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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Impostors, by
-Anonymous and Jean Maximilien Lucas
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Three Impostors
-
-Author: Anonymous
-        Jean Maximilien Lucas
-
-Release Date: November 22, 2015 [EBook #50534]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE IMPOSTORS ***
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-Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
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-Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
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-
-                                  THE
-                            THREE IMPOSTORS.
-
-
-
-                               TRANSLATED
-                    (WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS,)
-                  FROM THE FRENCH EDITION OF THE WORK,
-                     PUBLISHED AT AMSTERDAM, 1776.
-
-
-
-                            RE-PUBLISHED BY
-              G. VALE, "BEACON" OFFICE, 3 FRANKLIN-SQUARE,
-                               NEW-YORK:
-                                 1846.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-NOTE BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHER.
-
-
-We publish this valuable work, for the reasons contained in the
-following Note, of which we approve:--
-
-
-
-NOTE BY THE BRITISH PUBLISHER.
-
-The following little book I present to the reader without any
-remarks on the different opinions relative to its antiquity; as the
-subject is amply discussed in the body of the work, and constitutes
-one of its most interesting and attractive features. The Edition
-from which the present is translated was brought me from Paris by
-a distinguished defender of Civil and Religious Liberty: and as my
-friend had an anxiety from a thorough conviction of its interest and
-value, to see it published in the English Language, I have from like
-feelings brought it before the public; and I am convinced that it is
-an excellent antidote to Superstition and Intolerance, and eminently
-calculated to promote the cause of Freedom, Justice, and Morality.
-
-
-J. MYLES.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.
-
-
-The Translator of the following little treatise deems it necessary to
-say a few words as to the object of its publication. It is given to
-the world, neither with a view to advocate Scepticism, nor to spread
-infidelity, but simply to vindicate the right of private judgment. No
-human being is in a position to look into the heart, or to decide
-correctly as to the creed or conduct of his fellow mortals; and the
-attributes of the Deity are so far beyond the grasp of limited reason,
-that man must become a God himself before he can comprehend them. Such
-being the case, surely all harsh censure of each other's opinions and
-actions ought to be abandoned; and every one should so train himself
-as to be enabled to declare with the humane and manly philosopher
-
-
-    "Homo sum, nihil humania me alienum puto."
-
-
-                                                 Dundee, September 1844.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS OF THE PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
-
-
-DISQUISITIONS on the book entitled "The Three Impostors."
-
-ANSWER to the dissertation of M. de la Monnoye on the work entitled
-"The Three Impostors."
-
-COPY of Part 2d, Vol. 1., Article ix. of "Literary Memoirs," published
-at the Hague by Henry du Sauzet, 1716.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                             DISQUISITIONS
-                          ON THE BOOK ENTITLED
-                          THE THREE IMPOSTORS.
-
-
-It has long been a disputed point if there was at anytime a book
-printed and bearing the title of "The Three Impostors."
-
-M. de la Monnoye, having been informed that a learned German [1]
-intended to publish a dissertation the object of which was to prove
-that this work had really been printed, wrote a letter, in refutation,
-to one of his friends; this letter was given by M. Bayle to M. Basnage
-de Bauval, who in February 1694, gave an extract from it in his
-"History of the works of celebrated and learned men." At a later
-period M. de la Monnoye entered more fully into the subject, in a
-letter dated at Paris 16th of June, 1712, and addressed to President
-Bouhier, in which letter, he says, will be found an abridged but
-complete account of this remarkable book.
-
-He condemns at once the opinion of those who attribute the work
-to the Emperor Frederick. The false charge, he says, took its rise
-from a passage in the appendix to a discourse concerning Antichrist,
-and published by Grotius, wherein he speaks as follows [2]: "Far
-be it from me to attribute the book called 'The Three Impostors,'
-either to the Pope, or to the opponents of the Pope; long ago the
-enemies of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa set abroad the report
-of such a book, as having been written by his command; but from that
-period nobody has seen it; for which reason I consider it apocryphal."
-
-Colomiez quotes this, page 28 of his "Historical Miscellanies;"
-but he adds that there are some blunders--that it was not Frederick
-I. (Barbarossa,) on whom they intended to fix the authorship,
-but Frederick II. his grandson. This he says, is apparent from the
-letters of Pierre des Vignes, the secretary and chancellor of the
-second Frederick, and from Matthew Paris; inasmuch as they record,
-that this monarch was blamed for having said that the world had been
-led aside by "Three Impostors;" but by no means that he had written a
-book having such a title. The Emperor denied in the strongest terms,
-that he ever made use of any expression to that effect. He detested
-the blasphemy with which they charged him, and declared that it was
-an atrocious calumny; more shame to Lipsius and other writers who
-have condemned him without sufficiently looking into the evidences.
-
-Averroes, nearly a century previous, had jeered at the three religions,
-saying [3]; that "the Jewish religion was a law for children; the
-Christian religion a law which it was impossible to follow; and the
-Mahometan religion a law in favor of swine." [4]
-
-Since then, many people have written with great freedom on this
-same subject.
-
-We read in the works of Thomas de Catimpre, that M. Simon de Tournay
-had said that "Three Seducers"--Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet,
-had "mystified mankind with their doctrines." This is evidently
-the M. Simon de Churnay, of whom Matthew Paris relates some other
-improprieties, and the same individual whom Polydore Virgil styles
-de Turwai, the orthography in both instances having been mismanaged.
-
-Amongst the manuscripts of the Abbe Colbert's library, obtained
-possession of by our sovereign in 1732, there is one numbered 2071,
-written by Alvaro Pelagius, a Spaniard of the Cordelian order,
-bishop of Salves and Algarve, and well known on account of his work,
-"The Lamentation of the Church." He states that an individual named
-Scotus, of the same order as himself and a Jacobin, was at that time a
-prisoner at Lisbon on a charge of blasphemy. Scotus, it would appear,
-had said that he considered Moses, Jesus Christ and Mahomet as "Three
-Impostors;" for that, the first had deceived the Jews; the second
-the Christians; and the third the Saracens. [5]
-
-Gabriel Barlette, in his sermon upon St. Andrew, alludes to Porphyry
-in this way; "and therefore the notion of Porphyry is absurd, when
-he says that there had existed three individuals who had turned
-over the world to their own opinions; the first being Moses amongst
-the Jewish people--the second Mahomet, and the third Christ." [6]
-A strange chronologist to stamp the era of Christ and Porphyry after
-that of Mahomet!
-
-The Manuscripts of the Vatican, quoted by Odomir Rainoldo in the
-nineteenth volume of his Ecclesiastical Annals, mention one Jeannin
-de Solcia, a canon at Bergame, a doctor of civil and canon law,
-known from a decree of Pope Pius II., as Javinus de Solcia. He
-was condemned on the 14th November 1459 for having maintained this
-impiety--that Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet had ruled the world
-at their pleasure. "Mundum pro suarem libito voluntatum rexisse."
-
-John Louis Vivaldo de Mondovi, who wrote in 1506, and amongst whose
-works there is a treatise on "The Twelve persecutions of the Church
-of God," says, in his chapter upon the sixth persecution, that there
-were people who dared to dispute, which of the three law-givers had
-been most followed, Jesus Christ, Moses, or Mahomet. [7]
-
-Herman Ristwyk, a Dutchman, burned at the Hague in 1512, sneered at
-the Jewish and Christian religions. He does not speak of the Mahometan
-creed; but a man who could regard Moses and Jesus Christ as impostors,
-could entertain no better opinion of Mahomet.
-
-Now we must turn to an author, name unknown, but accused of
-blasphemy against Jesus Christ. The charge was founded upon some
-papers discovered at Geneva in 1547, amongst the documents belonging
-to M. Gruet. An Italian, named Fausto da Longiano, had begun a work
-which he entitled "The Temple of Truth," in which he undertakes
-no less than to overturn all religions. "I have," he says, "begun
-another work entitled 'The Temple of Truth.' It is probable that I may
-divide it into thirty books. In this work will be found the extinction
-of all sects--Jews, Christian, Mahometan, and other superstitions;
-and matters will be brought back to their first principles."
-
-Now, amongst the letters of Aretino addressed to Fausto, there is
-not one to be met with which alludes in any way whatever to this
-work. Perhaps it had never been written, and although it had been
-published, it must have been a very different book from the one in
-question; of which, they pretend that there are some copies in the
-libraries in Germany, printed in folio, and written in High Dutch.
-
-Claude Beauregard, better known under his Latin appellation
-Berigardus, a professor of philosophy, first at Paris, next at Pisa,
-and latterly at Padua, quotes or forges a passage from the work,
-"The Three Impostors," in which the miracles which Moses performed in
-Egypt are attributed to the superiority of his demon [8] over that
-of the Magicians of Pharoah. Giordano Bruno who was burned at Rome,
-17th Feb. 1600, was accused of having advanced something much to the
-same effect. But although Beauregard and Bruno have indulged in such
-reveries, and have thought proper to assert that they quoted from
-the work in question, is this a certain proof that they had read
-the book? If so they would doubtless have stated whether it was in
-manuscript, or in print, and referred to the size and the place where
-they found it.
-
-Tentzelius, trusting to one of his friends, a pretended ocular witness,
-gives a description of the book, and specifies the number of leaves
-and sheets; and attempting to prove in chap. III. of his work that
-the ambition of legislators is the only source of all religions,
-he gives as examples Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet. Struvius,
-after Tentzelius, enters into the same subject, but finding nothing
-but what a clever fabulist might invent, he seems much inclined to
-disbelieve in the existence of the book.
-
-A journalist at Leipsic, in his "acta eruditarum," dated Jan. 1709,
-pp. 36 and 37, gives the following extract from a letter addressed to
-him: "Having occasion to be in Saxony I saw, in the Library of M...,
-a book entitled "The Three Impostors." It is an 8vo volume, in Latin,
-without the name of the printer or the date of its publication;
-but to judge from the letter it appears to have been published in
-Germany. It was to no purpose that I tried to obtain permission to
-read the whole work. The proprietor of the book, a man of sensitive
-piety, would not consent to it. I have since learned that a celebrated
-professor at Stuttgard had offered a great sum of money for the
-volume. Shortly afterwards I went to Nuremberg, and in talking of
-this work to M. Andre Mylhdorf, a man respectable alike for his
-age, and from his learning, he assured me he had read it, and that
-M. Wolfer a clergyman had lent it to him. From the manner in which
-he spoke, I thought it might be a copy of the one alluded to above,
-and I concluded that it was unquestionably the book referred to;
-but not that it was in octavo, nor of so old a date, nor perhaps so
-accurate." The writer of the foregoing was able to throw more light
-upon the subject and ought to have done so; for it is not enough to
-say that he had seen the book--he must produce evidence that he had
-seen it, otherwise he ought to be classed with those who promulgate
-opinions founded on mere report; in which category we must include
-all the authors to whom reference is made in this disquisition.
-
-The first who makes mention of the book as it existed in 1543,
-is William Postel, in his treatise on the agreement of the Alcoran
-with the doctrines of the Lutherans or the Evangelists. He calls
-the work "Anevangelistes," and attempts in it to bring the Lutheran
-doctrines into utter disrepute by proving that they lead straightway
-to Atheism. To support his argument he instances three or four
-productions written, as he says, by Atheists, whom he declares to have
-been the first disciples of this new Gospel. He adds, "my opinion
-can be vindicated by reference to an infamous pamphlet written by
-Villanovanus relative to three works respectively entitled 'The Cymbal
-of the World,' 'Pantagruel,' and the 'New Islands;' the authors of
-which works were the standard-bearers of the Atheistical party."
-
-This Villanovanus, whom Postel asserts to be the author of the book
-"The Three Impostors," was Michel Servetus the son of a notary,
-born in 1509, at Villanueva in Aragon, who assumed the name of
-Villanovanus, in a preface to a Bible which was printed for him
-at Lyons, 1542, by Hugues de la Porte. In France his designation
-was Villeneuve, under which title he was impeached, after he had
-published at Vienna, in Dauphiny, 1553, (the year before his death)
-the work entitled "Christianity restored;" a book extremely rare,
-on account of the trouble which they took at Geneva to find out the
-copies of the work and get them burned. In the authentic list of the
-writings of Servetus, however, we do not find mention made of "The
-Three Impostors." Neither Calvin nor Beza, nor Alexander Morus, nor
-any other defender of the Huguenot party who wrote against Servetus,
-and whose interest it was to justify his punishment, and to convict
-him of having written this work, has laid it to his charge. Postel,
-an ex-Jesuit, was the first to do so, without grounds.
-
-Florimond de Remond, a councillor in the Senate at Bordeaux, writes
-decidedly that he had seen this book in print. His words are;
-"James Curio, in his Chronology 1556, asserts that the Palatinate
-was filled with scoffers at religion, the Lievanistes, viz. a sect
-who considered the Sacred Writings as fabulous, and more especially
-those of Moses, the great Lawgiver of God. Is there not a book, 'The
-Three Impostors,' defaming the three religions which alone acknowledge
-the true God--the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan?--a book
-composed in Germany, but printed elsewhere at the exact moment when
-these heretics are employing this individual to spread abroad their
-doctrines? The very title shows the character of the age which has
-dared to publish so impious a treatise. I would have referred to
-it unless Osius and Genebrard had spoken to me on the subject. I
-recollect that in my earlier days I saw a copy of this work at the
-College of Presle. It belonged to Ramus, a man distinguished for his
-extraordinary learning, and who was then employed in deep researches
-into the mysteries connected with religious belief; which subject he
-intended to treat in a philosophical manner. At this time they were
-circulating this iniquitous work amongst the learned, who were very
-desirous to see it." A curious inquirer into secrets!
-
-Everybody knows Florimond de Remond as an insignificant
-scribbler. There are three remarkable sayings in currency against him;
-that "he built without money, that he was a judge without principle,
-and an author without knowledge. [9]" We know also that he always lent
-his name to P. Richeaume, a Jesuite much hated by the Protestants,
-who cloaked his own name by assuming that of the councillor of
-Bordeaux. Now, if Osius and Genebrard had spoken as decidedly as
-Florimond de Remond, there might have been somewhat to rest upon;
-but see what Genebrard says in the thirty-ninth page of his answer
-to Lambert Danan, printed (octavo) at Paris 1581. [10] "They (his
-own party) have not driven Blandratus, nor Alciatus, nor Ochinus
-into Mahometanism; nor have they induced Valleus to profess himself
-an Atheist; neither have they enticed any one whatever to circulate
-the work called "The Three Impostors," wherein Christ the Lord is
-alluded to as the second, the other two being Moses and Mahomet."
-
-Is that the way to identify this impious book? and Genebrard, forsooth
-had seen it! And can it be, that in the present day people will
-attempt to get up regular proof to show that such a work exists? It
-is a well known fact that, in all ages, many lies have been palmed
-off in reference to books which could never be discovered, although
-individuals declare that they had seen them and even went so far as
-to mention the places where they had been favoured with their perusal.
-
-It has been said that this work was in the library of M. Salvius, the
-Swedish ambassador, at Munster, and that Queen Christina, unwilling
-to ask it of him while he lived, immediately sent M. Bourdelet,
-her chief physician, to entreat his widow to satisfy her curiosity,
-when he was informed that M. Salvius, having been seized with remorse
-of conscience on the night of his death, made them burn the work in
-his presence. A short time afterwards Christiana enquired eagerly
-after the "Colloquium Heptaplomers" by Bodin, a manuscript, at that
-period extremely rare; after a long search it was found, but whatever
-desire the Queen had to see the work in question, and although it was
-sought after in all the libraries of Europe, she died without having
-discovered it. Ought we not therefore to conclude that it was never
-in existence? Without doubt the pains taken by Christina would have
-led to the discovery of that book which Postel declares was printed
-in 1543, and which Florimond de Remond says appeared in 1556. Since
-then different individuals have assigned to it other dates.
-
-In 1654, Jean Baptiste Morin, a celebrated doctor and mathematician,
-wrote a letter under the name of Vincent Panurge, which he addressed
-to himself in this way, "An epistle to that most eminent physician,
-John Baptist Morin, concerning the 'Three Impostors'. [11]" The
-three impostors to whom he refers were Gassendi, Neure, and Bernier,
-whom he wished to satirize under this title. Christian Kortholt in
-1680 employed the same terms in his work against Hebert, Hobbes,
-and Spinoza. Such has been the use which the learned have made of
-this work when they wrote against their opponents, and in this way
-have they drawn upon the credulity of comparatively ignorant people,
-who, caring little to examine the evidences, have been deceived at
-once. Is it possible, that if such a work had really existed, it would
-not have been refuted; just as they refuted the work concerning the
-Pre-Adamites, [12] written by M. de la Peyrere,--the discourses of
-Spinoza, and the publications of Bodin? The "Colloquium Heptaplomeres,"
-although in manuscript, has been answered; would "The Three Impostors"
-have met with more favour? How comes it that it has not been condemned,
-and placed in the Index Expurgatorius, and how has it escaped cremation
-by the hands of the common hangman? Books against morality have been
-sometimes tolerated, but those which strongly attack Religion do not
-escape with impunity. Florimond de Remond, who says that he had seen
-the book, asserts that he was at that time a youth, old enough perhaps
-to write fairy tales; he quotes Ramus who had been dead for thirty
-years, and could not convict him of falsehood; he quotes Osius and
-Genebrard, but in in vague terms, and without pointing out the passage
-in their works. He says that they were circulating this work--a work
-which if it existed, would unquestionably have been put under lock
-and key. Our opponents may produce a passage from Sir Thomas Browne,
-who, in the 19th sec. part I. of his work styled "Religio Medici,"
-translated from English into Latin by a distinguished scholar, uses
-the following words; "this impious man, the author of this blasphemous
-work, 'The Three Impostors,' although a stranger to every religion,
-inasmuch as he was neither a Jew, a Mahometan, nor a Christian, was
-nevertheless evidently not an Atheist. [13]" From this they would
-infer that he must have seen the book, when he speaks in such terms
-of its author. Now, Sir Thomas only says that Bernard Ochinus, who
-in his opinion was the author of the work, (as he hints in a foot
-note,) was more of a Deist than an Atheist, and that any Deist of
-ordinary average intellect and information, was capable of planning
-and executing such a design. Molikius, in a note upon the passage,
-denies and justly, that this work was written by Ochinus, for they
-assert that it was written in Latin, and we know that Ochinus never
-wrote but in Italian; moreover if he had been suspected of having
-any connection with this work, his enemies, who made so much clamour
-against his dialogues concerning the Trinity and Polygamy, would not
-have spared him. But how can we reconcile Browne and Genebrard who
-consider Ochinus as a Mahometan, and at the same time declare that he
-was neither a disciple of Moses, nor of Jesus Christ, nor of Mahomet!
