es in sects and
tongues; because when a new sect, that is to say a new religion, comes
up, its first endeavour, in order to give itself reputation, is to
efface the old; and should it so happen that the founders of the new
religion speak another tongue, this may readily be effected. This we
know from observing the methods which Christianity has followed in
dealing with the religion of the Gentiles, for we find that it has
abolished all the rites and ordinances of that worship, and obliterated
every trace of the ancient belief. True, it has not succeeded in utterly
blotting out our knowledge of things done by the famous men who held
that belief; and this because the propagators of the new faith,
retaining the Latin tongue, were constrained to use it in writing the
new law; for could they have written this in a new tongue, we may infer,
having regard to their other persecutions, that no record whatever would
have survived to us of past events. For any one who reads of the methods
followed by Saint Gregory and the other heads of the Christian religion,
will perceive with what animosity they pursued all ancient memorials;
burning the works of poets and historians; breaking images; and
destroying whatsoever else afforded any trace of antiquity. So that if
to this persecution a new language had been joined, it must soon have
been found that everything was forgotten.

We may believe, therefore, that what Christianity has sought to effect
against the sect of the Gentiles, was actually effected by that sect
against the religion which preceded theirs; and that, from the repeated
changes of belief which have taken place in the course of five or
six thousand years, the memory of what happened at a remote date has
perished, or, if any trace of it remain, has come to be regarded as a
fable to which no credit is due; like the Chronicle of Diodorus Siculus,
which, professing to give an account of the events of forty or fifty
thousand years, is held, and I believe justly, a lying tale.

As for the causes of oblivion which we may refer to Heaven, they are
those which make havoc of the human race, and reduce the population
of certain parts of the world to a very small number. This happens by
plague, famine, or flood, of which three the last is the most hurtful,
as well because it is the most universal, as because those saved are
generally rude and ignorant mountaineers, who possessing no knowledge of
antiquity themselves, can impart none