[4] The word _Discipline_ originally signified in general, the
censures and corrections which persons who were guilty of Sins,
received from their Superiors; and when _Flagellation_ was to be
part of those corrections, it was expressly mentioned; and they
called such Discipline, as the Reader will see in the Sequel of this
Book, “the discipline of the whip,” (_disciplina flagelli_). As
Flagellation grew afterwards to be the common method of doing penance
that prevailed among persons in religious Orders, the bare word
_discipline_ became in course of time the technical word to express
that kind of chastisement: thus, the Reader will find hereafter
an instance in which Flagellation, when too long continued, is
called “the madness of too long discipline,” (_longioris disciplinæ
insania_). And at last, those kinds of whips made of knotted and
twisted cords, commonly used for the above pious exercises, have also
been called by the same name; and the word _discipline_ has become in
French, for instance, the appropriated word to express the instrument
of religious flagellation. Thus, in Molière’s Play, called the
_Tartuffe_, or the Hypocrite, Tartuffe tells his Man, “Laurent, lock
up my hair-cloth, and discipline, and pray that Heaven may always
illuminate you.”
Laurent, serrez ma haire avec ma discipline,
Et priez que toujours le Ciel vous illumine.
TART. A. III. Sc. 2.
[5] _Sursùm & deorsùm disciplina._----All the Women (as the Writer of
this Commentary has been told, when in Catholic Countries) who make
self-flagellation part of their religious exercises, whether they
live in or out of Convents, use the _lower discipline_, as defined
above: their pious and merciful Confessors having suggested to them,
that the _upper discipline_ may prove dangerous, and be the cause
of hurting their breasts, especially when they mean to proceed in
that holy exercise with unusual fervour and severity. A few Orders
of Friars, among whom are the Capuchins, also use the lower kind of
discipline; but for what reason the Commentator has not been as yet
informed.
Perhaps it will be asked here, how Priests and Confessors have been
able to introduce the use of such a painful practice as flagellation,
among the persons who choose to be directed by them in religious
matters, and how they can enforce obedience to the prescriptions
they give them in that respect. But here it must be remembered,
that _Penance_ has been made a Sacrament among Catholics, and that
_Satisfaction_, as may be seen in the Books that treat of that
subject, is an essential part of it, and must always precede the
_Absolution_ on the part of the Confessor. Now, as Confessors have
it in their power to refuse this Absolution, so long as the Penances
or Satisfactions of any kind, which they have enjoyed to their
Penitents, have not been accomplished, this confers on them a very
great authority; and though, to a number of those who apply to them,
who care but little for such Absolution, or in case of refusal are
ready to apply to other more easy Confessors, they scarcely prescribe
any other kind of _Satisfaction_ than saying a certain number of
prayers, or such like mortification; yet, to those persons who
think it a very serious affair when a Confessor in whom they trust,
continues to refuse them his absolution, they may enjoin almost what
kind of penance they please. And indeed since Confessors have been
able to prevail upon Kings to leave their kingdoms and engage in
perilous wars and croisades to the Holy Land, and to induce young and
tender Queens to perform on foot pilgrimages to very distant places,
it is not difficult to understand how they have been able gradually
to prevail upon numbers of their Devotees of both Sexes, to follow
practices which they had been so foolish as to adopt for themselves,
and to practise, at their own choice, either the lower, or the upper,
discipline.
[6] Dial. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Εἰκόνων--Καὶ τοὶ παλαιὸς οὕτος ὁ λόγος, ἀνευθύνους
εἶναι Ποιητὰς καὶ Γραφέας. The Greek word ἀνευθύνους, used here,
literally signifies that Poets and Painters are not obliged to give
any account of their actions. Horace has also expressed a thought of
the same kind with regard to them, in his _Ars Poetica_, “Painters
and Poets have always equally enjoyed the power of daring every
thing.”
_Pictoribus atque Poëtis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas._
A. P. v. 9, 10.
The complaints of our Author with respect to the loose which Painters
have been used to give to their own fancy, when they have treated
religious subjects, are well grounded; and persons who have travelled
in Catholic Countries cannot but have taken notice of the freedom
that prevails in their Church-pictures: hence a number of stories
are related among them of Nuns, or other Women, who have fallen in
love with naked figures of Angels and Saints, and of Men who have
been led into extravagances by the passion they had conceived for
certain statues, or pictures. As to errors concerning facts merely,
and faults against the _Costume_, which our Author seems more
particularly to allude to, in this Chapter, they are certainly very
frequent in the works of Painters: even the first among them, such as
Paul Veronese and others, are reproached with capital ones. On this
occasion the Writer of this Commentary thinks he may relate what he
himself has seen in a Country Church in Germany, in which a Painter,
who had intended to represent the Sacrifice of Isaac, had so far
availed himself of the _potestas quidlibet audendi_, mentioned above,
that he had represented Abraham with a blunderbuss in his hand, ready
to shoot his son, and an Angel, suddenly come down from Heaven,
pouring water on the pan.