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Updated: May 11, 2025
He considered rather Ernulphus's anathema, as an institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of swearing in some milder pontificate, Ernulphus, by order of the succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence collected together all the laws of it; for the same reason that Justinian, in the decline of the empire, had ordered his chancellor Tribonian to collect the Roman or civil laws all together into one code or digest lest, through the rust of time and the fatality of all things committed to oral tradition they should be lost to the world for ever.
Paul's thumb God's flesh and God's fish, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, 'tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh; else I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus a thousand times: but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original! it is thought to be no bad oath and by itself passes very well 'G-d damn you. Set it beside Ernulphus's 'God almighty the Father damn you God the Son damn you God the Holy Ghost damn you' you see 'tis nothing.
In short, during the whole paroxism, my father was all abuse and foul language, approaching rather towards malediction only he did not do it with as much method as Ernulphus he was too impetuous; nor with Ernulphus's policy for tho' my father, with the most intolerant spirit, would curse both this and that, and every thing under heaven, which was either aiding or abetting to his love yet never concluded his chapter of curses upon it, without cursing himself in at the bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and cox-combs, he would say, that ever was let loose in the world.
It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to Ernulphus's curse, which was laid upon the corner of the chimney-piece as to my uncle Toby who sat under it it is in vain longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human persuasions I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, or the sins and follies of the Shandy family, Heaven has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force of it is directed to play.
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