"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?"