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Chap. xxiv. :  HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS BLAMED THE WORLD AND SAW MANY IDOLS
THEREIN

    Now at that time I had no precious possession save only a clear
conscience and a right pious mind, and that clad and surrounded with the
purest innocence and simplicity.  Of vice I knew no more than that I had
at times heard it spoken of or read of it, and if I saw any man commit
such sin then was it to me a fearful and a terrible thing, I being so
brought up and reared as to have the presence of God to His holy will: 
and inasmuch as I knew all this, I could not but compare men’s ways and
works with that same will:  and methought I saw naught but vileness. 
Lord God!  How did I wonder at the first when I considered the law and
the Gospel and the faithful warnings of Christ, and saw, on the contrary
part, the deeds of them that gave themselves out to be His disciples and
followers!  In place of the straight forward dealing which every true
Christian should have, I found mere hypocrisy; and besides, such
numberless follies among all dwellers in the world that I must needs
doubt whether I saw before me Christians or not.  For though I could see
well that many had a serious knowledge of God’s will:  yet could I mark
but little serious purpose to fulfil the same.  So had I a thousand
puzzles and strange thoughts in my mind, and fell into grievous
difficulty upon that saying of Christ, which saith, “Judge not, that ye
be not judged.”  Nevertheless there came into my mind the words of St.
Paul in the fifth chapter of Galatians1, where he saith:  “The works of
the fresh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness,” and so on: “of the which I tell you before
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”  Then I thought:  every man doeth
all these things openly:  Wherefore then should I not in this matter
conclude from the apostle’s word that there shall be few that are saved?

     Moreover, pride and greed with their worthy accompaniments, gorging
and swilling and loose living, were a daily occupation for them of
substance: yet what did seem to me most terrible of all was this shameful
thing, that some, and specially soldiers, in whose case vice is not wont
to be severely punished, should make of both these things, their own
godlessness and God’s holy will, a mere jest.  For example, I heard once
an adulterer which after his deed of shame accomplished would treat
thereof, and spake these godless words:  “It serves the cowardly cuckold
aright,” says he, “to get a pair of horns from me:  and if I confess the
truth, I did the thing more to vex the husband than to please the wife,
and so to be revenged on them.”

     “O pitiful revenge!” says one honest heart that stood by, “by which
a man staineth his own conscience and gaineth the shameful name of
adulterer and fornicator!”

     “What!  Fornicator!” answered he, with a scornful laughter, “I am no
fornicator because I have given this marriage a twist:  a fornicator is
he that the sixth commandment* speaks of, where it forbids that any man
get into another’s garden and nick the fruit before the owner.”  How to
prove that this was so to be understood, he forthwith explained according
to his devil’s catechism the seventh commandment, wherein it is said,
“Thou shalt not steal.”  And of suck words he used many, so that I sighed
within myself and though, “O God-blaspheming sinner, though callest
thyself a marriage-twister:  and so then God must be a marriage-breaker,
seeing that He doth separate man and wife by death.”  And out of mine
overflowing zeal and anger I said to him, officer though he was,
“Thinkest thou not, thou sinnest more with these godless words than by
thine act of adultery.”  So he answered me, “Thou rascal, must I give
thee a buffet or two?” Yea, kand I believe I had received a handsome
couple of such if the fellow had not stood in fear of my lord.  So I held
my peace and thereafter I marked it was no rare case for single fold to
cast eyes upon wedded folk and wedded fold upon such as were unwedded.

