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A few words on the 'Defensio Fidei Nicænæ' will be a fitting introduction to the account of the controversy which belongs properly to the eighteenth century. Bishop Bull's defence was written in Latin, and was therefore not intended for the unlearned.
He has a high place among Anglican theologians, and as a defender of the doctrine of the Trinity was held in high esteem even by Continental Romanist controversialists. Paul and St. James on the relation between faith and works, in which he assigned to the latter the higher authority, Defensio Fidei Nicænæ and Corruptions of the Church of Rome.
The Council requested Milton to write a fitting answer. As his eyes were already failing him, he was warned to rest them; but he said that he would willingly sacrifice his eyesight on the altar of liberty. He accordingly wrote in reply his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, a Latin work, which was published in 1651. This effort cost him his eyesight.
The case was this: though at that time I had not read Bishop Bull's Defensio nor the Fathers, I was just then very strong for that ante-Nicene view of the Trinitarian doctrine, which some writers, both Catholic and non-Catholic, have accused of wearing a sort of Arian exterior.
As a writer of English historical poems and as a translator of Lucan he had earned a prominent position in British literature; as a continuator of the "Pharsalia" in Latin verse of exemplary elegance, written in the happiest imitation of the martyred Stoic's unimpassioned mannerism, he secured for British scholarship that higher respect among Continental scholars which Milton's Latin poems and "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano" presently after confirmed.
When such things could happen, no wonder that some manuscripts are imperfect and others have disappeared. Wimpfeling's next endeavour to assert the glories of Germany was completed in 1502; but did not appear till 1505. The title, Defensio Germaniae or Epithoma Germanorum, sufficiently explains its purpose.
Syndicus told the woman the while what her impudent rogue of a husband had done, that she might let him hear more of it. Then he sent the woman away again and came back to my daughter, saying that he had forgotten to ascertain whether she really knew the Latin tongue, and that she was to say her defensio over again in Latin, if she was able.
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