That the Changes of Sects and Languages, Together with the Accident of Deluges and Pestilence, Extinguished the Memory of Things

To those Philosophers who hold that the World has existed from eternity, I believe it is possible to reply, that, if such great antiquity was true, it would be reasonable that there should be some record of more than five thousand years, except it is seen that the records of those times have been destroyed from diverse causes: of which some were acts of men, some of Heaven. Those that are acts of men are the changes of the sects [religion] and of languages. Because, when a new sect springs up, that is, a new Religion, the first effort is (in order to give itself reputation) to extinguish the old; and if it happens that the establishers of the new sect are of different languages, they extinguish it [the old] easily. Which thing is known by observing the method which the Christian Religion employed against the Gentile [heathen] sect, which has cancelled all its institutions, all of its ceremonies, and extinguished every record of that ancient Theology. It is true that they did not succeed in entirely extinguishing the records of the things done by their excellent men, which has resulted from their having maintained the Latin language, which was done by force, having to write this new law in it. For if they could have written it in a new language, considering the other persecutions they suffered, none of the past events would have been recorded. And whoever reads the methods used by Saint Gregory and the other Heads of the Christian Religion, will see with what obstinacy they persecuted all the ancient memorials, burning the works of the Poets and Historians, ruining statues, and despoiling every thing else that gave any sign of antiquity. So that, if to this persecution they had added a new language, it would have been seen that in a very brief time everything [previous] would have been forgotten.

It is to be believed, therefore, that that which the Christian Religion wanted to do against the Gentile sect, the Gentiles did against that which preceded them. And as these sects changed two or three times in five or six thousand years, all memor............