What Are The Points Of My Religion Which Do Not Meet
Your Approbation?
You are of course well acquainted with all our
dogmas and ceremonies." "We know nothing about your religion,
Signior
Donatio, save that it is a very absurd one, and therefore
it is incumbent upon you, as an unprejudiced and well-informed man,
to renounce it." "But, gentlemen, if you know nothing of my
religion, why call it absurd? Surely it is not the part of
unprejudiced people to disparage that of which they are ignorant."
"But, Signior Donatio, it is not the Catholic Apostolic Roman
religion, is it?" "It may be, gentlemen, for what you appear to
know of it; for your information, however, I will tell you that it
is not; it is the Greek Apostolic religion. I do not call it
catholic, for it is absurd to call that catholic which is not
universally acknowledged." "But, Signior Donatio, does not the
matter speak for itself? What can a set of ignorant Greek
barbarians know about religion? If they set aside the authority of
Rome, whence should they derive any rational ideas of religion?
whence should they get the gospel?" "The Gospel, gentlemen? Allow
me to show you a book, here it is, what is your opinion of it?"
"Signior Donatio, what does this mean? What characters of the
devil are these, are they Moorish? Who is able to understand
them?" "I suppose your worships, being Roman priests, know
something of Latin; if you inspect the title-page to the bottom,
you will find, in the language of your own church, the Gospel of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' in the original Greek, of which
your vulgate is merely a translation, and not a very correct one.
With respect to the barbarism of Greece, it appears that you are
not aware that Athens was a city, and a famed one, centuries before
the first mud cabin of Rome was thatched, and the Gypsy vagabonds
who first peopled it, had escaped from the hands of justice."
"Signior Donatio, you are an ignorant heretic, and insolent withal,
WHAT NONSENSE IS THIS!
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