salutus

Updated: May 4, 2025

One unmasked himself as a profligate; another was free from such tastes, but developed great talent for being slave and despot in the same person; and even if an omnibus numeris salutus was found, he showed, when the last subject his opinion of Christianity was introduced, like all the rest, that it was his conviction that the Christian religion was nothing more than a sect which denied the gods and, by withdrawing from the popular pleasures, games, and combats in the arena, embittered every joy by their obdurate melancholy and in their stead celebrated horrible rites in gloomy caverns, compelled their followers to pierce with their knives the heart of an infant rolled in flour, and to drink its blood; till the gods, in their wrath, visited the earth with floods, pestilences, earthquakes, and barbarians, and that consequently there could not be enough of these people boiled in oil, burned in pitch, torn by wild beasts, and buried alive to avert from the land the severe punishments sent by the wrathful gods.

Mór Jókai - A Christian But a Roman