But why did anyone believe and think all these immortal nonsense so stubbornly for entire ages? Why did thousands and countless naïve people and frauds, swept away by the priests, put them in their minds, why did they, throughout the centuries, destroy the classical ideals of ancient Greek culture, transforming "the wisdom of this world into foolishness" (1 Cor. 1:20), why did they plunge both the East and the West into this dark swamp of ignorance and superstitions, the fraud of relics, miracles, and pilgrimages, spiritually burying the peoples within it, why did they remove general education from schools, sacrificing entire education and placing it under Christianity.

Why did they equate their theological fantasies with the concept of learning, so that even Thomas Aquinas could label the pursuit of knowledge as "sin," as long as it did not aim at the "knowledge of God."