Translation:Treaty of the Three Fraudsters/Chapter 3

by Spinoza

CHAPTER III.

What the word RELIGION means. How & why they have appeared in such a great number in the world.

§. 1.

Before the word Religion was introduced into the world, we just had to follow natural law, that is to say, to conform to the right reason. Humans were attached to the connection of this sole instinct, which united them in such a way that divisions were rare. Natheless, as soon as fear had made humans suspect that there were Gods and invisible Powers, they raised altars to these imaginary beings, and, shaking off the yoke of nature and reason. Through vain ceremonies and a superstitious cult, they connected themselves to the vain ghosts of imagination. This is where the word Religion which makes so much noise in the world derives from. Having admitted invisible almighty Powers over them, humans adored these useful powers. Moreover, they imagined that nature was subordinate to these Powers. From then on, they imagined nature as a dead mass, or as a slave who only acted according to the orders of these Powers. The moment when this false idea had struck their minds, humans had nothing but contempt for nature, and respect for these pretentious beings, whom they declared their Gods. This led to the ignorance into which people were immersed. However deep it may be, an ignorance from which true scholars could draw themselves out, if their zeal was not crossed by those who lead these blind, and who only live thanks to their fraudsters.

Although there is very little appearance of triumph in this enterprise, we must not leave the truth. Even if it is only in consideration of those who caution themselves from the symptoms of this evil, one needs a wealthy soul to tell things as they are. The truth, whatever its nature, can never harm. Whereas error, however innocent and however useful it may appear, must necessarily have very disastrous effects in the long run.

§. 2.

The fear which made the Gods also made Religion. Since humans got into their heads the idea that there were invisible Agents who were the cause of their good or bad fortune, they renounced common sense, morality, and reason. They took their illusions for numerous divinities who took care of their conduct. After therefore having forged Gods for themselves, humans wanted to know what their nature was, imagining that they must be of the same substance as the soul. They believed soul to resemble the ghosts which appear in the mirror or during sleep, and they believed that their Gods were real substances but so tenuous and so subtle that, to distinguish them from Bodies, they called them Spirits. Although these bodies and spirits are one and the same thing, and only differ more or less, being Spirit is incorporeal and incomprehensible. The reason is that every Spirit has its own form, and that it is enclosed in some place, that is to say, that it has limits, and that, consequently, it has a corpora, however subtle one may suppose.^[1]

§. 3.

The Ignorants, that is to say, the majority of humans, fixed the nature of the substance of their Gods in this way. They also tried to understand by what means these invisible Agents made their effects. Because of their ignorance, they couldn't overcome it. They believed in their own conjectures; blindly judged the future by the past; as if one could reasonably conclude from the fact that a thing once happened in such and such a way will happen and must happen constantly, in the same way. Especially when the circumstances and all the causes which necessarily influence human events and actions, and which decide their nature and actuality, are diverse. They therefore considered the past and omened well or evil for the future, depending on whether the same enterprise had previously triumphed well or evil. This is how Phormion, having defeated the Lacedaemonians in the battle of Naupactus, the Athenians, after his death, elected another General of the same name. Because of the triumph of the armies of Scipio Africanus over Hannibal, the Romans sent another Scipio to the same Province against Caesar, which failed either for the Athenians or the Romans. Hence, several nations, after two or three experiences, attached their good or bad fortunes to places, objects and names; others used certain words which they call enchantments and believe them to be so efficient that they imagine by their means making the trees speak, making a man or a God from a piece of bread, and metamorphosing everything that appear.

§. 4.

The empire of the invisible Powers being therefore established, humans at first only revealed them as their Sovereigns; that is to say, by signs of submission and respect, such as gifts, prayers, etc. I say first , because nature does not learn to use Blood Sacrifices in this encounter: they were only instituted for the subsistence of the Sacrificers and Ministers intended for the service of these imaginary Gods.

§. 5.

This germ of Religion (I mean hope and fear), fertilized by the diverse human passions and opinions, has produced this grand number of bizarre beliefs which are the causes of a lot of evils and a lot of revolutions that are occurring in the States.

The honors and the grand revenues which were attached to the Priesthood, or to the Ministries of the Gods, flattered the ambition and the avarice of these cunning humans who knew how to take advantage of stupidity. These have fallen so well into their traps that they have gradually made a habit of praising lies and hating the truth.

§. 6.