-
-Naude, by a strange mistake attributes the work to Villeneuve,
-a comparatively ignorant writer, and Ernstius declares that at
-Rome he had learned from Campannelle, that Muret, a polished and
-accomplished author, had written the work more than two centuries after
-Villaneuve. Ernstius is mistaken. Campannelle also refutes himself,
-for in the preface to his work, "Atheism overthrown," and still more
-explicitly in his discourse, "Paganism indefensible," he affirms
-that this work came from Germany, but that it was the composition of
-Muret; a statement entirely opposite to that of Florimond de Remond
-alluded to before, which holds that the work was written in Germany
-but published elsewhere. Muret has therefore been falsely accused,
-and stands in need of no apology. They have judged of his religion
-from his life. The Huguenot party, vexed that after embracing their
-doctrines he had abandoned them forever, did not spare him on this
-occasion, and Beza, in his "Ecclesiastical History," reproaches
-him with two crimes, the second being Atheism. Julius Scaliger,
-nettled by a jeu d'esprit of Muret's against him, has been led to do
-him injustice [14]. "Muret," he says maliciously, "would have been
-a better Christian if he had believed in God; I am aware that he
-tried to persuade others to do so." In this way have originated false
-impressions against Muret. Instead of respecting his exemplary piety,
-of which he gave striking evidence in the last years of his existence,
-they set themselves half a century after his death, to blacken his
-character by accusing him of crimes which were unknown to his most
-avowed enemies, and with which, in his life-time, we are certain that
-he never was charged. Some ignorant writers who possess no critical
-acumen, have impeached without any reason whatever the first individual
-who occurred to their memory. Stephen Dolet of Orleans, Frances Pucci
-of Florence, John Milton of London, and Merula, a renegade Mahometan,
-have done so; they have accused Peter Aretin, merely because he was
-a fearless and licentious writer, without reflecting that he was an
-uncultivated man, of no learning and scarcely master of his native
-tongue. For similar reasons they have blamed Poggio and others, and
-have even gone so far back as Boccaccio, most likely on account of
-the third tale in his Decameron, where he recounts the fable of three
-similar rings, of which he makes a dangerous application to the Jewish,
-Christian, and Mahometan religions, as if insinuating that they might
-be embraced indifferently, since it was impossible to decide which
-of them ought to have the preference. Neither have these writers
-forgot Machiavel; and Decker impeaches Rabelais. The Dutchman also
-who translates into French the "Religio Medici" of Sir Thomas Browne,
-in the notes to his 20th chap. accuses Erasmus as well as Machiavel.
-
-With more apparent reason they attack both Pompanacius and Cardan. The
-former, in his treatise on the immortality of the soul, where he
-reasons as a philosopher and speaks abstractly of the Catholic
-faith--in which (at the end of his work) he solemnly professes
-himself a believer--is bold enough to add that the doctrine of the
-immortality of the soul had been propounded by the originators of
-every religious creed in order to keep their followers in thrall, and
-that therefore the majority of the human race had been duped. "If
-the Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan religions," he continues,
-"are all three of them impostures, it follows that the half of
-mankind are mistaken." This absurd reasoning, in spite of the
-precautions of Pompanacius, reached Jacques Carpentier, and induced
-him to exclaim, "Can any thing be conceived of more truly pernicious
-than this scepticism, coming as it does from a Christian school of
-theology. [15]"
-
-Cardan goes still farther wrong in the eleventh of his discourses
-"On Sophistry," where, after minutely comparing Paganism, Judaism,
-Christianity, and Mahometanism, and setting the one to contradict
-the other, without expressing belief in any of them, he finishes
-rashly in this way; "his igitur arbitrio victoriæ relictes," that is,
-he leaves it to chance to decide the victory; an expression however
-which he himself corrected in the second edition of his work.--This
-retraction did not save him from being most bitterly attacked three
-years afterward by Joseph Scaliger, on account of the fearful import
-of the language he had made use of, and of the indifference it showed
-on the part of Cardan as to which of the four parties might gain
-the victory, and as to whether that victory were gained by argument
-or arms.
-
-In the last article of the work "Naudiana," which is a rhapsodical
-compound of blunders and falsehood, there are some confused references
-to "The Three Impostors." The author asserts that Ramus had attributed
-it to Postel; nothing whatever can be found in the writings of Ramus
-to establish this. Postel was a singular visionary. Henry Stephanus
-relates that he had been heard to say, that out of the three religions,
-the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan, a good one might be
-made. However, in no part of his work does he call in question the
-mission of Moses, or the divinity of Christ; neither does he venture
-to maintain in exact terms that the devout Venetian Hospitaller,
-whom he calls "his mother Jeanne," would be the Redeemer of women,
-as Christ had been the Redeemer of men. After explaining that in
-men there is a masculine part, the animus, and a feminine part, the
-anima, he has the absurdity to add that both parts were corrupted
-by sin and that "his mother Jeanne" might restore the feminine as
-Christ had restored the masculine. The book in which he utters this
-absurdity was printed at Paris in 1553, and is by no means so rare but
-that copies may easily be found. From it we can gather that he would
-have published the other works also, if it had been true that he had
-reached this pitch of blasphemy. So far from this being the case,
-he writes (1543) that the book was written by Michael Servetus;
-and long afterwards he does not scruple to avenge himself on his
-Huguenot calumniators, by accusing them, in a letter addressed to
-Masius, (1563) of having themselves printed the work at Caen: "this
-infamous commentary or discourse against Moses, Christ, and Mahomet,
-was lately printed at Cæn, by those who profess themselves the keenest
-supporters of the Calvinistic doctrines. [16]" In the same chapter of
-"Naudiana," mention is made of one Barnaud, but in terms so perplexed
-that little can be drawn from them except that he had seen an octavo
-work of 98 pages, printed in 1613, entitled "The Geneva Booby." It
-did not bear where it had been printed, neither was the author's
-name given. Perhaps it might have been written by Henri de Sponde,
-afterwards Bishop of Pamier; who says, that at that period there lived
-a physician named Barnaud an Arian, who had composed this treatise. Now
-this would make it of a comparatively recent date. The only sensible
-article in "Naudiana" is towards its conclusion, where Naude, a man
-of vast experience as a bibliologist, is made to declare that he had
-never seen the work alluded to, that he did not believe such a work
-had ever been printed, and that he considered every thing which had
-been said on this subject as mere invention and fable.
-
-To this list may be added that notable atheist Julius Cæsar Vanini,
-burned at Toulouse under the name of Lucilius Vaninus, who was accused
-of having circulated this vile work in France some years before he
-was put to death.
-
-If there are writers so credulous and devoid of common sense as to
-believe in these incoherencies, asserting that the book was publicly
-sold in many quarters of Europe, they ought to set the matter at rest
-by producing a single copy; for it cannot be in the case supposed, that
-the work is so rarely to be met with. But no person has seen a copy,
-neither of the edition said to have been published by Christian Wechel
-at Paris, about the middle of the 16th century, nor of that which they
-attribute to Nachtegal, as printed at the Hague, 1614 or 1615. Father
-Theophylus Reynaud states that the former had sunk into extreme poverty
-from the visitations of heaven; and Muller relates of the latter that
-he was banished from the Hague with infamy. Bayle in his dictionary
-(article Wechell) clearly refutes the calumny against this printer;
-and in regard to Nachtegal, Spizelius informs us that he was a native
-of Alkmaer, and banished, not for having published this suppositious
-work, but for having given utterance to other blasphemies. Now, when
-we look over with attention and patience what Vincent Placcius says in
-the folio edition of his immense work concerning "Anonymous writers,
-and authors who write under false names," and what Christian Kertholt
-says in his work revised by his son Sebastian regarding "The Three
-Impostors," and finally what Struvius advances in his treatise (1706)
-on "Learned Impostors," we can find nothing at all to prove that such
-a work ever existed; and it is astonishing that Struvius, who in spite
-of the most specious evidence which Tentzelius had offered him to
-prove its existence, had always maintained the contrary, was at last
-persuaded to believe that there really was such a work; and that too,
-for the most frivolous reason which it is possible to conceive.
-
-In the preface of "Atheism Overthrown," he discovers that the author
-of this work, in order to vindicate himself from the crime laid to
-his charge, declares that "The Three Impostors" had been published
-thirty years before he was born. This is a strange discovery, but
-it appeared so satisfactory to Struvius that he ceased to doubt
-in the existence of such a book, because he knew the year in which
-Campannelle was born (1568.) and knew also that the book was printed
-thirty years before this, viz. in 1538. Afterwards in pushing their
-researches farther, they resolved to consider Boccaccio as the author
-of the work, from a misinterpreted passage in Chap. 2, No. 6, in the
-"Atheism Overthrown" where the following words occur; "Hence Boccaccio
-in his impious fables, contends that there is no distinction between
-the law of Moses, of Christ and of Mahomet, because they are as like
-each other as the three similar rings. [17]" But does Campannelle,
-in this passage intend to say that Boccaccio was the author of "The
-Three Impostors?" So far is this from being the case, that he answers
-elsewhere the objections of the Atheists against Boccaccio and the
-book in question; and Struvius himself, in the 9th paragraph of his
-dissertation on "Learned Impostors" quotes a passage from Ernstius,
-which states that Campannelle had told him that the book was written by
-Muret; now Muret having been born in 1526, and the book been printed
-in 1538, he could only have been 12 years of age; at which time of
-life we cannot suppose it possible that he was able to write a work of
-this description. It follows therefore that this book, said to have
-been written in Latin and printed in Germany, never existed. At no
-period has there been a printed work, however rarely to be met with,
-in reference to which very authentic and circumstantial information
-could not be found.
-
-Although the works of Michael Servetus may never be met with, it has
-always been well known that they were printed, and moreover where they
-were printed. Before the publication of the two modern editions of the
-"Cymbalum Mundi," composed by Bonnaventure de Perrieres, writing under
-the assumed name of Thomas du Clevier, who says that he had translated
-it from the Latin, and of which work only two ancient copies remain,
-the one in the King's library and the other in that of M. Bigot at
-Rouen;--before the publication of the the modern editions, it was an
-ascertained fact that the work had been printed, and the date and
-name of the bookseller were known. The case is exactly the same as
-regards "The Blessings of Christianity, or the Scourge of the Faith,"
-the author of which, Geoffrey Vallee a native of Orleans, was hanged
-and burned at Greve, on the 9th February 1573, after having adjured
-his errors. It is a small octavo work of thirty pages, without date,
-or the name of the place where it was printed; a trifle, feebly
-reasoned, and now become so rare that perhaps the copy belonging to
-Monsieur the Abbe d'Estrees is the only one to be found. But although
-all these works had absolutely perished, no one could doubt their
-previous existence, the facts on record concerning them being as true,
-as those concerning 'The Three Impostors' are apocryphal.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                                 ANSWER
-   TO THE DISSERTATION OF MONSIEUR DE LA MONNOYE ON THE WORK ENTITLED
-                         "THE THREE IMPOSTORS."
-
-
-An attempt at discussion, which you will find at the end of the new
-edition of "Menagiana," which has just been published in this country,
-affords me the opportunity of giving some information to the public on
-a subject which appears to call into exercise the ingenuity of almost
-all the learned; and at the same time of vindicating the character
-of many eminent men, and men of distinguished merit, who have been
-attacked as the authors of the work which forms the subject of a
-disquisition attributed to M. de la Monnoye. Without doubt this new
-book is already in your possession; you will perceive that I allude
-to "The Three Impostors." The author of the dissertation upholds the
-non-existence of such a book, and attempts to establish his point by
-bringing forward conjectures, without advancing any evidence capable
-in the smallest degree of influencing the opinions of those who are
-accustomed to examine before they decide. I will not undertake to
-refute seriatim the articles contained in a dissertation, the substance
-of which is to be found in a Latin discourse by M. Burkhard Gotthelf
-Struve, on "Learned Impostors," printed for the second time at Geneva,
-by Muller in 1706, and which M. de la Monnoye must have seen, because
-he quotes from it. He will acknowledge that I am quite prepared
-to overturn his arguments, when I inform him that I have read this
-celebrated little work, and that I have it in my library. I will give
-you and the public an account of the way in which I discovered it,
-and as it is in my possession, I will subjoin a short but faithful
-description of it.
-
-Being at Frankfort on the Main in 1706, I called one day in company
-with a Jew, and a friend named Frecht, at that time a student in
-Theology, on an eminent bookseller in whose establishment almost
-every work was to be met with. We were examining his catalogue
-when there entered a German officer, who addressed himself to the
-proprietor in German, and asked him if he was ready to agree to his
-proposals, or if another merchant should be sought after. Frecht,
-who formerly was acquainted with the officer, saluted him and was
-recognised. This gave an opportunity to my friend of asking the
-officer, whose name was Trawsendorff, what transaction he had with
-the bookseller. Trawsendorff told him that he had two manuscripts and
-a very old book in his possession, by the sale of which he expected
-to raise a sum of money against the approaching campaign, and that
-the bookseller higgled on 50 Rix-dollars, being unwilling to advance
-more than 450 for the three works, which he, (the officer), valued
-at 500. This great sum of money demanded for two manuscripts and a
-little book excited the curiosity of Frecht, who asked of his friend
-if he might see the productions which he wished to sell at so dear
-a rate. Trawsendorff immediately drew from his pocket a parchment
-envelope, tied with a silk thread, which he opened, and from which
-he took the three books. We went into the parlour of the bookseller
-to examine them at our leisure, and the first which Frecht looked
-at had been printed, but had a title written in Italian instead of
-its real title, which had been defaced. It ran thus; "Spaccio della
-Bestia triumphante," and did not appear to be of an ancient date. It
-struck me as being the same work which Toland translated into English,
-and printed some years ago, and the copies of which sell very high.
-
-The second we looked at was an old Latin manuscript written in a
-character very difficult to decypher, without any title; but at the top
-of the first page there were written these words, "Fredric the Emperor
-wishes health to Otho, his most illustrious and dearest friend. [18]"
-
-The work opens with a letter, the first lines of which are as follows;
-"I will send you as soon as possible a copy of the work on the three
-most celebrated deceivers of mankind, a work written at my request
-by a very learned man, and transcribed by my order for my library;
-and along with it another work written in the same pure and polished
-style, for, &c." [19] The third was also a Latin manuscript without
-a title, commencing with a quotation from Cicero.
-
-Frecht having glanced over the books in a hurried way, fixed his
-attention upon the second, of which he had often heard, and in respect
-to which he had read many conflicting histories; and without looking
-into the other two, he took Trawsendorff aside and told him that he
-would easily find purchasers of the three works. He spoke little of
-the Italian work, and by reading a few passages he showed him that
-the other was a demonstration of Atheism. As the bookseller still
-held to his terms, and would not come up to the officer's demand,
-we went all three to the lodgings of Frecht, who having an object in
-view called for wine, and while begging Trawsendorff to inform us how
-he came by the works, he made him swallow so many bumpers that he
-soon became half intoxicated, so that Frecht had little difficulty
-in persuading him to leave with him the manuscript of "The Three
-most celebrated Deceivers of Mankind;" but he made him take a solemn
-oath that he would not copy it. On this condition, the work was to be
-left with us from Wednesday till Sunday night, when Trawsendorff was
-to call again and take his share of a few bottles of Frecht's wine,
-which seemed to be much to his taste.
-
-As I had quite as much desire as Frecht to be acquainted with the
-book, we sat down immediately to read it over, determining to sleep
-very little until Sunday night. It was not very large--an octavo
-work of ten sections, exclusive of the prefatory letter, but in so
-small a character, and so full of contractions, besides being without
-points, that we had much difficulty in decyphering the first page
-in two hours. After this however we read it more easily, which made
-me suggest to my friend a plan (rather Jesuitical) whereby he might
-obtain a copy of this celebrated work without breaking his oath which
-he had taken on compulsion;--that it was likely that Trawsendorff,
-when he insisted that it should not be copied, only meant that he
-should not transcribe the words--in short that we were quite at liberty
-to translate it. To which Frecht consented after some scruples, and
-we set to work immediately. On Sunday we were in possession of the
-work a little before midnight. Trawsendorff afterwards got his 500
-rix-dollars for the work from a bookseller who had been commissioned
-by a Prince of the House of Saxe to purchase it. The Prince knew that
-it had been stolen from the Royal Library at Munich, when the Germans
-obtained possession of the city after the defeat of the French and
-Bavarians at Hochstet, and Trawsendorff acknowledged to us that, being
-alone in the library of the Elector, the parchment envelope with its
-yellow silk thread attracted his attention, and that he could not
-resist the temptation to steal it: expecting that it contained some
-rare production, in which he was not disappointed.
