and between Him and idols (1).

Or a religion whose edifice is built upon the worship of crucifixes and painted icons affixed to ceilings and walls—whose doctrine alleges that the Lord of all worlds (2) stepped down from the Throne of His Majesty to lodge in a woman’s womb, remaining there for a stretch of time amid menstrual blood, in the darkness of the entrails beneath the meeting of the thighs (3); then emerged as a nursing infant, growing little by little, crying, eating, drinking, urinating, sleeping, and playing with other children. He was then placed in a schoolroom among Jewish boys to learn whatever human beings are expected to learn.

All this—after his foreskin had been removed at circumcision—yet the Jews kept driving him out, hounding him from place to place (4) until they seized him and subjected him to every sort of humiliation and degradation: they fashioned a crown of thorns—the vilest of crowns—and set it upon his head, mounted him on a reed that had neither bridle nor rein, then led him to the cross-beam, striking him and spitting in his face, while hemming him in from behind, before, and on both sides. Next they placed him upon that contraption that makes hearts and bodies alike shudder; then his hands and feet (5) were bound with ropes, mingled with (6) those nails that splinter