The lie being established, and the ambitious loving the sweetness of being elevated above their peers, they tried to gain a reputation by pretending to be the friends of the invisible Gods that the vulgar feared. To be more triumphant, everyone painted them in their own way and took the license to multiply them to the point that they were found at every step.

§. 7.

The formless matter of the world was called the God Chaos. They also made one God for the Sky, the Earth, the Sea, the Fire, the Winds and the Planets. The same honor was given to men and women; the birds, the reptiles, the crocodile, the calf, the dog, the lamb, the snake and the swine, in a word all animal and plant kinds were worshiped. Each river, each fountain had the name of a God, each house had its own, each human had a genius. Eventually, both above and below the earth, everything was full of Gods, Spirits, Shadows and Demons. It was not enough yet to feign Divinities in every imaginable place. Humans thought they were offending the weather, the day, the night, concord, love, peace, victory, contention, rust, honor, virtue, fever and health. I mean we thought we were doing an outrage to such Divinities, who we thought were always ready to fall on our heads if we had not made temples and altars for them. Then, it was decided to adore their genius, which some invoked under the name of Muses; others, under the name of Fortune, worshiped their own ignorance. Humans sanctified their debaucheries under the name of Cupid, their anger under that of Furies, their natural parts under the name of Priapus; in a word, there was nothing to which they did not give the name of a God or a Demon.^[2]

§. 8.

The founders of religions decided to maintain the basis of their fraudsters, the human ignorance, by the adoration of images thought to be dwelt by Gods. This caused a fall of holy things, gold and Benefits on the Priests, because they were intended for the use of sacred ministers and no one had the temerity or audacity to claim or even touch them. To better deceive the People, the Priests proposed Prophets, Diviners, Inspired Ones capable of penetrating the future, admired of having commerce with Gods. and as it is natural to want to know one's destiny, these fraudsters were careful not to omit a circumstance so advantageous. Some settled at Delos, others at Delphi and elsewhere, where, through ambiguous oracles, they responded to the demands. Women were there. Romans had recourse to the Books of the Sybils. Mads were considered inspired. Necromancers feigned to have a familiar intercourse with the dead. Others claimed to know the future through the flight of birds or through the entrails of the beasts. The eyes, the hands, the face, an extraordinary object, everything seemed to be a good or evil omen. When we have found the secret of its existence, ignorance obtains the advantages of whatever impression we want.

§. 9.

The ambitious, who have always been grand masters in the art of deception, followed this route when they gave laws. To force the People to submit voluntarily, the ambitious convinced them that they have been sent these laws by a God or a Goddess.

Divinities may have had various multitudes. What were worshiped and called as Pagans had no general system of Religion. Each Republic, each State, each City and each individual had their own rites and thought of the Divinity according to their own imagination. Natheless, more deceitful legislators than the firsts arose gradually, who used more studied and surer means by creating laws, cults, and ceremonies calculated for the fanaticism they established.

Among a grand number, Asia saw the birth of three who distinguished themselves as much by the laws and cults that they instituted, as by their idea of Divinity and by how to make this idea accepted and their laws sacred. Moses was the oldest. Jesus Christ came afterwards, and abolished the previous laws to substantiate his. Mohammad appeared last on the scene, and took from both Religions what he needed to compose his own and then declared himself the enemy of both. We have to see the characters of these three legislators, examine their conducts. From there, we would judge which are the best founded, those who revere them as divines, or those who treat them as deceivers and fraudsters.

§. 10.

Of Moses

According to Justin Martyr, the famous Moses was a great Magician's^[3] grandson, with all the advantages that made him what he became. He made himself leader of the Hebrews. Everyone knows that they were a nation of Shepherds, whom King Pharaoh Osiris I admitted in his country in consideration of the services he had received from one of them at the time of a great famine: He gave them some lands in the east of Egypt, in a region fertile in pastures and suitable for feeding herds. For nearly two hundred years, they multiplied considerably. Being considered foreigners there, they were not obliged to serve in the armies. Because of the privileges that Osiris had granted, several natives of the country joined them, some Arabic groups joined them, because they were of the same race. Eventually, they rose so astonishingly that they were no longer able to hold out in the region of Goshen. They spread throughout Egypt and gave Pharaoh a just reason to fear that they were capable of some dangerous undertakings in case Egypt was attacked (as happened then quite often) by the Ethiopians, its assiduous enemies. Hence, a reason for the State obliged this Prince to take away their privileges and to seek means to weaken and disenfranchise them.

