2 - A book concerning the authority of the Church

Summary

To the most reverend father in Christ Lord Tristan de Salazar, archbishop of Sens, Jacques Almain, humble Parisian doctor, greetings.

What I especially wished for, most reverend father in Christ, my lord archbishop of Sens, has fallen to my lot: the assignment, namely, of publishing something against the obsequious doctrines – seeking, indeed, by excessive flattery to place the supreme pontiff under an obligation [to their author] – of Brother Tommaso de Vio of Gaeta. [He is], in other respects, a man of learning – if only he had not marred his learning with the stain of flattery and striven to defame and revile with his insolent words the most holy Councils of Constance and Basel. I have undertaken to answer his arguments in some way proportionate to my small measure, so that I might roll a jar like Diogenes or a stone like Sisyphus, and thus avoid appearing to be the only slacker when so many are eagerly at work, or to be wasting away in sloth or idle ease and growing old in the obscurity of private life, while others have their attention concentrated on the matter [in hand. I have undertaken,] without toadying to anyone, without scurrilous abuse, to undermine his arguments – indeed to refute them as far as I can – and to attack his stronghold with (as the saying goes) Gallic arms.