| CLEANTE: No brother, I am no reverend doctor; I have no monoploy of knowledge. I merely claim to be able to discriminate between false and true. Just as I know no kind of man more estimable than those who are genuinely religious, so I know nothing more odious than those charlatans, those professional zealots, who with scarilegious and decietful posturings abuse and mock to their heart's content everything which men hold most sacard and holy; men who put self-intrest first, who trade and traffic in devotion, seek to aquire credit and dignities by turning up their eyes in transports of simulated zeal. I mean the people who burn with devotion but seek material advantage. They are the most dangerous in that they turn against us the bitter rage the very weapons which men revere and use the passion for which they are respected to destroy us with a consecrated blade.Yet the truely devout are easy to recognize., their religion is gentle and humane: their whole concern is to live virtously: they show no anger aganist sinners: they reserve hate for sin itself, this is an example one should follow! Your man, however, is of another kind. You vaunt his zeal in good faith but I think you are decieved by false appearences. |