How we cite our quotes: (Day.Story.Page)
Quote #1
It was thus, then, that Ser Cepperello of Prato lived and died, becoming a Saint in the way you have heard. Nor would I wish to deny that perhaps God has blessed and admitted him to His presence. For albeit he led a wicked, sinful life, it is possible that at the eleventh hour he was so sincerely repentant that God had mercy upon him and received him into His kingdom (I.1.36, Panfilo's tale of Ser Cepperello/Ciappelletto).
Cepperello is one wicked dude who has learned how to game the system. He uses his last confession before death to dupe the local priest into thinking that he was the holiest man on earth, thereby becoming a local saint after death. This opening story drips with the skepticism of religion and superstitious practices that will blossom as the stories flow on.
Quote #2
'Now listen, Jehannot, you would like me to become a Christian, and I am prepared to do so on one condition: that first of all I should go to Rome and there observe the man whom you call the vicar of God on earth, and examine his life and habits together with those of his fellow cardinals […]'
When Jehannot heard this, he was thrown into a fit of gloom and said to himself: 'I have wasted my energies, which I felt I had used to good effect, thinking I had converted the man; for if he goes to the court of Rome and sees what foul and wicked lives the clergy lead, not only will he not become a Christian, but, if he had already turned Christian he would become a Jew again without fail.' (I.2.38-39)
This plot twist shows us that Boccaccio is making a distinction between the religion itself vs. the officers of the Church. The Jewish Abraham goes to Rome, witnesses the clergy's flagrantly lustful behavior, not to mention that they were "gluttons, winebibbers, and drunkards without exception" and "rapacious moneygrubbers." Nevertheless, he decides to adopt Christianity. Huh? Why? He figures that if the religion is flourishing even with the disgusting behavior of the clergy, who seem to be trying to drive it into the ground, then God must be on the side of Christianity. Another interesting fact: Abraham the Jew is described as an upright man of honesty, integrity, and discernment. This is not the typical description of a Jew in medieval literature. Jews had been accused of causing the plague by poisoning the wells, and they were seen as threats to Christians because of their failure to accept Christ. More typically, they were portrayed as evil incarnate, like in Chaucer's "The Prioress's Tale".
Quote #3
'And I say to you, my lord, that the same applies to the three laws which God the Father granted to His three peoples, and which formed the subject of your inquiry. Each of them considers itself the legitimate heir to his estate, each believes it possesses His one true law and observes his commandments. But as with the rings, the question of which of them is right remains in abeyance.' (I.3.44, the Saladin and Melchizedek)
The great Egyptian Sultan Saladin tries to pick a fight with the Jew Melchizedek by asking him which of the three great religions is the correct one. Melchizedek answers with a parable about a king who loved his three sons so equally that, rather than bequeathing his expensive ring to one of them, made two extra identical copies. At a time where the Catholic Church had a stronghold on law and culture, asserting the equal dignity of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam was a pretty revolutionary statement. At the time, none of those three world religions had much respect for the other two. This story was another reason that The Decameron ended up on the church's Index of Prohibited Books.