Upon this he replied nothing, but said that he had not forbidden marriage, nor meats.
We said: “Your father, the Pope, has done it, and you exerted yourselves with Haman to obtain mandates to put us and our people to death, and contributed in giving the Emperor ten thousand pounds of silver?”
Priest. “I did not.”
Adrian. “Are you Christians? Christians ought not to persecute any one.”
Priest. “We do not persecute you.”
I then asked him, whether the Christian church persecuted, or suffered persecution.
Priest. “It suffers persecution.”
I asked him wherein he suffered persecution, whether we were not the ones that suffer persecution.
Priest. “We suffer persecution from the devil.”
We then demanded to know where it was written that we might be put to death for our faith. He replied that it was ordained on account of the evil sects. We said: “We belong to no sect.”