164 



THE LIFE OF 



His opinion 

 oftheLXX. 

 Greek. 



CHAP, norance in that sort of learning : and Bishop Aylmer, who 

 XIL was better versed in those Hebrew studies, once, while the 

 book was talking of in the presence of the said Caesar, said, 

 &quot; One scholar of right judgment would prove all adversaries 

 &quot; foolish.&quot; Thus he spake in effect, and more, in commen 

 dation and vindication of that great Hebrician. 



Our Bishop valued the Hebrew verity before the Septua- 

 ginf s Greek translation of the Old Testament, of which 

 he had no great esteem : and from his skill in the Hebrew 

 took occasion to confute a passage in Campion the Jesuit s 

 book, called his Ten Reasons. Casting his eye upon the 

 first passage, he perceived he quoted a verse out of the 

 Psalms after the LXX. much swerving from the truth of 

 the Hebrew text, which, he said, every child understood at 

 this day: for alleging the 63d Psalm, (where it is indeed 

 in the Hebrew original the 74th,) he read, Et sagittae 

 parvulorum erant plagcR illorum : the text indeed is, Sed 

 ubi jaculis penetravit eos Deus, sagitta repentina fuerunt 

 plaga. &quot; If,&quot; added the Bishop, &quot; he deal so in all other, 

 &quot; his credit will be small.&quot; 



He was well skilled in the civil law ; concerning which 

 he fell into some discourse, occasioned by Knox s bringing 

 a proof out of that law against the government of women. 

 This matter, he said, belonged not to the civil law, but to 

 the municipal law of England. For that like as every field 

 brought not forth all fruits, so was not one law meet for all 

 countries. He granted the civil law was the best and the 

 perfectest and the largest that ever was made, yet compre 

 hended it not all things in all countries : nor at the making 

 and gathering thereof in Justinian s time by Trebonianus, 

 Dorotheus, and Theophilus, were all countries and pro 

 vinces so known to the Romans, that they could provide all 

 laws as should be for all necessary. Wherefore in appoint 

 ing us to be ordered by the civil law, he offended in distri 

 butive justice : as Cyrus in Xenophon, he said, did, being 

 a child ; who finding a great boy to have a little coat, and 

 a little boy a great coat, gave sentence that the great boy 

 should have the great coat, and the little boy the little coat. 



Skilled in 

 the civil 

 Jaw. 



