In Praise of Folly

 
     They kings and subjects dotages contain?
 

How positive also is Tully's commendation that all places are filled with fools? Now every excellence being to be measured by its extent, the goodness of folly must be of as large compass as those universal places she reaches to. But perhaps christians may slight the authority of a heathen. I could therefore, if I pleased, back and confirm the truth hereof by the citations of several texts of scripture; though herein. it were perhaps my duty to beg leave of the divines, that I might so far intrench upon their prerogative. Supposing a grant, the task seems so difficult as to require the invocation of some aid and assistance; yet because it is unreasonable to put the muses to the trouble and expense of so tedious a journey, especially since the business is out of their sphere, I shall choose rather (while I am acting the divine, and venturing in their polemic difficulties), to wish myself for such time animated with Scotus, his bristling and prickly soul, which I would not care how afterwards it returned to his body, though for refinement it were stopped at a purgatory by the way. I cannot but wish that I might wholly change my character, or at least that some grave divine, in my stead, might rehearse this part of the subject for me; for truly I suspect that somebody will accuse me of plundering the closets of those reverend men, while I pretend to so much divinity, as must appear in my following discourse. Yet however, it may not seem strange, that after so long and frequent a converse, I have gleaned some scraps from the divines; since Horace's wooden god by hearing his master read Homer, learned some words of Greek; and Lucian's cock, by long attention, could readily understand what any man spoke. But now to the purpose, wishing myself success.

Ecclesiastes doth somewhere confess that there are an infinite number of fools. Now when he speaks of an infinite number, what does he else but imply, that herein is included the whole race of mankind, except some very few, which I know not whether ever any one had yet the happiness to see?

The prophet Jeremiah speaks yet more plainly in his tenth chapter, where he saith, that Every man is brutish in his knowledge. He just before attributes wisdom to God alone, saying, that the Wise men of the nations are altogether brutish and foolish. And in the preceding chapter he gives this seasonable caution, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom: the reason is obvious, because no man hath truly any whereof to glory. But to return to Ecclesiastes, when he saith, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, what else can we imagine his meaning to be, than that our whole life is nothing but one continued interlude of Folly? This confirms that assertion of Tully, which is delivered in that noted passage we but just now mentioned, namely, that All places swarm with fools. Farther, what does the son of Sirach mean when he saith in Ecclesiasticus, that the Fool is changed as the moon, while the Wise man is fixed as the sun, than only to hint out the folly of all mankind; and that the name of wise is due to no other but the all-wise God? for all interpreters by Moon understand mankind, and by Sun that fountain of all light, the Almighty. The same sense is implied in that saying of our Saviour in the gospel, There is none good but one, that is God: for if whoever is not wise must be consequently a fool, and if, according to the Stoics, every man be wise so far only as he is good, the meaning of the text must be, all mortals are unavoidably fools; and there is none wise but one, that is God. Solomon also in the fifteenth chapter of his proverbs hath this expression, Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom; plainly intimating, that the wise man is attended with grief and vexation, while the foolish only roll in delight and pleasure. To the same purpose is that saying of his in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Again, it is confessed by the same preacher in the seventh chapter of the same book, That the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. This author himself had never attained to such a portion of wisdom, if he had not applied himself to a searching out the frailties and infirmities of human nature; as, if you believe not me, may appear from his own words in his first chapter, I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; where it is worthy to be observed that as to the order of words, Folly for its advantage is put in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did an ecclesiastical method require; namely, that what has the precedence in dignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenor of that evangelical precept, The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author of the holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, the excellency of folly above wisdom is positively acknowledged; the very words I shall not cite, till I have the advantage of an answer to a question I am proposing, this way of interrogating being frequently made use of by Plato in his dialogues between Socrates, and other disputants: I ask you then, what is it we usually hoard and lock up, things of greater esteem and value, or those which are more common, trite, and despicable? Why are you so backward in making an answer? Since you are so shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek proverb for a satisfactory reply; namely, Foul water is thrown down the sink; which saying, that no person may slight it, may be convenient to advertise that it comes from no meaner an author than that oracle of truth, Aristotle himself. And indeed there is no one on this side Bedlam so mad as to throw out upon the dunghill his gold and jewels, but rather all persons have a close repository to preserve them in, and secure them under all the locks, bolts, and bars, that either art can contrive, or fears suggest: whereas the dirt, pebbles, and oyster-shells, that lie scattered in the streets, ye trample upon, pass by, and take no notice of.

