g their belief on the same books,
admitting, like them, a first man who lost the human race by eating an
apple, they hold them, however, in a holy abhorrence; and, out of pure
piety, they call each other impious blasphemers.

The great point of their dissension consists in this, that after
admitting a God one and indivisible the Christian divides him into three
persons, each of which he believes to be a complete and entire God,
without ceasing to constitute an identical whole, by the indivisibility
of the three. And he adds, that this being, who fills the universe,
has reduced himself to the body of a man; and has assumed material,
perishable, and limited organs, without ceasing to be immaterial,
infinite, and eternal. The Mussulman who does not comprehend these
mysteries, rejects them as follies, and the visions of a distempered
brain; though he conceives perfectly well the eternity of the Koran, and
the mission of the prophet: hence their implacable hatreds.

Again, the Christians, divided among themselves on many points, have
formed parties not less violent than the Mussulmans; and their quarrels
are so much the more obstinate, as the objects of them are inaccessible
to the senses and incapable of demonstration: their opinions, therefore,
have no other basis but the will and caprice of the parties. Thus,
while they agree that God is a being incomprehensible and unknown, they
dispute, nevertheless, about his essence, his mode of acting, and his
attributes. While they agree that his pretended transformation into man
is an enigma above the human understanding, they dispute on the junction
or distinction of his two wills and his two natures, on his change
of substance, on the real or fictitious presence, on the mode of
incarnation, etc.

Hence those innumerable sects, of which two or three hundred have
already perished, and three or four hundred others, which still subsist,
display those numberless banners which here distract your sight.

The first in order, surrounded by a group in varied and fantastic
dress, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black and speckled
garments--with heads shaved, or with tonsures, or with short hair--with
red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is the
standard of the Roman pontiff, who, uniting the civil government to
the priesthood, has erected the supremacy of his city into a point of
religion, and made of his pride an article of faith.

On his right you see