Memorials of human superstition ; being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne ... / By one who is not Doctor of the Sorbonne.

  • Jean-Louis de Lolme
Date:
M DCC LXXXIV
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of human superstition ; being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne ... / By one who is not Doctor of the Sorbonne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    that an unhappy Friar, who lives in certain modern Monafteries, fhould not have his fkin torn from head to foot, fince it is a conftant praflice among them to difcipline themfelves three or four times every week, during the whole time that the Miferere, the De Frofun- dis *, and the Salve Regma, are finging, with a melodious, though (low, voice; and that too fo heavily, and in fuch carneft, that the rat- tling of the blows refounds on all fides ? Several perfons, however, ftill infifl that religious flagellations were in ufe among the ancient Jews, and draw, it muft be confefied, ilrong arguments from the words of David^ in * The Miferere is the 51 ft Pfalm ; and the De Profundis is the 130th, which is none of the Ihorteft. The finging of the ATiferere feems to be parti- cularly appropriated, among CathoHcs, to regulate both the duration of religious flagellations, and the time to which they are to be performed, as we may conclude from the above paiTage of our Au- thor ; and alfo from a palTage of ]M. de Voltaire in his Ca?idide, in which he fays, that, when Ca?i- didc was flagellated at Lifoon, by order of the In- quifition, he v/as all the while entertained with a Miferere en faux bourdo7i; which is a kind of Church Mufic.