Treaty of the Three Fraudsters

by Spinoza

Spinozist Revolution

B. de Spinoza was an outlier of the time. Though he lived in the "freest" land in the 17th century, Netherlands, Europe was ruled by religious laws and wars under despotic-mercantilist regimes. He was more an outlier for being born in Amsterdam to a Sephardic Jewish family of Portuguese immigrants. At the age of 23, he was excommunicated from the synagogue school where he studied religion and commerce, the Jewish community and life. The excommunication he went through was terrible, because no Jew would get close to him, and not read anything he wrote. Spinoza first approached the groups that enjoyed the bourgeois opportunities offered by Netherlands; and then to the intellectuals influenced by Descartes' philosophy. He was on the move all the time, making a network where he could spread his thoughts, which gradually advanced in his work.

Though he left unfinished De Emendatione Intellectus (On the Repair of the Mind, 1661), he wrote Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, 1661-74). He discussed the philosophy of Descartes in Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae (The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, 1663). These books were made "public" by his friends, notably in 1677. When he died in 1677, he left behind unpublished writings, books, and letters. As is known, none of his books were published in his lifetime except his Tractatus Theologico Politicus (Theological and Political Treat, 1670), which was published anonymously. His ideas gradually spread throughout Europe, though demonized. In his article on Spinoza in the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1697) Pierre Bayle judged that Spinoza was a philosopher who should not be "thought about" and "remembered" for a century. In the late 18th century, Spinoza was a world of universal harmony for the German Romantics. Spinozism was the key of the world of reason to the world of affects. Hegel thought of Spinoza as virtue with an inordinate "positivity" that does not allow anything to be "rejected". Spinoza has been reborn into the modern world in the "Italian Marxist" Toni Negri's affirmation that one cannot be a philosopher without being Spinozist, but one cannot be "modern" with him. Spinoza is briefly a revolution.

This book is the excerpt of the chapters for the Three Impostures from the 1678-88 French copy of the book attributed to Spinoza, Traité des Trois Imposteurs, Moïse, Jésus-Christ, Mahomet (Treat of Three Impostures: Moses, Jesus-Christ, Mohammad). It concerns the idea of the God, the Prophets, and in the most published versions in his name, the Spirit. Spinoza uses the word “fraudster” in the title for monotheistic prophets, where he does not put Judaism, Christianity and Islam into the same bag, but he concludes that their prophets were sheer charlatans, scammers of former Gods who applied to the minds, in Spinoza's opinion, of vulgars, ignorants, imbeciles. He cites these religions, all of which derived from the Jewish religion, as a monopolization of the main themes from polytheistic religions, such as the corporations of the good and evil as well as Gods. In this sense, he is quite materialist though not individualist, that is, Spinoza's idea of God has a "universal" and "natural" wholeness in regards to the good and evil affects left on the minds and souls of beings. He does not distinguish humans from animals as well as from all living organisms. To him, though he later uses the cartesian notion of thought, his take on the God that is Being inclusive of all living beings is quite impressive at a time before Darwin was around.

Spinoza's use of the words idea and spirit are, no matter how he gets close to the materialism of the 19th century philosophy, such as Marxian thought of the spirit, affective. If Spinoza unpacked religions and prophets as charlatans who sold spirits to the spiritless imbeciles, commoners or vulgars, it was Marx who added that the substance that these three fraudsters have been selling is opium. Unlike Marx, Spinoza does not leave hold of the God. Natheless, his God is no longer monotheistic. I would rather argue that Spinoza, in his dispersed thoughts in the book, begins with the monotheistic idea of the God andendsupwiththeideaofaGodasonebig universal consciousness, but he obviously lacks scientific evidence. Spinoza's division of religions through prophets is more interesting. He distinguishes Christianity from Judaism through the simple fact that the commoners of the time needed to see the God. Human mind was still not that capable of conceiving a Being, the very word he uses, which is invisible but everywhere. To Spinoza, the "idiot" question to ask after millennia of visible forms of Gods would be: How is that possible? The answer was meant to be Christianity and corporeal depictions, the images of the affective ideas of The God and the Spirit. So Spinoza's distinction of the lingual idea of God and its imaginary reflection on the human mind is a revolution. He is very well poignant of the fact that the affective feminine was prevalent in Judaism with the Mosaic consciousness inscribed on Laws. Instead of the Father in Christianity whose image is let to be depicted, in Judaism that's Mother though the God is genderless in the latter and Islam. Spinoza, however, does not reference the gendered ideas of the God. To him, what is the truth is God. What is false are Prophets and Religions. As I mentioned, the idea of the God ends up being a universal, ecological, astronomical God as Being whose appearances are everywhere. He relies heavily on these imagined traces of the God, which later became a founding notion in Pantheism.

