abode.I was astonished to find his feet swollen and bleeding, his hands likewise, his side pierced, and his ribs flayed with whip cuts." Good Heavens! " I said to him, " is it possible for a just man, a sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one who was treated in a very hateful way, but there is no comparison between his torture and yours.Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned him; is it by priests anhd judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated? "He answered with much courtesy--" Yes.""And who were these monsters? "" They were hypocrites.""Ah! that says everything; I understand by this single word that they must have condemned you to death.Had you then proved to them, as Socrates did, that the Moon was not a goddess, and that Mercury was not a god? "" No, these planets were not in question.My compatriots did not know at all what a planet is; they were all arrant ignoramuses.Their superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks.""You wanted to teach them a new religion, then? "" Not at all; I said to them simply--' Love God with all your heart and your fellow-creature as yourself, for that is man's whole duty.' Judge if this precept is not as old as the universe; judge if I brought them a new religion.I did not stop telling them that I had come not to destroy the law bitt to fulfil it; I had observed all their rites; circumcised as they all were, baptized as were the most zealous among them, like them I paid the Corban; I observed the Passover as they did, eating standing up a lahmb cooked with lettuces.I and my friends went to pray in the temple;my friends even frequented this temple after my death; in a word, I fulfilled all their laws without a single exception.""What! these wretches could not even reproach you with swerving from their laws? "" No, without a doubt.""Why then did they put you in the condition in which I now see you?"" What do you expect me to say! they were very arrogant and selfish.
They saw that I knew them; they knew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them; they were the stronger; they took away my life: and people like them will always do as much, if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.''" But did you say nothing, do nothing that could serve them as a pretext?"" To the wicked everything serves as pretext."" Did you not say once that you were come not to send peace, but a sword?"" It is a copyist's error; I told them that I sent peace and not a sword.I have never written anything; what I said can have been changed without evil intention."" You therefore contributed in no way by your speeches, badly reported, badly interpreted, to these frightful piles of bones which I saw on my road in coming to consult you? "" It is with horror only that I have seen those who have made themselves guilty oj these murders."" And these monuments of power and wealth, of pride and avarice, these treasures, these ornaments, these signs of grandeur, which I have seen piled up on the road while I was seeking wisdom, do they come from you?"" That is impossible; I and my people lived in poverty and meanness:
my grandeur was in virtue only."
I was about to beg him to be so good as to tell me just who he was.
My guide warned me to do nothing of the sort.h lie told me that I was not made to understand these sublime mysteries.Only did I conjure him to tell me in what true religion consisted." Have I not already told you? Love God and your fellow-creature as yourself."" What! if one loves God, one can eat meat on Friday? "" I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give anyone food."" In loving God, in being just, should one not be rather cautious not to confide all the adventures of one's life to an unknown man?"" That was always my practice."" Can I not, by doing good, dispense with making a pilgrimage to St.
James of Compostella? "" I have never been in that country."" Is it necessary for me to imprison myself in a retreat with fools?"" As for me, I always made little journeys from town to town.''" Is it necessary for me to take sides either for the Greek Church or the Latin? "" When I was in the world I never made any difference between the Jew and the Samaritan.""Well, if that is so, I take you for my only master." Then he made me a sign with his head which filled me with consolation.The vision disappeared, and a clear conscience stayed with me.
