If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
Ver. 11. Is it a great thing, &c.] Do not we give you gold for brass? Cast we not pearls before you? Alexander the Great gave Aristotle for his book de Natura Animalium, 800 talents, which is 800,000 crowns at least. Theodorus Gaza translated that book into Latin, and dedicated it to Pope Sixtus. The Pope asked him how much the rich outside of the book stood him in; Gaza answered, forty crowns. Those forty crowns he commanded to be repaid him, and so sent him away without any reward for so precious a piece of work. Interrogavit asinus papa quanti ornatus constaret? (John Manl. loc. com.) How well might the poor old Grecian sit and sing,
" Heu male nune artes miseras haec saecula tractant,
Spes nulla ulterior. " (Juven. Satir. 7.)