-
-To complete the history of this treatise, I will give you the
-conjectures which Frecht and I made as to its origin. We agreed at
-once that the "Illustrissimo Otho" to whom it was sent, was "Otho
-the Illustrious," Duke of Bavaria, son of Louis I. and grandson of
-"Otho the Great," Count of Schiven and Witelspach, to whom the Emperor
-Frederick Barbarossa had given Bavaria as a reward for his fidelity,
-after he took it away from "Henry the Lion," as a punishment for his
-ingratitude. "Otho the Illustrious" succeeded his father Louis I.,
-in 1230, under the reign of Fredrick II., grandson of Frederick
-Barbarossa, who had at that time quarrelled with the Count of
-Rome on his return from Jerusalem. This led us to think that the
-letters F. I. S. D. which followed the "Amico meo carissimo," denoted
-Fredericus Imperator Salutem Dicit, and that the treatise was written
-posterior to the year 1230, by the order of this Emperor, inflamed
-as he was against all Religions in consequence of the bad treatment
-he had met with from the head of his own, viz. Pope Gregory IX. by
-whom he had been excommunicated before he set out, and who persecuted
-him even in Syria by intriguing to such an extent, that the Emperor's
-army refused to obey his orders. This Prince on his return besieged
-the Pope at Rome, after having ravaged the neighboring territory,
-and thereafter made a peace with him which was of no long duration,
-and which was followed by an animosity so bitter between him and
-the Holy Pontiff, that it only ceased at the death of the latter,
-who died heart-broken that Frederick triumphed in spite of his
-empty fulminations, and that he had unmasked the vices of the Papal
-Chair in satirical verses which he circulated in every quarter,--in
-Germany, Italy, and France. But we could not discover who was the
-"doctissimus vir," with whom Otho appears to have held converse on
-the subject in the library, and apparently in the company of the
-Emperor; unless indeed it were the celebrated Pierre des Vignes, the
-secretary, or as others maintain, the chancellor of Frederick II. His
-discourse "On Sovereign Power," and his "Letters," give proof of his
-learning, and the zeal which he had for the interests of his master,
-and of his own hatred of Pope Gregory IX, and the Ecclesiastics and
-established Churches of his day. It is true, that in one letter
-he attempts to exculpate his master from the charges against him
-as the author of this book: but this strengthens the supposition,
-and inclines us to think he only pleaded for Frederick, to cloak his
-own share in so scandalous a work. At all events we must believe that
-he would have confessed the truth when Frederick, on suspicion that
-he had conspired against his life, condemned him to lose his eyes,
-and handed him over to the inhabitants of Pisa, his cruel enemies;
-and where despair hurried on his death in an infamous dungeon where
-he could hold intercourse with no one.
-
-In this way we can repel the false charges brought against Averroes,
-Boccaccio, Dolet, Aretino, Servetus, Ochinus, Postel, Pompanacius,
-Campannelle, Poggio, Pulci, Muret, Vanini, Milton, and many others;
-the book having been written by a learned man in high repute at the
-court of this Emperor, and by his order. As to the printing of the
-book they can bring forward no proof whatever; and it is impossible
-to conceive that Frederick, surrounded as he was by enemies, would
-have circulated a work which gave fair opportunity of proclaiming his
-infidelity. It is probable therefore that there are only two copies,
-the original one and that sent to Otho of Bavaria.
-
-This will suffice as to the discovery of the book, and its date;
-we come now to what it contains.
-
-It is divided into six books or chapters, every one of which contains
-several paragraphs. The first Chapter has for its title "Of God," and
-contains six paragraphs in which the author, wishing to appear free
-from party or educational prejudices, shows that although mankind
-have a real interest in ascertaining the truth, nevertheless they
-found upon opinions and imaginations alone; and meeting with people
-whose interest it is to keep them in this state, they are made to
-rest, contented in it, although they could easily shake off the yoke
-by making the slightest use of their reason. He passes next to the
-ideas which men entertain of the Divinity, and prove that they are
-injurious, inasmuch as they have led to the creation of the most
-fearful and imperfect being whom it is possible to conceive of; and
-he then blames the ignorance of the people, or rather their foolish
-credulity in putting faith in the visions of Prophets and Apostles,
-of whom he draws a portrait suited to the ideas which he entertains
-of them.
-
-The second Chapter treats of the reasons which have led men to
-believe in a divinity. It is divided into eleven paragraphs, where
-he proves that the ignorance of physical causes has given birth to
-a fear natural enough at the sight of a thousand terrible accidents,
-and has led them to believe in the existence of some invisible Power;
-a doubt, and a fear, of which subtle politicians have taken advantage,
-for their own interest, and which have given rise to a belief in this
-Existence, which has been confirmed by others who have found it for
-their own benefit to maintain it; although it is merely grounded on
-the folly of the common people, always admirers of the extraordinary,
-the sublime, and the marvellous. He next inquires into the nature
-of the Divinity, and overturns the vulgar belief in final causes, as
-contrary to sound philosophy. In fine, he makes it appear that such
-ideas of the Divinity are only formed after having decided what is
-perfect, good, evil, virtue, vice, according to imagination, and often
-as false as possible. In his tenth paragraph the author explains his
-own opinion as to the Divinity, which is conformable to the system
-of the Pantheists, saying that the word God represents an infinite
-Being, one of whose attributes is that he is of unlimited extension,
-and consequently that he is infinite and eternal. In the eleventh
-paragraph he treats with ridicule the popular opinion which is given
-to the Deity, a resemblance to the kings of the earth; and passing
-to the sacred books, he speaks of them in a very unfavourable manner.
-
-The third Chapter has for its title "The signification of the word
-Theology, and how, and for what purpose so many religions have been
-introduced into the world."--This chapter contains twenty-three
-paragraphs. In the ninth he examines the origin of religions;
-and brings forward examples and reasonings which, so far from
-being divine, are altogether the work of politicians. In the tenth
-paragraph he undertakes to expose the imposture of Moses, showing
-what he was, and how he managed to establish the Jewish religion. In
-the eleventh paragraph he inquires into the impostures of several
-politicians such as Numa, and Alexander the Great. In the twelfth he
-examines the birth of Jesus Christ; in the thirteenth and following
-he considers his morality, which he does not think more pure than
-that of a great number of ancient philosophers; in the nineteenth
-he inquires whether his reputation after his death is sufficient to
-warrant his believing in his divinity. Lastly, in the twenty-second
-and twenty-third paragraphs, he considers the imposture of Mahomet,
-of whom he does not say so much, because he has not to encounter so
-many advocates of his doctrine as that of the two others.
-
-The fourth Chapter treats of truth evident and obvious to the senses,
-and consists only of six paragraphs, where he demonstrates what really
-is the divinity, and what are his attributes: he rejects the belief
-in a life to come, and the existence of spirits.
-
-The fifth Chapter treats "Of the Soul." It consists of seven paragraphs
-in which, after having exposed the vulgar opinions, he gives those
-of the Philosophers of antiquity, and concludes by showing the nature
-of the Soul according to his own system.
-
-In the sixth and last Chapter of seven paragraphs, he discourses on the
-Spirits called Demons, and shows the origin and falsity of the opinions
-as to their existence.--Such is the anatomy of this celebrated work. I
-might have given it in a manner more extended and more minute; but
-besides that this letter is already too long, I think that enough has
-been said to give insight into the nature of its contents. A thousand
-other reasons which you will well enough understand, have prevented
-me from entering upon it to so great a length as I could have done;
-"Est modus in rebus. [20]"
-
-Now although this book were ready to be printed with the preface
-in which I have given its history, and its discovery, with some
-conjectures as to its origin, and a few remarks which may be placed
-at its conclusion, yet I do not believe that it will live to see the
-day when men will be compelled all at once to quit their opinions and
-their imaginations, as they have quited their syllogisms, their canons,
-and their other antiquated modes. As for me I will not expose myself
-to the Theological stylus [21], which I fear as much as Fra-Poulo
-feared the Roman stylus, to afford to a few learned men the pleasure of
-reading this little treatise; but neither will I be so superstitious,
-on my death bed, as to make it be thrown into the flames, which we
-are informed was done by Salvius, the Swedish ambassador at the
-peace of Munster. Those who come after me may do what seems them
-good--they cannot disturb me in the tomb. Before I descend to that,
-I remain with much respect, your most obedient servant,
-
-
-J. L. R. L.
-
-Leyden, 1st January 1716.
-
-
-[This letter was written by M. Pierre Frederick Arpe, of Kiel in
-Holstein; the author of an apology for Vanini, printed in octavo at
-Rotterdam, 1712]
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-COPY OF THE SECOND PART, VOL. I, ARTICLE IX. OF, "LITERARY
-MEMOIRS." PUBLISHED AT THE HAGUE BY HENRY DU SAUZET, 1716.
-
-
-It is impossible in the present day to doubt the existence of "The
-Three Impostors," since we find several manuscript copies of it. If
-M. de la Monnoye had observed the agreement of it with an extract
-published at Leyden, 1st. Jan. 1716,--the same division into six
-chapters--the same titles, and the same subjects of which they treat,
-he would have exclaimed against the forgery of this work, improperly
-attributed to Pierre des Vignes, the Secretary and Chancellor of
-Frederick II. This judicious critic long ago observed the difference
-between the Gothic style of Pierre des Vignes in his Epistles, and
-that of the letter pretended to be addressed to the Duke of Bavaria,
-"Otho the illustrious," when they sent him the work. A more important
-point has not escaped the notice of the learned. This treatise is
-written and argued in the method and upon the principles of the New
-Philosophy, which was not introduced until about the middle of the
-seventeenth century, after Descartes, Gassendi, Bernier, and some
-others had explained its principles in a juster and clearer way than
-did the ancient philosophers, who wished to preserve their secrets,
-as they affected a mysterious obscurity in favor of the initiated. The
-author himself, in the fifteen chapter of his work, names Descartes,
-and combats the arguments of this great man on the subject of the
-soul. Neither Pierre des Vignes, nor any of those whom they have
-attempted to pass off as the author of this book, could have reasoned
-according to the principles of the new Philosophy, which was not
-introduced till after they had written. To whom then must the work
-be attributed? We must conclude that it cannot be of the same date
-as the short letter printed at Leyden, 1717. But another difficulty
-occurs. Tentzelius, who wrote in 1689, also gives an extract from
-this book upon the credit of a pretended ocular witness. But without
-attempting to fix the date of this book, which is said to have been
-composed in Latin and printed; the small French manuscript treatise,
-whether it had ever been written in that language or whether it is
-translated from the Latin, (which is difficult to believe,) cannot
-be of a very ancient date.
-
-This is not the only book composed under this title and upon the same
-subject. A man whose character and profession ought to have led him
-to engage in matters more decorous, composed a great work (in French)
-under the same title. In his preface he says that it is long since he
-had heard of "The Three Impostors," but that he had never found any
-part of it, whether there had never existed such a work, or whether
-it be lost; therefore he attempts to restore it by writing on the
-same subject. His work is very long, very wearisome, and very badly
-written; with little principles and less argument. It is a confused
-jumble of all the invectives and calumnies circulated against the
-Three Legislators. The manuscript was in two volumes folio, thick,
-and legible enough, although in small characters--the book is divided
-into a great many chapters. Another similar manuscript was found after
-the death of a nobleman. This gave rise to an attempt to seize the
-author who having been informed of it took care that nothing should
-be found among his papers to convict him. Afterwards he lived in a
-monastery under penance. In 1733 he recovered his liberty and enjoyed
-a revenue of 250 livres from the Abbey of St. Liquarie, in addition
-to a reserved one of 350 livres from his benefice. His name was
-Guillaume, Cure of Fresne-sur-Berny, and the brother of a labourer in
-the Netherlands. He was at one time Regent of the College of Montaigu;
-in his youth he had been a dragoon, and then he became a Capuchin.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS OF TREATISE.
-
-
-CHAP. I. Of God. The false ideas which men have formed of the
-Divinity. Instead of consulting reason and common sense, they have
-had the weakness to believe in the opinions, reveries, and visions
-of parties whose interest it was to deceive them, and to keep them
-in ignorance and superstition.
-
-CHAP. II. On the reasons which have led men to believe in a
-Divinity. From the ignorance as to physical causes, and the terror
-produced by accidents, rational enough but extraordinary or fearful,
-has arisen the belief in some invisible power; a belief, of which
-Politicians and Impostors have not failed to take advantage. Enquiry
-into the nature of God. Belief in final causes refuted as contrary
-to sound Natural Philosophy.
-
-CHAP. III. On the meaning of the word Theology. How, and for what
-purpose, so many Religions have been introduced into the world. All
-Religions the work of Politicians. Method which Moses took to establish
-the Jewish Religion. Enquiry into the Nativity of Jesus Christ. His
-Politics--his Morality--and his Reputation after his death. Artifices
-of Mahomet to established his Religion. Success of this impostor
-greater than that of Christ.
-
-CHAP. IV. Truth evident and obvious to the senses. Idea of an
-universal Being. Attributes ascribed to him in all religious systems,
-generally incompatible with his essence, and unsuited to the nature
-of man. Notion of a life to come and of the existence of Spirits,
-combated and rejected.
-
-CHAP. V. On the Soul. Different opinions of the Ancient Philosophers
-on the nature of the Soul. Arguments of Descartes refuted. Author's
-exposition on the subject.
-
-CHAP. VI. On the Spirits named Demons. Origin and falsity of the
-opinions as to their existence.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                               A TREATISE
-                                   ON
-                          THE THREE IMPOSTORS.
-
-
-CHAP. I.--OF GOD.
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-Although it is important that all men should know the truth, there
-are nevertheless few who enjoy this advantage; some are incapable of
-finding it out unassisted, and others will not put themselves to the
-trouble. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if the world is filled
-with vain and absurd opinions; and nothing is more adapted to spread
-them than ignorance, which is the sole originator of the false ideas
-which prevail as to the Divinity, the Soul, the existence of Spirits,
-and almost all the other subjects which go to make up Theology. Custom
-is powerful--men rest contented in the prejudices of their birth, and
-leave the care of the most essential matters to interested parties, who
-make it a rule to uphold with bigotry the received opinions, and who
-dare not overturn them lest in so doing they should destroy themselves.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-What renders the evil without remedy is this, that, after having
-established these false ideas of the Divinity, they neglect no plan
-to compel the people to believe in them, without permitting any one
-to examine for himself. On the contrary, they have excited a hatred
-against philosophers--the truly learned, lest the doctrines which they
-would teach should lead to the exposure of those errors in which they
-have plunged mankind. The advocates of these foolish notions have
-succeeded so well, that it is dangerous to combat them. It is too
-much the interest of those impostors that the people be ignorant,
-to permit them to become enlightened. Thus the truth must either
-be kept in abeyance, or its promoters be prepared to be sacrificed
-at the shrine of a false philosophy, and to suffer from the rage of
-grovelling and interested minds.
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-If the people could understand into what an abyss they are sunk by
-ignorance, they would speedily shake off the yoke of their unworthy
-leaders, for it is impossible not to discover the truth when reason
-is left to its unrestrained exercise.
-
-These deceivers are so well aware of this, that to prevent the good
-effects which Truth would infallibly produce, they have painted it
-as a monster incapable of giving rise to any virtuous sentiment;
-although, in general terms, they condemn unreasonable people, they
-would nevertheless be much disconcerted if the truth were heard. Thus
-these sworn enemies to common sense are perpetually falling into
-contradictions, and it is difficult to discover at what they are
-aiming. If it be true that reason is the only light which men ought
-to follow, and if the people are not so incapable of judging as they
-wish us to believe, it ought to be the object of those who instruct
-them to endeavour to rectify the false reasonings, and to uproot their
-prejudices; then their eyes would be gradually opened and their minds
-convinced that the Deity is by no means what is generally supposed.
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-To attain this, there is no need for lofty speculations, nor for
-penetrating far into the mysteries of nature. It requires only a
-little common sense to perceive that the Deity is neither choleric
-nor jealous; that justice and mercy are alike falsely considered as
-his attributes; and that, all that the Prophets and Apostles have
-said give us no information either as to his nature, or to his essence.