If then what is more valuable be coffered up, and what less so lies unregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with a greater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to the keeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open the other: as take him now in his own words, Better is he that hideth his folly than him that hideth his wisdom. Beside, the sacred text does oft ascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt to be a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or censures to have less wit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapter of Ecclesiastes, When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool. Now what greater argument of candour or ingenuity can there be, than to demean himself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any way inferior to his own. Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but that the wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs: Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man, Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of the Gentiles, writing to his Corinthians, readily owns the name, saying, If any man speak as a fool, I am more; as if to have been less so had been a reproach and disgrace. But perhaps I may be censured for misinterpreting this text by some modern annotators, who like crows pecking at one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all that went before them, pretend each their own glosses to contain the only true and genuine explication; among whom my Erasmus (whom I cannot but mention with respect) may challenge the second place, if not the precedency. This citation (say they) is purely impertinent; the meaning of the apostle is far different from what you dream of: he would not have these words so understood, as if he desired to be thought a greater fool than the rest, but only when he had before said, Are they ministers of Christ? so am I: as if the equalling himself herein to others had been too little, he adds, I am more, thinking a bare equality not enough, unless he were even superior to those he compares himself with. This he would have to be believed as true; yet lest it might be thought offensive, as bordering too much on arrogance and conceit, he tempers and alleviates it by the covert of Folly. I speak (says he) as a fool, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak the truth, without giving offence. But what St. Paul's thoughts were when he wrote this, I leave for them to determine. In my own judgment at least I prefer the opinion of the good old tun-bellied divines, with whom it's safer and more creditable to err, than to be in the right with smattering, raw, novices.

Nor indeed should any one mind the late critics any more than the senseless chattering of a daw: especially since one of the most eminent of them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest some of our wits should be taunting him with the Greek proverb, magisterially and dogmatically descanting upon his text [are they the ministers of Christ? ]) I speak as a fool. I am more makes a distinct chapter, and (which without good store of logic he could never have done) adds a new section, and then gives this paraphrase, which I shall verbatim recite, that you may have his words materially, as well as formally his sense (for that's one of their babbling distinctions). [I speak as a fool] that is, if the equalling myself to those false apostles would have been construed as the vaunt of a fool, I will willingly be accounted a greater fool, by taking place of them, and openly pleading, that as to their ministry, I not only come up even with them, but outstrip and go beyond them: though this same commentator a little after, as it were forgetting what he had just before delivered, tacks about and shifts to another interpretation.

But why do I insist upon any one particular example, when in general it is the public charter of all divines, to mould and bend the sacred oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading them (as Heaven by its Creator) like a curtain, closing together, or drawing them back, as they please? Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles some citations he makes use of, and seems to wrest them to a different sense from what they were first intended for, as is confessed by the great linguist, St. Hierom.

Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of an altar, he draws from it an argument for the proof of the christian religion; but leaving out great part of the sentence, which perhaps if fully recited might have prejudiced his cause, he mentions only the two last words viz., To the unknown God; and this too not without alteration, for the whole inscription runs thus: To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to all foreign and unknown Gods.

