Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti

Nothing is more fatal, indeed, than to love the obscenities and depravities of vice. What shall I say of the shameful scenes which take place in the caves where they hide their eyes? To escape from the shame of the obscenities with which the blistering is printed on them, they are blindfolded; some flap their wings like birds, imitating the voice of the raven, others sound the roar of lions; others, hands tied with the intestines of young horses, are thrown on pits full of water; one of them approaches with a sword, cuts the knots formed by these intestines, and proclaims himself their liberator. Other actions are more obscene yet. See how degrading depravities are the victim of these men who decree the name of wise men. Because these shameful scenes are accomplished in the shadows, they imagine that they cannot be known.

Edited by John Litteral

What travesty is it then that they enact in the cave with veiled faces? for they cover their eyes lest their deeds of shame should revolt them. Some like birds flap their wings imitating the raven’s cry; others roar like lions; others bind their hands with the entrails of fowls and fling themselves down over pits full of water, and then another whom they call the Liberator approaches with a sword and severs the above-mentioned bonds. Other rites there are which are yet more dishonourable. What shameful mockeries for men who call themselves wise. But because these things are concealed in the darkness they think that they can remain unknown yet all these, the secret devise and contrivance of foul and malignant demons, have been dragged to the light and unveiled by the holy Christian faith. For when the faith is preached the hearers of the excellent and sacred truth thus proclaimed have been converted, and have abandoned those dishonourable and secret rites, confessing that in their ignorance they have been misled.

Transalted by A.S. Geden