Spinoza's version of the soul is what the religions are there for, and it seems to be connected to a notion of corpora where a lot of things swirl in a way as to be materialized in it. As far as language is concerned, Spinoza gives a grand number of examples from pre-monotheistic and monotheistic scriptures to illustrate the efficaciousness of language in the mind and-or the soul. He might as well have ventured into this issue in Ethics. In report to the imaginary, that is to say, to the corporeal, it is more manifest. He pokes fun at the birth of Jesus to a Virgin as if that's playing the God as the Truth, though he does not say explicitly but implies that Jesus was the God himself with the apparition of the Holy Spirit, which he disintegrates later in the book. Spinoza obviously laughs at Moses having a troublemaker Goddess-wife that were to be a subject in Sigmund Freud's theory a few centuries later, such as the Uncanny (1919) for the mother-tongue and fatherland (in German) and the Moses and Monotheism (1939) for the advance of the monotheist religion in the evolution of the human psyche. As for Mohammed, Spinoza's allegory is limited to who should play the God and what should be the image of the God's messenger in the fight between Mohammedans and Corais, tribal conflicts to put simply. Obviously, Spinoza did not hear that the conversion of the Hagia Sophia from being a church into a mosque was a complex after the Quran was translated into Latin by the French Pierre le Vénérable with a red fishy image of Mohammad. Maybe Jacques Lacan did a few centuries later: "The symptom presents itself as a small fish whose voracious break only closes to make sense under the tooth. Then, one of two things: either the symptom makes it grow and multiply (“Marry and multiply” said the God, which is something strong: he, the God knows what a multiplication is. Not this abundance of the little fish) – or else, it fades away." (Lacan, J. L’École Freudienne, 1975)

What interests Spinoza in the big three religions as scammers is first and foremost the God as Truth, because he finds it regressive imagining a humanlike corpora of the God as in Christianity, or playing the God's messenger as in Judaism and Islam. Spinoza's notion of the universe introduces the Being as the God. As for the Truth, it is a universe for it to transgress in comparison to the singular. The notion of the universe introduces the pantheistic idea of God as the Truth. What might be interesting for this book is the psychoanalytic theory, a revolution that was meant to be in the following centuries, where the human psyche could be approached through a Spinozist view. Though Spinoza's notion of image divides the idea of the God in monotheism into two, a Spinozist division of the themes in this book is therefore threefold: imagination, language, and truth. These three words inform the basic registrations of reality in psychoanalytic theory, and Spinoza takes into account how reality, not truth, has been fictionalized through tales and lies in the words and scriptures of what he occasionally calls Legislators, the Impostures. The word he uses passim in the book for this fictionalization is "illusion".

The triple illusion of reality is based upon the sign, more or less demonstrating the equivalence of these three in a hole that is the symptom, what is strictly unthinkable. The symptom is what would at least be a departure, what would make a hole in the register of language. And that hole is diagnosed in grand detail by Spinoza in his detailed analysis of the word Spirit, which had been called Demons as Spectral apparitions at the time. And it would make it possible to question what the Spirit as the symptomatic hole is about the threefold reality that conveys a sense. This sense is there only to be lessened to the function that supports the human unconscious in psychoanalytic theory, the function that is structured as language. The equivocation of this function is the use of language, if not that sensitive but affective in the uses of such words as Devil, Satan, Hell. Affective sense adds the lingual dimension to the Imaginary, everything that is represented for the human being who cannot grasp the corpora as a whole.
Symptom, in Spinoza's view, is the Spectra of the Truth. The cure of psychoanalysis is to fade away the symptom, to forget. How to fade away the Truth of the Spirit, the Spectra of the Truth? It depends on whether the Spirit wants to return. That might be why Spinoza uses the Spectra not singularly. The sense of the Spirit, natheless, is not its multiplication or extinction, but the Truth. Tolga Theo Yalur

Treaty of the Three Fraudsters

I

On God

1

Despite the importance of the truth for humans, very few enjoy the advantage of knowing it. Some are incapable of looking for the truth for themselves, others do not want to take the trouble. We shouldn't be astonished if the world is replete with vain and ridiculous opinions. Nothing is more capable of giving lessons than ignorance; the only source of the false ideas of the Divinity, of the Soul, of the Spirits and of almost all other objects which make up Religion. Their usage has prevailed, and we are content with the prejudices of birth. We rely on the most essential things for those who are interested to make it their law to stubbornly sustain given opinions, who do not dare destroy them for fear of self-destruction.

