CANTO III.]
HUDIBRAS.
127
More haughty and severe in's place
Than Gregory and Boniface.[1]
Such church must, surely, be a monster
With many heads: for if we conster[2]
What in th' Apocalypse we find, 1215
According to th' Apostle's mind,
'Tis that the Whore of Babylon,
With many heads, did ride upon;[3]
Which heads denote the sinful tribe
Of deacon, priest, lay-elder, scribe.1220
Lay-elder, Simeon to Levi,[4]
Whose little finger is as heavy
As loins of patriarchs, prince-prelate,
And bishop-secular.[5] This zealot
Is of a mungrel, diverse kind,1225
Cleric before, and lay behind;[6]
A lawless linsey-woolsey brother,[7]
Half of one order, half another;
- ↑ Two most insolent and assuming popes, who endeavoured to raise the tiara above all the crowned heads in Christendom. Gregory VII., elected 1073, the son of a Smith, and commonly called Hildebrand, was the first pontiff who arrogated to himself the authority to excommunicate and depose the emperor. Boniface VIII., elected 1294, one of the most haughty, ambitious, and tyrannical men, that ever filled the papal chair, at the jubilee instituted by himself, appeared one day in the habit of a pope, and the next in that of an emperor; and caused two swords to be carried before him, to show that he was invested with all power ecclesiastical and temporal. Walsingham says that "he crept into the papacy like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like a dog."
- ↑ Meaning "construe."
- ↑ The Church of Rome has often been compared to the whore of Babylon. The beast which the whore rode upon is here said to signify the Presbyterian establishment: and the seven, or many heads of the beast, are interpreted, by the poet, to mean their several officers, deacons, priests, scribes, lay-elders, &c.
- ↑ That is, lay-elder, an associate to the priesthood, for interested, if not for iniquitous purposes. Alluding to Genesis xlix. 5, 6. "Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations: O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a man."
- ↑ Such were formerly several of the bishops in Germany.
- ↑ Sir Roger L'Estrange, in his key to Hudibras, tells us that one Andrew Crawford, a Scotch preacher, is here intended; others say William Dunning, a Scotch presbyter of a turbulent and restless spirit, diligent in promoting the cause of the kirk. But, probably, the author meant no more than to give a general picture of the lay-elders.
- ↑ It was forbidden by the Levitical law to wear a mixture of linen and woollen in the same garment.