     Now while I was yet studying, under my good hermit’s care, the way
to eternal life, I much wondered why God had so straitly forbidden
idolatry to his people:  for I imagined, if any one had ever known the
true and eternal God, he would never again honour and pray to any other,
and so in my stupid mind I resolved that this commandment was unnecessary
and vain.  But ah!  Fool as I was, I knew not what I thought I knew:  for
no sooner was I come into the great world, than I marked how (in spite of
this commandment) wellnigh every man had his special idol:  yet some had
more than the old and new heathen themselves.  Some had their god in
their money-bags, upon which they put all their trust and confidence: 
many a one had his idol at court and trusted wholly and entirely on him: 
which idol was but a minion and often even such a pitiable lickspittle as
his worshipper himself; for his airy godhead depended only on the April
weather of a prince’s smile:  others found their idol in popularity, and
fancied, if they could but attain to that they would themselves be
demi-gods.  Yet others had their gods in their head, namely, those to
whom the true God had granted a sound brain, so that whom the true God
had granted a sound brain, so that they were able to learn certain arts
and sciences:  for these forgot the great Giver and looked only to the
gift, in the hope that gift would procure them all prosperity.  Yea, and
there were many whose god was but their own belly, to which they daily
offered sacrifice, as once the heathen did to Bacchus2 and Ceres3, and
when that god shewed himself unkind or when human failings shewed
themselves in him, these miserable folk then made a god of their
physician, and sought for their life’s prolongation in the apothecary’s
shop, wherefrom they were more often sped on their way to death.  And
many fools made goddesses for themselves out of flattering harlots: 
these they called all manner of outlandish names, worshipped them day and
night with many thousand sighs, and made songs upon them which contained
naught but praise of them, together with a humble prayer they would have
mercy upon their folly and become as great fools as were their suitors.

     Contrariwise were there women which had made their own beauty their
idol.  For this, they thought, will give me my livelihood, let God in
heaven say what He will.  And this idol was every day, in place of other
offerings, adorned and sustained with paint, ointments, waters, powders,
and the like daubs.

     There too I saw some which held houses luckily situated as their
gods:  for they said, so long as they had lived therein had they ever had
health and wealth:  and many said these had tumbled in through their
windows.  At this folly I did more especially wonder because I would well
perceive the reason why the inhabitants so prospered.  I knew one man who
for some years could never sleep by reason of this trade in tobacco; for
to this he had given up his heart, mind and soul, which should be
dedicated to God alone:  and to this idol he sent up night and day a
thousand sighs for ‘twas by that he made his way in life.  Yet what did
happen?  The fool died and vanished like his own tobacco-smoke.  Then
thought I, O thou miserable man:  Had but thy soul’s happiness and the
honour of the true God been so dear to thee as thine idol, which stands
upon thy shop-sign in the shape of a Brazilian, with a roll of tobacco
under his arm and a pipe in his mouth, then am I sure and certain that
thou hadst won a noble crown of honour to wear in the next world.

     Another ass had yet more pitiful idols:  for when in a great company
it was being told by each how he had been fed and sustained during the
great famine and scarcity of food, this fellow said in plain German:  the
snails and frogs had been his gods:  for want of them he must have died
of hunger.  So I asked him what then had God Himself been to him, who had
provided such insects for his sustenance.  The poor creature could answer
nothing and I wondered the more more because I had never read that either
the old idolatrous Egyptians or the new American savages ever called such
vermin their gods, as did this prater.

     I once went with a person of quality into his museum, wherein were
fine curiosities:  but among all none pleased me better than an “Ecce
Homo”4 by reason of its moving portraiture, by which it stirred the
spectator at once to sympathy.  By it there hung a paper picture painted
in China, whereon were Chinese idols sitting in their majesty, and some
in shape like devils.  So the master of the house asked me which piece in
this gallery pleased me most.  And when I pointed to the said “Ecce Homo”
he said I was wrong:  for the Chinese picture was rarer and therefore of
more value:  he woud not lose it for a dozen such “Ecce Homos.”  So said
I, “Sir, is your heart like to your speech?”  “Surely,” said he.  “why
then,” said I, “your heart’s god is that one whose picture you do confess
with your mouth to be of most value.”  “Fool,” says he, “’tis the rarity
I esteem.”  Whereto I replied, “Yet what can be rarer and more worthy of
wonder than that God’s Son Himself suffered in the way which this picture
doth declare?”

