"No; those planets were quite out of the question. My countrymen did not even know what a planet was; they were all arrant ignoramuses. Their superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks." "Then you wished to teach them a new religion?" "Not at all; I simply said to them--'Love God with all your hearts, and your neighbor as yourselves; for that is all.' Judge whether this precept is not as old as the universe; judge whether I brought them a new worship. I constantly told them that I was come, not to abolish their law, but to fulfil it; I had observed all their rites; I was circumcised as they all were; I was baptized like the most zealous of them; like them I paid the corban; like them I kept the Passover; and ate, standing, lamb cooked with lettuce. I and my friends went to pray in their temple; my friends, too, frequented the temple after my death. In short, I fulfilled all their laws without one exception." "What! could not these wretches even reproach you with having departed from their laws?" "Certainly not." "Why, then, did they put you in the state in which I now see you?" "Must I tell you?--They were proud and selfish; they saw that I knew them; they saw that I was making them known to the citizens; they were the strongest; they took away my life; and such as they will always do the same, if they can, to whoever shall have done them too much justice." "But did you say nothing; did you do nothing, that could serve them as a pretext?" "The wicked find a pretext in everything." "Did you not once tell them that you were come to bring, not peace, but the sword?" "This was an error of some scribe. I told them that I brought, not the sword, but peace. I never wrote anything; what I said might be miscopied without any ill intent." "You did not then contribute in anything, by your discourses, either badly rendered or badly interpreted, to those frightful masses of bones which I passed on my way to consult you?" "I looked with horror on those who were guilty of all these murders." "And those monuments of power and wealth--of pride and avarice--those treasures, those ornaments, those ensigns of greatness, which, when seeking wisdom, I saw accumulated on the way--do they proceed from you?" "It is impossible; I and mine lived in poverty and lowliness; my greatness was only in virtue." I was on the point of begging of him to have the goodness just to tell me who he was; but my guide warned me to refrain. He told me that I was not formed for comprehending these sublime mysteries. I conjured him to tell me only in what true religion consisted. "Have I not told you already?--Love God and your neighbor as yourself." "What! Can we love God and yet eat meat on a Friday?" "I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give a dinner to any one." "Might we love God and be just, and still be prudent enough not to intrust all the adventures of one's life to a person one does not know?" "Such was always my custom."