Religious Hypocrisy in Renaissance England.

Godly Hypocrisy: Renaissance Christians in Actions and Words As Illustrated by the Plays of Wm. Shakespeare "If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute..." During the Renaissance, men were willing to fight and die for their religion. Wars were waged to defeat the "pagan empires" of the East, …

… profess that we know God, but by works we deny Him. For a beatitude doth not consist in the knowledge of divine things, but in a divine life; for the devils know them better than men...We all (in effect) become comedians in religion: and while we act in gesture and voice divine virtues, in all the course of our lives we renounce in our persons the parts that we play..." --Sir Walter Raleigh