Note C from Bayle's Dictionary Entry on Johannes Sturmius [Link]:
He ran in debt, and grew poor for them.] Read these words of Melchior
Adam. 'Cum domus illius optimo cuique dies ac noctes pateret, effetque velut
commune quoddam exulum asylum, peregrinorum ac pauperum hospitium, quos omnes
fovendo, alendo, foris domique juvando, sacultates haud exiguas absumflt : maxime
Gallorum Evangelicorum sa lutem tuendo, in quam omnes fuas divitias impendit, ipseque
cum suis egere maluit, quam commune causam deserere: animo laudabili &
perpetuagratitudine digno[1].’
[‘His house was open day and night to every honest man, being as it were
a common sanctuary for banished people, and a place of entertainment for the
poor and strangers. He laid out very considerable sums of money in supporting,
cherishing, and assisting those at home and abroad; particularly in providing
for the welfare of the French Protestants; for upon this he spent his whole
estate, chusing rather ' to be in want with his family than to desert the common cause: of such a
commendable disposition was he, and so worthy of a perpetual gratitude.’]
Sturmius being called vespertilio, a bat, by Osiander, answered,
that perhaps it was an allusion to the vespertilio in the proverb, to
signify that he was very much in debt[2].
He does not deny that he was, but he maintains that he never absconded to cheat
his creditors, and that his debts, contracted upon a glorious account, were
prejudicial to no body[3];
that he was the only sufferer, and that for above sixteen years[4]
that he groaned under that yoke, and exhausted himself, by paying large
interests, and contracting new debts to pay the old ones, not one creditor be
produced who had lost one farthing by him.
‘Heus
bone vir: quando ego unquam fraudationis causa latitavi? vel potius, ego unquam causa latitavi? vel creditorem nomina, vel indicem produc: qui
me fraudationis causa latitasse dicat, & quando latitarim: & quo tempore;
& propter quem creditorem. Creditorem unum nomina: qui annos jam sedecim
uno nummo in hoc aere alieno fraudatum se a me vere possit dicere. Sedecim enim
annos & eo amplius in hac miseria versor; unum creditorem produc, qui unius
teruncii, mea causa, & meo nomine jacturam fecisse jure conqueratur,
tametsi gravissimis usuris & versuris, tot jam annos exhauriar[5].
[‘Listen my good man: when
have I ever hidden to defraud my creditors?
Or more, when have I ever hidden for any reason? or been cited by my
creditors, or brought forth a legal action: say from who I have fraudulently
hidden, & when I hid: & at what time; & from which creditor. Name a single creditor: who can truly say that
during these 16 years I have defrauded them of a single penny. For 16 years & plunged in one misery after
another; bring forth a single creditor, a single farthing, for my own sake justly complaining of me by name for the
loss of that I have contracted, although usurious interest rates & constantly
rolling over the loans have already drained me for many years.’]
Afterwards he declares that he has run in debt to maintain his Protestant
brethren. Cur non istud potius cogitavit innocentia & caritas &
simplicitas tua? Hic homo horum hominum Ecclesias defendit, propter quas est
aere alieno oppressus, & propter quas omne aes suum, jam alienum est; &
qui propter aes alienum in extremam egestatem dijectus est[6].’
[‘How is it are you not able to reflect with innocence & charity? With
integrity? The church, for the sake of
whom one is placed in debt & for the sake of which one’s coffers are bare, &
for which one is cast down in extreme poverty as a result of debt, defend us
from such men as you.’]
[3] Propter aes alienum nemini noxium vexor…. ob aes alienum
honestissima de causa conflatum. Id. ibid.
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