To the Reverend Father in Christ,
Oliver Manareus,
Visitor of the Society of Jesus in Belgium,
greetings.
Two friends at once, excellent Manareus, men who this year had deserved splendidly of our Society and of the commonwealth, have ceased to live among us: the distinguished Justus Lipsius and Carolus Billeus. Each was a Brabanter; each was worthy of everlasting remembrance: the former for the private wisdom which he cultivated by writing and teaching, the latter for his successful administration of public affairs.
With both of them, from my boyhood, a friendship had been formed by a steady likeness of character and studies; with Billeus there was also a tie by marriage. I confess that I was somewhat shaken by this double wound to our Belgium; but the hope of their good passage, conceived from their pious death, easily restored me.
And so I went on answering Scaliger’s Elenchus, which I had received at Antwerp in those days. Of it I may say, with Lysias, that the work is truly complete and finished, and extremely immodest: fit neither for Mercury nor for the virgin Muses, but, as Synesius says, for Cotytto and the other Attic Conisali.
Whatever answer there is, I send to you, to whom I owe very much, and who in former years have had experience of the Leiden slanders. Let the judgment of the whole matter be yours: whether I have fought this battle in good faith; whether I have maintained, on behalf of Saint Dionysius, writings most worthy of preservation in cedar; and whether I have kept off from our Society, from Maldonatus, and from myself those foul stains of a wanton pen.
Joseph was permitted to send his Elenchus to Drusus, his fellow initiate. Why should I, a man of the Society, not be permitted to send mine to Manareus, who has presided over the Society of Jesus once as Vicar General, and more often as Provincial and Visitor in various Provinces?
By your judgment let this Anti-Scaliger stand or fall.
Farewell, my Father.
Pinciae, on the Ides of June, 1606.
Yours in Christ,
Martin Delrio.