Thus all that you say makes for one of the views, and not at all against the other. So this serves, and does no harm.
We must then see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table.
594
Against the history of China. The historians of Mexico, the five suns, of which the last is only eight hundred years old.
The difference between a book accepted by a nation, and one which makes a nation.
595
Mahomet was without authority. His reasons then should have been very strong, having only their own force. What does he say then, that we must believe him?
596
The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.
Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ desires His own testimony to be as nothing.
The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere; and he, miserable creature, is alone.
597
Against Mahomet.—The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.
The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man. Therefore Mahomet was a false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with what they have said of Jesus Christ.
598
It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous. And since what is clear is
