“From this cause have proceeded, I doubt not, many of the false accusations which are commonly reported against these Christians and which I myself once ignorantly believed. For example, whereas they are commonly charged with slaying and eating a little child (and many also add that the Christians cover the child with meal, and then cause those who would fain be initiated, to cut the meal with their knives so that they may be unwittingly led to perpetrate murder), the charge arises, as I am persuaded, from the misunderstanding of certain words used by the Christians in their mysteries. For in these secret rites, offering up no sacrifice of their own, they commemorate (as I am informed) the sacrifice of Christus; calling by that name his miserable death, and affirming that it was voluntary and that he thereby offered up his life for the world; and for this cause they not only call him the Son of God but also the Lamb of God, and just as those who offer up a victim partake of the flesh of a victim, even so do these Christians, partaking of bread and wine, profess solemnly that they eat the body and drink the blood of the Son or Child of God; and hence has sprung the belief of the common people that the Christians slay and eat a little child. As touching the charge of incest commonly brought against them, I am persuaded that this also is groundless; but it is possible that the Christians calling one another brethren and sisters (as being members of one brotherhood) have caused those who love them not, to suppose that brothers and sisters are permitted in their sect to unite in marriage. But another cause might be alleged, for they are wont to speak of their state or republic sometimes as the New Jerusalem, but sometimes as a living person, the Mother of the Faithful, and, speaking of the parentage of Christus, they say that this Mother gave birth to him, describing her (in poetic figures and with numbers that are customary in their sacred books) as a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, and they say that she brought forth a man-child who should rule all nations with a rod of iron, which man-child is no other than the ‘Messiah,’ or Christus. But again, others using a different figure describe the republic not as a Mother, but as a Bride, chaste and spotless, being betrothed to Christus, whom they praise as the Bridegroom; and this manner of speech, strange as it may seem to us Greeks, is familiar to them, being commonly used in their books of prophecies, which often speak of their nation as a Bride, and the superior god as the Bridegroom. Now it is possible that some, hearing that, among the Christians, the Son is betrothed to the Mother, and not staying to consider whether this betrothal be a figure of speech or true according to the letter, have affirmed that incest is allowed among them. But whatever may be the cause of the error, an error it is beyond all question. For these Christians, however they may fall short in understanding, are not inferior to philosophers in the purity of their lives. Much more I have to write about the traditions of these people, which I must defer till my next letter.”