2

Why there is no remedy for the Evil is that after having established the false ideas of the God, we immediately encourage people to believe in these ideas without examination. On the contrary, we leave the aversion of the God to the Philosophers or the true Scientists, for fear that the reason they teach would point out the errors in which God is immersed. The proponents of this nonsense have been so triumphant that it is dangerous to oppose them. It matters too much to these fraudsters that people are ignorant to allow them to be disillusioned. Thus we are forced to disguise the truth, or to sacrifice ourselves to the rage of false Scientists, or of low and interested souls.

3

If people could understand the chasm that ignorance throws them into, they would soon shake off the yoke of their indignant conductors, because it is possible to let reason act without discovering the truth. These fraudsters felt this so well that to prevent the good effects that it would infallibly produce, they decided to paint it as a monster who is incapable of inspiring any good affect. Although they blame it in general on those who are unreasonable, they would nevertheless be very sad if the truth was heard. Therefore, we see these sworn enemies of common sense constantly falling into continual contradictions. It is difficult to know what they are claiming. If it is true that the right reason is the only light that man must follow, and if the people are not as incapable of reasoning as we try to persuade them, those who seek to instruct them must strive to correct his false reasoning and destroy his prejudices. Then we will see their eyes open gradually and their minds become convinced of this truth, that God is not what they ordinarily imagine.

4

To overcome this, there is no need for high speculation or to penetrate into the secrets of nature. We only need common sense to judge that God is neither angry nor jealous; that justice and mercy are false titles attributed to it; and that what the Prophets and the Apostles (Caliphs) have said about it teaches us neither its nature nor its essence. Indeed, speaking without pretense and telling the thing as it is, must we not agree that these Doctors were neither more skillful nor better educated than the rest; and that, far from it, what they say about God is so rude that thou have to be a completely commoner to believe it? Although the thing is quite obvious in itself, we will make it still more sensible by examining if there is any appearance that the Prophets and Apostles were otherwise conformed to humans.

5

Everyone agrees on the birth and the ordinary functions of life, which had nothing that distinguished them from the rest of humans. They were fathered by men, they are born by women, and they would maintain their lives in the same way as we do. As for the spirit, we want God to animate that of the Prophets much more than others. God communicated to humans in this very particular way: we believe in this in good faith as if the thing was proven. Without considering that all humans are alike, and that they all have the same origin, we claim that prophets were of an extraordinary temper; and chosen by the Divinity to announce his oracles. But, apart from the fact that they had neither more intelligence than the vulgar, nor more perfect understanding, what do we see in their writings which obliges us to need a high opinion of them? The greater part of what they said is so obscure that one cannot hear anything, in such a poor order that it is easy to see that prophets did not understand themselves. They were nothing but ignorant deceptions. What gave rise to the opinion that was conceived of Moses, Jesus and Mohammad was the boldness they had in boasting that they immediately received from God everything they announced to the people. An absurd and ridiculous belief since they themselves admit that God only spoke to them in dreams. There is nothing more natural than dreams, consequently, one must be very shameless, very vain and very foolish, to say that God speaks this way. Whoever believes in it must be very credulous and very foolish to mistake dreams for divine oracles. Suppose for a moment that God made himself heard to someone by dreams, by visions, or by any other means that we wish to imagine, no one is obliged to believe in the word of someone subject to error, and even to lies and fraudster. We also see that in the ancient Law there was not nearly as much esteem for the Prophets as we have today. When we were tired of their chatter, which often only tended to sow revolt and distract the people from obedience, we silenced them with various tortures. Jesus Christ himself did not escape the just punishment he deserved; unlike Moses, he did not have an army following him to defend his opinions. Add to this, the Prophets were so used to contradicting each other that there was not in four hundred a single true one.* Moreover, it is certain that the aim of their Prophecies, as well as of the laws of the most famous legislators, was to perpetuate their memory, by making the people believe that they were conferring with God. The finest politicians have always used it in this way, although this ruse has not always triumphed for those who, like Moses, did not have the means to provide for their safety.

• In the first book of Law, chap. 22, V. 6, Ahab, king of Israel, cites 400 false prophets for their prophecies.

