Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/270

246 God commands Isaiah to go forth among his fellow-citizens in a most unbecoming state of attire, discoopertis natihus (Isaiah xx.).

God orders Jeremiah to put a yoke on his neck and a saddle on his back (ch. xxvii. according to the Hebrews).

He orders Ezekiel to have himself bound, to eat a parchment book, to lie for two hundred and ninety days on the right side and forty days on the left side, and then to eat filth with his bread.

He commands Hosea to take a prostitute and have three children by her; then he commands him to pay an adulterous woman and have children by her.

Add to all these prodigies an uninterrupted series of massacres, and you will see that among us all things are divine, because nothing is in accordance with what men call decent laws.

Unhappily, we were not well known to other nations until we were nearly annihilated. It was our enemies, the Christians, who made us known when they despoiled us. They built up their system with material taken from a bad Greek translation of our Bible. They insult and oppress us to this day; but our turn will come. It is well known how we will triumph at the end of the world, when there will be no one left on the earth.

When the Jew had finished, a Turk, who had