13 Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews.



Ver. 13. For fear of the Jews] Who had made an order (it seems) somewhat like that of the Jesuits’ edict at Dola in the country of Burgundy, that for prevention of heresy, no man should speak of God, either in good sort or bad. This the Jews did, 1. To save themselves a labour of confuting our Saviour’s doctrine. 2. To persuade the people that it was such horrible blasphemy as was not fit to be named. So the Papists debar the people all sound of the religion, in prohibiting the books of the reformed writers, and hiding their own treatises, wherein the tenet of the Protestants is recited only to be confuted: so that you shall seldom in all Italy meet with Bellarmine’s works or any of the like nature to be sold.