The Pharaoh, replacing Memnon, followed his plan with regard to the Hebrews. Wanting to perpetuate his memory by constructing the Pyramids and building the city of Thebes, he condemned Hebrews to work with bricks, for which their lands fit very well. During this servitude the famous Moses was born; the same year that the King ordered that all the male children of the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile, seeing that there was no surer way to destroy this tribe of foreigners. Hence, Moses was exposed to perish by the waters in a basket coated with bitumen, which his mother placed in the reeds on the banks of the river. As chance would have it, Pharaoh’s daughter Thermutis was taking a walk in the banks, and having heard the cries of this child, the natural female compassion inspired her with the desire to save him. Following the death of Thermutis presented Moses to the Pharaoh and replaced him following his death. She gave Moses such an education that could be given to a son of the queen of a nation then the most learned and polite in the universe. In a word, saying that 'he was educated in all the sciences of the Egyptians'says it all, presenting Moses as the greatest politician, the most learned naturalist and the most famous Magician of his time. Besides, obviously he was admitted into the order of Priests in Egypt, who were what the Druids were in Gaul. Those who do not know what the government of Egypt was then will perhaps not be sorry to learn that its famous Dynasties ended, and the whole country dependent on a single sovereign, it was then divided into several countries which did not have too great an extent. The Governors of these countries were named Monarchs, usually from the powerful order of Priests who owned nearly a third of Egypt. The king appointed these Monarchies. If we are to believe the authors who wrote about Moses, by comparing what they wrote with what Moses himself wrote, we will conclude that he was the Monarch of Goshen, and he owed his elevation to Thermutis, to whom he also owed his life. This is what Moses was like in Egypt, where he had the time and means to study the morals of the Egyptians and those of his nation, their dominant passions, their inclinations; knowledge which he later used to excite the revolution, whose driving force was him.

Following Thermutis' death, her heir renewed the persecution against the Hebrews. Having fallen from favor, Moses was concerned of not being able to legitimize some of the homicides he committed; so he decided to flee. He retired to Arabia Petraea, which borders on Egypt. Chance led him to a chief of some tribe in the country. He served there and with the talents that his master thought, he married one of his daughters. Here, Moses noticed that was such a bad Jew and that he knew so little of the formidable God that he imagined subsequently, that he married an idolater and that he did not even circumscribe his children.

In the deserts of Arabia, while tending the flocks of his father-in-law and his brother-in-law, Moses imagined a revenge for the injustice that the King of Egypt had done to him, by carrying the disorder and sedition in the hearts of its States. He flattered himself that he could easily triumph, both because of his talents and because of the disposition in which he found his nation, already irritated against the government by the mistreatment they were subjected to.

From the history Moses left about this revolution, or at least from what the author of the Books attributed to Moses left us, it appears that Jethro, his father-in-law, was in the plot, as well as his brother Aaron and his sister Marie, who had remained in Egypt and with whom Moses had surely maintained a correspondence.

Anyway, we see from the execution that Moses formed a vast plan in well politics. He knew how to implement against Egypt the knowledge that he had learned there: he was more subtle and more skillful in the alleged Magic than all those who performed the same tricks at the Court of Pharaoh.

Through these alleged miracles, Moses won the confidence of his nation and led the mutinous and discontented Egyptians, Ethiopians and Arabs to rise up and join. Boasting the power of his Divinity by the frequent conversations he had with her, by making her intervene in all the measures he took with the leaders of the revolt, Moses persuaded them so well that they followed him in number of six hundred thousands fighting men, without women and children, across the deserts of Arabia, where he knew all the twists and turns. After six days of walking in a painful retreat, he ordered his followers to consecrate the seventh day to his God with a public rest. The idea was to make his followers believe that God favored him, that he approved his domination, and that no one could dare to contradict him.

There were no people more ignorant than Hebrews, nor, therefore, more credulous. To be convinced of this grand ignorance, we must remember the state in which this people were in Egypt when Moses made them revolt: he was hated by the Egyptians because of his profession as a shepherd, persecuted by the sovereign, and employed in the most vile work. In the midst of such Populace, it was not very difficult for Moses to showcase his talents. He made them believe that his God (whom he sometimes called simply an Angel), the God of their Fathers, had appeared to him: that it was by his order that he took care to lead them; that God had chosen Moses to govern them, and that they would be the favorite people of this God, provided that they believed what Moses would say to them on his behalf. The adroit use of his prestige and the knowledge he had of nature, strengthened these exhortations and he confirmed what he had told them by miracles, which are capable of always doing a lot of impression on the imbecile Populace.