6

That said, let us examine the Prophets' little idea of the God. If they are to be believed, God is a purely corporeal being; Michael sees him sitting; Daniel, dressed in white and in the form of an old man; Ezekiel sees it as fire. Enough for the Old Testament. As for the New, the Disciples of Jesus Christ imagine seeing it in the form of a pigeon, the Apostles in that of tongues of fire, and Saint Paul as a light which dazzles and blinds him. As for the contradiction of their feelings, Samuel (a) believed that God never repented of what he resolved; rather, Jeremiah (b) tells that God repents of his counsels. Joel (c) tells that he only repents of the evil he has done to humans: Jeremiah says that he does not repent of it. Genesis (d) teaches that the human is the master of sin, and that it is up to humans to do good, whereas Saint Paul (e) assures that humans have no control on the lust without God's particular grace. Such are the false and contradictory ideas that these so-called inspired people give of the God, without considering that these ideas represent Divinity as a sensitive, material being and subject to all human passions. After this, natheless, we are told that God has nothing in common with matter, and that it is an incomprehensible being to humans. I would very much like to know how all this can fit together, if it is right to believe in the so visible, so hearable, and so unreasonable contradictions. If we must finally report to the human witnessing that is rude enough to imagine, notwithstanding the sermons of Moses, it is that a Calf was God! Natheless, without dwelling on the reveries of a people raised in servitude and absurdity, ignorance has produced the belief in all the fraudsters and errors which reign among us today. (a) Cap. 15 vs. 2. & 9. (b) Cap. 18 vs. 10. (c) Cap 2. vs. 13. (d) Cap. 4. vs. 7. (e) Rom. 15. 9. vs. 10.

II

The human logic for conceiving an invisible being usually called God

1

Those who ignore physical causes have a natural fear which emerges from worry and doubt whether there exists a Being or power to harm or preserve. Hence their inclination to feign invisible causes, which are only Ghosts of their imagination, which they invoke in adversity and which they praise in prosperity. They make Gods out of them in the end, and this illusional fear of invisible powers is the source of the Religions, each forming their own fear. The religions that contained and arrested people by similar reveries kept this seed of religion, made it a law and eventually, by the terrors of the future, reduced the people to blind obedience.

2

Humans believed that the source of the Gods was their similarity to humans. They did all things like humans to some end. Therefore, believers unanimously say and believe that God has done nothing except for humans, and conversely that nothing has been done except for God. This prejudice is general. When we reflect on its influence on the morals and opinions of humans, we clearly see that Gods took occasion there to form false ideas the of good and evil, of the merit and demerit, of the honor and shame, of the order and confusion, of the beauty and deformity, and other such things.

3

Everyone must stay assured that all humans are born into a profound ignorance, and that the only natural thing is to look for what is useful and advantageous. Hence: (1) we believe that it is enough to be free to feel for oneself that one can want and wish without being at all concerned about the causes which dispose one to want and wish, because one does not know them; (2) as humans do nothing except to an end of their preference, and their only aim is to know the final causes of their actions, and they imagine that after that they no longer have any subject of doubt, and as they find within themselves and outside themselves several means of achieving what they propose, seeing that they have, for example, a sun to enlighten them, etc., they concluded that there is nothing in nature which is not made for them, and which they cannot enjoy and dispose of; but as humans knew that it is not they who made all these things, they believed themselves well founded in imagining a supreme being as author of everything, in a word, they thought that everything that exists was the work of one or more Deities. On the other hand, humans judged for themselves the nature of the Gods that humans have admitted being unknown to them. They imagined that these unknown Gods were susceptible to the same passions as humans; and as the inclinations of humans are different, they worshiped a Divinity according to their mood, with the view of attracting its blessing and thereby making it serve all nature to their desires.

4

This is the way that prejudice has changed into superstition. It has gotten embedded in such a way that the rudest people believed themselves capable of penetrating into the final causes, as if they had a complete knowledge. Hence, instead of illustrating that nature does nothing in vain, they believed that God and nature thought like humans. Experience having made it known that an infinite number of calamities disturb the sweetness of life, such as storms, earthquakes, diseases, hunger, thirst, etc., all these evils were attributed to the heavenly wrath. The Divinity was believed to be irritated against the offenses of humans, who were unable to remove a similar illusion from their heads, nor to disabuse themselves of these prejudices by the daily examples which show that goods and evils have always been common to the well and the bad. This error emerges from the fact that it was easier to remain in their natural ignorance than to abolish a prejudice received for centuries and to establish something possible.

5

This prejudice led them to another, which is to believe that God's judgments were incomprehensible. For this reason the knowledge of the truth was beyond the powers of the human spirit; the error where we would still be, if mathematics, physics and some other sciences had not destroyed it.

