Bu. — Besides, he bears witness that he has written five ora-
tions in praise of Rome. O labor beautifully spent! How much
better if he had sought to kindle that state and those men who
professed belles-lettres there to the adoration of Christ and the
love of piety by a few carefully wrought orations ! You under-
stand, Nosoponus, what I mean. And, pray tell me for whom
so much labor was spent. For the Senate ? The Senate, if there
is any at Rome, does not know Latin. For the people? So far
are they from being captivated by Ciceronian language that they
speak a barbarian tongue. So farewell to these ostentatious dis-
plays !

He enters into a serious and ■ weighty case against Martin
Luther. In this can he be a Ciceronian when he is discussing
things of which Cicero knew absolutely nothing! He cannot,
for th€ oration cannot be perfectly Ciceronian which does not
accord with the age, the characters, and the circumst?inces. He
could assail in a fashion truly Ciceronian, but when it comes to
the enumeration of the charges Cicero's phraseology would be
rather obscure and hardly understood by those who held the
tenets of Luther. Here the case requires the utmost clearness
of expression, if he wishes to be a Ciceronian. Furthermore, from
the way he sets forth the facts, it would not be diiBcult to guess
what he would have been in refuting the doctrines of his adver-
sary and in establishing his own. He carefully avoids the words
of our religion, never using the word, Mes (faith), but substitu-



1 1 6 Cic ero nianus

ting in its place, persuasio (conviction), and many others which
we have spoken of before. Yet time and again he uses the name
of Christian, inadvertently, I presume, for this word never oc-
curred in the books of Cicero. Withal, there was much in the
speech very praiseworthy ; and the greatest fault was that he was
so anxious to be a Ciceronian that he preferred to fit his language
to Cicero rather than to the case.
