5. "Who, then, art thou, who darest to utter blasphemies against our God and sow doubt in the hearts of believers?"
6. And Issa said to them: "I preach no new God, but our celestial Father, who has existed before the beginning and will exist until after the end.
7. "Of Him I have spoken to the people, who—even as innocent children—are incapable of comprehending God by their own intelligence, or fathoming the sublimity of the divine Spirit;
8. "But, as the newborn child in the night recognizes the mother's breast, so your people, held in the darkness of error by your pernicious doctrines and religious ceremonies, have recognized instinctively their Father, in the Father whose prophet I am.
9. "The eternal Being says to your people, by my mouth, 'Ye shall not adore the sun, for it is but a part of the universe which I have created for man;
10. "It rises to warm you during your work; it sets to accord to you the rest that I have ordained.
11. "To me only ye owe all that ye possess, all that surrounds you and that is above and below you.'"
12. "But," said the priests, "how could the people live according to your rules if they had no teachers?"
13. Whereupon Issa answered: "So long as they had no priests, they were governed by the natural law and conserved the simplicity of their souls;
14. "Their souls were in God and to commune with the Father they had not to have recourse to the intermediation of idols, or animals, or fire, as taught by you.