'Tis an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that our young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place, and putting a false construction on the rest, can make any passage serviceable to their own purpose; though from the coherence of what went before, or follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be either wide enough, or perhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose upon it. In which knack the divines are grown now so expert, that the lawyers themselves begin to be jealous of an encroachment upon what was formerly their sole privilege and practice. And indeed what can they despair of proving, since the fore-mentioned commentator (I had almost blundered out his name), but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greek proverbial sarcasm) did upon a text of St. Luke put an interpretation, no more agreeable to the meaning of the place, than one contrary quality is to another? The passage is this, when Judas's treachery was preparing to be executed, and accordingly it seemed requisite that all the disciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted master, our Saviour, that he might piously caution them against reliance for his delivery on any worldly strength, asks them, whether in all their embassy they lacked anything, when he had sent them out so unfurnished for the performance of a long journey, that they had not so much as shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of flints and thorns, or a scrip to carry a meal's meat in; and when they had answered that they lacked nothing, he adds, But now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment, and buy one. Now when the whole doctrine of our Saviour inculcates nothing more frequently than meekness, patience, and a contempt of this world, is it not plain what the meaning of the place is? Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambassadors in a more naked, defenceless condition, he does not only advise them to take no thought for shoes or scrip, but even commands them to part with the very clothes from their back, that so they might have the less incumbrance and entanglement in the going through their office and function. He cautions them, it is true, to. be furnished with a sword, yet not such a carnal one as rogues and highwaymen make use of for murder and bloodshed, but with the sword of the Spirit, which pierces through the heart, and searches out the innermost retirements of the soul, lopping off all our lust, and corrupt affections, and leaving nothing in possession of our breast but piety, zeal, and devotion: this (I say) in my opinion is the most natural interpretation.

But see how that divine misunderstands the place; by sword (says he) is meant, defence against persecution; by scrip, or purse, a sufficient quantity of provision; as if Christ had, by considering better of it, changed his mind in reference to that mean equipage, which he had before sent his disciples in, and therefore came now to a recantation of what he had formerly instituted: or as if he had forgot what in time past he had told them, Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you for my sake. Render not evil for evil, for blessed are the meek, not the cruel: as if he had forgot that he encouraged them by the examples of sparrows and lilies to take no thought for the morrow; he gives them now another lesson, and charges them, rather than go without a sword, to sell their garment, and buy one; as if the going cold and naked were more excusable than the marching unarmed. And as this author thinks all means which are requisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be implied under the name of sword, so under that of scrip, he would have everything to be comprehended, which either the necessity or conveniency of life requires.

Thus does this provident commentator furnish out the disciples with halberts, spears, and guns, for the enterprise of preaching Christ crucified; he supplies them at the same time with pockets, bags, and portmanteaus, that they might carry their cupboards as well as their bellies always about them: he takes no notice how our Saviour afterwards rebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before so strictly charged him to buy; nor that it is ever recorded that the primitive Christians did by no ways withstand their heathen persecutors otherwise than with tears and prayers, which they would have exchanged more effectually for swords and bucklers, if they had thought this text would have borne them out.

There is another, and he of no mean credit, whom for respect to his person I shall forbear to name, who commenting upon that verse in the prophet Habakkuk (I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble), because tents were sometimes made of skins, he pretended that the word tents did here signify the skin of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed for a martyr.

I myself was lately at a divinity disputation (where I very often pay my attendance), where one of the opponents demanded a reason why it should be thought more proper to silence all heretics by sword and faggot, rather than convert them by moderate and sober arguments? A certain cynical old blade, who bore the character of a divine, legible in the frowns and wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of disdain answered, that it was the express injunction of St. Paul himself, in those directions to Titus (A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject), quoting it in Latin, where the word reject is devita, while all the auditory wondered at this citation, and deemed it no way applicable to his purpose; he at last explained himself, saying, that devita signified de vita tollendum hereticum, a heretic must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, but others approved of it as an orthodox comment And however some disliked that such violence should be done to so easy a text, our hair-splitting and irrefragable doctor went on in triumph. To prove it yet (says he) more undeniably, it is commanded in the old law [Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live]: now then every Maleficus, or witch, is to be killed, but an heretic is Maleficus, which in the Latin translation is put for a witch, ergo, &c. All that were present wondered at the ingenuity of the person, and very devoudy embraced his opinion, never dreaming that the law was restrained only to magicians, sorcerers, and enchanters: for otherwise, if the word Maleficus signified what it most naturally implies, every evil-doer, then drunkenness and whoredom were to meet with the same capital punishment as witchcraft But why should I squander away my time in a too tedious prosecution of this topic, which if drove on to the utmost would afford talk to eternity? I aim herein at no more than this, namely, that since those grave doctors take such a swinging range and latitude, I, who am but a smattering novice in divinity, may have the larger allowance for any slips or mistakes.

Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions [Ye suffer fools gladly] applying it to himself; and again [As a fool receive me], and [That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly]; and in another place [We are fools for Christ's sake]. See how these commendations of Folly are equal to the author of them, both great and sacred. The same holy person does yet enjoin and command the being a fool, as a virtue of all others most requisite and necessary: for, says he [If any man seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise]. Thus St. Luke records, how our Saviour, after his resurrection, joining himself with two of his disciples travelling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls them fools, saying [O fools, and slow of heart to believe], Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all-wise God himself [The foolishness of God (says he) is wiser than men]; in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any way referred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to be understood that other passage of St. Paul [The preaching of the cross to them that perish, foolishness]. But why do I put myself to the trouble of citing so many proofs, since this one may suffice for all, namely, that in those mystical psalms wherein David represents the type of Christ, it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, in way of confession, that even he himself was guilty of Folly; Thou (says he) O God knowest my foolishness? Nor is it without some reason that fools for their plainness and sincerity of heart have always been most acceptable to God Almighty. For as the princes of this world have shrewdly suspected, and carried a jealous eye over such of their subjects as were the most observant, and deepest politicians (for thus Caesar was afraid of the plodding Cassius, and Brutus, thinking himself secure enough from the careless drinking Anthony; Nero likewise mistrusted Seneca, and Dionysius would have been willingly rid of Plato), whereas they can all put greater confidence in such as are of less subtlety and contrivance So our Saviour in like manner dislikes and condemns the wise and crafty, as St. Paul does expressly declare in these words, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world; and again, it pleased God by foolishness to save the world; implying that by wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself testifies as much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding of the learned. Again, our Saviour does solemnly return his Father thanks for that he had hidden the mysteries of salvation from the wise, and revealed them to babes, i.e., to fools; for the original word vnpriois, being opposed to oooois if one signify wise, the other must foolish. To the same purpose did our blessed Lord frequently condemn and upbraid the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers, while he carries himself kind and obliging to the unlearned multitude: for what otherwise can be the meaning of that tart denunciation, Woe unto you scribes and pharisees, than woe unto you wise men, whereas he seems chiefly delighted with children, women, and illiterate fishermen.

We may farther take notice, that among all the several kinds of brute creatures he shews greatest liking to such as are farthest distant from the subtlety of the fox. Thus in his progress to Jerusalem he chose to ride sitting upon an ass, though, if he pleased, he might have mounted the back of a lion with more of state, and as little of danger. The Holy Spirit chose rather likewise to descend from heaven in the shape of a simple gall-less dove, than that of an eagle, kite, or other more lofty fowl.

Thus all along in the holy scriptures there are frequent metaphors and similitudes of the most inoffensive creatures, such as stags, hinds, lambs, and the like. Nay, those blessed souls that in the day of judgment are to be placed at our Saviour's right hand are called sheep, which are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle, as is evidenced by Aristotle's Greek proverb, a sheepishness of temper, a dull, blockish, sleepy, unmanly humour. Yet of such a flock Christ is not ashamed to profess himself the shepherd. Nay, he would not only have all his proselytes termed sheep, but even he himself would be called a lamb; as when John the Baptist seeth Jesus coming unto him, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God; which same title is very often given to our Saviour in the apocalypse.

All this amounts to no less than that all mortal men are fools, even the righteous and godly as well as sinners; nay, in some sense our blessed Lord himself, who, although he was the wisdom of the Father, yet to repair the infirmities of fallen man, he became in some measure a partaker of human Folly, when he took our nature upon him, and was found in fashion as a man; or when God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Nor would he heal those breaches our sins had made by any other method than by the foolishness of the cross, published by the ignorant and unlearned apostles, to whom he frequently recommends the excellence of Folly, cautioning them against the infectiousness of wisdom, by the several examples he proposes them to imitate, such as children, lilies, sparrows, mustard, and such like beings, which are either wholly inanimate, or at least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided by no other conduct than that of instinct, without care, trouble, or contrivance. To the same intent the disciples were warned by their lord and master, that when they should be brought unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers, they shall take no thought how, or what thing they should answer, nor what they should say: they were again strictly forbid to enquire into the times and seasons, or to place any confidence in their own abilities, but to depend wholly upon divine assistance.