Chap. xxv.:  HOW SIMPICISSIMUS FOUND THE WOLRD ALL STRANGE AND THE WORLD
FOUND HIM STRANGE LIKEWISE

    Even as much as these and yet a greater number of idols were
worshipped, so much on the contrary was the majesty of the true God
despised: for as I never saw any desirous to keep His word and command,
so I saw contrariwise many that resisted him in all things and excelled
even the publicans5 in wickedness: which publicans were in the days when
Christ walked upon sinners.  And so saith Christ: “Love your enemies;
bless them that curse you.  If ye do good only to your brethren, what do
ye that the publicans do not?”  But I found not only no one that would
follow this command of Christ, but every man did the clean opposite. 
“The more a man hath kindred the more a man is hindered” was the word:
and nowhere did I find more envy, hatred, malice, quarrel, and dispute
than between brothers, sisters, and other born friends, specially if an
inheritance fell to them.  Moreover, the handicraftsmen of every place
hated one another, so that I could plainly see, and must conclude, that
in comparison the open sinners, publicans and tax-gatherers, which by
reason of their evil deeds were hated by many, were far better than we
Christians nowadays in exercise of brotherly love: seeing that Christ
bears testimony to them that at least they did love one another.  Then
thought I, if we have no reward because we love our enemies, how great
must our punishment be if we hate our friends!  And where there should be
the greatest love and good faith, there I found the worst treachery and
the strongest hatred.  For many a lord would fleece his true servants and
subjects, and some retainers would play the rogue against the best of
lords.  So too between married folk I marked continual strife: many a
tyrant treated his wedded wife worse than his dog, and many a loose
baggage held her good husband but for a fool and an ass.  So too, many
currish lords and masters cheated their industrious servants of their due
pay and pinched them both in food and drink: and contrariwise I saw many
faithless servitors which by theft or neglect brought their kind masters
of ruin.  Tradesfolk and craftsmen did vie with each other in Jewish
roguery: exacted usury: sucked the sweat of the poor peasant’s brow by
all manner of chicanery and over-reaching.  On the other hand, there were
peasants so godless that if they were not thoroughly well and cruelly
fleeced, they would sneer at other folks or even their lords themselves
for their simplicity.

    Once did I see a soldier give another a sore buffet; and I conceived
he that was smitten would turn the other cheek (for as yet I had been in
no quarrel), but there was I wrong, for the insulted one drew on him, and
dealt the offender a crack of the crown.  So I cried at the top of my
voice, “Ah! friend, what doest thou?”  “a coward must he be,” says he,
“that would not avenge himself: devil take me but I will, or I care not
to live.  What!  He must be a knave that would let himself be so fobbed
off.”  And between these two antagonists the quarrel waxed greater, for
their backers on both sides, together with the bystanders, and any man
moreover that came by chance to the spot, were presently by the ears: 
and there I heard men swear by God and their own souls, so lightly, that
I could not believe they held those souls for their dearest treasure. 
But all this was but child’s play:  for they stayed not at such
children’s curses but presently ‘twas so:  “Thunder, lightning, hail: 
strike me, tear me, devil take me,” and the like, and not one thunder or
lightning but a hundred thousand, “and snatch me away into the air.” 
Yea, and the blessed sacraments for them must have been not seven but a
hundred thousand, and there with so many “bloodies,” “dames,” and
“cursemes” that my poor hair stood on end thereat.  Then thought I of
Christ’s command wherein He saith, “Swear not, let your speech be yea
yea; and nay nay; for whatsoever is more evil.”

    Now all this that I saw and heard I pondered in my heart: and at the
last I firmly concluded, these bullies were no Christians at all, and
therefore I sought for other company.  And worst of all it did terrify me
when I heard some such swaggerers boast of their wickedness, sin, shame,
and vice.  For again and again I heard them so do, yea, day by day’ and
thus they would say: “’S blood, man, but we were foxed yesterday: three
times in the day was I blind drunk and three times did vomit all.”  “My
stars,” says another, “how did we torment the rascal peasants!”  And
“Hundred thousand devils!” says a third, “what sport did we have with the
women and maids!”  And so on.  “I cut him down as if lightning had struck
him.”  “I shot him--shot him so that he shewed the whites of his eyes!” 
Or again:  “I rode him down so cleverly, the devil only could fetch him
off,” “I put such a stone in his way that he must needs break his neck
thereover.”

