THE " ANTI-ALKORAN
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religious feeling of the man is noticeable in every word. " From my earliest youth," he says, " God influenced my parents to that purpose that they sent me out of Bohemia to distant countries that I might acquire learning, and this happened in 1565. After having viewed the most prominent Christian countries, and having spent some time studying at academies, and seen the courts and governments of the foremost potentates, kings, and princes, and also the Italian land and Rome, I by God's grace returned to Bohemia and to my dear family in 1577. Then, however, I became very desirous of visiting the Eastern countries — those that the Turk, that Gog and Magog, who is the chief enemy of Christendom, has taken from the Christians, and now rules — and of seeing what the manner of the infamous Turkish religion and how the work of God continues among those Christians who live under the Turkish yoke, as were in Babylonian captivity." member of Budova then tells us how he became the numerous embassy that accompanied the ambassador John of Zinzendorf to Constantinople. While short stay at Constantimost of his companions, after " nople, continued their travels to Jerusalem, Damascus, Babylon, Arabia, and Persia," Budova was detained there, for he had accepted the position of hofmistr (mas" then," ter of the ceremonies) to the ambassador. Budova writes, "decided to make inquiries as to what the religion, or rather irreligion, of the Turks really was, and, as were, to outline and depict for others that Turkish Antichrist with his fables and other frauds. had with me was of great assistance to me that copy of the Alkoran (Koran), which in Spain had been transwas at the time lated from the ancient Arabic, such as
