res in the clouds. Thus
you have made a spiritual Messiah of that which, in the spirit of our
prophets, is only a temporal king. You have made a redemption of the
human race out of the simple re-establishment of our nation. Your
conception of the Virgin is founded on a single phrase, of which you
have changed the meaning. Thus you make from our Scriptures whatever
your fancy dictates; you even find there your trinity; though there is
not a word that has the most distant allusion to such a thing; and it is
an invention of profane writers, admitted into your system with a host
of other opinions, of every religion and of every sect, during the
anarchy of the first three centuries of your era."

* When we read the Fathers of the church, and see upon what
arguments they have built the edifice of religion, we are
inexpressibly astonished with their credulity or their
knavery: but allegory was the rage of that period; the
Pagans employed it to explain the actions of their gods, and
the Christians acted in the same spirit when they employed
it after their fashion.

At these words, the Christian doctors, crying sacrilege and blasphemy,
sprang forward in a transport of fury to fall upon the Jew; and a troop
of monks, in motley dresses of black and white, advanced with a standard
on which were painted pincers, gridirons, lighted fagots, and the words
Justice, Charity, Mercy.* "It is necessary," said they, "to make an
example of these impious wretches, and burn them for the glory of God."
They began even to prepare the pile, when a Mussulman answered in a
strain of irony:

"This, then, is that religion of peace, that meek and beneficent system
which you so much extol! This is that evangelical charity which combats
infidelity with persuasive mildness, and repays injuries with patience!
Ye hypocrites! It is thus that you deceive mankind--thus that you
propagate your accursed errors! When you were weak, you preached
liberty, toleration, peace; when you are strong, you practise
persecution and violence--"

* This description answers exactly to the banner of the
Inquisition of Spanish Jacobins.

And he was going to begin the history of the wars and slaughters of
Christianity, when the legislator, demanding silence, suspended this
scene of discord.

The monks, affecting a tone of meekness and humility, exclaimed: "It is
not ourselves that we would avenge; it is the cause of God; it is