    Such and such-like heathen talk filled my ears every day: and more
than that, I did hear and see sins done in God’s name, which are much to
be grieved for.  Such wickedness was specially practiced by the soldiers,
when they would say, “Now in God’s name let us forth on a foray,” viz.,
to plunder, kidnap, shoot down, cut down, assault, capture and burn, and
all the rest of their horrible works and practices.  Just as the usurers
ever invoke God with their hypocritical “In God’s name”: and therewithal
let their devilish avarice loose to flay and to strip hones folk.  Once
did I see two rogues hanged, that would break into a house by night to
steal, and even as they had placed their ladder one would mount it
saying, “In God’s name, there comes the householder”: “and in the devils
name” he says also, and therewithal threw him down: where he broke a leg
and so was captured, and a few days after strung up together with his
comrade.  But I, if I saw the like, must speak out, and out would I come
with some passage of Holy Writ, or in other ways would warn the sinner:
and all men therefore held me a fool.  Yea, I was often laughed out of
countenance in return for my good intent that at length I took a disgust
at it, and preferred altogether to keep silence, which yet for Christian
love I could not keep.  I would that all men had been reared with my
hermit, believing that then many would look on the world’s ways with
Simplicissimus’ eyes as I then beheld them.  I had not the wit to see
that if there were only Simplicissimuses in the world then there were not
so many vices to behold: meanwhile ‘tis certain that a man of the world,
as being accustomed to all vices and himself partaker thereof, cannot in
the least understand on what a thorny path he and his likes do walk.

Chap. xxvi.:  A NEW AND STRANGE WAY FOR MEN TO WISH ONE ANOTHER LUCK AND
TO WELCOME ONE ANOTHER

    Having now, as I deemed, reason to doubt whether I were among
Christians or not, I went to the pastor and told him all that I had heard
and seen, and what my thoughts were: namely, that I held these people for
mockers of Christ and His word, and no Christians at all, with the
request he would in any case help me out of my dream, that I might know
what I should count my fellow men to be.  The pastor answered:  “Of a
surety they be Christians, nor would I counsel thee to call them
otherwise.”  “O God,” said I, “how can that be? for if I point out to one
or the other his sin that he committeth against God, then am I but mocked
and laughed at.”  “Marvel not at that,” answered the pastor; “I believe
if our first pious Christians, which lived in the time of Christ—yea, if
the Apostles themselves should now rise from the grave and come into the
world, that they would put the like question, and in the end, like thee,
would be accounted of many to be fools: yet that thou hast thus far seen
and heard is but an ordinary thing and mere child’s play compared with
that which elsewhere, secretly and openly, with violence against God and
man, doth happen and is wilt find few Christians such as was the late
Master Samuel+.”

     Now even as we spake together, some of the opposite party which had
been taken prisoner were led across the market-place, and this broke up
our discourse, for we too must go to look on the captives.  Here then I
was ware of a folly whereof I could never have dreamed, and that was a
new fashion of greeting and welcoming one another:  for one of our
garrison, who also had before-time served the emperor, knew one of the
prisoners: so he goes up to him, gives him his hand, and pressed his for
sheer joy and heartiness, and says he: “Devil take thee! art still alive,
brother?  ‘S blood, ‘tis surely the devil that brings us together here! 
Strike me blind, but I believed thou wert long since hanged.”  Then
answered the other: “Curse me, but is it thee or not?  Devil take thee,
how camest thou here?  I never thought in all my born days I should meet
thee again, but thought the devil had fetched the long ago.”  And when
they parted, one says to the other (in place of “God be wi’ you”). 
“Gallows’ luck!  Gallows’ luck!  To-morrow will we meet again, and be
nobly drunk together.”

