omprehending 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.

15. "Ye pretend that man must adore the sun, and the Genii of Good and
Evil. But I say unto you that your doctrine is pernicious. The sun does
not act spontaneously, but by the will of the invisible Creator, who has
given to it being."

16. "Who, then, has caused that this star lights the day, warms man at
his work and vivifies the seeds sown in the ground?"

17. "The eternal Spirit is the soul of everything animate, and you
commit a great sin in dividing Him into the Spirit of Evil and the
Spirit of Good, for there is no God other than the God of Good.

18. "And He, like to the father of a family, does only good to His
children, to whom He forgives their transgressions if they repent of
them.

19. "And the Spirit of Evil dwells upon earth, in the hearts of those
who turn the children of God away from the right path.

20. "Therefore, I say unto you; Fear the day of judgment, for God will
inflict a terrible chastisement upon all those who have led His
children astray and beguiled them with superstitions and errors;

21. "Upon those who have blinded them who saw; who have brought
contagion to the well; who have taught the worship of those things which
God made to be subject to man, or to aid him in his works.

22. "Your doctrine is the fruit of your error in seeking to bring near
to you the God of Truth,