-
-In short to speak plainly and to put the matter on its proper footing,
-it will be allowed that these teachers were neither more able nor
-better instructed than the rest of mankind; so far from that being
-the case, what they advance regarding the Deity is so gross that
-the people must be altogether ignorant to credit it. Although this
-is apparent enough we will attempt to explain it more at length, by
-inquiring, if there is any evidence that the Prophets and Apostles
-were differently constituted from other men.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-It is agreed, that as far as descent, and the common duties of life are
-implicated, they possessed no quality to mark them out from the rest
-of mankind. They were begotten by men, they were born of women, and
-they sustained themselves as we do in the present day. In reference
-to their minds, people would have us believe that God dealt with
-these prophets in a way differing from that wherein he deals with
-ordinary mortals, and that he disclosed himself to them in a manner
-quite exclusive. Many persons consider this matter as a proved and
-ascertained fact, without reflecting that every man may meet his
-counterpart, and that we have one common origin; endeavouring at the
-same time to persuade us that these men were cast in no common mould
-and that they were selected by the Deity to proclaim his oracles. Now,
-apart from the consideration that these inspired people were gifted
-with only an average intellect, and with an understanding not much
-above the common, what do we find in their writings to justify us
-in forming so exalted an opinion of them? The matter of which they
-treat is for the most part so obscure that no one can comprehend
-it, and thrown together with so little order that it is easy to
-perceive they did not understand it themselves; the whole showing
-that they were both knaves and fools. Their impudence in boasting
-that whatever they announced to the people came immediately from God,
-gave rise to the respect which was paid to them. This assertion on
-their part was equally absurd and ridiculous, seeing that according
-to their own declaration God only spoke to them in dreams. There is
-nothing more natural than that a man should dream; but a man must
-be very impudent, very vain, and very stupid, to say that God speaks
-to him in this manner, and a poor and credulous fool must he be who
-should yield credence to such an assertion, and receive the dreams
-of such visionaries for heavenly oracles. Suppose for a moment that
-the Deity were to hold intercourse with a man by dreams, or visions,
-or in any other way we can think of; nobody is obliged to believe
-this on the mere assertion of a fellow-creature equally subject to
-error with himself, and moreover, fallible in the way of lying and
-imposture. Accordingly we find that under the ancient law, the prophets
-were held in far less repute than they are at the present day. When
-people got wearied of their babble, which often only tended to spread
-revolt and to turn aside subjects from obedience to their sovereigns,
-they silenced them by punishment. Jesus Christ himself did not escape
-chastisement, for he had not, like Moses [22], an army at his back
-to defend his opinions. Add to this, that the prophets were so much
-accustomed to contradict each other, that out of four hundred of them
-not one true or truth-speaking man could be found. [23] Moreover it
-is certain that the drift of their prophesies, like that of the laws
-promulgated by the most celebrated legislators, was to immortalize
-their memory by persuading people that they had conferences with the
-Divinity. The most subtle politicians have invariably played the same
-game, although this ruse has not succeeded with every one as it did
-with Moses.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-This being settled, let us examine for a little the idea which the
-Prophets have formed of the Deity. According to their account, God is
-a being purely corporeal. Michael saw him seated; Daniel beheld him
-clothed in white, and under the form of an Old Man; Ezekiel perceived
-him as a Fire: so much for the Old Testament. With respect to the
-New, the disciples of Jesus Christ imagined that they saw him in
-the form of a Dove; the Apostles, like Tongues of Fire; and finally,
-St. Paul beheld him as a Light, which dazzled and blinded him. Then
-as to their contradictory statements; in the Book of Genesis [24]
-we are informed that man is the master of his own actions, and that
-it only depends upon himself to do what is right. St. Paul on the
-other hand asserts that man has no control over his evil propensities
-without the particular grace of God. Samuel [25] declares that the
-Deity repented of the evil which he had brought on men: and Jeremiah
-[26] affirms that he repented, or on certain conditions that he would
-repent, of the good which he had done them. Such are the false and
-contradictory ideas which those pretenders to inspiration give us of
-the divinity; and which they wish us to adopt without reflecting that
-they represent the Deity as a sensitive Being, material, and subject
-to like passions with ourselves. Next they inform us that God has
-nothing in common with matter, and that his nature is altogether
-incomprehensible by us. It would be important to learn how these
-manifest and irrational contradictions can be reconciled; and whether
-we ought to put much faith in the evidence of a people who, in spite
-of the sermons of Moses, were stupid enough to believe that a calf
-was their God! Without dwelling on the reveries of a people cradled
-in bondage and brought up in absurdity, it is sufficient to remark,
-that ignorance has produced a belief in all the impostures and errors
-which prevail amongst us at the present day.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAP. II.
-
-ON THE REASONS WHICH HAVE LED MANKIND TO BELIEVE IN A DIVINITY.
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-Those who are ignorant of physical causes have a natural fear
-[27], proceeding from a restlessness in their minds, as to whether
-there exists a Being or an Agency invisible to them, who has the
-power to injure them or to do them good. Hence the tendency which
-they have to feign unseen causes, which are only the phantoms
-of their imagination--whom they deprecate in adversity and thank
-in prosperity. They make Gods of them for this purpose; and this
-chimerical fear of invisible Powers is the source of those Religions
-which every one forms after his own fashion. Those whose interest it
-is that the people should rest contentedly fettered by such reveries,
-have fostered their spread--have founded laws upon them--and finally
-reduced the people by the terrors of futurity to a blind obedience.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-The origin of the Gods being discovered, men next imagined that they
-resembled themselves, and that they invariably acted with a certain
-end in view. Thus they unanimously said and believed, that God only
-works for man's behoof; and reciprocally, that man is only created
-for God. This prejudice is general even in the present day, and when
-we reflect on the influence which it must necessarily have on the
-manners and opinions of men we may clearly perceive that from it
-have arisen those false ideas which men have formed to themselves,
-of good and evil, of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, of
-order and confusion, of beauty and deformity, and a thousand other
-similar matters.
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-It must be agreed that all men are in a state of profound ignorance
-at their birth, and that their only natural wish is to seek that
-which is pleasant and profitable to them.--Hence it follows, 1st,
-That they believe it sufficient for them that they are free, and
-that they feel within themselves the power of volition and desire,
-without troubling themselves as to the causes which effect this
-volition and this desire; because they know them not. 2dly, As men
-only aim at one object when they prefer it to all others, they sought
-to ascertain the final causes of their actions, imagining that after
-these were discovered there would be little room for doubt; and as
-they found within themselves and without themselves abundant means
-of arriving at the end proposed--the eye constructed for vision, the
-ear for hearing; a sun above them to give them light and heat; they
-concluded that there was nothing in nature which was not made for them
-and which they could not enjoy and dispose of; but as they well knew
-that they were not the creators of these things, they thought that
-they were justified in imagining a Supreme Being, the author of all;
-in one word they conceived that everything in existence was the work of
-one, or of more Divinities. On the other hand, the nature of the Gods
-whom men acknowledged being unknown to them, they believed that they
-were susceptible of like passions with themselves; and as the natural
-dispositions of men are different, every one rendered to his Divinity
-a worship according to his fancy, with the view of drawing down his
-blessings, and making universal nature subservient to his own desires.
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-In this manner prejudice was changed into superstition. It was rooted
-in such a way that the most ignorant people believed themselves
-capable of explaining the doctrine of final causes, as if they had
-an entire knowledge of them.--Thus, instead of proving that Nature
-did nothing in vain, they imagined that God and Nature thought after
-the manner of men. Experience taught them that an infinite number
-of calamities disturbed the pleasures of life--storms, earthquakes,
-plagues, hunger, thirst, &c. They attributed all these evils to
-divine wrath, and believed that the Deity was irritated against
-mankind for their offences; nor could the daily occurring examples
-which prove that good and evil happen alike to the just and unjust,
-disabuse them of their prejudices. This error prevailed, because they
-found it easier to remain in their natural ignorance, than to divest
-themselves of notions established for so many ages; and to adopt
-something in their stead, having at least the appearance of truth.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-This prejudice conducted them straightway to another, which was, that
-all the judgments of God were incomprehensible; and that consequently
-they were beyond the cognizance of truth, and above the strength of
-human reason; a mistake which would have existed at the present day,
-if mathematical knowledge, natural philosophy, and other sciences
-had not extinguished it.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-There is no necessity for a long dissertation to prove that nature
-never aims at any definite end, and that all these final causes are
-only human fictions. It is sufficient to show that this doctrine
-deprives the Deity of all the perfections which have been attributed
-to him; and this we will endeavor to do.
-
-If God acts for an end, either for himself or for any other being, he
-desires that which he does not possess; and it must be granted from
-these premises that, as there was a time when God had no object for
-which to act, he wished to have one; that is to say, that he stood in
-need of something. But not to overlook anything which may strengthen
-the arguments of those who maintain the opposite opinion, suppose,
-for a moment, that a stone detached from a battlement fell upon an
-individual and killed him; it proves, say our opponents, that this
-stone fell for the purpose of killing this person, because it could not
-so have happened unless God had wished it. If we reply that it was the
-wind which caused its fall at the time when the unfortunate individual
-was passing, they demand at once, how it happened that he was passing
-exactly at the time when the wind brought down the stone. We answer,
-that he was on his way to dine with a friend who had invited him;
-they wish to know why his friend had invited him on that day rather
-than on any other. They put in this manner an infinitude of absurd
-questions to force you to confess that the will of God alone (which
-is the refuge of the ignorant) was the real cause of the fall of
-this stone. When they examine the structure of the human body, they
-fall into ecstacies; but because they are ignorant of the causes of
-those effects which appear to them so marvellous, they conclude that
-it must be a supernatural effect, when the causes which are known to
-us account for it. This is the reason why the man who wishes deeply
-to examine the works of creation, and like a true philosopher to
-penetrate into their natural causes, irrespective of those prejudices
-which ignorance has created, is branded as an infidel, or speedily
-clamoured down by the malice of those whom the vulgar acknowledge as
-the interpreters of Nature and of the Gods. These mercenary spirits
-are well aware that the ignorance which holds the people in wonderment,
-is that which gives them bread, and upholds their credit.
-
-
-
-§ 7.
-
-Men being thus imbued with the ridiculous opinion that every thing
-which they behold is created for themselves, have made it a point
-of religion to engross every thing, and to judge of its value by the
-profit which it brings. Accordingly they have invented notions which
-do them service in explaining the nature of things, and enable them
-to judge of good and evil, order and disorder, heat and cold, beauty
-and ugliness, &c. which are by no means what they imagine. Because
-they are able to frame their ideas in this way, they think that they
-are in a position to judge of praise and blame; of good and evil. They
-call that good which respects their divine worship, and turns to their
-own profit; and that which does neither the one nor the other they
-denominate evil; and because the ignorant are incapable of judging,
-and have no conception of any thing save through the medium of their
-imagination, which they mistake for judgment, they tell us that
-nothing can be learned from nature, and forthwith invent a particular
-arrangement of the world. In short they think that matters are ill or
-well constituted according to the facility or the difficulty which they
-have in conceiving of them when presented to them through the medium
-of their senses. People are best pleased with what gives least fatigue
-to the brain. These individuals have wisely resolved to prefer order
-to confusion, as if order were any thing else than a pure fiction of
-the imagination. Thus to say that the Deity has made every thing with
-order, is to pretend that it is in favour of the human imagination
-that he has created the world in a manner the most easy for it to form
-a conception of;--or, which is the same thing, that they know with
-certainty all the relations and all the designs of whatever exists;
-an assertion too absurd to merit any serious refutation.
-
-
-
-§ 8.
-
-With respect to their other opinions, they are purely the result of
-this same imagination, having no basis in reality, and being only
-different modifications of which that faculty is susceptible. Thus,
-when the impressions made upon the nervous system through the medium
-of the eyes are agreeable, they pronounce that the objects viewed
-are beautiful. Smells are good or bad; tastes are sweet or bitter,
-things touched are hard or soft, according as the sensation produced
-is unpleasant or otherwise--as scents, and tastes, and contact, and
-sounds affect the system. Following up these ideas, men have believed
-that the Deity is pleased with melody, while others have believed that
-all the movements of the celestial bodies were one harmonious concert;
-a proof, that these men are persuaded that things are really such as
-they conceive them to be, or that the world is entirely ideal.--It
-is not to be wondered at therefore, if we scarcely ever meet with
-two individuals of the same opinion: indeed some make it their boast
-to doubt of every thing; for, although all men have a similar bodily
-conformation, and resemble each other in many respects, there are still
-as many respects in which they differ. Accordingly it must follow,
-that what pleases this party displeases that; and what appears good
-to one man appears evil to another.--We must conclude therefore,
-that their various opinions must be attributed to their different
-organizations and the diversity of their co-existences--that reason
-has little connection with them; and in short, that their conceptions
-of the material world are the decided results of imagination.
-
-
-
-§ 9.
-
-It is therefore evident, that all the reasonings which the generality
-of mankind are accustomed to employ when they set themselves to
-explain what nature is, are only their own modes of imagining that
-which is most uncalculated to make good their own position. They give
-names to their ideas, as if they existed in any other quarter than in
-their own prejudiced brain; but instead of calling them mere chimeras,
-they designate them Beings. There is extremely little difficulty in
-refuting the arguments grounded on such opinions.
-
-If it is true, as they advance, that the universe is nothing more
-than an emanation from, or simply a necessary consequence to,
-the Divine nature, whence spring those imperfections and defaults
-which we perceive in it? This objection is easily answered. It is
-impossible for men to judge of the perfection or imperfection of any
-Being, without a thorough knowledge of his nature and essence [28],
-and it is a strange abuse of terms to assert that any thing is more
-or less perfect according as it pleases or displeases, or as it is
-useful or noxious to human nature. To terminate the argument with
-those who demand why God has not created all men good and happy, it
-is sufficient to state that every thing is necessarily what it is;
-and that, in nature there is no imperfection, since all flows from
-the necessity of things.
-
-
-
-§ 10.
-
-This being established, if it is asked, "What then is God?" I answer
-that the word imports that universal Being "in whom," as St. Paul says,
-"we live, and move, and have our being. [29]" This opinion conveys
-no unworthy notions of the Divinity, for if all things are in God,
-all things must necessarily flow from his essence, and consequently be
-of such essence as he himself; for it is impossible to conceive that
-beings entirely material should be maintained and comprehended in a
-Being who is not so. This opinion is not new. Tertullian, one of the
-most learned of the Christian fathers, maintained in his discourse
-against Appelles, that whatever is not corporeal is nothing; and in
-that against Praxeas that every Existence is a body. He adds, "who
-will deny that God is a body, although God is a Spirit [30]?" It is
-of importance to observe that this doctrine was not condemned in any
-of the four first OEcumenical or General Councils of the Christian
-Church. [31]
-
-
-
-§ 11.
-
-These ideas are clear and simple, and the only ones which an unbiased
-mind can form of God. However, there are few contented with this
-simplicity. A gross people accustomed to the gratification of their
-senses, have conceived that God resembles the kings of the earth. That
-pomp and splendor which surround the latter have dazzled them so much,
-that to uproot the idea that God has no resemblance whatever to earthly
-sovereigns, would be to deprive them of the hope of meeting celestial
-courtiers, and of enjoying in their company, the same pleasures
-which they had tasted at regal courts; it would take from them the
-only consolation which keeps them from despair amidst the miseries of
-this life. They assert that God must be a just and avenging Being who
-punishes and recompenses--they represent him as susceptible of every
-human passion--they depict him with feet, with hands, with eyes and
-with ears, and yet maintain that he is an immaterial Being. They quote
-Scripture to prove that man is chief of God's works below, and formed
-in his own image; and deny that the copy has the slightest resemblance
-to the original. In short, the God of the people in the present day,
-as represented by themselves, is subject to more transformations than
-the Pagan Jupiter. What is still more strange is this, that the more
-these opinions contradict each other and outrage common sense, the more
-are they revered by the vulgar, who uphold with bigotry whatever their
-prophets have enounced, although these visionaries only held the same
-place among the Hebrews, as did the augurs and soothsayers amongst the
-pagans. They consult the Bible as if God and Nature had explained it to
-them exclusively, although it is only a tissue of fragments gathered
-together at various periods, and by different persons, and published
-under the censorship of the Rabbis. [32] These, at their pleasure,
-decided as to what ought to be approved of, and what, rejected;
-according as they found it agreeable or opposed to the law of Moses.
-
-Such is the malice and the folly of mankind. They spend their lives
-in quibbles, and persist in reverencing a book which has scarcely
-more arrangement than the Alcoran of Mahomet--a book which from its
-obscurity nobody understands, and which has only served to foment
-divisions. The Jew and Christians love far better to consult this
-legerdemain book, than to listen to that which God, that is to say
-Nature (inasmuch as it is the origin of all things) has written on
-their hearts. All other laws are merely human figments--palpable
-illusions set abroad, not by demons or evil spirits, which are the
-creations of the fancy, but by the policy of princes, and the craft of
-priests. The former have striven in this way to add weight to their
-authority; and the latter have been contented to enrich themselves
-by the sale of an infinitude of chimerical notions, which they vend
-at a dear rate to their ignorant followers.
-
-No other code of laws which has followed that of Moses, except the
-Christian, has been based upon that Bible the original of which
-could never be discovered, which relates to things supernatural and
-impossible, and which speaks of rewards and punishments for actions
-good or bad, but wisely postpones them till an after life, lest the
-imposture should be detected; for no one has ever returned from the
-grave. Thus the people, kept always fluctuating between hope and
-fear, are held in bondage by the belief that God has created mankind
-for no other purpose than that of rendering them eternally happy or
-everlastingly miserable. This is the origin of the vast number of
-religions which prevail in the world.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAP. III.
-
-ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD RELIGION; HOW, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE,
-SO MANY RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED INTO THE WORLD.
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-Before the term Religion was introduced into the world, mankind
-followed the law of Nature, that is, they lived conformably to
-Reason. Instinct was the only bond by which men were united; and this
-bond, simple as it is, was so strong that divisions were rare. But
-after terror led them to suspect that there were Gods and invisible
-Powers, they built altars to the imaginary beings, and shaking off
-the yoke of reason and of Nature, they bended themselves by foolish
-ceremonies, and by a superstitious worship of the idle phantoms which
-themselves had imagined.
-
-Such was the origin of the word Religion, which has made so much
-noise in the world. After having admitted the existence of these
-invisible Agencies, men worshipped them to depreciate their anger,
-and moreover they believed that nature was under the control of these
-Powers. Afterwards they came to regard themselves as inert matter,
-or as slaves who could only act under the commands of these imaginary
-beings. This false idea having obtained possession of their minds,
-they began to exhibit more contempt for nature, and more respect
-for those whom they called their Gods. Hence sprung that ignorance
-in which so many nations were immersed--an ignorance from which,
-however profound, the true philosophers might have freed them,
-if they had not been always thwarted by those who led the blind,
-and throve by their own impostures.
