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

Christian love
[52]
John Picus
The profit of his
works
The lineage
of John Picus
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Thomas More’s Life of John Picus
only. But forasmuch as the love and amity of Christian folk should be
rather ghostly° friendship than bodily, since that all faithful people are
rather spiritual than carnal (for as the apostle saith: “We be not now
in flesh, but in spirit, if Christ abide in us”) 1 I therefore, mine heartily
beloved sister, in good luck of this New Year have sent you such a
present as may bear witness of my tender love and zeal to the happy
continuance and gracious increase of virtue in your soul; and whereas
the gifts of other folk declare that they wish their friends to be worldly
fortunate, mine testifieth that I desire to have you godly prosperous.
These works, more profitable 2 than large, were made in Latin by one
John Picus, Earl of Mirandula, a lordship in Italy, of whose cunning
and virtue 3 we need here nothing to speak, forasmuch as hereafter we
peruse the course of his whole life, rather after our little power slenderly,
than after his merits sufficiently. The works are such that truly,
good sister, I suppose of the quantity° there cometh none in your hand
more profitable, neither to the achieving of temperance in prosperity,
nor to the purchasing of patience in adversity, nor to the despising of
worldly vanity, nor to the desiring of heavenly felicity: which works I
would require you gladly to receive, ne were it° that they be such that
for the goodly matter (howsoever they be translated) may delight and
please any person that hath any mean desire and love to God, and
that yourself is such one as for your virtue and fervent zeal to God
cannot but joyously receive anything that meanly soundeth either to
the reproach of vice, commendation of virtue, or honour and laud of
God, Who preserve you. ¬
THE LIFE OF JOHN PICUS,
EARL OF MIRANDULA
JOHN PICUS of the father’s side descended of the worthy lineage
of the Emperor Constantine 4 by a nephew of the said Emperor called
2 ghostly spiritual / 15 of the quantity as for their size / 19 ne were it were it not
1. From Romans 8:9–11.
2. Here and below, More insists that the works of Picus are “profitable” to the reader.
3. First paired in the opening lines, More conjoins cunning and virtue throughout his Life of Picus.
4. descended of…Constantine: As Riggs points out, “[T]he descent from the nephew of Constantine
is mythical” (82, as cited in CW 1:209).
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