We can remark that Moses believed to have found a right way to keep Hebrews submissive to his orders by convincing them that God himself was their conductor by night in the figure of a column of light, and by day in the form of a cloud. Natheless, we can also show that this was the grossest deception of this imposter. During his stay in Arabia, Moses had learned that, as the country was vast and uninhabited, it was the custom of those who traveled in troops to take guides who would lead them, at night, by means of of a brazier whose flame they followed, and, by day, by the smoke of the same brazier, which all the members of the caravan could discover, and, consequently, not lose their way. This custom was still in use among the Medes and Assyrians; Moses used it and passed it for a miracle and for a mark of his God's protection. Don't believe me when I say he's a cheat; we must believe in Moses himself, who, in the 10th Chapter of Numbers (V. 19), up to the 33rd, asks his brother-in-law Hobad to come with the Ishmaelites, so that he can show them the way, because he knew the country. This is demonstrative, for if it was God who went before Israel night and day in a cloud and a column of light, could they have a best guide? Natheless, here Moses exhorts his brother-in-law’s lead for the most reasons. Therefore, the cloud and the column of light were God only to the people, and not to Moses.

Poor miserables delighted to see themselves adopted by the Master of the Gods after leaving a cruel servitude. They applauded Moses and swore to obey him blindly. He declared himself the Lieutenant of this God. His authority being confirmed, he wanted to render it perpetual and, under the specious pretext of establishing the worship of this God, he first made his brother and his children the heads of the Royal Palace; that is to say, from the place where he found it convenient to have the oracles delivered. He did the usual miracles which caused pity to whoever went through these fraudsters. However cunning Moses was, he would have great difficulty in making himself obeyed if he had not kept the force at hand. Deceit without weapons rarely triumphs.

Despite the grand number of dupes who blindly submitted to the wishes of this clever legislator, his courageous reproachers telling that, under false appearances of justice and equality, he was seized of everything; that sovereign authority being attached to his family, no one had any more right to claim it, and that he was finally less the Father than the Tyrant of the people. Natheless, on these occasions, Moses, as a profound politician, lost these strong Spirits and spared none of those who blamed his government.

It was therefore with such precautions and always making-up his torment with divine vengeance, he reigned as absolute Despot. To finish the revenge he commenced, that is to say as a deceiver and an fraudster, he rushed into a void which he dug in the middle of a solitude where he sometimes retreated, under the pretext of going to confer secretly with God, in order to thereby conciliate the respect and submission of his subjects. Moreover, he threw himself into this precipice prepared a long time ago, so that his body would not be found and people would believe that God had removed it to make it like himself. He was not ignorant that the memory of the Patriarchs who had preceded him was in great veneration, although their tombs had been found, but that was not enough to content his ambition: he had to be revered as an immortal God. This was obviously what he said at the start: that he was appointed by God to be the God of Pharaoh. Elijah, following his example, Romulus, Zamolxis and all those who had the stupid vanity to eternalize their names, hid the time of their death so that they would be believed to be immortals.

§. 11.

Natheless, there is no Legislator who did not extract their laws from some Divinities, and who did not try to claim that they themselves were more than simple mortals.^[4] Numa Pompilius couldn't leave the sweet solitude, although it was to throne Romulus. Seeing himself forced to do so by public acclamations, he took the advantage of the devotion of Romans and made them believe that he conversed with Gods, and that if they really wanted him for their King, they must obey him blindly, and religiously observe the laws and divine instructions of the Nymph Egeria. Alexander the Great had no less vanity. Not content with seeing himself as master of the world, he wanted people to believe he was Jupiter's son. Perseus also claimed to have his birth from the same God and the Virgin Danae. Plato looked at Apollo as his father, who had him from a Virgin. There were other personages who had the same madness; no doubt all these great men believed these reveries based upon the opinion of the Egyptians that the spirit of God could communicate with a woman and make her fertile.

§. 12.

Of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ was ignorant of neither the maxims nor the knowledge of the Egyptians. He made use of their opinion, believing that it fit into his objective. Compared to how Moses had made himself famous only by commanding an ignorant people, Jesus assumed to build upon this foundation and was followed by some imbeciles, whom he convinced that the Holy Spirit was his Father, and his Mother a Virgin. These good people, used to reimbursing themselves with dreams and reveries, adopted these notions and believed in everything Jesus hoped for, especially since such a birth was not really something too marvelous for them.

