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Updated: June 8, 2025
As he lived precisely five years, all he did was done at that little age, and it comprised this: "He got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, ellipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's 'Janua, and had a strong passion for Greek."
Again Comenius introduced a new way of learning languages. His great work on this subject was entitled "Janua Linguarum Reserata" i.e., The Gate of Languages Unlocked. Of all his works this was the most popular. It spread his fame all over Europe. It was translated into fifteen different languages. It became, next to the Bible, the most widely known book on the Continent.
It now regarded them as the special representatives of the despised element of sex in life. The eccentric Tertullian had once declared that woman was janua Diaboli; nearly seven hundred years later, even the gentle and philosophic Anselm wrote: Femina fax est Satanæ.
Comenius was sure that due drill in this book would put a boy in effective possession of Latin for all purposes of reading, speaking, and writing. And, of course, by translation, the same manual would serve for any other language. Comenius rather smiled at the rush of all Europe upon his Janua Linguarum, or Method for Teaching Languages.
A formidable pile of MS. was passed up by the Clerk, whose deprecating glances were not lost upon the Chairman. But Mr. Max Fortnaby cut open the budget in the midst, and peered in. "janua vel domina penitus crudelior ipsa" he read. It was a footnote. He lifted his eyebrows then his eyes upon the accused. "Propertius? You know Latin?" "I know some, sir."
"Can you explain to me what benefit you proposed to yourself when you played for such stakes as that?" "I hoped to win back what I had lost." "Facilis descensus Averni!" said the Duke, shaking his head. "Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis." No doubt, he thought, that as his son was at Oxford, admonitions in Latin would serve him better than in his native tongue.
At length, from respect or fear, or perhaps from great love, he chose the foot, and kissed it hastily, like a maiden who dares not. Then immediately he took up his book, feeling his red cheeks redder still, and exercised with his pleasure, he cried like a blind man "Janua coeli,: gate of Heaven."
This was a so-called "Janua Linguarum Reserata," or "Gate of Languages Opened," propounding a method which he had devised, and had employed at Leszno, for rapidly teaching Latin, or any other tongue, and at the same time communicating the rudiments of useful knowledge. The little book, though he thought it a trifle, made him famous.
Nevertheless, there the book was, and the world now knew of Comenius not only as the author of the little Janua Linguarum, but also as contemplating a vast Janua Rerum, or organization of universal knowledge on a new basis. In fact, the fame of Comenius was increased by Hartlib's little indiscretion.
That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered as a god of gods and the father of his people, should have started in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper appears very unlikely. So lofty an end hardly consorts with so lowly a beginning. This view is strengthened by a consideration of the word janua itself.
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