     “Is not this a fine pious welcome?” said I to the pastor; “be not
these noble Christian wishes?  Have not these men a godly intent for the
coming day?  Who could know them for Christians of hearken to them
without amazement?  If the so talk with one another for Christian love,
how will it fare if they do quarrel?  Sir Pastor, if these be Christ’s
flock, and thou their appointed shepherd, I counsel thee to lead them in
better pastures.”  “Yea,” answered the pastor, “dear child, ‘tis ever so
with these godless soldiers.  God help us!  If I said a word, I might as
well preach to the deaf; and should gain naught from it but the perilous
hatred of these good fellows.”

     At that I wondered, but talked yet awhile with the pastor, and went
then to wait upon the Governor; for at times had I leave to view the town
and to visit the pastor, for my lord had wind of my simplicity, and
thought such would cease if I went about seeing this and hearing that and
being taught by others or, as folks say, being broken to harness.

Edited by Brendan Gaffney

1 The Galatians is a one of the letters in The Bible from the apostle
Paul to the churches he had established in the province of Galatia.  He
wrote the letter out of his fear that Galatian churches were in danger of
fading away from the truth of Christ, by embracing a different gospel. 
The preachers of this different gospel doubted the legitimacy of Paul’s
apostleship and the authority of his teaching.  He wrote the letter in
his initial distress at hearing this news.  The Interpreter’s Dictionary
of The Bible. Ed. George Arthur Buttrick. Nashville, Tennessee, 1962.
* The commandments are here numbered according to the Roman arrangement,
but the meaning is obscure (Grimmelshausen’s note).
2 From Greco-Roman mythology, Bacchus, also known as Liber(a), is a name
for the God of wine, Dionysos.  The name is typically considered to be
Roman in origin, but it was actually first used by the ancient Greeks,
then later absorbed  into the Roman panthenon.  Male worshippers of
Bacchus were known as Bacchoi, while female worshippers were known as
Bacchae.  Simplicissimus referred to Bacchus to display how heathen folk
used to make a God for everything.  Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman
Mythology.  By Mike Dixon-Kennedy.  Santa Barbara, California, 1998. 
p.63.
3 From Roman mythology, Ceres was the patron goddess of growing
vegetation and agriculture.  Her Greek counterpart was Demeter, who was
one of the 12 Olympians, and was revered as an earth goddess.  She was
specifically worshipped as goddess of nutrition, agriculture, and crops,
especially corn, as well as the goddess of human health and fertility. 
Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology.  By Mike Dixon-Kennedy. (Santa
Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. 1998.)  p. 83 and p. 108.
4 In art, Ecce Homo is a name given to pictures representing the
suffering of Jesus as described in John 19:15.  The depictions of Christ
take two forms.  The first form is the devotional picture, which shows
the single head, or half-figure of Christ.  The second form is the
historical picture where he is attended by Pontius Pilate and placed in
front of the viewer, or the picture gives the entire scene in numerous
figures.  Cyclopaedia Of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical
Literature.  By the Rev. John  M’Clintock, D.D., James Strong S.T.D. 
(New York:  Harper & Brothers, Publishers.  1891.)  p. 26.
5 Publicans were tax or tribute collectors.  In the Habsburg Empire,
during the Thirty Years War, the majority of the tax burden rested on the
backs of free towns and the unfree peasantry, which explains why there
was such a strong disliking for tax collectors.  This makes the publicans
a good comparison for people who Simplicissimus sees as despicable. 
Webster’s New World Collection Dictionary.  Eds. Victoria Neufeldt and
David B. Guralnik. (New York:  Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1996.)  p. 1087. 
and The Habsburg Monarchy 1618-1815.  By Charles W. Ingrao.  (Cambridge,
UK:  Cambridge University Press. 1994, 2000.)  p. 26.
+ The hermit (Grimmelshausen’s note).
 
 
 
 