Natheless, to be born of a Virgin via the Holy Spirit is no more extraordinary nor more miraculous than what the Tartars say about their Genghis Khan, of whom a Virgin was also the mother. The Chinese say that the God Fuxi was born from a Virgin made fertile by the Sun's rays.

This miracle appeared at a time when Jews, tired of their God, as they had been of their Judges^[5], wanted to have a visible one like the other nations. As the number of fools is infinite, Jesus Christ found subjects everywhere, but his extreme poverty was an invincible obstacle to his elevation. The Pharisees, sometimes his admirers, sometimes jealous of his audacity, depressed or elevated him according to the mood of the populace. Word spread about Jesus' Divinity, but, devoid of strength as he was, it was impossible for his objective to triumph. Some ill people he healed, some alleged dead he resurrected, made him popular. Natheless, having neither money nor army, he could not fail to perish. If he had had these two means, he would have triumphed no less than Moses and Mohammed and those who had the ambition to raise themselves above others. If he was more ill-fated, he was not less adroit and some places in his history illustrate that the grandest fault of his policy was not having sufficient space for safety. Besides, I don't think his measures were any worse than the other two; its law has at least become the rule of belief for those who flatter themselves of being the sage in the world.

§. 13.

Of Jesus Christ's Politics

Is there anything, for example, more subtle than Jesus' reaction to the woman caught in adultery? The Jews asked him if they should stone this woman, responding positively would have made Jesus fall into the trap that his enemies were setting for him. The negative reaction directed against the law and the affirmative conviction by him of the rigor and cruelty would have alienated his spirits. I mean, instead of distributing as an ordinary man would have done, he addresses, let the sinless one among you stone first. Skillful reaction shows the presence of his holy spirit very well. Another time, asked if it was permissible to pay Caesar's tribute, and seeing the image of the Prince on the coin that was shown to him, he avoided the trap by answering that we had to return to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. The trap was to see if he would make himself a criminal of the Majesté, denying the permission. By saying that the tribute had to be paid, he was overturning the law of Moses, which Jesus protested was not the case.

The Pharisees asked Jesus Christ where he got the authority to preach and teach people. He understood their plot, which only tended to convince them of lies. He replied that it was by a human authority, since he was not of the Priests, which was responsible for instructing the people. Whether he did it by the express order of God, his doctrine was opposed to the Law of Moses. They got out of the problem by embarrassing themselves, being asked whose name John had been baptized.

The Pharisees, who politically opposed the Baptism of John, would have condemned themselves by admitting that it was in the name of God. If they did not admit it, they exposed themselves to the rage of the populace, who believed the opposite. To get out of this bad situation, they replied that they knew nothing. Jesus Christ said that he was not obliged to tell why and in whose name he was preaching.

§. 14.

Such were the defeats of the destroyer of the old Law and the father of the new Religion, which was built on the ruins of the old, where an unbiased mind sees nothing more divine than in the religions which preceded it. Its founder was not that ignorant. Seeing the extreme corruption of the Jewish republic, he judged it to be near its end and believed that another must rise from its ashes. The fear of being warned by the more talented made Jesus Christ hasten to establish himself by means opposed to those of Moses, which made itself terrible and formidable to other nations; Jesus Christ, on the contrary, attracted them by the hope of the advantages of another life which, he said, one would obtain by believing in him. Moses only promised temporal goods to the observers of his Law, while Jesus Christ gave hope for things that would never end. The laws of the former only looked to the outside, those of the latter went inside, influenced thoughts and completely contradicted the law of Moses. Jesus Christ believed, with Religion, and the State and individuals rose from corruption. Nothing could be done with the corrupt, no Law yields to another. Jesus Christ, in imitating other innovators, had resorted to miracles which have always been the pitfall of the ignorant and the asylum of the ambitious.

§. 15.

By this means, Christianity being founded, Jesus Christ cleverly thought of profiting from the errors of Moses' politics and making the New Law eternal. His enterprise triumphed perhaps beyond his hopes. The Hebrew prophets thought they would honor Moses in predicting a Heir who would resemble him; that is to say, a Messiah grand and powerful in virtues, and terrible to his enemies. Natheless, their Prophecies produced quite the contrary: a number of ambitious who took the occasion to pass themselves off as the announced Messiah, which caused revolts that lasted until the complete destruction of the ancient Republic of the Hebrews. Jesus Christ was more talented than the Mosaic Prophets to discredit those who would rise against him in advance. He predicted that such a Messiah would be the great enemy of God, the favorite of Demons, the assembly of all vices and the desolation of the world.

