x, Jacobus Faber,
quem tu novisti, ante annos plus minus quadraginta, me manu apprehensum,
ita alloquebatur: 'Gulielme, oportet orbem mutari, et tu videbis'
dicebat." So in the "Epistre a tous Seigneurs et Peuples" (Ed. Fick),
170: "Souventefois me disoit que Dieu renouvelleroit le monde, et que je
le verroye." A few years later, at Strasbourg, the reformer reminded his
former master of his prediction: "Voicy par la grace de Dieu, le
commencement de ce qu'autrefois m'avez dit du renouvellement du monde,"
and Lefevre, then in exile, blessed God, and begged Him to perfect what
he had then seen begun at Strasbourg. Ibid., 171. These statements are
confirmed by a passage in the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, in
which, after deploring the corruption of the church, Lefevre observes:
"Yet the signs of the times announce that a renewal is near, and while
God is opening new ways for the preaching of the Gospel, by the
discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards in all parts
of the world, we must hope that He will visit His church and raise it
from the degradation into which it is fallen." Herminjard, i. 5.]

[Footnote 137: Scaevolae Sammarthani, Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum,
lib. i. (Jenae, 1696); Bayle, s. v. Fevre and Farel; Tabaraud, Biographie
univ., art. Lefevre; C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Leben und ausgew.
Schriften d. Vaeter d. ref. Kirche; C. Cheneviere, Farel, Froment, Viret
(Geneve, 1835).]

[Footnote 138: Gaillard, Histoire de Francois premier (Paris, 1769), vi.
397. It was the unpardonable offence of Lefevre in the eyes of his
critic that he, a simple master of arts, had dared to investigate
matters that fell to the province of doctors of theology alone. Letter
of H. C. Agrippa (1519), in Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs,
i. 51: "Tantum virum semel atque iterum ... vocarunt hominem stultum,
insanum fidei, Sacrarum Literarum indoctum et ignarum, et qui, _duntaxat
humanarum artium Magister, praesumptuose se ingerat iis quae spectant ad
Theologos_." As it clearly appears that Lefevre was not a doctor of the
Sorbonne, Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying: "Seit 1493 lebte er
als Doctor der Theologie zu Paris, u. s. w." The error is of long
standing.]

[Footnote 139: See Alphonse de Beauchamp's sketches of the lives of the
two Briconnets, in the Biographie universelle.]

[Footnote 140: According to a contemporary letter, this was the sole
cause of Lefevre's departure. "Faber Stap