salvation when He is born within us and is revealed in our hearts, and has become the Life of our lives. We must eat His body, drink His blood until our nature is one with His nature and our spirit one in will and purpose with His spirit.[17]

Franck belongs in many respects among the mystics, but with peculiar variations of his own from the prevailing historical type of mysticism.

He is without question saturated with the spirit of the great mystics; he approves their inner way to G.o.d and he has learned from them to view this world of time and s.p.a.ce as shadow and not as reality. No mystic, further, could say harsher things than he does of "Reason."[18] Human reason--or more properly "reasoning"--has for him, as for them, a very limited area for its demesne. It is a good guide in the realm of earthly affairs. It can deal wisely with matters that affect our bodily comfort and our social welfare, but it is "barren" in the sphere of eternal issues. It has no eye for realities beyond the world of three dimensions. It goes blind as soon as it tries to speculate about G.o.d.

He looks for no final results in spiritual matters from intellectual dialectics, whether they be of the old scholastic type, or of the new type of speculations, formulations and subtleties of the Protestant theologians.

Franck always comes back to _experience_ as his basis of religion, as his way to truth and to divine things. "Many," he says, "know and teach only what they have picked up and gathered in, without having experienced it {56} in the deeps of themselves."[19] "He who wishes to know what is in the Temple must not stand outside, merely hearing people read and talk about G.o.d. _That_ is all a dead thing. He must go inside and have the experience for himself ("selbst erfahren"). Then first everything springs into life."[20] But "experience" with him does not mean enthusiastic visions and raptures. He puts as little value on ecstasies and emotional vapourings as he does on dialectic. Ecstasies lead men as often on false trails as on right tracks. They supply no criterion of cert.i.tude; they furnish no concrete ideas or ideals to live by; but still further, they do not bring all the deep-lying powers of the soul into play as any true source of religion must do. _He_ is striving to find a foundation-principle for the spiritual life which shall not be capricious or sporadic, and which shall not be confined to one aspect of the inner self, but which shall burn on as a steady illumination in the soul and be the basis of all moral activity and all spiritual development. He finds this principle, as we have seen, in the Word of G.o.d, which is a divine reality, an eternal and self-existent activity, opening upward into all the resources of G.o.d, and at the same time forming the fundamental nature and ground-structure of the soul. A person may live--many persons do--in the outer region of the self, using the natural instincts with which he is supplied, pursuing the goals of life which appeal to common sense and steering the earthly course by custom and by reason, but it is always possible to have a wider range of experience, to live in deeper currents, and to draw upon a _profounder source of insight_. This deeper experience--which is the basis of Franck's mysticism and, for him, the very heart of any genuine religion--consists of a personal discovery of this eternal Word of G.o.d within and an irradiation of the whole being through the co-operation of the will with it. The will is king in man,[21] and can open or shut the gate which leads to life. It can make its world good or it {57} can make it evil; just as out of one and the same flower the bee gets honey and the spider poison.[22] It can swing over its allegiance to G.o.d the Spirit of truth, or to the G.o.d of the world who is anti-Christ.

This experience of the Word of G.o.d which is thus brought about by the will of man--by an innermost personal choice--affects, Franck insists, all the faculties of the inner life. Reason now becomes illumined with a Light which it never had until the gate into its deeper region was opened. Now, through co-operation with the Spirit of G.o.d, reason becomes capable of higher processes, and can deal with divine things because it has actual _data_ to work upon. The emotions, too, are no longer blind and instinctive, they no longer carry the will whither it would not.

They are now the overflow of an inner experience which is too rich and full for expression,[23] which transcends the intellectual apprehension of it, but they are spiritualized and controlled from within. The moral life is especially heightened, and this is for Franck one of the main evidences that a divine source has been tapped. The discovery of the Word of G.o.d creates and constructs an autonomous "kingdom of the conscience" ("Reich des Gewissens"), gives us "a thousand-fold witness of G.o.d," and becomes to us the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.[24]

In his little book on "the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"--a book which was destined to have a far-reaching influence--he declares that the Garden-of-Eden story is a mighty parable of the human soul. All that is told in the Genesis account is told of what goes on in the mysterious realm within us. It is told as though it were an external happening, it is in reality an internal affair. The Paradise and the Fall, the Voice of G.o.d and the tempting voice of the serpent, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, are all in our own hearts as they were in the heart of Adam. Heaven and h.e.l.l are there.

The one stands fully revealed in the triumphant Adam, who is Christ; the other is {58} exhibited in its awfulness in the disobedient Adam of the Fall.

As fast as the life comes under the sway of the "kingdom of conscience"

and a solid moral character is formed, the inner guidance of the Word of G.o.d becomes more certain and more reliable. Only the good person has a sure and unerring perception of the truth, just as only the scientist sees the laws of the world, and as only the musician perceives the harmony of sounds. Not only must all spiritual experience be subject to the moral test, it must further be tested by the Light of G.o.d in other men and in history, and by the _spirit of Scripture_, which is the n.o.blest permanent fruit of the Eternal Word. Every person must _prove_ the authority of his religion. He must have his heart conquered and his mind taken captive and his will directed by his truth so that he would be ready to face a thousand deaths for it,[25] and he must, through his truth and insight, come into spiritual unity and co-operation with all who form the invisible Church.