After such beautiful applause, it seems that no one should be tempted to call themselves the Antichrist. I do not believe that we could find a better secret for conserving a Law, although there is nothing more fabulous than everything said about the alleged Antichrist. During his lifetime, Saint Paul said that he was born before, therefore, that we were on the eve of the advent of Jesus Christ. More than 1,600 years have passed since the birth of this formidable character, no one has heard of the predicted Antichrist. I admit that some have applied these words to Ebion and Cerinthus, two great enemies of Jesus Christ, combatting his alleged Divinity. We can also say that if this interpretation confirms with the sense of the Apostle, which is in no way believable, these words point out an infinity of Antichrists in all centuries. There are no true scholars who believe they are distorting the truth by saying that the history of Jesus Christ is a contemptible fable and that his Law is but a tissue of reveries that ignorance has put in motion, that interest maintains, and that tyranny protects.

§. 16.

We nevertheless claim that a Religion established on such weak foundations is divine and supernatural, as if we did not know that there are no people more likely to give rise to the most absurd opinions than idiots. It is therefore not marvelous that Jesus Christ had no scholars following him, he knew that his Law could not endorse any common sense. This, no doubt, is why he so often declaimed against the wise, whom he excluded from his Kingdom, where he only admits the poor in spirit, the simple and the imbeciles: reasonable minds must console themselves for not having nothing to do with fools.

§. 17.

Of Jesus Christ's Morals

As for the morality of Jesus Christ, we see nothing divine there which should make it preferable to the writings of the ancients. Instead, everything we see there is made or imitated from these writings. Saint Augustine admits that he found in some of them the whole beginning of the Gospel according to Saint John.^[6] We notice that this Apostle was so used to plundering others that he had no difficulty in stealing from the Prophets their enigmas and their visions, to compose one's Apocalypse. Where does the conformity between the doctrine of the Old or New Testament and the writings of Plato come from, for example, if not from the fact that the rabbis, and the composers of the scriptures, looted this grand man? The birth of the world has more probability in his Timaeus than in the book of Genesis. Natheless, we cannot say that's because Plato read Judaic books during his trip to Egypt, since, according to Saint Augustine, King Ptolemy had not yet had them translated when this Philosopher traveled there.

Socrates describes the country to Simmias of Thebes in the Phaedo, which has infinitely more grace than the Terrestrial Paradise. The fable of the Androgynes is incomparably better found than everything we learn from Genesis on the subject of the extraction of one of Adam's ribs to form the woman, etc.^[7] Is there anything that has more to do with the two burnings of Sodom and Gomorrah than that caused by Phaeton? Is there anything more conforming than the fall of Lucifer and that of Vulcan, and then the Giants damaged by Jupiter's lightning? What things are more alike than Samson and Hercules, Elijah and Phaeton, Joseph and Hypolite, Nebuchadnezzar and Lycaon, Tantalus and the poor Rich, the Manna of the Israelites and the Ambrosia of the Gods? Saint Augustine, Saint Cyril and Theophilact compare Johannes to Hercules, nicknamed Trinoctius, because he was three days and three nights in the stomach of the Whale.

The river of Daniel, represented in Chapter 7 of his Prophecies, is a visible imitation of the Phlegethon, in which the soul's immortality is spoken in the dialogue. Original sin was from Pandora's box, the Sacrifice of Isaac and Jephthah from that of Iphigenia, where a doe was replaced. The account of Lot and his wife goes quite well with what the fable teaches us about Baucis and Philemon; the story of Perseus and Bellerophon is the foundation of that of Saint Michael and the demon he vanquished. Lastly, the authors of Scripture transcribed the works of Hesiod and Homer almost mot-a-mot.

§. 18.

As for Jesus Christ, Celsus demonstrated in Origen's report that he had extracted his most beautiful Sentences from Plato. Such is the one which says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter into the kingdom of God.^[8] Those who believe in Jesus Christ owe their belief in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, hell, and a grand part of his morality to the sect of the Pharisees, where he was from. I see nothing that is also not in that of Epictetus, Epicurus and a number of others; the latter was cited by Saint Jerome as a man whose virtue put the best Christians to shame and whose life was so temperate that his best meals were only a little cheese, bread and water. With such a frugal life, this pagan Philosopher said that it was better to be miserable and reasonable than to be rich, opulent and unreasonable. That is to say, wealth and wisdom are rarely found united under the same subject. We cannot be happy nor can we live a pleased life unless our happiness is completed by prudence, justice and honesty, which are the quality sources of true and solid voluptuousness.

