The Anatomy of Melancholy

Single out the most ignorant of them, convince his understanding, show him his errors and the gross absurdities of his sect: “You will not persuade me, even if you persuade me.” He will not be persuaded. As those pagans told the Jesuits in Japan, they would do as their forefathers had done; and, like Rathold, the Frisian prince, go to hell for company if most of their friends went there. They will not be moved: no persuasion, no torture can shake them.

Papists, then, cannot boast of their vows, poverty, obedience, religious orders, merits, martyrdoms, fasting, alms, good works and pilgrimages. I shall show you that as much as all this, and more, is and has been done by these superstitious Gentiles, pagans, idolaters and Jews. Their blind zeal and idolatrous superstition of every kind are much the same; there is little or no difference, and it is hard to say which is the greatest or the grossest.

For anyone who carefully considers those superstitious rites among the pagans in Japan, the Banians in Gujarat, Chinese idolaters, the ancient Americans, especially in Mexico, and Muslim priests, will find almost the same government, the same orders and ceremonies—or such similar ones that all may plainly seem to derive from some heathen spirit, with the Roman hierarchy no better than the rest.

In a word, this is common to all superstition: nothing is so mad and absurd, so ridiculous, impossible or incredible that they will not believe it, observe it and diligently carry it out as far as they can; nothing so monstrous to conceive, so intolerable to practise or so cruel to suffer that they will not willingly undertake it. Such is the power of superstition. “O Egypt,” as Trismegistus exclaims, “your religion consists of fables, and such as future generations will not believe.”

I know that even in true religion many mysteries are apprehended by faith alone: the Trinity, which the Turks especially mock; Christ’s Incarnation; and the resurrection of the body on the last day—“which must be believed precisely because,” says Tertullian, “it is incredible,” and so on. There are many miracles that are not to be questioned or disputed.

“To wonder, not to probe, is true wisdom,” says Gerhard; and “in divine matters,” as a good Father tells us, “some things are to be believed, others wondered at,” and so on. Some things are to be believed, embraced and followed with complete submission and obedience; others, again, to be wondered at.

Julian the Apostate mocks Christians on this point, “because we take our understanding captive in obedience to faith,” saying that the Christian Creed resembles the Pythagorean “He himself said it”: we make our will and understanding too slavishly subject to our faith, without further examination of the truth. Yet, as Saint Gregory rightly answers, our Creed is “of a higher excellence,” and far more divine;