-
-Now, although there were little appearance of success in our
-undertaking, we must not forsake the cause of truth. A generous
-mind will speak of things as they really are, out of regard to those
-who exhibit symptoms of this malady. The truth, whatever its nature
-may be, can never be injurious; whereas error, although at the time
-apparently innocent and even useful, must finally terminate in the
-most disastrous results.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-Terror having thus created the Gods, men wished to ascertain their
-nature, and conceiving that they must be of the same substance as
-the Soul, which they thought was like the appearances in a mirror,
-or the phantoms of sleep, they believed that their Gods were real
-substances, but so thin and subtle that to distinguish them from Bodies
-they named them Spirits; although Bodies and Spirits are in truth one
-and the same thing, for it is impossible to imagine an incorporeal
-Spirit. Every spirit has its proper shape, which is inclosed in some
-body; that is, it has its limits, and consequently it is a body,
-however subtle its nature. [33]
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-The ignorant, that is the majority of mankind, having thus determined
-the nature and substance of their Gods, endeavoured next to discover
-the means by which these invisible agents acted; and unable to arrive
-at this because of their ignorance, they had recourse to their own
-conjectures, judging blindly of the future from the past. How is
-it possible to draw rational conclusions from any thing which has
-formerly happened in a certain way, as to what will happen hereafter,
-seeing that all the circumstances and all the causes which necessarily
-influence events and human actions, are so exceedingly different. They
-persisted however in contemplating the past, and they augured well
-or ill as to the future, according as any former similar undertaking
-had been successful or otherwise. On this principle, because Phormis
-had defeated the Lacedemonians at the battle of Naupactus, the
-Athenians, after his death appointed another commander of the same
-name. Hannibal having been conquered by Scipio Africanus, the Romans,
-on account of his success, sent to the same province, Scipio Cæsar,
-who was unsuccessful both against the Greeks [34] and the native
-forces. Thus have many nations, after two or three experiments,
-only attributed their bad or good fortune to places, to objects,
-and to names. Others employed certain words which they denominated
-spells, which they considered efficacious enough to make trees speak,
-to create a man or a God from a morsel of bread, and in short to
-metamorphose whatever appeared before their eyes. [35]
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-The empire of these invisible powers being now established, men at
-first did homage to them as their sovereigns, by marks of submission
-and respect; by gifts, prayers, &c. I say, at first, for nature
-does not enjoin bloody sacrifices for this purpose; these were only
-instituted for the subsistence of priests, and others set apart for
-the services of these imaginary Gods.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-These originators of Religion, viz. Hope and Fear, aided by the
-different opinions and passions of men, have given rise to a vast
-number of phantastical creeds, which have been the cause of so much
-mischief and of so many revolutions among the nations.
-
-The honor and the revenues attached to the priesthood, or to the
-ministers of the Gods, have encouraged the ambition and avarice of
-cunning men who knew how to profit by the stupidity of the vulgar,
-whom they have got so much entangled in their snares that they have led
-them insensibly into the habit of loving a lie and hating the truth.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-A system of falsehood being established, ambitious men, intoxicated
-with the pleasure of being elevated above their fellow mortals,
-attempted to add to their reputation by feigning that they were
-the friends of those invisible Beings whom the common people so much
-feared. The better to succeed in this every one represented them after
-his fashion, and they all took the liberty of multiplying them to an
-extent almost incredible.
-
-
-
-§ 7.
-
-The rude unformed matter of the world was called the God Chaos. In
-the same way they deified the Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, Fire, the
-Winds and Planets. The same honor was conferred on men and women;
-birds, reptiles, the crocodile, the calf, the dog, the lamb, the
-serpent and the swine, in fact, all sorts of plants and animals were
-worshipped. Every river, every fountain, bore the name of some deity;
-every house had its lares and penates, and every man his genius--all
-was filled above and below the earth with Gods, Spirits, Shadows, and
-Demons. Neither was it enough to feign divinities in every imaginable
-place. They outrage in the same way, Time, the Day, the Night, Victory,
-Strife, Honor, Virtue, Health, and Sickness. They invented these
-Divinities that they might represent them as ready to take vengeance
-on those who would not be brought up in temples and at altars. Lastly,
-they took to worshipping their own Genii; some invoked theirs under
-the name of the Muses, while others, under that of Fortune, worshipped
-their own ignorance. Some sanctioned their licentiousness under the
-name of Cupid, their wrath under that of the Furies, their natural
-parts under the name of Priapus; in one word there was nothing to
-which they did not give the name of a God or a Demon.
-
-
-
-§ 8.
-
-The founders of these Religions, knowing well that their impostures
-were based upon the ignorance of the people, took care to keep them in
-it by the adoration of images in which they feigned that the Divinities
-resided. This rained gold into the coffers of the priesthood, and
-their benefices were considered as sacred things because they belonged
-to holy ministers; no one having the rashness or audacity to aspire
-to them. The better to deceive mankind, the priests pretended to be
-divinely inspired Prophets, capable of penetrating the mysteries of
-futurity, boasting that they had intercourse with the Gods; and, as the
-desire is natural to learn one's destiny, they by no means failed to
-take advantage of it. Some were established at Delos, others at Delphi,
-and in various places, where in ambiguous language they answered the
-questions put to them. Even women took a part in these impostures,
-and the Romans in their greatest difficulties consulted the Sybilline
-books. These knaves were really considered inspired. Those who feigned
-that they had familiar commerce with the dead were called Necromancers;
-others pretended to ascertain the future from the flight of birds
-or the entrails of beasts; in short they could draw a good or bad
-augury from almost every thing, the eyes, the hands, the countenance,
-or any extraordinary object. So true it is that ignorance will receive
-any impression, when men know how to take advantage of it. [36]
-
-
-
-§ 9.
-
-The ambitious, who have always been great masters in the art of
-deceiving, have followed this method in promulgating their laws;
-and to induce mankind to give a voluntary submission to them, they
-have persuaded them that they received them from some God or Goddess.
-
-However great the multitude of Divinities, amongst those who
-worshipped them, and who were denominated Pagans, there was never
-any generally established system of religion. Every republic, every
-kingdom, every city, and every individual had their own proper rites,
-and conceived of the Divinity after their own phantasy. But afterwards
-there arose legislatures more subtle than the former, and who employed
-more skilful and sure plans in giving forth the laws, the worship,
-and the ceremonies calculated to nourish that fanaticism which it
-was their object to establish.
-
-Amongst a great number, Asia has produced THREE, distinguished as
-much by their laws and the worship which they established, as by
-the ideas which they have given of the Divinity, and the methods
-which they employed to confirm these ideas, and to render their laws
-sacred.--Moses was the most ancient. After him Jesus Christ appeared,
-who wrought upon his plan and kept the fundamental portion of his laws,
-but abolished the remainder. Mahomet, who appeared the last upon the
-scene, borrowed from each of the Religions in order to compose his
-own, and thereafter declared himself the sworn enemy of both.--We
-shall consider the character of the three legislators, and examine
-their conduct, that afterwards we may be enabled to decide whose
-opinions are best grounded--those who reverence them as inspired men,
-or those who regard them as impostors.
-
-
-
-§ 10.
-
-MOSES.
-
-The celebrated Moses, a grandson of a distinguished Magician, [37]
-(according to Justin Martyr) possessed every advantage calculated
-to render him that which he finally became. It is well known that
-the Hebrews, of whom he became the chief, were a nation of shepherds
-whom Pharaoh Osiris I. admitted into his kingdom in gratitude for the
-services which one of them had rendered during a period of severe
-famine. He assigned them a territory in the East of Egypt, rich in
-pasturage, and admirably adapted for the rearing of cattle; where,
-during two centuries, they very much increased in numbers, either,
-that being regarded as strangers they were not liable to military
-service, or on account of the other privileges which Osiris had
-conferred upon them. Many natives of the country joined themselves
-to them, among others, bands of Arabs who regarded them as brethren
-and of the same origin. However this may be, they multiplied so
-exceedingly, that the land of Goshen being unable to contain them,
-they spread over all the land of Egypt; giving just occasion to Pharaoh
-to dread that they would undertake some dangerous enterprise if his
-kingdom were attacked by the Ethiopians, his inveterate enemies,
-as had frequently happened. Reasons of state, therefore, compelled
-this monarch to take away their privileges, and to devise some means
-of weakening them and keeping them in subjection.
-
-Pharaoh Orus, surnamed Busirus on account of his cruelty, succeeded
-Memnon, and followed up his plans with respect to the Hebrews;
-and wishing to eternalize his memory by building the Pyramids, and
-fortifying the walls of Thebes, condemned the Hebrews to the task of
-making bricks, for which purpose the earth of that country was well
-adapted. During their bondage the celebrated Moses was born, the same
-year in which the king commanded that all the male Hebrew children
-should be thrown into the Nile, as the surest method of ridding his
-country from this host of strangers. Moses was in this way exposed
-to perish in the waters, his mother having placed him in a wicker
-basket among the willows on the banks of the stream. It happened that
-Thesmutis, the daughter of the king, was walking by the river, when,
-hearing the cries of the infant, that compassion so natural to her sex,
-inspired her with a wish to save it. Orus being dead she succeeded him,
-and Moses having been presented to her she commanded that he should
-receive the highest instruction which could be procured, as a son of
-the Queen of a people at that time the most learned and civilized in
-the world. "He was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians." This
-implies that he was the ablest Politician, the greatest philosopher,
-and the most distinguished Magician of his time; and besides, it is
-very evident that he had been initiated into the Egyptian Priesthood,
-which resembled those of the Druids among the Gauls. Those who are
-ignorant of the nature of the Egyptian government, must learn that
-the whole territory was subject to one sole sovereign, but that it
-was divided into many provinces of but limited extent. The governors
-of these provinces were designated Monarchs, and were generally of
-the powerful order of the Priesthood, which in fact possessed almost
-the third part of Egypt. The king nominated these Monarchs; and if
-we compare what others have written concerning Moses, and what he has
-written himself, we must conclude that he was Monarch of the Province
-of Goshen, and that he owed his appointment to Thesmutis, to whom also
-he owed his life. Such was the status of Moses amongst the Egyptians,
-where he had full time and every opportunity of studying their manners
-and those of his own nation, and of obtaining a knowledge of their
-dominant inclinations and passions; a knowledge, of which he failed
-not to avail himself in that revolution of which he was the originator.
-
-After the death of Thesmutis, her successor renewed the persecution
-against the Hebrews, and Moses having fallen from the honor in which
-he had been formerly held, was afraid that he would find it difficult
-to justify a homicide of which he had been guilty. He accordingly
-resolved on flight, and retired into Arabia Petrea. Chance led him to
-the house of the chief of some native tribe, to whom he rendered so
-many services, and by whom his talents were so highly appreciated that
-he gave him one of his daughters in marriage. It must here be remarked
-that Moses was so little of a Jew, and had so limited a conception of
-the Deity whom he afterwards imagined, that he married an idolatress,
-and did not even think of circumcising his children.
-
-It was in the Arabian deserts, when watching the flocks of his
-father-in-law, that he formed the design of taking vengeance upon the
-King of Egypt for the injuries he had met with. He flattered himself
-that he would easily succeed in this, as well on account of his own
-talents, as from the feeling which he knew was general amongst those
-of his own nation, irritated against the government on account of
-the cruel treatment which they had experienced.
-
-It appears from the history which he has left us of this revolution,
-or at all events, from the history which the author of the books
-attributed to Moses, has left us, that Jethro, his father-in-law, was
-in the plot, as were Aaron his brother, and sister Marion, who remained
-in Egypt, and with whom, no doubt, he maintained a correspondence.
-
-However that may be, we perceive from the result, that he had with
-the utmost policy schemed out a great design; and that he knew how
-to bring to bear against the Egyptians that learning which he had
-acquired amongst them. I allude to magic, in the exhibition of which
-he showed himself more subtle and expert than all those who attempted
-the same tricks at the court of Pharaoh.
-
-It was by these pretended prodigies that he gained over those of
-his nation whom he wished to carry off, and to whom disaffected and
-revolutionary Egyptians, Ethiopians and Arabs joined themselves. By
-boasting the power of his Divinity, and the frequent communions
-which he had with him; and by declaring that he had his sanction
-for all the steps which he took with the leaders of the revolution,
-he succeeded so well that there followed him 600,000 fighting men,
-besides women and children, across the Arabian deserts, of which he
-well knew the localities. After six days painful flight, he ordained
-to his followers that they should consecrate the seventh day to his
-God by a general and public rest, for the purpose of persuading them
-that the Deity favored him and approved of his authority; and to
-deter any one from having the audacity to dispute his statements.
-
-There never existed a more ignorant people than the Hebrews, nor
-consequently more credulous. To be assured of this we have only to look
-to their condition in Egypt when Moses caused them to revolt. They
-were detested by the Egyptians on account of their profession as
-shepherds, they were persecuted by the sovereign, and employed in the
-most degrading toil. Amongst a people thus situated it could not be
-very difficult for a man with the abilities of Moses to exercise a
-vast influence. He persuaded them that his God, (whom he sometimes
-merely styles an angel), the God of their fathers, had appeared
-to him--that it was at his command that he had taken them under his
-guidance--and that they would be a people highly favored of the Deity,
-provided they believed in him. The expert employment of deceit, and his
-knowledge of science, and of human nature, fortified his injunctions;
-and he strengthened his position by prodigies, which are always sure
-to make a deep impression on the minds of an imbecile populace.
-
-It must here be attended to with especial care, that he thought he
-had discovered a sure method of keeping the Hebrews in subjection to
-himself, by persuading them that God himself was their conductor--that
-he preceded them by night as a pillar of fire, and by day as a
-cloud. It can be proved that this is perhaps a more gross deceit on
-the part of this leader than any he had ever practised. During his
-sojourn in Arabia, he had learned that, as the country was of vast
-extent and uninhabited, it was the custom of those who travelled in
-caravans to take guides, who conducted them under night by means of a
-brasier filled with burning wood, the flame of which they followed;
-and the smoke of which by day equally prevented the parties of the
-caravan from straggling. Moses took advantage of this and proclaimed
-it miraculous, adducing it as an evidence of divine protection. No
-person is called upon to regard this as cheat, on my authority;
-let them believe Moses himself, who in the book of Numbers, chap,
-x, v. 31, is represented as beseeching his brother-in-law Habab to
-journey with the Israelites and show them the way, because he knew the
-country. [38] This is proof positive. If it were really God who went
-before the people of Israel by night and by day, as a pillar of cloud
-and of fire, could they have desired a better guide? Notwithstanding
-here is this leader entreating his brother-in-law in the most urgent
-manner to act as his guide; the pillar of cloud and fire, it would
-seem, being only a God for the people and not for Moses.
-
-The unfortunate dupes being delighted to find themselves adopted by
-the chief of the Gods on their escape from a cruel bondage, cheerfully
-put faith in Moses, and swore to obey him blindly. His authority being
-confirmed, he wished to render it perpetual; and under the specious
-pretext of establishing the worship of that God whose Viceregent he
-said he was, he appointed at once his brother and his sons to high
-authority in the Royal Palace, that is the place whence he thought
-proper to give forth his oracles; this place being altogether out of
-the view of the people. Lastly he practised that which is always done
-at the formation of new institutions; that is, he exhibited prodigies,
-miracles, whereby some were dazzled, and others confounded, but which
-only excited pity in those who could see through his impostures.
-
-However crafty Moses might have been, he would have had considerable
-difficulty in securing obedience, without the aid of his armed
-followers. An impostor without physical force rarely succeeds.
-
-But in spite of the great number of dupes who submitted themselves
-blindly to the will of this clever legislator, there were found people
-bold enough to reproach him for bad faith; declaring that, under false
-appearances of justice and equality, he had engrossed the whole--that
-the sovereign authority was confined to his own family, who had no
-more right to it than any other individuals--and that he was less the
-father than the tyrant of his people. But on these occasions Moses,
-with profound policy, put to death those daring spirits and spared
-no one who disputed his authority.
-
-It was by similar precautions, and by always declaring that his
-punishments were instances of divine vengeance, that he reigned an
-absolute despot; and to end as he had begun--that is to say, as a knave
-and an impostor--he was in the habit of retiring to a cave, which he
-had caused to be dug in the centre of a waste, under the pretext of
-having conferences with the Divinity, that he might secure in this
-way the respect and submission of his followers. His end was like that
-of other similar impostors. He cast himself from a precipice which he
-knew of in the remote wilderness, to the end that his body might not
-be discovered, and that it might be thought the Deity had carried him
-off. He was not ignorant that the memory of the patriarchs which had
-preceded him was held in great veneration, although they knew their
-sepulchres; but this was not enough for an ambition like his--it was
-necessary that he should be revered as a god, over whom death had no
-control. This is the explanation of what he said at the commencement
-of his reign, when he said that God had declared that he was to be
-a God unto his brother. [39] Elijah in like manner, and Romulus,
-[40] and Zamolxis, and all those who have had the foolish vanity to
-wish to eternalize their names, have concealed the time and manner
-of their death, in order that they might be thought immortal.
-
-
-
-§ 11.
-
-But to return to the legislators. There have never been any who
-did not assert that their laws did not emanate from some divinities
-[41], and who have not attempted to persuade their followers that they
-themselves were more than mortal. Numa Pompilius, after having tasted
-the sweets of retirement, was with difficulty persuaded to leave them,
-although it was to fill the throne of Romulus; but compelled by the
-acclamations of the people, he profited by the devotedness of the
-Romans, and insinuated to them that if they really wished him to
-be their king, they must be prepared to obey him without enquiry,
-and to observe religiously the laws and divine institutions which
-had been communicated to him by the goddess Egeria. [42]
-
-Alexander the Great had? no less vanity. Not content with seeing
-himself master of the world, he wished to persuade mankind that he
-was the son of Jupiter. Perseus pretended also to have derived his
-origin from the same god and the virgin Danae. Plato also insisted
-on a virgin nativity, regarding Apollo as his father. There have been
-many other personages who have been guilty of the same absurdity. No
-doubt all these great men believed in the opinion of the Egyptians,
-who maintained that the Spirit of God was capable of having intercourse
-with the female sex, and rendering them pregnant.
-
-
-
-§ 12.
-
-JESUS CHRIST.