For Epictetus, I do not believe that ever any man, not even Jesus Christ, has been firmer, more austere, more equal and has had a practical morals that is more sublime than his. I say nothing difficult to show if this was the place, but for the fear of crossing the limits, I will report an example of the beautiful actions of his life. Being the slave of a freedman, named Epaphrodite, Captain of Nero's Guards, he broke his leg. Epictetus told him with a smile that he saw clearly that he would not finish until he had broken his leg.

Since the times did not tear apart the book of Arrian on the life and death of our Philosopher, I am convinced that we would see a lot of other examples of our Philosopher's patience. I have no doubt that patience is what priests say for the virtues of Philosophers, that it is a virtue based upon vanity, which is not in fact what it seems. Natheless, I know very well that they think loud and believe that they earned money to instruct People, when they have denounced those who knew the right reason and true virtue. Nothing in the world comes so close to the morals of the true wise as the actions of these superstitious who decry them, who seem to have studied only to reach a position which gives them bread, who are vain and applaud themselves when they have obtained it, as if they had reached a state of perfection, although it is for those who obtain only a state of idleness, joy, license and voluptuousness, where the majority follow nothing less than the maxims of the Religion which they study. Natheless, we'd better leave them who have no idea of real virtue, to examine the Divinity of their Master.

§. 19.

Having examined Christ's politics and morals, where we find nothing so useful and so sublime as in the writings of the ancient Philosophers, we ought to see if his posthumous reputation is a proof of his Divinity. People are so used to unreason that, amazingly, they claim to draw any results from their conduct. Proven by experience that he is always chasing ghosts and that he does and says nothing that shows common sense. Natheless, it is on such illusions, which have always been in vogue, despite the efforts of scientists who have always opposed them, that we base our belief. Whatever care they took to uproot the reigning follies, the People only left them after having been satisfied with them. Moses could brag about being God's interpreter and demonstrate his mission and rights through extraordinary signs, when he was absent (which he did from time to time to confer, he said, with God and what Numa Pompiliusd in the same way). I mean, he was absent only to see in his return the traces of the worship to the Gods that the Hebrews had seen in Egypt. It was in vain to keep them for 40 years in a desert to make them lose the idea of the Gods they had left, without a God who was always visible to them. They adored Gods stubbornly, regardless of the cruel experience they were made for. Their hate for other nations, inspired by the most idiotic joy, made them gradually lose the memory of the Gods of Egypt, and cling to that of Moses. We adored him for a time with all the circumstances marked in the Law, but we subsequently left him to follow that of Jesus Christ. It is inconsistent to make one go after novelty.

§. 20.

The most ignorant Hebrews had adopted the Law of Moses; as well as similar folks who followed Jesus. Since their number is infinite and they love one another, we should not be surprised if these new errors spread easily. It is not that new things are not dangerous for those who embrace them, but the enthusiasm they excite annihilates fear. The disciples of Jesus Christ, therefore, miserable as they were in his wake, and all dying of hunger (as we see, with their leader, they were one day to pull up corns in the fields by the necessity), I say, they only started to be discouraged, having seen their Master in the hands of the executioners and unable to give them the goods, the power and the grandeur that he had made them hope.

In despair at seeing their hopes frustrated, his disciples made a virtue of necessity after his death. Banished from all places and pursued by the Jews who wanted to treat them as their Master, they spread into neighboring countries, where, on the report of a few women, they looked for his resurrection, his Divine filiation, and the Gospels are full of the rest of the fables.

The difficulty they had in triumphing among the Jews made them resolve to look for affluence among the foreigners, Gentils, which required more knowledge than they had. The Gentiles were philosophers, and hence, friends of reason. The Followers of Jesus won Saint Paul, better educated than the fishermen without letters, or more capable of making people listen to their chatter. Associating himself with them by a stroke of Heaven (because something marvelous was necessary) attracted some supporters to the nascent sect by the fear of the supposed penalties of a Hell, imitated from the fables of the ancient Poets, and by the hope of the joys of Paradise, where he had the impudence to say that he had been taken away.

These disciples, by dint of prestige and lies, obtained for their Master the privilege of being considered a God. A privilege which Jesus, during his lifetime, had not been able to obtain. His fate was no better than that of Homer, nor even so privileged, since six of the cities which had chased and despised the latter during his life, went to war to know who would have the privilege of having given birth to him.

