nce of the blood, and so great in science, after having displayed all
her miracles and all her wisdom, rejects all this, and declares that she
has neither wisdom nor signs, but only the cross and foolishness.

For those, who, by these signs and that wisdom, have deserved your
belief, and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that
nothing of all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing
and loving God, but the power of the foolishness of the cross without
wisdom and signs, and not the signs without this power. Thus our
religion is foolish in respect to the effective cause, and wise in
respect to the wisdom which prepares it.

587

Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned,
and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it
is not all this which makes us belong to it. This makes us indeed
condemn those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in
those who do belong to it. It is the cross that makes them believe, _ne
evacuata sit crux_. And so Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs,
says that he has come neither with wisdom nor with signs; for he came to
convert. But those who come only to convince, can say that they come
with wisdom and with signs.

SECTION IX

PERPETUITY

588

_On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion._--So
far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true
one, that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so.

589

Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true
Christians.

590

J. C.
Heathens __|__ Mahomet
\ /
Ignorance
of God.

591

_The falseness of other religions._--They have no witnesses. Jews have.
God defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah xliii, 9; xliv,
8.

592

_History of China._[213]-I believe only the histories, whose witnesses
got themselves killed.

[Which is the more credible of the two, Moses or China?]

It is not a question of seeing this summarily. I tell you there is in it
something to blind, and something to enlighten.

By this one word I destroy all your reasoning. "But China obscures," say
you; and I answer, "China obscures, but there is clearness to be found;
seek it."

Thus all that you say makes for one of the views, and not at all against
the other. So this serves, and does no harm.

We must then see this in detai