Thus the greatest
Father of the Latin Church, wishing toward the close of his life to
amend whatever he might then perceive in his various published works
incautiously or incorrectly stated, gave to the book in which he
carried out this intention (for authors had then no such opportunities
as later editions afford us now), this very name of '_Retractations_',
being literally 'rehandlings,' but in fact, as will be plain to any one
turning to the work, withdrawings of various statements by which he was
no longer prepared to abide.
But urging, as I just now did, the degeneration of words, I should
seriously err, if I failed to remind you that a parallel process of
purifying and ennobling has also been going forward, most of all
through the influences of a Divine faith working in the world. This, as
it has turned _men_ from evil to good, or has lifted them from a lower
earthly goodness to a higher heavenly, so has it in like manner
elevated, purified, and ennobled a multitude of the words which they
employ, until these, which once expressed only an earthly good, express
now a heavenly. The Gospel of Christ, as it is the redemption of man,
so is it in a multitude of instances the redemption of his word,
freeing it from the bondage of corruption, that it should no longer be
subject to vanity, nor stand any more in the service of sin or of the
world, but in the service of God and of his truth. Thus the Greek had a
word for 'humility'; but for him this humility meant--that is, with
rare exceptions--meanness of spirit.
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