THE KING'S MIRROR 



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which he had begotten in such a sinful way. Neverthe- 

 less, David lay seven days upon the earth in the raiment 

 of mourning, fasting and imploring God to let the child 

 live. But God would not hear his prayer, and the child 

 expired on the seventh day.* And this was the second 

 punishment, that God refused to let David build him 

 a temple; f God even called him a murderer, because 

 he had deprived Uriah of life^But for the adultery which 

 he had committed with Uriah's wife, he had to suffer / 

 this disgrace, that his son Absalom, in the sight of all ^> J^v 

 the people, went in unto David's concubines and thus \ 

 dishonored his father before all the people. t j 



You have also asked which crime was the worse, 

 that David caused Uriah to be slain without guilt and 

 seduced his wife, or that Saul refused to kill so many 

 people of Amalek; and you shall know of a truth that 

 Saul's crime was the greater; for no offence is graver 

 than to be disobedient toward one's superiors, as Saul u/ 

 was. And you may observe even at this day among 

 cloister folk, that if a monk is disobedient toward his 

 abbot, where an abbot rules the cloister, or toward the 

 prior, where such a one controls, he is forthwith ex- >- 

 pelled from the holy order and from the monastery and 

 is thenceforth regarded as a layman. Likewise, if a 

 priest refuses to obey his superior the bishop, he is at 

 once deprived of clerical honors, and the right to say 

 mass is taken from him as well as all other official duties. 

 In the same way, if a bishop, be he humble or powerful, 



* The story of David's great sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah and its 

 consequences is told in II Samuel, xi-xii, but it is probable that the author's 

 source is some Biblical paraphrase rather than the Vulgate itself, 

 f / Chronicles, xxii, 8. J 11 Samuel, xvi, 21-22. 