-
-Jesus Christ, who was acquainted with the maxims and the science of
-the Egyptians, gave currency to the belief alluded to above, because
-he thought it suitable to his purposes. Reflecting how Moses had become
-renowned by his command of an ignorant people, he undertook to build on
-this foundation, and got some few imbecile people to follow him, whom
-he persuaded that the Holy Ghost was his father, and that his mother
-was a virgin. These simple folks, accustomed to give themselves over
-to dreams and reveries, adopted his opinions, and believed whatever he
-wished: indeed, something considerably beyond this miraculous birth
-would by no means have been too miraculous for them. A beautiful
-dove overshadowed a virgin: there is nothing surprising in that. It
-happened frequently in Lydia; and the swan of Leda is the counterpart
-of the dove of Mary. [43] That a man should be born of a virgin, by the
-operation of the Holy Spirit, is neither more extraordinary nor more
-miraculous that that Genghis Khan should be born of a virgin, as the
-Tartars assert; or that Foh, according to the Chinese belief, derived
-his origin from a virgin rendered pregnant by the rays of the sun.
-
-This prodigy appeared at a time when the Jews, wearied with their
-God as they had formerly been with their Judges, [44] were desirous
-to have some visible ruler among them, as was the case with other
-nations. As the number of fools is infinite, Jesus Christ in a short
-time had many followers; but as his extreme poverty was an invincible
-obstacle to his elevation, the Pharisees--at one time his admirers,
-and at another time startled at his boldness--forwarded or thwarted
-his interests, according to the inconstant humour of the populace. The
-report of his divine origin was spread about; but without forces,
-as he was, it was impossible that he could succeed, although some
-cures which he performed, and some resurrections from the dead to
-which he pretended, brought him somewhat into repute. Without money
-or arms he could not fail to perish: if he had been in possession of
-these, he would have been no less successful than Moses or Mahomet,
-and all those who, with like advantages, have elevated themselves
-above their fellow-men. If he had been more unfortunate, he would
-not have been less adroit; and several traits in his history prove
-that the principal defect in his policy was his carelessness in not
-sufficiently providing for his own security. Otherwise, I do not find
-that his plans were less skilfully devised than those of the other
-two: at all events his law has become the rule of faith to people
-who flatter themselves that they are the wisest in the world.
-
-
-
-§ 13.
-
-ON THE POLITICS OF JESUS CHRIST.
-
-Can anything be more subtle than the answer of Jesus concerning
-the woman taken in adultery? The Jews having demanded of him if
-they should stone her, instead of answering the question directly--a
-negative answer being directly contrary to the law, and an affirmative
-convicting him of severity and cruelty, which would have alienated
-their minds from him--instead, therefore, of replying as an ordinary
-individual would have done on the occasion--"Let him," said he,
-"who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone at her." [45]
-A shrewd reply, and one evincing great presence of mind. On another
-occasion, being shown a piece of money with the emperor's image and
-superscription upon it, and asked if it were lawful to pay tribute
-money unto Cæsar, he eluded the difficulty of answering: "Render
-unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's." [46] The false position
-in which they wished to place him was this: that if he denied that
-it was lawful, he was guilty of high treason; and if he said that
-it was, he went directly against the law of Moses, which he always
-protested that he never intended to do--knowing no doubt that he was
-too helpless to do so with impunity at that time. Afterwards, when he
-became more celebrated, he endeavoured to abrogate it almost totally:
-acting in this way not unlike those princes, who, until their power
-is thoroughly established, always promise to confirm the privileges
-of their subjects, but who, after that has been secured, care little
-for their promises.
-
-When the Pharisees asked him by what authority he taught the people
-and preached to them, he penetrated their intention--which was to
-convict him of falsehood; whether he answered that it was by human
-authority--he not being of the order of the priesthood, who alone were
-charged with the instruction of the people; or whether he preached
-by the express orders of God--his own doctrine being opposed to the
-law of Moses; he avoided their snare, and embarrassed themselves,
-by asking them in what name John baptised. [47]
-
-The Pharisees, who from political motives, rejected the baptism of
-John, would have condemned themselves if they had said that it was in
-the name of God; and if they had not said so, they would have exposed
-themselves to the rage of the populace, who maintained the opposite
-opinion. To get out of this dilemma, they answered that they could
-not tell: on which Jesus Christ replied, that neither was he obliged
-to tell them by what name or authority he taught the people.
-
-
-
-§ 14.
-
-Such was the character of the destroyer of the ancient law, and the
-founder of the new religion that was built upon its ruins; in which
-religion a disinterested mind can perceive nothing more divine than
-in any of those which preceded it. Its founder, who was not altogether
-ignorant, having witnessed extreme corruption in the Jewish republic,
-judged that its end was near, and thought it a favorable opportunity
-for forwarding his own designs.
-
-The fear of being anticipated by men more able than himself, made
-him hasten to secure his ground by means entirely opposite to those
-adopted by Moses. The former began by rendering himself terrible to
-other nations. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, attracted mankind to
-himself by the hope of blessings in a life beyond the grave, which he
-said they would obtain by believing in him. Whilst Moses only promised
-temporal benefits to the observers of his law, Jesus Christ led his
-followers to hope for those which would never end. The laws of the one
-only regarded exterior observances; those of the other looked into
-the heart, influenced the thoughts, and stood on opposite grounds
-to the law of Moses. Whence it follows, that Jesus Christ believed
-with Aristotle, that it is the same with religion and nations as with
-individuals who are born and who die; and as there is nothing which
-is not subject to dissolution, there is no law which must not in turn
-give place to another. [48] But as there is difficulty in passing from
-one law to another, and as the greater part of men are stubborn in
-religious matters, Jesus Christ, in imitation of other innovators,
-had recourse to miracles, which have at all times confounded the
-ignorant, and advanced the projects of ambitious and designing men.
-
-
-
-§ 15.
-
-Christianity having been founded in this way, Jesus Christ wisely
-imagined that he could profit by the errors in the politics of Moses,
-and render his new law eternal--an undertaking in which he finally
-succeeded a little perhaps beyond his expectation. The Hebrew prophets
-intended to do honour to Moses, by predicting a successor who should
-resemble him--a Messiah great in virtues, powerful in wealth, and
-terrible to his enemies. These prophecies, however, produced altogether
-a different effect from what they expected; a number of ambitious
-demagogues having embraced the opportunity of palming themselves off
-for the coming Messiah, which led to those insurrections and civil
-convulsions which lasted until the entire destruction of the ancient
-republic of the Hebrews. Jesus Christ, more subtle than the prophets
-who succeeded Moses, predicted that a man of this description would
-appear--the great enemy of God--the favorite of the demons--the
-aggregation of all the vices and the cause of all the desolation in
-the world. After such a splendid eulogy, one would think that nobody
-could resist the temptation of calling himself Antichrist; and I do
-not believe that it is possible to discover a secret equal to it for
-eternalizing a law, although there can be nothing more fabulous than
-what we read of concerning this pretended Antichrist. St. Paul says
-that he was a ready born; whence it follows that he must have been
-on the watch for the coming of Jesus Christ: nevertheless, more than
-sixteen years rolled on after the prediction of the nativity of this
-formidable personage, without any one having heard of his appearance. I
-acknowledge that some have applied the terms to Ebion and Cerinthus,
-two great adversaries of Jesus Christ, whose pretended divinity they
-disputed. But if this interpretation be the meaning of the Apostle,
-which is far from being credible, the words referred to must point
-out a host of Antichrists in all ages--it being impossible that truly
-learned men should think of injuring the cause of truth, by declaring
-that the history of Jesus Christ was a contemptible fable, [49] and
-that his law was nothing but a series of dreams and reveries, which
-ignorance had brought in repute, which self-interest had encouraged,
-and which tyranny had taken under its especial protection.
-
-
-
-§ 16.
-
-They pretend, nevertheless, that a religion built upon so weak
-foundations is divine and supernatural, as if it were not an
-ascertained fact that there is no class of people more fitted to give
-currency to the most absurd opinions than women and lunatics. It is
-not to be wondered at that Jesus Christ reckoned none of the learned
-amongst his followers. He well knew that his law was inconsistent with
-common sense; and therefore he always declaimed against the sages,
-excluding them from that kingdom into which he admitted the poor
-in spirit, the simple and the imbecile. Rational minds ought to be
-thankful that they have nothing to do with such insanities.
-
-
-
-§ 17.
-
-ON THE MORALITY OF JESUS CHRIST.
-
-We find nothing more divine in the morality of Jesus Christ than what
-can be drawn from the works of ancient authors; for this reason,
-perhaps every text in his code of morals is either borrowed from
-their's or is an imitation of it. St. Augustine [50] acknowledges that
-in one of the so-called heathen writers, he discovered the whole of
-the commencement of the gospel according to St. John. We must remark
-also, that this apostle was so much accustomed to plunder others,
-that he has not scrupled to pillage from the prophets their enigmas
-and visions, for the purpose of composing his Apocalypse. Again,
-whence arises that agreement between the doctrines of the Old and
-New Testament and those of Plato, unless the Rabbis and others who
-composed the Jewish Scriptures had stolen from that distinguished
-man. The account of the creation of the world given in his Timaeus,
-is much more satisfactory than that recorded in the book of Genesis;
-and it will not do to say that Plato, in his tour through Egypt, had
-read the books of the Jews, since, by the confession of St. Augustine,
-king Ptolemy had not ordered them to be translated till long after
-the philosopher had left the country.
-
-The landscape which Socrates describes to Simias (Phæton,) possesses
-infinitely more beauty than the Paradise of Eden: and the fable of
-the Hermaphrodites [51] is beyond comparison a better invention than
-that which we read of in Genesis, where we are told that one of Adam's
-ribs was taken from him for the purpose of creating a female out of it.
-
-Can any more plausible account of the overthrow of Sodom and
-Gomorrah be given, than that it was caused by Phaeton? Is there no
-resemblance between the fall of Lucifer and that of Vulcan, or of
-the giants struck down by the thunderbolts of Jove. How close the
-resemblance between Sampson and Hercules; Elijah and Phaeton; Joseph
-and Hypolitus; Nebuchadnezzar and Lycaon; Tantalus and the rich man
-in torment; [52] the manna in the wilderness and the ambrosia of the
-gods! St. Augustine, [53] St. Cyril, and Theophilactus, compare Jonah
-with Hercules, called Trinoctius, because he had been three days and
-three nights in the belly of a whale.
-
-The river which Daniel speaks of in chap. vii, v. 10, of his
-Prophecies, is palpably drawn from that Pyriphlegethon to which
-Plato alludes in his dialogue on the immortality of the soul. The
-idea of "Original Sin" is taken from the account of Pandora's box;
-and the interrupted sacrifices of Isaac and of Jephtha's daughter are
-borrowed from that Iphigenia, in whose room a hind was offered up. What
-we read of concerning Lot and his wife, is nearly the same as that
-which fabulous history informs us occurred to Bancis and Philemon. The
-histories of Perseus and of Bellerophon are the foundation of Michael
-and the demon whom he vanquished. In short, it is abundantly manifest
-that the authors of the Scriptures have copied the works of Hesiod,
-Homer, and some other ancient writers, almost word for word.
-
-
-
-§ 18.
-
-With respect to Jesus Christ himself, Celsus, by appealing to his
-opponent Origen, shows that he had taken some of his most approved
-apothegms from Plato--Such as this: "It is easier for a camel to go
-through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter into the kingdom
-of God." [54] It was owing to the sect of the Pharisees, to which he
-belonged, that his followers believed in the immortality of the soul,
-the resurrection, and the torments of hell; and also in the greater
-part of his morality, [55] the whole of which I find in Epictetus,
-Epicures, and a few others. This last mentioned philosopher was
-referred to by St. Jerome, as a man whose virtues ought to put the
-best Christians to the blush; and whose mode of life was so temperate
-that a morsel of cheese, with bread and water constituted his highest
-repast. Leading a life so frugal, this philosopher, heathen as he
-was, declared that it was far better to be unfortunate and gifted
-with reason, than to be rich and opulent without it; adding, that
-wealth and wisdom were rarely found united in the same individual,
-and that it was impossible to enjoy happiness or contentment unless
-our conduct were guided by prudence, justice and honesty, which are
-the qualities whence flow all true and lasting enjoyments.
-
-As to Epictetus, I do not believe that there ever existed a man,
-not even excepting Jesus Christ, more firm, more self-denying,
-more equable, or who at any time gave forth to the world a more
-sublime system of morality. Were it not that I should exceed the
-limits which I have prescribed to myself in this treatise, I could
-recount many beautiful traits in his character; but the reader must be
-contented with one example. When a slave to Epaphroditus, a captain of
-Nero's guards, his master took the brutal fancy to writhe his limbs,
-Epictetus, perceiving that it gave the monster satisfaction, said with
-a smile, that he saw clearly that the joke would not end until he had
-broken one of them, which happened accordingly. The philosopher with
-the same equanimity and the same smile, merely said, "Did I not tell
-you that you would certainly break the limb?" Where is there on record
-another instance of like firmness? How would Jesus Christ have acted
-in the circumstances?--he who wept and trembled at the least alarm,
-and who in his last moments exhibited a pusillanimity altogether
-contemptible, and which was never shown by the martyrs for his faith.
-
-If the work which Arian wrote concerning the life and death of our
-philosopher had been preserved, I have no doubt that we would have
-been in possession of many more examples of his equanimity than we
-have at present. I know that the priests will speak of the example
-which I have instanced, as they speak of the virtues of philosophic
-minds in general, and assert that it is based on vanity, and that
-it is by no means what it appears to be; but I know also, that those
-people are accustomed to speak ex cathedra whatever suits their purpose
-and to think they sufficiently earn the money which is given them for
-instructing the people, by declaiming against every man who knows what
-sober reason and real virtue are. Nothing in the world can be less in
-congruity with the actions of these superstitious men who decry them,
-than the manner of the truly learned. The former, having studied for
-no other end than to obtain a place to give them bread, become vain,
-and congratulate themselves when they have obtained it, as if they had
-arrived at the state of perfection; whereas it is nothing else to them
-than a state of idleness, pride, voluptuousness, and licentiousness,--a
-condition in which the great majority of them hold in no respect
-whatever the maxims of that religion which they profess. But we will
-leave these men, who have not the remotest conception of real virtue,
-and examine the evidences for the divinity of their master.
-
-
-
-§ 19.
-
-Having considered the politics and the morality of Jesus Christ,
-wherein we find nothing so useful or so sublime as we find in the
-writings of the ancients, let us now consider if the reputation which
-he acquired after his death be a proof of his divinity.
-
-The generality of mankind are so much accustomed to what is irrational,
-that it is astonishing to find people endeavouring to draw a rational
-inference from their conduct. Experience teaches us that they are
-always running after shadows, and that they neither do nor say anything
-betokening common sense. These fanatical notions on which they found
-their belief will always be in vogue, in spite of the efforts of the
-learned who have invariably set themselves against them. So rooted are
-their follies that they had rather be crammed with them to repletion
-than make any effort to be rid of them.
-
-It was to no purpose that Moses boasted that he was the interpreter
-of God, and attempted to prove his mission and his authority by
-extraordinary signs. If he absented himself for a short time (as he
-did occasionally, to hold conference with the Divinity, by his account,
-and as in like manner did Numa Pompilius and many other legislators),
-it was only to find on his return strong traces of the worship of the
-gods whom the Hebrew people had seen in Egypt. It was in vain that
-he had led them for forty years through the desert, that they might
-lose recollection of the divinities which they had left behind. They
-had not forgot them, and they always wished for some visible symbol
-to precede them, which, if they had got, they would have worshipped
-obstinately, at the risk of being exposed to extreme cruelty.
-
-The pride-inspired contempt alone which led them to the hatred of
-other nations, made them insensibly forget the gods of Egypt, and
-attach themselves to that of Moses. They worshipped him for some time
-with all the outward observance of the law; but with that inconstancy
-which leads the vulgar to run after novelty, they deserted him at
-last to follow the God of Jesus Christ.
-
-
-
-§ 20.
-
-The most ignorant alone of the Hebrews followed Moses--such also
-were they who ran after Jesus Christ; and their name being legion,
-and as they mutually supported each other, it is not to be wondered
-at if this new system of error was widely circulated. The teaching of
-these novelties was not without danger to those who undertook the task,
-but the enthusiasm which they excited extinguished every fear. Thus,
-the disciples of Christ, miserable as they were in his train, and
-even dying of hunger--(as we learn from the necessity under which they
-were, together with their leader, of plucking the ears of corn in the
-fields to sustain their lives)--these disciples never despaired till
-they saw their master in the hands of his executioners, and totally
-incapable of gifting them with that wealth, and power, and grandeur,
-which he had led them to expect.
-
-After his death, his disciples being frustrated in their fondest hopes,
-made a virtue of necessity. Banished as they were from every place,
-and persecuted by the Jews, who were eager to treat them as they had
-treated their master, they wandered into the neighboring countries; in
-which, on the evidence of some women, they set forth the resurrection
-of Christ, his divinity, and the other fables wherewith the gospels
-are filled.
-
-It was their want of success among the Jewish people which led to
-the resolution of seeking their fortune among the Gentiles; but as
-a little more knowledge than they possessed was necessary for the
-accomplishment of their design--the Gentiles being philosophically
-trained, and consequently too much the friends of truth and reason
-to be duped by trifles--the sectaries of Jesus gained over to their
-cause a young man [56] of ardent temperament and active habits,
-somewhat better instructed than the illiterate fishermen of Galilee,
-and more capable of drawing audiences to listen to his talk. He being
-warned from heaven (miraculously of course), leagued himself with
-them, and drew over some partizans by the threat of "fabled hell,"
-(a plagiarism from the ancient poets), and by the hope of the joys of
-paradise, into which blessed abode he was impudent enough to assert
-that he had at one time been introduced.
-
-These disciples then, by strength of delusion and lying, procured
-for their master the honor of passing for a god--an honor at which,
-in his life-time, Jesus could never have arrived. His destiny was
-no better than that of Homer, nor even so good; inasmuch as seven
-cities which had despised and starved the latter in his lifetime,
-struggled and fought with each other, in order to ascertain to which
-was due the merit of having given him birth.
-
-
-
-§ 21.