§. 21.

From everything we have said, we can judge that Christianity is, like all other Religions, a roughly composed fraudster, whose triumph and progress would astonish even its inventors if they returned to the world. Natheless, without getting further into a labyrinth of errors and visible contradictions of which we have told enough, we ought to say something about Mohammed, who founded a law on maxims completely opposed to those of Jesus Christ.

§. 22.

Of Mohammed

The disciples of Christ extinguished the Mosaic Law to introduce the Christian Law. Since then, very few followed a new legislator, who rose by the same paths as Moses. Like him, he took the title of Prophet and Messenger of God; like him, he worked miracles and knew how to benefit the passions of the people. First, Jesus found himself escorted by an ignorant populace, to whom he expressed the new Oracles of Heaven. These miserables, seduced by the promises and fables of this new fraudster, spread his fame and exalted him to the point of eclipsing that of his Predecessors.

Mohammed was not a man who seemed fit to found an Empire. He excelled neither in Politics nor in Philosophy. He could neither read nor write. He even had so little firmness that he would have been forced to uphold the challenge by the skill of one of his spectators. As soon as he began to rise and become famous, Corais, a powerful Arab, jealous of a man of nothing had the audacity to deceive the people, declared himself his enemy and traversed his enterprise. Natheless, the People were convinced that Mohammed had continual conferences with God and his angels, and they declared that he prevailed over his enemy. The Corais family suffered and Mohammad, seeing himself followed by an imbecile crowd who believed him to be a divine man, believed he no longer needed his companion. Out of fear that the latter would discover his fraudsters, he wanted to warn him, and to do so more surely, he overwhelmed him with promises and swore to him that he only wanted to become great to share with him his power, to which he had contributed so much. “We touch,” he said at the time of our elevation, “we are sure of a grand people that we have won, it is a question of reassuring ourselves of them by the artifice that you have so happily imagined.” At the same time, Mohammed convinced Corais to hide in the pit of Oracles.

Corais spoke to make the People believe that the voice of God was speaking for Mohammed, who was among his converts. Deceived by the caresses of this treacherous man, his associate went into the pit counterfeiting the Oracle as usual. Mohammed, then passing at the head of an infatuated multitude, a voice was heard saying: “I am your god, I declare that I have established Mohammed to be the Prophet of all nations; it will be from him that you will learn my true law, which the Jews and the Christians have altered.” This man had played this role for a long time, but at last he was paid by the greatest and blackest ingratitude. Indeed, Mohammed, hearing the voice which proclaimed him a divine man, turned towards the People, commanded them in the name of God who recognized him as his Prophet, to fill the pit with stones, from which his body had emerged. Such an authentic testimony, in memory of the stone that Jacob had raised to mark the place where God appeared to him. Thus perished the miserable who had contributed to the rise of Mohammed; it was on this pile of stone that the last of the most famous fraudsters established his law. This foundation is so solid and so fixed that after more than a thousand years of reign, there is still no sign that it is on the point of being shaken.

§. 23.

Hence Mohammed rose and was happier than Jesus since he saw the progress of his law before his death, which the son of Mary could not do because of his poverty. He was even happier than Moses, who, through excess of ambition, himself rushed to end his days. Mohammed died in peace and at the height of his wishes, he also had some certainty that his Doctrine would survive after his death, having adapted it to the genius of his followers, born and raised in ignorance; that a more skilful man perhaps could not have done.

This, reader, is the most remarkable thing that can be said about the three famous legislators whose Religions subjugated a large part of the universe. They were as we have depicted them. It is up to you to examine whether they deserve your respect and whether you are excusable for letting yourself be led by guides who have been elevated by ambition alone, and whose ignorance externalizes their reveries. To cure yourself from the errors with which they have blinded you, read the following with a free and unprejudiced mind, this will be the way to discover the truth.

1. See the passage of Tertullien, cité plus haut. Hobbes, Léviathan, Cap. 12, pag. 55, 56, 57.
2. Hobbes ubi suprà de homine. Cap. 12, p. 58.
3. We should not see this word as popular opinion. Who says magician among the reasonable means adroit, talented charlatan, a subtle player with no pact with the devil.
4. Hobbes, Leviathan : de homine, Cap. 12, p. 59 et 60
5. 4th book of Samuel, chap. 8. Israelites demanded the King.
6. Confessions, Books 7, Chap. 9, vers 20.
7. Banquet of Plato.
8. Confessions, Books 6-8.