The invisible Church forms the central loyalty of Franck's fervent soul.

"The true Church," he writes, "is not a separate ma.s.s of people, not a particular sect to be pointed out with the finger, not confined to one time or one place; it is rather a spiritual and invisible body of all the members of Christ, born of G.o.d, of one mind, spirit, and faith, but not gathered in any one external city or place. It is a Fellowship, seen with the spiritual eye and by the inner man. It is the a.s.sembly and communion of all truly G.o.d-fearing, good-hearted, new-born persons in all the world, bound together by the Holy Spirit in the peace of G.o.d and the bonds of love--a Communion outside of which there is no salvation, no Christ, no G.o.d, no comprehension of Scripture, no Holy Spirit, and no Gospel. I belong to this Fellowship. I believe in the Communion of saints, and I am in this Church, let me be where I may; and therefore I no {59} longer look for Christ in lo heres or lo theres."[26] This Church, which the Spirit is building through the ages and in all lands, is, once more, like the experience of the individual Christian, entirely an inward affair. "Love is the one mark and badge of Fellowship in it."[27] No outward forms of any sort seem to him necessary for membership in this true Church. "External gifts and offices make no Christian, and just as little does the standing of the person, or locality, or time, or dress, or food, or anything external. The kingdom of G.o.d is neither prince nor peasant, food nor drink, hat nor coat, here nor there, yesterday nor to-morrow, baptism nor circ.u.mcision, nor anything whatever that is external, but peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, unalloyed love out of a pure heart and good conscience, and an unfeigned faith."[28]

In his Apology he says that he has withdrawn "from all theological disputations, from all sectarian statements of creed, from baptism and all ceremonies," and "I stand now," he adds, "only for what is fundamental and essential for salvation"--that is, vital partic.i.p.ation in the Life of G.o.d revealed in the soul.[29] "I am looking," he writes in the opening of the _Paradoxa_, "for no new and separate Church, no new commission, no new baptism, no new dispensation. The Church has already been founded on Christ the Rock, and since the outward keys and sacraments have been misused and have gone by, He now administers the sacraments inwardly in spirit and in truth. He baptizes His own, even in the midst of Babylon, and feeds them with His own body, and will do so unto the end of the world."[30]

In a letter to Campa.n.u.s he says, "I am fully convinced [by a study of the early Church Fathers] that, after the death of the apostles, the external Church of Christ, with its gifts and sacraments, vanished from the earth and withdrew into heaven, and is now hidden in spirit and in truth, and for these past fourteen hundred years {60} there has existed no true external Church and no efficacious sacraments."[31]

His valuation of Scripture fits perfectly into this religion of the inward life and the invisible Church. The true and essential Word of G.o.d is the divine revelation in the soul of man. It is the _prius_ of all Scripture and it is the key to the spiritual meaning of all Scripture.

To subst.i.tute Scripture for the self-revealing Spirit is to put the dead letter in the place of the living Word, the outer Ark in place of the inner sanctuary, the sheath in place of the sword, the horn-pane Lantern in place of the Light.[32] This letter killed Christ in Judea; it is killing Him now. It has split the Church into fragments and sects and is splitting it now.[33] It always makes a "Babel" instead of a Church. It kept the Pharisees from seeing Moses face to face; it keeps men now from seeing the Lord face to face.[34] Franck insists that, from its inherent nature, a written Scripture cannot be the final authority in religion: (_a_) It is outward, external, while the seat of religion is in the soul of man. (_b_) It is transitory and shifting, for language is always in process of change, and written words have different meanings to different ages and in different countries, while for a permanent religion there must be a living, eternal Word that fits all ages, lands, and conditions.

(_c_) Scripture is full of mystery, contradiction, and paradox which only "The key of David"--the inner experience of the heart--can unlock.

Scripture is the Manger, but, unless the Holy Spirit comes as the day star in the heart, the Wise man will not find the Christ.[35] (_d_) Scripture at best brings only knowledge. It lacks the power to deliver from the sin which it describes. It cannot create the faith, the desire, the love, the will purpose which are necessary to win that which the Scriptures portray. No book--no amount of "ink, paper, and letters"--can make a man good, since religion is not knowledge, but a way of living, a {61} transformed life, and _that_ involves an inward life-process, a resident creative power. "In Pentecost all books are transcended."[36]

As Franck pushes back through "the ink, paper, and letters of Scripture"

to the Spirit and Truth which these great writings reveal, when they are read and apprehended in the light of an inward spiritual experience, so, too, he is always seeking, _through_ the historical Christ, to find the Eternal Christ--the ever-living, ever-present, personal Self-Revelation of G.o.d. He says, in his "Seven-Sealed Book," "I esteem Christ the Word of G.o.d above all else, for without Him there is no salvation, and without Him no one can enjoy G.o.d."[37] "Christ," he says in the _Paradoxa_, "has been called the Image, the Character, the Expression of G.o.d, yes, the Glory and Effulgence of His Splendour, the very Impression of His Substance, so that in Him G.o.d Himself is seen and heard and known. For it is G.o.d Himself whom we see and hear and perceive in Christ. In Him G.o.d becomes visible and His nature is revealed. Everything that G.o.d is, or knows, or wills, or possesses, or can do, is incarnated in Christ and put before our eyes. Everything that can be said of G.o.d can as truly be said of Christ."[38]

