And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books [there is] no end; and much study [is] a weariness of the flesh.
Ver. 12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished.] By these divine directions and documents, contained in this short book, wherein thou shalt find fulness of matter in fewness of words Or "by these," that is, by the Holy Scriptures, which, according to some interpreters, are called in the former verse "lords of collections," because they are as lords paramount above all other words and writings of men that ever were collected into volumes. Odi ego meos libros, saith Luther, a I do even hate the books set forth by myself, and could wish them utterly abolished, because I fear that by reading them some are hindered from spending their time in reading the sacred Scriptures. Of these it is that the Psalmist saith, "Moreover by them is thy servant warned" - or clearly admonished, as the word signifies - "and in doing thereof there is great reward." Psa 19:11
Of making many books there is no end.] Ambition and covetousness sets many authors awork in this scribbling age, Scribimus indocti doctique, &c. Presses are greatly oppressed, and "every fool will be meddling," that he may be a fool in print. Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen a scribendo temperare non possunt: Many are sick of my very disease, saith Erasmus; that though they can do nothing worthy of the public, yet they must be publishing; hence the world so abounds with books, even to satiety and surfeit, many of them being no better than the scurf of scald and scabby heads.
And much study is a weariness to the flesh.] Jerome renders it Labor carnis, a work of the flesh. They will find it so one day to their sorrow, that are better read in Sir Philip than in St Peter, in Monsieur Balsac's Letters than St Paul's Epistles. The Holy Bible is to be chiefly studied, and herein we are to labour even to being exhausted; to read till, being overcome with sleep, we bow down as it were to salute the leaves with a kiss, as Jerome exhorted some good women of his time. b All other books, in comparison of this, we are to account as waste paper, and not to read them further than they some way conduce to the better understanding or practising of the things herein contained and commended unto our care.
a Luth. in Gen.
b Jerome ad Eust.