Well then, What shall we say about sacred plays?

"Well then, what shall we say about sacred plays? What a number of false miracles and apocryphal, poorly understood stories they invent, attributing the miracles of one saint to another! And even in their secular plays they dare perform miracles, with no other concern or consideration than thinking that some miracle or stage effect, as they call it, would be a good idea at that point so the ignorant will marvel and come to the theater; all of this is prejudicial to the truth, and damaging to history, and even a discredit to the intelligence of Spaniards, because foreigners, who are punctilious in obeying the rules of drama, think of us as ignorant barbarians, seeing the absurdities and idiocies in the plays we produce."

. . . Miguel de Cervantes (Trans. Edith Grossman) . . . Don Quixote . . . 416-417 . . .