But this Christ, who is the very Nature and Character of G.o.d made visible and vocal, is, as we have seen, not limited to the historical Person who lived in Galilee and Judea. He is an eternal Logos, a living Word, coming to expression, in some degree, in all times and lands, revealing His Light through the dim lantern of many human lives--a Christ reborn in many souls, raised again in many victorious lives, and endlessly spreading His Kingdom through the ever-widening membership of the invisible Church.[39] Without this eternal revelation of Himself in a spiritual Fellowship of many members, G.o.d would not be G.o.d, as a Vine would not be a Vine without branches; and contrariwise there could be no spiritual humanity without the inward immanent {62} presence of this Self-Revealing G.o.d in Christ.[40] As in Palestine, so everywhere, Christ--not only Christ after the flesh, but after the Spirit--is a crucified Christ. Only those can open the Sealed Book--can penetrate the divine Revelation--who bear the mark of the Cross on their forehead, who have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the suffering and crucified Christ, who have discovered that the Word of G.o.d is eternally a Word of the Cross.[41] G.o.d is nearest to us when He seems farthest away. He was nearest to Christ when He was crying: "My G.o.d, why hast Thou forsaken me?" So, too, now he who is nearest to the cross is nearest to G.o.d, and where the flesh is being crucified and the end of all outward things is reached, _there G.o.d is found_.[42]

Sin means, for Franck as for all mystics of his type, the _free choice_ of something for one's private and particular self in place of life-aims that fulfil the good of the whole and realize the universal Will of G.o.d.

To live for the flesh instead of for the spirit, to pursue the aims of a narrow private self where they conflict with the spirit of universal love, to turn from the Word of G.o.d in the soul to follow the idle voices of the moment--that is the very essence of sin. It is not inherited, it is self-chosen, and yet there is something in our disposition which sets itself in array against the divine revelation within us. The Adam-story is a genuine life-picture. It is a chapter out of the book of the ages, the life of humanity. We do not sin and fall because he did; we sin and fall because we are human and finite, as he was, and choose the darkness instead of the Light, prefer Satan to G.o.d, pursue the way of death instead of the way of Life, as he did.[43]

This will be sufficient to show the essential character of the religion of this lonely man and to present the main tendencies of his bold and independent thought. He had no desire to be the head of a party; he was too remote {63} from the currents of evangelical Christianity to impress the common people whom he loved, and he was too radical a thinker to lead even the scholars who had become liberated from tradition by their humanistic studies and by historical insight. He was a kind of sixteenth-century Herac.l.i.tus, seeing the flow and flux of all things temporal, finding paradox and contradiction everywhere, discovering life to be a clash of opposites, with its "way up" and its "way down," on the surface a pessimist, but at the heart of himself an optimist; and finally, beneath all the folly of history and all the sin and stupidity of human life, seeing with the eye of his spirit One Eternal Logos who steers all things toward purpose, who suffers as a Lamb slain for the flock, who reveals His Truth and Life in the sanctuary of the soul, and who through the ages is building an invisible Church, a divine Kingdom of many members, in whom He lives as the Life of their lives.

[1] Troeltsch calls him a "literarischer Prophet der alleinigen Erlosungskraft des Geistes und des inneren Wortes," _Die Soziallehren_, p. 886.

[2] See article by M. Cunitz in _Nouvelle Revue de Theologie_, vol. v. p.

361.

[3] See Alfred Hegler's _Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck_ (Freiburg), 1892, pp. 28-48.

[4] See next chapter for an account of Caspar Schwenckfeld.

[5] This Letter to Campa.n.u.s, written originally in Latin, is extant in a Dutch translation, "Eyn Brieff van Sebastiaen Franck van Weirdt, geschreven over etlicken jaren in Latijn, tho synen vriendt Johan Campaen." See Hegler, _op. cit._ pp. 50-53.

[6] _Chronica und Beschreibung der Turkey_ (Nurnberg, 1530), K. 3 b.

[7] My copy is the first edition, printed in Strasbourg by Baltha.s.ser Beck, 1531.

[8] _Chronica_, p. 452 b.

[9] These three books were included in a volume ent.i.tled _Die vier kronbuchlein_ (1534).

[10] _Das verbutschterte Buch_, p. 5.

[11] Pp. 5-8 of the Apologia to _Das verbutschierte Buch_.

[12] See _Apologia_, p. 2.

[13] _Ibid._ p. 3.

[14] Hegler, _op. cit._ p. 98.

[15] _Die guldin Arch_, Preface 3b-4a.

[16] _Paradoxa_, sec. 101.

[17] _Paradoxa_, sec. 99 and 138.

[18] Franck translated both Erasmus' _Praise of Folly_ and Agrippa's _Vanity of Arts and Sciences_.