At the first peopling of paradise the Almighty had never laid so strict a charge on our father Adam to refrain from eating of the tree of knowledge except he had thereby forewarned that the taste of knowledge would be the bane of all happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that knowledge puffeth up, i.e., it is fatal and poisonous. In pursuance whereunto St. Bernard interprets that exceeding high mountain whereon the devil had erected his seat to have been the mountain of knowledge. And perhaps this may be another argument which ought not to be omitted, namely, that Folly is acceptable, at least excusable, with the gods, inasmuch, as they easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, while the miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly obtain a pardon; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitment from any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretext of Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers Aaron entreats Moses to stay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, alas, my Lord, I beseech thee lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly. Thus, when David spared Saul's life, when he found him sleeping in a tent of Hachilah, not willing to stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, Saul excuses his former severity by confessing, Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. David also himself in much the same form begs the remission of his sin from God Almighty with this prayer, Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly; as if he could not have hoped otherwise to have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covert and mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Saviour is yet more convincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for his enemies, saying, Father, forgive them, urging no other plea in their behalf than that of their ignorance, for they know not what they do. To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledges he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, But (saith he) I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Now what is the meaning of the phrase [I did it ignorantly] but only this? My fault was occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. What signifies [I obtained mercy] but only that I should not otherwise have obtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication? To the same purpose is that other passage in the mysterious Psalmist, which I forgot to mention in its proper place, namely, Oh remember not the sins and offences of my youth! the word which we render offences, is in Latin ignorantias, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in his excuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want of experience are constant attendants: and secondly, his ignorances, expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of his foolishness.

But that I may not wear out this subject too far, to draw now towards a conclusion, it is observable that the christian religion seems to have some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word you may please, first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the performance of the several parts of divine service; nay, the first promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy or learning.

Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, than those who are too superstitiously religious: they are profusely lavish in their charity; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness of past injuries; they suffer themselves to be cheated and imposed upon by laying claim to the innocence of the dove; they make it the interest of no person to oblige them, because they will love, and do good to their enemies, as much as to the most endearing friends; they banish all pleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrow and reproach; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, wish to be dissolved, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom: in a word, they seem altogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems already separated from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we imagine all this to be than downright madness? It is the less strange therefore that at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should be thought drunk with new wine; or that St. Paul was censured by Festus to have been beside himself.

And since I have had the confidence to go thus far, I shall venture yet a little forwarder, and be so bold as to say thus much more: all that final happiness, which christians, through so many rubs and briars of difficulties, contend for, is at last no better than a sort of folly and madness. This, no question, will be thought extravagantly spoke; but consider awhile, and deliberately state the case.

First, then, the christians so far agree with the Platonists as to believe that the body is no better than a prison or dungeon for the confinement of the soul. That therefore, while the soul is shackled to the walls of flesh, her soaring wings are impeded, and all her enlivening faculties clogged and fettered by the gross particles of matter, so that she can neither freely range after, nor, when happily overtook, can quietly contemplate her proper object of truth.

Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the meditation of death, because the one performs the same office with the other; namely, withdraws the mind from all visible and corporeal objects; therefore while the soul does patiently actuate the several organs and members of the body, so long is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition; but when the soul, weary of her confinement, struggles to break jail, and fly beyond her cage of flesh and blood, then a man is censured at least for being magotty and crack-brained; nay, if there be any defect in the external organs it is then termed downright madness. And yet many times persons thus affected shall have prophetic ecstacies of foretelling things to come, shall in a rapture talk languages they never before learned, and seem in all things actuated by somewhat divine and extraordinary; and all this, no doubt, is only the effect of the soul's being more released from its engagement to the body, whereby it can with less impediment exert the energy of life and motion. From hence, no question, has sprung an observation of like nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.