William calls
Jorge the Devil, telling him that his zeal for truth has made him monstrous, since, in his view, the Devil is “faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt.” For Jorge, William argues, speaking the truth merely means parroting words written long ago. Jorge retorts that it’s William who is the Devil, because he comes from an order—the Franciscans—with a lax attitude about morality and a too-close relationship with peasants and the poor. Aristotle’s
Poetics would teach that the voice of the “simple” is a vehicle of wisdom, when in reality “the simple must be kept from speaking,” Jorge asserts. William counters that God created everything, even lies and monsters, and “He wants everything to be spoken of.” But then why, Jorge asks, did God preserve only a single copy of this book, which he allowed to fall into the hands of someone who didn’t speak Greek, and which now lies abandoned in the secrecy of an ancient monastic library? For Jorge, this is proof that the will of God was at work: God does not want this book to be read.