How Many A Poor Jew Or Moor In Spain And Portugal Has Been Burned Alive For
No Other Reason Than
Pour n'avoir point quitte la foi de leurs ancetres.
No, no; no sect or religion was ever so persecuting as the Catholic
Christians! The Polytheists of all times, both ancient and modern, were
tolerant to all religions and so far from striving to make proselytes,
often adopted the ceremonies of other worships in addition to their own;
witness the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans of old, and the Hindoos and
Chinese of the present day. The Jews, ferocious and prejudiced as they
were, never persecuted other nations on the ground of religion, and if they
held these nations in abhorrence as idolaters, and considered themselves
alone as the holy people, the people of God (Yahoudi), they never dreamed
of making converts. The Mussulmans tho' they hold it as a sacred precept of
their religion to endeavour to make converts to Islam, do not use violent
means and only compel those of a different faith to pay a higher tribute.
At any rate, they never have or do put people to death merely for the
difference of religious opinions. Such were the reflections I made on
walking about the Arena of this colossal edifice so worthy of the popolo
Re.
On leaving the Coliseum the first thing that meets the eye is the Arch of
Constantine, under which the Roman triumphal and ovationary processions
moved towards the Capitol. The Arch of Constantine stands just outside the
Coliseum. It is of immense size and extremely well preserved. The ground on
which it stands being much filled up and only half of the Arch appearing,
the rest remaining buried in the earth, it was judged adviseable to
excavate all around it in order to come to the pedestal; so that now there
is a walled enclosure all around it and into this enclosure it is a descent
of at least eighteen feet from the ground outside. Several statues of
captive Kings and bas-reliefs representing the victories of Constantine
adorn the facade of this triumphal arch. The inscriptions are perfect, and
the letters were formerly filled up with bronze; but these have been taken
out at the repeated sackings that poor Rome has undergone from friend and
foe. At a short distance from the Arch of Constantine is the Arch of Titus,
under which we moved along on our road towards the Capitol and my friend
the Jew was too much of a cosmopolite to feel the smallest repugnance at
walking under the Arch. Our conversation then turned on the absurd hatred
and prejudice that existed between Christians and Jews; he was very liberal
on this subject and in speaking of Jesus Christ he said: "Jesus Christ was
a Jew and a real philosopher and was therefore persecuted, for his
philosophy interfered too much with, and tended to shake the political
fabric of the Jewish constitution and to subvert our old customs and
usages:
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