-
-It may be judged now, from what has been advanced, that Christianity,
-like every other religion, is only a complicated imposture--the success
-and progress of which would astonish the inventors themselves, could
-they revisit this world. Without bewildering ourselves, however, in
-a labyrinth of error and contradiction, such as we have alluded to,
-we go to Mahomet, who founded his law on maxims entirely opposite to
-those of Jesus Christ.
-
-
-
-§ 22.
-
-MAHOMET.
-
-Scarcely had the disciples of Jesus Christ torn down the Mosaic fabric
-for the purpose of establishing Christianity, when men, led by force
-of circumstances, and influenced by their usual inconstancy, followed
-the new legislator, who had elevated himself by means similar, as far
-as possible, to those which Moses employed. Like the Jewish lawgiver,
-Christ usurped the title of prophet, and ambassador of God; like him
-he pretended to perform miracles, and took advantage of the passions of
-the multitude. He soon found himself escorted by an ignorant populace,
-to whom he explained the new oracles of heaven. These miserably misled
-people, from the promises and fables of this new impostor, spread
-his renown far and wide, as having eclipsed all his predecessors.
-
-Mahomet, on the contrary, was a man who did not appear at all competent
-to lay the foundation of an empire. He was distinguished neither as
-a politician nor a philosopher: he could neither read nor write. [57]
-At first he exhibited so little firmness, that he was frequently upon
-the point of abandoning his enterprise; and he would have done so, had
-it not been for the address of one his followers. When he was rising
-into celebrity, Corais, a powerful Arab chief, being irritated that
-a man of yesterday should have the boldness to mislead the people,
-declared himself his enemy, and attempted to thwart his designs;
-but the people, believing that Mahomet had continued intercourse
-with God and his angels, supported him till he had an opportunity of
-being avenged upon his adversary. The tribe of Corais was worsted;
-and Mahomet seeing himself surrounded by a host of fanatics, thought
-that he stood in no need of a coadjutor. However, lest Corais should
-expose his impostures, he took the initiative; and to make sure, he
-loaded him with promises, and swore that he only wished to become
-great in order to share with him that power, to the establishment
-of which he might so much contribute. "We can agree," said he,
-"when we reach our proper elevation; we can depend, in the meantime,
-on that great multitude whom we have gained over, and it only remains
-that we make sure of them by the employment of that artifice which
-you have so happily invented." At the same time he persuaded him to
-descend into the Cave of Oracles.
-
-This was a dried-up sunk well, from the bottom of which Corais spoke,
-in order that the people might believe that it was the voice of God
-declaring himself in favour of Mahomet who was in the midst of his
-proselytes. Deceived by the blandishments of the leader, his associate
-regularly descended into the well, to counterfeit the oracle. Whilst
-Mahomet was passing one day at the head of an infatuated multitude,
-they heard a voice, which said--"I am your God, and I declare that
-Mahomet is the prophet whom I have appointed for all nations; he will
-instruct you in my law of truth, which the Jews and Christians have
-altered." For a long time the accomplice played this game; but at last
-he met with the blackest ingratitude. The voice being heard, as usual,
-proclaiming him an inspired personage, Mahomet turned to the people,
-and commanded them, in the name of that God who had recognised him
-as his prophet, to fill up the well with stones, that it might be an
-enduring witness in his favour, like that pillar which Jacob set up
-to mark the place where God had appeared to him. [58] Thus perished,
-miserably, the chief who had most contributed to the elevation of
-Mahomet. It was upon this heap of stones that the last of the three
-most celebrated impostors established his religion, and so solid
-and stable is its foundation, that after the lapse of twelve hundred
-years there is little appearance at present of its being overthrown.
-
-
-
-§ 23.
-
-In this way was the power of Mahomet established; and he was more
-fortunate than Jesus, inasmuch as he lived to see the wide diffusion
-of his doctrines, which Christ on account of his want of resources,
-was unable to do. He was even more fortunate in this respect than
-Moses, who from excess of ambition brought himself to a premature
-end.--Mahomet died in peace, and loaded with blessings. He had,
-moreover, a well-grounded hope that his religion would last, because
-it was accommodated to the nature of a people born and brought up
-in ignorance; an adaptation in which men more learned than himself,
-but less accustomed to associate with the lower orders, might have
-entirely failed.
-
-The reader is now in possession of the most remarkable facts concerning
-the three most celebrated legislators, whose religions have brought
-into subjection a great part of the human race. They were such as
-we have represented them; and it is for you to consider if they
-are worthy of your respect, and if you are justified in allowing
-yourselves to be led by those whom ambition alone conducted to power,
-and whose dreams have been perpetuated by ignorance. The following
-observations, if read with a free and unprejudiced mind, may lead to
-the discovery of truth, by clearing away those mists wherewith you
-have been blinded and beguiled.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-TRUTHS EVIDENT AND OBVIOUS TO THE SENSES.
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet, being such as we have represented
-them, it is evident that it would be useless to search in their
-writings for a new idea of the Divinity. The conferences of Moses
-and Mahomet with the Deity, and the miraculous conception of Jesus
-Christ, are the greatest impostures that have ever met the face of day,
-and you must shun their contemplation as you love the truth.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-God, as we have seen, being only Nature, or in other words the
-combination of all beings, all properties, and all energies, is
-necessarily the cause from which emanates every thing, and of course
-not distinct or different from its effects. He cannot be termed good,
-nor evil, nor just, nor merciful nor jealous: these attributes belong
-only to mankind. The Deity therefore can neither punish nor reward. The
-opposite idea may lead aside the ignorant, who, conceiving the Divinity
-to be an uncompounded essence, represent him to themselves under
-images altogether unsuited to his nature. Those alone who exercise
-their judgment without confounding its operations with those of their
-imaginative faculty, and who have sufficient strength of mind to
-cast away the prejudices of infancy, can form a clear and distinct
-conception of the subject. They regard him as the author of every
-being, producing them without distinction, and giving no preference
-to one over another, and whose power is such that he created man with
-as much ease as he did the meanest worm, or the humblest plant.
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-We must therefore believe that this universal Being whom we generally
-name God, takes no greater care of a man than of an ant, nor pays more
-attention to a lion than to a stone; neither regards the beauty or
-deformity, good or evil, perfection or imperfection. He cares not to
-be praised, beseeched, sought alter, or flattered; he is not affected
-by what men say or do; he is not susceptible of love or hatred:
-[59] in one word he is not more occupied with man than he is with the
-rest of the other creatures, whatever may be their nature. All these
-distinctions are merely the inventions of a limited understanding:
-they originate in ignorance, and self-interest keeps them up.
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-Thus, therefore, no rational man can believe in God, nor in hell,
-nor in spirits, nor in devils, in the sense in which the terms
-are generally understood. These big words have only been coined to
-intimidate and blind the vulgar. Those who wish to convince themselves
-of this truth would do well to devote particular attention to what
-follows, and accustom themselves to suspend their judgment until
-after mature reflection.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-The infinity of stars which we see above us has not escaped the
-fictions of presumptive credulity. Amongst the glittering hosts, there
-is one said to have been set apart for the celestial court, where God
-holds regal state in the midst of his courtiers. This place is the
-residence of the blessed, wither the souls of the virtuous are conveyed
-after leaving the body. We need not dwell upon an opinion so frivolous
-and so contradictory to common sense. It is well enough ascertained
-that what we denominate the heavens is merely a continuation of the
-air which surrounds us--a fluid through which the other planets move,
-like the earth which we inhabit, unsustained and unconnected with
-any solid mass whatever.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-The priests having, like the pagans with their Gods and goddesses,
-invented a heaven, where God and the blessed might dwell; after the
-same example next they contrived a hell, or subterranean place,
-to which, they assure us, the spirits of wicked men go down for
-the purpose of being everlastingly tormented. Now, the word hell,
-in its original sense, imports no more than a place dark and deep;
-and the poets invented it as the opposite to the residence of the
-blessed, which they represented as high and bright. This is the exact
-signification of the Latin terms inferus and inferi, and the Greek
-hades; any dark place such as a sepulchre, or whatever was fearful
-from its depth and obscurity. The whole sprung from the imagination
-of the poet and the knavery of the priests--the former knowing how to
-make an impression in this way, on weak, timid, and melancholy minds;
-and the latter having rather more substantial reasons for continuing
-the delusion.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAP. V.--ON THE SOUL.
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-This is rather a more delicate subject to handle than the last which we
-had occasion to treat of, viz: Heaven and Hell. For the reader's sake,
-therefore, it must be treated at greater length; but before defining
-it, an exposition of the opinions of the most celebrated philosophers
-is necessary, which will be given in a few words, in order that the
-reader may be the better enabled to carry it along with him.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-Their opinions are exceedingly varied. Some have pretended that the
-soul is a spirit or immaterial essence; others have maintained that
-it is a part of the Divinity; others assert that it is the concord of
-all parts of the body; and some uphold that it is the most subtle
-part of the blood, separated into the brain, and thence distributed
-through the nervous system. If this is established, the soul must
-take its origin from the heart which creates it; and the place where
-it exercises its noblest functions must be the brain, as that organ
-is the most purified from the grosser parts of the blood.
-
-Such are a few of the different opinions which have been given to
-the world in regard to the soul. The better to develop them, we shall
-divide them into two classes. In the one will be found the statements
-of those philosophers who considered the soul as material; and in
-the other those of the opposite party, who maintained the doctrine
-of its immateriality.
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-Pythagoras and Plato have both maintained the doctrine that the
-soul was immaterial in its nature; that is, a being existing without
-aid from the body, and capable of action uncontrolled by any thing
-corporeal. They hold that all the individual spirits of animals were
-emanations from the universal Soul of the World, and that these
-off-givings were incorporeal, immortal, and of the same nature as
-the pervading Essence itself. They illustrated their doctrine well,
-by the analogy of a thousand little lights which are all of the same
-nature as the great flame at which they were kindled.
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-These philosophers believed that the universe was animated by an
-immaterial Essence, immortal and invisible, knowing everything,
-and acting always; and which is the cause of every movement, and the
-origin of all spirits, these being merely emanations from it. Then, as
-spirits are very subtle, they cannot unite (they observe) unless they
-can find a body subtle as the light, or as that expanded air which the
-vulgar take for heaven. They therefore assume a body less subtle, then
-another somewhat gross; and thus by degrees they come to be enabled to
-unite themselves to the bodies of animals, into which they descend as
-into dungeons or sepulchres. The death of the body, according to them,
-is the life of the soul, which was in a manner buried, and could only
-in a feeble way exercise its noblest functions. At the death of the
-body, the soul shakes off materiality, comes forth of its prison-house,
-and unites itself to the Soul of the World from which it emanated.
-
-According to this opinion then, all the spirits of animals are of the
-same nature; and the diversity of their functions and faculties arises
-solely from the difference of the bodies into which they descend.
-
-Aristotle supposes an universal intelligence, acting on particular
-intelligences, as light acts upon the eye; and that as light renders
-objects visible, so does this universal intelligence render the
-others intelligent.
-
-This philosopher defines the soul as that whereby we live, feel,
-think, and move; but he is unsatisfactory as to the nature of that
-Being which is the source of its noblest functions. It is needless,
-therefore, to search in his writings for a solution of the difficulties
-which exist upon this subject.
-
-Dicearchus, Asclepiades, and Galienus, have also, to a certain extent,
-believed that the soul was immaterial, but in a different way from
-that already alluded to. They suppose that the soul is nothing else
-than the harmony of all the parts of the body: that is, the result
-of an exact blending of its elements and disposition of its parts,
-its humours, and its essences. Thus, they say, as health is not a part
-of that which is healthy, although it is connected with it, so neither
-is the soul a part of the animal, although it be within it, but simply
-the harmony of all those parts which go to form the containing body.
-
-On these opinions we must, remark, that their defenders believe
-in the immateriality of the soul on self-contradictory principles;
-for to maintain that, the soul is not a body, but merely something
-inseparably attached to a body, is to say that it is corporeal. We
-not only term that corporeal which is a body, but everything which
-has form and accident, and which cannot be separated from matter.
-
-Such are the opinions of those philosophers who maintain that the
-soul is incorporeal or immaterial. We see that they are discordant and
-contradictory to each other, and consequently little to be heeded as
-points of faith. We now come to the opposite party, who have upheld
-the doctrine of its materiality.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-Diogenes believed that the soul was composed of air, whence he deduces
-the necessity of respiration. He defines it as an air which passes
-through the mouth into the pulmonary vessels, whence it becomes warm,
-and whence it is distributed to every part of the system.
-
-Leucippus and Democritus assert that it is fire, and that, like fire,
-it is composed of atoms which readily penetrate all parts of the body,
-and communicate motion to it.
-
-Hippocrates said that it was composed of water and of fire. Empedocles
-thought that it was compounded of the four elements. Epicurus believed
-with Democritus that the soul is composed of fire, but he adds that
-there enter into its composition, air, a vapour, and an indescribable
-substance, which is the principle of thought. Out of these four
-different substances he makes to himself a very subtle spirit,
-pervading all the body, and which, he says, we ought to term the soul.
-
-Descartes reasons also, but in a very wretched manner, that the
-soul is not material. I say in a very wretched manner, for never
-did philosopher reason so badly on this subject as did this great
-man. Here is his argument. He sets outs by saying that he must doubt
-in the existence of his own body, believing that there exists no such
-thing as a body at all, and then he reasons in this fashion: "There
-exists no body; I exist nevertheless: I am therefore not a body,
-and consequently I can only be a substance which thinks." Although
-this fine reasoning destroys itself sufficiently, I will yet take
-the liberty of giving my opinion of it in two words.
-
-1. The doubt which M. Descartes assumes is indefensible; for although
-one may sometimes think that he does not think that he has a body,
-it is true nevertheless that he has a body, since he thinks of it.
-
-2. Whoever believes that there exists no body, ought to be well
-assured that he is not one himself; for no one can doubt in his own
-existence. If he is assured in this matter, his doubt is useless.
-
-3. When he says that the soul is a substance which thinks, he tells
-us nothing new. Every person agrees in this; but the difficulty is
-to ascertain the nature of that substance which thinks, and in this
-respect M. Descartes is no wiser than his predecessors.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-That we may not go crooked as he has done, and that we may form the
-soundest conception possible of the soul of all animals, without
-excepting man, who is of the same nature, and who only exercises
-different functions from the difference in his organization, it is
-important to attend to the following remarks.
-
-It is certain that there exists in the universe a very subtle fluid,
-a substance extremely attenuated, whose source is the sun, and which
-pervades all other bodies, less or more, according to their nature
-and their consistence. Such is the soul of the world, which governs
-and vivifies it, and of which some portion is distributed to all the
-creatures in the universe. [60]
-
-This soul is the purest fire. It burns not of itself, but by different
-movements, which it communicates to the particles of other bodies
-into which it enters, it burns and makest its warmth be felt. Our
-visible fire contains more of this matter than air; air, more than
-water; and earth, considerably less than any of them. Plants have
-more of it than minerals, and animals more than either. In fine,
-this fire pervading the body renders it capable of thought, and is
-that properly termed the soul, although it sometimes receives the
-appellation of animal spirits, which permeate the whole body. It is
-certain therefore that this soul being of the same nature as that
-of animals, is annihilated at the death of man, as it is at that of
-the other creatures. It follows that whatever poets and divines have
-told us of a future state, is only the chimerical offspring of their
-own brain, begotten and nourished by them for purposes which is by
-no means difficult to fathom.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-ON THE SPIRITS CALLED DEMONS
-
-
-§ 1.
-
-We have explained in another place how the notion of spirits came to
-be introduced among men, and proved that they were merely phantoms
-which existed only in their disordered imagination.
-
-The first instructors of mankind were not very explicit in their
-"lessons to the million" as to the nature of these phantoms, but they
-could not help saying what they thought of them. One class, reflecting
-that these shadows melted into thin air and had no consistence,
-described them as immaterial or incorporeal, having shapes without
-matter, but coloured and defined. At the same time however, they denied
-that they were corporeal existences, or that they were coloured or
-figured; adding that they could clothe themselves with air as with
-a garment, when they wished to become visible to the eye of men. A
-second class assert that they were animated bodies, but that they were
-composed of air, or some still more subtle matter, which they could
-thicken at their pleasure, when they chose to make their appearance.
-
-
-
-§ 2.
-
-If the two sorts of philosophers were opposed to each other in their
-opinion as to those shadows, they agreed as to their name, viz.,
-Demons; in which respect they were as those who, when dreaming, believe
-that they see the souls of people departed, and that it is their own
-soul which they behold when they look into a mirror--or, in short,
-those who can believe that the reflections of the stars which they see
-in the water are the souls of the stars themselves. Out of this truly
-ridiculous belief they wandered into an era no less absurd; believing
-that these phantoms possessed unlimited power--an idea sufficiently
-devoid of reason, but current among the ignorant, who suppose that
-these beings, whom they know not, can exert a fearful influence.
-
-
-
-§ 3.
-
-This most absurd creed was invented and promulgated by legislators,
-in order to support their own authority. They established this
-belief in spirits under the name of religion, hoping that the dread
-of these invisible powers which the people would entertain, might
-keep them to their duty. To give the more weight to their dogma, they
-classified those spirits or demons as good and bad; the one species
-being intended to stimulate men to the observance of their laws,
-and the other to act as a check and prevent their breaking them.
-
-To ascertain what these demons really were, it is only necessary to
-read the works of the Greek poets and historians, and above all, the
-Theogany of Hesiod, where he dwells at great length on the origin of
-the gods.
-
-
-
-§ 4.
