Storia do Mogor 359.2.6

359.2.6

Decide how far we have been violent and hasty, that we should be dismissed as madmen — 'But as he has had a letter exhorting him to peace and quietness, which he took and threw on the ground with contempt, not troubling himself to accept it, you, gentlemen, ought not to wish me to expose myself further to his anger and rudeness.' Decide, gentlemen, what offence we have committed, that we should be called seditious, that we should be delivered to the secular arm with an order to deal with us most severely — 'It concerns you, gentlemen, to keep the peace and uphold my jurisdiction in the form in which I have stated it, and force the Capuchin fathers by full severity to desist.' Decide how dishonourable and to be avoided must be the habit we wear, one for which the Supreme Pontiffs have themselves shown the respect they have felt by conceding indulgences to those who out of devotion kiss it ; since it suffices to say : 'God deliver me from the hood of the Capuchin fathers' — words heard to fall from the mouth of the Lord Bishop himself by the gentlemen Cesar and Khwãjah Ivanos, Armenians. Now, if we be thus treated without any fault, what would it be, gentlemen, if we had been guilty ? I leave it to you to decide, and instead ask [237] you the favour of becoming witnesses of the truth and replying to the questions which I take the liberty of putting to you.