I shudder! But
First will you please explain if such a case
Be fact, or only an hypothesis?
That is to say, if you, of your own head,
Invent the case, or if indeed it happened,
And still continues happening?
TEMPLAR.
I had thought
That just to learn your reverence’s opinion
This were all one.
PATRIARCH.
All one—now see how apt
Proud human reason is in spiritual things
To err: ’tis not all one; for, if the point
In question be a mere sport of the wit,
’Twill not be worth our while to think it through
But I should recommend the curious person
To theatres, where oft, with loud applause,
Such pro and contras have been agitated.
But if the object should be something more
Than by a school-trick—by a sleight of logic
To get the better of me—if the case
Be really extant, if it should have happened
Within our diocese, or—or perhaps
Here in our dear Jerusalem itself,
Why then—
TEMPLAR.
What then?
PATRIARCH.
Then were it proper
To execute at once upon the Jew
The penal laws in such a case provided
By papal and imperial right, against
So foul a crime—such dire abomination.
TEMPLAR.