life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...

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Life of John Picus
scourge upon him that he was beaten with. I looked not for that. But
our Lord had so decreed that he should forsake this present life and
leave a part of that noble crown that he should have had in heaven¦.
Notwithstanding, the most benign Judge hath dealt mercifully with
him: and for his plenteous alms given out with a free and liberal hand
unto poor people; and for the devout prayers which he most instantly
offered unto God, 1 this favour he hath: though his soul be not yet in
the bosom of our Lord 2 in the heavenly joy, yet is it not on that other
side deputed unto perpetual pain; but he is adjudged for a while to
the fire of purgatory, there to suffer pain for a season, which I am the
gladder to show you in this behalf, to the intent that they which knew
him, and such in especially as for his manifold benefices are singularly
beholden unto him, should now with their prayers, alms, and other
suffrages, 3 help him.” These things¦ this holy man Jerome, this servant
of God, openly affirmed, and also said that he 4 knew well if he lied in
that place° he were worthy eternal damnation. And over that he said
that he had known all those things within a certain time, but the words
which Picus had said in his sickness 5 of the appearing of our Lady
caused him to doubt and to fear lest Picus had been deceived by some
illusion of the devil, inasmuch as the promise of our Lady seemed
to have been frustrated by his death. But afterwards, he understood
that Picus was deceived in the equivocation of the word¦, while she
spake of the second death and everlasting, and he undertook° her of
the first death and temporal.¦ And after this the same Jerome showed
to his acquaintance that Picus had after his death appeared unto him
16 that place the pulpit / 23 undertook understood
¦ 3 More omits famaque & nominis celebritatem, quae ad summum cummulum si vixisset fuerat habiturus,
as plenum non assequeretur, “and that he should not fully achieve the reputation and celebrity that
he would have possessed in superabundance if he had lived” (CW 1:334–337). / 14 More omits
& plura alia, “and more” (CW 1:336, 337). / 22 More omits mortis, “death” (CW 1:336, 337).
/ 24 More omits several lines of the Latin original, in which Gianfrancesco defends not only
the trustworthiness of such visions in general but also the credibility of Savonarola in particular
(CW 1:337).
1. devout prayers…unto God: Edwards argues, “The Latin (‘orationes quae ad deum instantissime effusae
sunt’…) is ambiguous: it might refer to Picus’ prayers, as More takes it, or to the prayers of others
for him” (CW 1:227).
2. our Lord: The Latin here is patris, “the Father” (CW 1:336).
3. alms, and suffrages: More expands the Latin suffragiis, “good deeds” (CW 1:336, 337).
4. he: “More, in this clause, changes plural to singular and the original plural subject, ‘verbi dei
precones’…, to the third person singular pronoun” (CW 1:228).
5. Picus…in his sickness: The Latin has simply aegrotus, “the sick man” (CW 1:336, 337).
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Purgatory
Prayer and Alms
available for the dead
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