Translation:Treaty of the Three Fraudsters/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
Of the Spirits named Demons
§. 1.
Having said elsewhere how the notion of Spirits was introduced to humans, we have shown that these Spirits were only Spectra that existed only in their own imagination.
Humankind's first doctors were not enlightened enough to explain to the People what these Spectra were, but they did not fail to tell what they thought of them. Some, seeing that the Spectra dissipated and had no coherence, called them immaterial, incorporeal, forms without matter, colors and figures, without nevertheless being corpora neither colored nor figured, adding that they could be to put on air as if they were a garment when they wanted to make themselves visible to the eyes of men. Others said that they were animated bodies, but that they were made of air or of another more subtle material, which they thickened at will, when they wanted to appear.
§. 2.
If these two sorts of Philosophers were opposed in the opinion they had of Spectra, they agreed in the names they gave them: Demons. These Philosophers were as insane as those who believe they see the souls of dead people while sleeping and that it is their own soul that they see when they look in a mirror, or finally who believe that the Stars that we see on water are the souls of the Stars. After this ridiculous opinion, they fell into an error which is no less absurd, believing that these Spectra had unlimited power, a notion destitute of reason, but common to ignorants, who imagine that unknown Beings they have a marvelous power.
§. 3.
This ridiculous opinion was no sooner divulged than the Legislators used it to support their authority. They established the belief of the Spirits which they called Religion. They hoped that the fear that the people would have of these invisible powers would keep them in duty, and to give more weight to this dogma. They distinguished the Spirits or Demons into good and evil; some were intended to excite humans to observe their laws, others to restrain them and prevent humans from breaking laws.
To know what Demons are, you only need to read the Greek Poets and their stories, and especially what Hesiod says about them in his Theogony, where he deals extensively with the descent and origin of Gods.
§. 4.
The Greeks were the first to invent Demons. By means of their colonies, they passed them from Greece into Asia, Egypt and Italy. This is where the Jews, who were scattered in Alexandria and elsewhere, learned of Demons. They happily used it like others. The difference was that they did not name Demons indifferently like the Greeks, the good and evil spirits, but only the bad ones. They reserved the name only for the good Demon, of the Spirit, of God, calling prophets those who were inspired by the good spirit. Moreover, they considered as the effects of the Divine Spirit everything they considered great good, and as effects of the Cacodemon, or the evil Spirit, everything they estimated as the grand evil.
§. 5.
This distinction between good and evil caused what we called Demoniacs named as Lunatics, Insane, Furious, Epileptics; as those who spoke an unknown language. Poorly made and unclean human was, in their opinion, possessed by an unclean Spirit; a mute was of a mute Spirit. Finally, the words Spirit and Demon became so familiar that they spoke of them whenever they met; from which it is clear that the Jews believed, like the Greeks, that the Spirits or Ghosts were not illusions, nor visions, but real beings, independent of the imagination.
§. 6.
The Bible is full of tales about Spirits, Demons and Demoniacs; but nowhere is it said how and when they were created. This was hardly forgivable to Moses, who is said to have attended to the speech on the Creation of Heaven and Earth. Jesus, who speaks quite often of Angels and Spirits, good and evil, does not tell us whether they are material or immaterial. Hence, Jesus and Moses only knew what the Greeks had taught their ancestors. Without this, Jesus Christ would be no less blameworthy for his silence than for his malice in refusing to humans the grace, faith and piety which he assures them he can give.
Natheless, to return to the Spirits, the words Demon, Satan, Devil, are not proper names which designate any individual. Only ignorants believed in them both among the Greeks, who invented them, and the Jews, who adopted them. Since the Jews were infected with these ideas, they appropriated these names that mean enemy, shamer and destroyer, sometimes to the invisible Powers, that is to say, to the Gentiles, whom they said inhabited the Kingdom of Satan, being the only ones, in their opinion, who inhabited that of God.
§. 7.
Because Jesus Christ was Jewish, therefore very imbued with these opinions, we should not be surprised if we often encounter the words for Devil, Satan, Hell in his Gospels and in the writings of his disciples, as if they were something real or efficacious. Natheless, as we have already observed, they are quite obviously illusional. What we have said is not enough to show, only two words are needed to convince the obstinate.
All Christians remain in agreement that God is the source of all things, that he created humans, that he preserves them, and that, without his help, they would fall into nothingness. Following this principle, it is certain that he created what is called the Devil or Satan. Now, whether he created it good or evil (which is not at issue here), it is incontestably the work of the first Principle. If, as the villain, the Devil or Satan subsists, survives, as they say, it can only be by the will of God. Now, how is it possible to conceive that God preserves a creature who not only mortally hates him and constantly curses him, but who also strives to debauch his friends to have the pleasure of mortifying him? How, I say, is it possible for God to allow this Devil to exist, to cause him all the grief he can, to dethrone him if he were in his power, and to divert his servants from his service? Favorites and their Representatives?
What is God's objective here, or rather, what do they want to tell us by talking about the Devil and Hell? If God can do everything and we can do nothing without him, why does the Devil hate him and curse him? Either God consents to it, or he does not consent to it: If he consents, the Devil, in cursing him, only does what he must, since he can do only what God wants. Eventually, it is not the Devil, but God who absurdly curses himself, if ever there was one! If he does not consent, it wouldn't be true that he is almighty. There are two principles, one of the good and the other of the evil. The former wants one thing, whereas the latter wants the opposite. Where would this rationality lead us? To admit without reply that neither God nor the Devil, nor Paradise, nor Hell, nor the soul are what religion depicts. Theologians, that is to say, those who spout fables for truth, are people of bad faith, who abuse people's credulity to insinuate into them what they please, as if the vulgar were absolutely unfit for the truth but fit for illusions, where the reasonable one sees only void, nothingness and madness.
The world has been infected with these absurd opinions for a very long time. Natheless, there have been solid minds all the time. Sincere humans who, despite persecution, have rebelled against the absurdities of their times, as we have just done in this brief treat. Whoever loves the truth will, without a doubt, notice some consolation there. I want to please them without worrying about the judgment of those for whom prejudices serve as infallible oracles.