-
-The Greeks invented them. From that people they passed by means of
-their colonies into Asia, Egypt, and Italy. In this way the Jews,
-who were dispersed in Alexandria and elsewhere became acquainted with
-them. They made the same happy use of them as other nations did--with
-this difference, that, unlike the Greeks, they did not call them
-demons, or regard them as good and bad spirits indifferently. They
-considered them all as bad with one single exception, to whom they gave
-the name of the Spirit, or God; and they termed those men prophets who
-said that they were inspired by the good Spirit. Farther, they viewed
-as the operations of this divine Spirit whatever they considered as
-a great blessing; and on the other hand, they looked upon whatever
-they thought to be a great evil, as proceeding from some cacodemon
-or evil spirit.
-
-
-
-§ 5.
-
-This distinction between good and evil led them to the use of
-the appellation demoniacs, which they applied to lunatics, madmen,
-furious persons, and epileptics, as also to those who made use of "the
-unknown tongues." A man deformed and somewhat deranged, was said to be
-possessed of an unclean spirit; and a dumb man by a dumb spirit. These
-words, spirit and demon, became so familiar to them that they used
-them on every occasion. It follows that the Jews believed with the
-Greeks, that these phantoms were neither chimerical nor visionary,
-but real and substantial agents.
-
-
-
-§ 6.
-
-Hence it is that the Bible is filled with tales of spirits, and demons,
-and demoniacs; but in no place of that book is it said how and when
-they were created--an omission scarcely pardonable on the part of
-Moses, who undertakes to give an account of the creation both of the
-heavens and of the earth. Christ who speaks very frequently of angels
-and spirits, good and bad, does not inform us whether they are material
-or immaterial. This makes it evident that both of them were ignorant
-of the fact that the Greeks had instructed their ancestors in this
-strange belief. Were the case otherwise, Jesus Christ would be no less
-culpable for his silence on the subject, than he is for his refusal
-to grant to the majority of the human race, that grace, that faith,
-and that piety, which he assures them it is in his power to bestow.
-
-But to return to the subject of Spirits. It is certain these words
-Demons, Satan, Devil, are only proper names intended to apply to any
-obnoxious individual of our own species; and that, at no period did
-any but the most ignorant believe in their existence, either amongst
-the Greeks who invented, or the Jews who adopted the terms. After
-the latter became infected with such notions, they applied these
-words which signify enemy, accuser, and destroyer, at one time to
-invisible Powers, and at another, to those which are visible. Thus,
-they declared of the Gentiles, that their dwelling was in the kingdom
-of Satan; there being none other than themselves (by their own account
-of the matter) who dwelt in the kingdom of God.
-
-
-
-§ 7.
-
-Jesus Christ being a Jew, and consequently imbued with these opinions,
-we need not be surprised when we meet in the gospels and the writing
-of his disciples the words Devil, Satan, and Hell, as if they were
-anything real or substantive. We have showed before that there can be
-nothing more chimerical; but although what was said might suffice to
-satisfy rational men, we are not the less necessitated to add a few
-words, in an attempt to convince the bigotted.
-
-All Christians agree that God is the source of everything; that
-he created all things--that he sustains them, and that without his
-support they would drop into annihilation.--From these principles,
-it is certain that he created that being whom they call the Devil, or
-Satan. Whether he were created good or evil is nothing to the argument;
-he is incontestibly the work of the great Head, and if he continue
-to exist, all wicked as they represent him to be, it must only be at
-the good pleasure of God. Now, how is it possible to conceive that God
-would preserve one of his creatures, who not only hates him mortally,
-and blasphemes him without end, but who sets himself to seduce the
-friends of the Almighty for the sole purpose of mortifying him. How
-is it possible, I repeat, that God can permit this Devil to exist,
-who turns aside from his worship the favored and the elect, and who
-would dethrone him were it in his power?
-
-This is what we wish to say in speaking of God, or rather in
-speaking of the Devil and Hell. If God is almighty, and if nothing
-can happen without his permission, how comes it that the devil hates
-him, blasphemes him, and seduces his worshippers? The Deity either
-consents to this or he does not. If he consents to it, the Devil
-in blaspheming him is only doing his duty, since he can do nothing
-but what God wishes, and consequently it is not the Devil, but God
-himself who blasphemes himself,--a fearfully absurd supposition. If
-he does not consent to it he cannot be omnipotent, and there must
-be two principles, the one of good, and the other of evil--the one
-aiming at one thing, and the other at its direct opposite.
-
-To what then leads our reasoning? To this; that neither God,
-nor the Devil, nor Paradise, nor Hell, nor the Soul, are such as
-religion has represented them to be, and as most reverend divines
-have maintained. These latter sell their fables for truths, being
-people of bad faith who abuse the credulity of the ignorant by making
-them believe whatever they please; as if the vulgar were absolutely
-unfitted to hear the truth and could be nourished by nothing but
-those absurdities, in which a rational mind can only discover a vast
-of nothing, and a waste of folly.
-
-The world has been long infected with these most absurd opinions,
-yet in every age men have been found--truth-loving men--who have
-striven against the absurdities of their day. This little treatise has
-been written from like motives, and in it the lovers of truth will
-doubtless meet with some things satisfactory. It is to them that I
-appeal, caring little for the opinion of those who substitute their
-own prejudices in place of infallible oracles.
-
-
-    Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws,
-    Through known effects can trace the secret cause;
-    His mind possessing in a quiet state,
-    Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate.
-
-              Dryden's Translation of Virgil, Georgics, Book II. l. 700.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-NOTES
-
-
-[1] Daniel George Morof, who died suddenly on the 30th of June 1691.
-
-[2] Librum de tribus impostoribus absit ut Papæ tribuam, aut Papæ
-oppugnatoribus; jam olim inimici Frederici Barbarossæ Imperatoris
-famam sparserant libri talis, quasi jussu ipsius scripti, sed ab eo
-tempore, nemo est qui viderit; quare fabulam esse arbitror.
-
-[3] Apud Nevizanum 1. Sylvae nupt. 2. n. 121.
-
-[4] Doubtless Averroes here alludes to that law of Mahomet
-which wisely prohibits the use of pork in a hot and pestilential
-climate.--Translator's Note.
-
-[5] Disseminavit iste impius haereticus in Hispania, [such is the
-language made use of by Alvaro Pelagius], quod tres deceptores fuerunt
-in mundo, scilicet, Moises, qui decepterat Judaeos, et Christus,
-qui decepterat Christianos, et Mahometus, qui decepit Sarrazenos.
-
-[6] Et sic falsa est Porphirii sententia, qui dixit tres fuisse
-garrulatores qui totum mundum ad se converterunt; primus fuit Moises
-in populo Judaico, secundus Mahometus, tertius Christus.
-
-[7] Qui in quæstionem vertere presumunt, dicentes; quis in hec mundo
-majorem gentium aut populorum sequelam habuit, an Christus, an Moises,
-an Mahometus?
-
-[8] Every classical scholar must have heard of the demon
-of Socrates. The belief in the existence of such agencies was
-sufficiently prevalent in the East 2000 years ago, and the Jews were
-in this respect, as credulous as their neighbors. We read in Acts,
-c. iv. v. 7, that the leaders of the Sanhedrim enquired of the Apostle
-Peter, "By what power or by what name, have ye done this;" evidently
-acknowledging their belief that it was possible to work miracles by
-the invocation of some mysterious power. The Apostle, himself a Jew,
-seems to understand their creed; but he answers them in a way for
-which they were not altogether prepared.--Translator's Note.
-
-[9] Ædeficabat sine pecunia, judicabat sine conscientia, scribebat
-sine scientia.
-
-[10] Non Blandratum, non Alciatum, non Ochinum ad Mahotnetismum
-impulerunt; non Valleum ad atheismi professionem induxerunt; non alium
-quemdam ad spargendum libellum de tribus impostoribus, quorum secundus
-esset Christus Dominus, duo alii Moises et Mahometes, pellexerunt.
-
-[11] Vincentii Panurgii epistola tribus impostoribus, ad clarissimum
-virum Joannem--Baptistam Morinum Medicum.
-
-[12] Isaac de Peyrere published his Pre-Adamite doctrine in 1655. This
-set of fanatics, who were persuaded by their lenders that the general
-race of mankind had lost nothing of their innocence by the fall of
-Adam, made their appearance, (both men and women) in the streets of
-Munster, and elsewhere, in the same robeless condition as our first
-parents were, when they wandered in the bowers of Paradise before
-the eating of that forbidden fruit, which
-
-
-    "Brought death into the world and all our woe."
-
-
-The magistrates of the city attempted to put them down but failed;
-and the military had some difficulty in extinguishing this
-absurdity.--Translator's Note.
-
-[13] Monstrum illud hominis, diis inferis a secretis scelus, nefarii
-illius tractatus de tribus impostoribus author quantumvis ab omni
-Religione alienus, adeo ut nec Judaeus, nec Turca, nec Christianus
-fuerit, plane tamen athoeus non erat.
-
-[14] Consult Bayle's Dictionary on this subject, article, "Trabea."
-
-[15] Quid vel hac sola dubitatione in Christiana schola cogitara
-potest perniciosius?
-
-[16] Nefarium tillud rium impostorum commentum sen liber contra
-Christum, Moisem et Mahometan Capomi nuper ab illis qui Evangelo
-Calvini so adductissimos profitentur typis excussus est.
-
-[17] Hinc Boccaccius in fabellis probare contendit non posse discerni
-inter legem Christi, Moisis et Mahometis, quia eadem signa habent
-uti tres annuli consimiles.
-
-[18] F. I. S. D. namely, Fredericus Imperator Salutem Dicit Othoni
-illustrissimo amico meo carrissimo.
-
-[19] Quod de tribus famosissimis nationum deceptoribus in ordinem
-jussu meo digessit doctissimus ille vir quorum sermonem de illa re in
-museo meo habustiæ exscribi curavi; atque Codicem illum stylo aeque
-vero ac puro scriptum ad te quam primum mitto; etenum, &c.
-
-[20] There is a measure in every thing.
-
-[21] This phrase is frequently employed to express ecclesiastical
-criticism. Its first application however had a more pungent
-meaning.--The individual here alluded to having boldly assailed the
-errors of the Church was attacked one evening by an assassin.
-Fortunately the blow did not prove fatal; but the weapon (a stylus,
-or dagger, which is also the Latin name for a pen) having been left
-in the wound--on his recovery he wore it in his girdle labelled,
-"The Theological Stylus," or Pen of the Church. The trenchant powers
-of this instrument have more frequently been employed to repress truth,
-than to refute argument.
-
-[22] Moses put to death in one day 24,000 men, because they resisted
-his laws.
-
-[23] We read in the Book of Kings, chap. xxii, v. 6, that Ahab,
-the King of Israel consulted 400 prophets who were all false, as the
-result of their vaticinations showed.
-
-[24] Genesis, chap. iv, v. 7.
-
-[25] I. Samuel chap. xv, v. 11.
-
-[26] Jeremiah, chap. xviii, v. 10.
-
-[27]    Cætera, quæ fieri in terris, Coeloque tuentur
-        Mortales pavidis cum pendent mentibus sæpe
-        Efficiunt animos humiles formidine Divum,
-        Depressosque premunt ad terram, propterea quod
-        Ignorantia causarum conferre Deorum
-        Cogit ad imperium res, et concedere regnum: et
-        Quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre
-        Possunt hæc fieri Divino numine rentur.
-
-                             Lucret. de Rer. Nat. Lib. VI. v. 49 et seq.
-
-[28] "What appears to our limited conceptions to be evil or apparently
-unjust, is entirely owing to our having no commensurate ideas either
-of the goodness or the justice of the Deity."--Bolingbroke's Works,
-Vol. iv, p. 117.--Translator's Note.
-
-[29] Acts, chap. xvii, v. 28.
-
-[30] "Qui autem negabit Deum esse corpus, etsi Deus Spiritus?" Tertul
-adv. Prax. cap. vii.
-
-[31] These four Councils were, First, that of Nice, (325) under
-Constantine and Pope Sylvester: Second, that of Constantinople, 381,
-under Gratian, Valentinian, Theodosius, and Pope Damasus: Third, that
-of Ephesus, 431, under Theodosius II, Valentinian, and Pope Celestin:
-and Fourth, that of Chalcedon, 451, under Valentinian, Marcianus,
-and Pope Leo I.
-
-[32] The Talmud informs us that the Rabbis deliberated whether they
-ought not to strike from the list of Canonical writings the books
-of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and that they only spared them because
-they made favourable mention of Moses and his law. The prophecies of
-Ezekiel (which the Jews were not permitted to read until they were
-thirty years of age) would to a certainty have been expunged from the
-sacred Catalogue, if a learned Rabbi had not undertaken to reconcile
-them with the same Law.
-
-[33] Consult Hobbes' Leviathan "De Homine," chap. xli, pages 56,
-57 and 58.
-
-[34] Philip of Macedon had sent auxiliaries and money to Hannibal in
-Africa. "Infensos Philippo, ob auxilia cum pecunia nuper in Africam
-missu Annibale." Levy, Book xxxi. chap. 1.--Translator's Note.
-
-[35] Hobbe's Leviathan, "De Homine," chap. xii, pp. 56 and 57.
-
-[36] Hobbes, ubi supra "De Homine," chap. xii. pages 58 and 59.
-
-[37] This word must not be taken in its usual acceptation. What
-rational men understand by the term is a dexterous man, an able
-cheat, and a master of jugglery, which requires great readiness and
-address; and not by any means a person in compact with the Devil as
-the vulgar suppose.
-
-[38] "And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; for as much as thou
-knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be
-to us instead of eyes."--Num. chap. x, v. 31.
-
-[39] Exodus iv. 16.
-
-[40] When Romulus was reviewing his forces in the plain of Caprae, here
-suddenly arose a thunder-storm, during which he was enveloped in so
-thick a cloud that he was lost to the view of his army; nor thereafter
-on this earth was Romulus seen.--Liv. 1. I. c. 16.--Translator's note.
-
-[41] Hobbes' Leviathan; de homine, chap. xii. pp. 59 and 60.
-
-[42] It is recorded by Livy, that "there is a grove, through which
-flowed a perennial stream, taking its origin in a dark cave, in which
-Numa was accustomed to meet the goddess, and receive instructions as
-to his political and religions institutions."--Liv. 1. I. c. 21.
-
-[43]    Qu'un beau Pigeon a tire d'aile
-        Vienne obom brer une Purcelle,
-        Rien n'est sur prenant en cela;
-        L'on en vit autant en Lydie.
-        Et le beau Cygne de Leda
-        Vaut bien le Pigeon de Marie.
-
-[44] I. Samuel, chap. viii. vs. 5 and 6.
-
-[45] The Gospel according to John, chap. viii. v. 7.
-
-[46] Matthew's Gospel, chap. xxii. v. 21.
-
-[47] Matthew's Gospel, chap. xxi. v. 27.
-
-[48] Saint Paul, Hebrews, chap. viii. v. 13 speaks in these terms:
-"In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that
-which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."--Translator's
-note.
-
-[49] This was the opinion of Pope Leo X. as appears from an expression
-of his, which, considering that it was made use of at a time when
-the philosophical spirit of inquiry had made little progress, was
-remarkably bold. "It has been well known in all ages," he observed
-to Cardinal Beinbo, "how much this fable of Jesus Christ has been
-profitable to us and ours." Quantum nobis nostrisque sa de Christo
-fabula profuerit, satis est omnibus saeculis notum.
-
-[50] Confessions, 1. VII. c. ix. v. 28.
-
-[51] See the discourse of Aristophanes, in the "Banquet of Plato."
-
-[52] Luke's Gospel, chap. xvi. v. 24.
-
-[53] "The City of God," book I. chap. xiv.
-
-[54] Orig. adv. Cels. 1. VIII. chap. iv. Compare with, Matthew,
-chap. xix. v. 24.
-
-[55] Op. adv. Jorin. 1. II. chap. viii.--"In indication of their
-refusal to take an oath, the Society of Friends quote the words
-of Christ, "Swear not at all;" unaware, or overlooking, that this
-expression is descriptive of a state of social perfection, when the
-word of a man will be as good as his oath. Many others of Christ's
-precepts besides this are unobserved by Christians, such as 'Lay not
-up for yourselves treasures on earth,' 'Give to every one that asketh,
-and from him that would borrow of you turn not thou away.' The morality
-of Christ is a beau ideal so far from being realized, that there is
-not even a similitude of it in the Christian world. The Quakers who
-vauntingly obey this precept regarding oaths, has no hesitation in
-breaking the other precepts respecting the hoarding of money, and
-refusing to give it away."--Translator's Note.
-
-[56] St. Paul.
-
-[57] "I can believe," observes the Count de Boulainvilliers,
-"that Mahomet was ignorant of the common elements of education. But
-assuredly he was not ignorant in respect to that vast knowledge which
-a far travelled man of great natural powers may acquire. He was not
-ignorant of his native tongue, although he could not read it, being
-master of all its subtleness and all its beauties. He was thoroughly
-qualified to render hateful whatever was truly blameworthy, and to
-paint truth in colours so simple and vivid, that it was impossible
-to misunderstand it. All that he has said is true, as regards the
-essential dogmas of Religion; but he has not said all that is true,
-and in this respect alone does our religion differ from his." Farther
-on he adds, that "Mahomet was neither ignorant nor a barbarian; he
-conducted his enterprise with all the skill, delicacy, perseverance,
-and intrepidity, which was necessary to ensure its success. His views
-were as lofty as any which Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar,
-were capable of entertaining, had they been in his position."--Life
-of Mahomet by Count de Boulainvilliers, book II. pp. 266-8. Amsterdam
-edit. 1731.
-
-[58] Genesis chap. xxviii. v. 18.
-
-[59]    Omnis enim per se divum natura necesse est
-        Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur,
-        Semota ab nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe;
-        Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis
-        Ipsa suis pollens opibus: nihil indiga nostri,
-        Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.
-
-                   Lucretius de Rerum Nat. Book I. v. 57, and following.
-
-[60] If a work be translated, it always receives a colouring, which
-is more or less faint or vivid according to the opinions and ability
-of the Translator.--Volney's Lectures on History.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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