6

Thou do not need to be a scientist to show that nature has no end, and that all final causes are nothing but human fictions. It is enough to show that this doctrine takes away the perfections attributed to the God. If God acts for an end, whether for himself or for some other, he desires what has no point. There is a time at which God does not have the object for which he acts but the wish to have it; which makes an indigent God. But so as not to omit anything that can support the reasoning of those who hold the opposite opinion; suppose for example, that a pot falls down from a building on a person and kills him, it is necessary, say our ignorant people, that this pot fell on purpose to kill this person, and this could only happen because God wanted it. If thou say that the wind caused this fall in the time of this poor unfortunate passing, they will ask thou why it was precisely at this moment that the wind was shaking the pot. Tell that the man was going for a supper with one of his friends who asked him for one, they will want to know why this friend had asked him for a supper at that time rather than at another. They will ask thou an infinite number of bizarre questions to shuffle back and forth from cause to cause and make thou admit that the sole will of God, which is the asylum of the ignorant, is the primary cause of the fall of this pot. Likewise, when they see the structure of the human body, they fall into admiration. Due to the fact that they are ignorant of the causes of the effects which appear so marvelous to them, they conclude that it is a supernatural effect, in which the causes known to humans can have no share. Hence, who wants to examine the works of creation in depth, and penetrate into their natural causes like a true scholar, without enslaving himself to the prejudices formed by ignorance, passes for an ungodly person, and, if otherwise, is soon decried by malice of those whom the vulgar recognizes as the interpreters of nature and the gods. These mercenary souls know very well that ignorance, which keeps the people surprised, is what makes them subsist and conserves their credit.

7

Having convinced themselves with the idea that whatever they see is created for them, humans made it a ridiculous point of Religion to apply everything to themselves and to judge things for their benefits. On this, humans formed the notions that served to explain the nature of things, to judge the good and evil, the order and disorder, the heat and cold, the beauty and beast, etc., which deep down are not what they imagine: masters of forming their ideas in this way, they flattered themselves to be free; they believed they had the right to decide on the praise and blame, the good and evil. They called good that which fits into their benefit and that which concerns divine worship, and evil, on the contrary, that which fits neither one nor the other. Ignorants are not capable of judging anything, and have no idea of things except through imagination, which they take for judgment. Therefore, they say that humans know nothing in nature, and imagine a particular order in the world. Eventually, they believe things to be well or badly ordered, according to whether they find it easy or difficult to imagine, when meaning represents them. Since humans are happy to stop at what exhausts the brain the least, we convince ourselves that we are well found in preferring order to confusion; as if order was something other than a pure effect of human imagination. Hence, to say that God created everything in order is to pretend that it was in favor of the human imagination that he created the world, in the most easily conceived way. The assertion that we know for certain the reports and ends of everything that exists is very absurd and deserves a serious refutation.

8

As for the other notions, they are an outturn of the same imagination, which have nothing real. They are only different affections or modes of which this faculty of imagination is susceptible. For example, we say that an object is beautiful when its move leaves an impression on the nerves through the eyes, which are pleasant to the senses. Smells are good or bad, flavors sweet or bitter, what is touched hard or soft, sounds harsh or sounds that strike or penetrate the senses. According to these ideas, people believe that God pleases in melody, while others believe that the celestial movements were a harmonious concert: which marks well that everyone is convinced that things are as God imagines them to be, or that the world is purely imaginary. It is therefore not surprising that there are barely two of the same opinion and that there are even some who praise doubting everything: for, although humans have the same body and they are all similar in much respect, they nevertheless differ in quite a few others. Hence what seems good to one becomes evil to another, that which pleases one displeases another. From here onwards, it is easy to conclude that affects differ due to the organization and diversity of co-existences where reasoning plays little part, and that notions of things of the world are nothing more than an outturn of the imagination.

9

Therefore, it is obvious that the reasons which commoners are used to using when they apply to explain nature are nothing but ways of imagining, which cannot show anything less than what they claim. We give names to these ideas, as if they existed elsewhere than in a prejudiced brain. We should call them illusions, not beings. With regard to arguments based upon these notions, nothing is easier than to refute them. For example: If it were true, we are told, that the universe was a flow and a necessary continuation of divine nature, where would the imperfections and defects that we notice there come from? This objection can be refuted without difficulty. We cannot judge the perfection and imperfection of a being unless we know its essence and nature, and it is a strange mistake to believe that a thing is more or less perfect according to whether it pleases or displeases, and whether it is useful or harmful to human nature. To refute the objection of why God did not create all humans good and happy, it is enough to say that everything is necessarily what it is, and that in nature there is nothing imperfect, since everything evolves from necessity.

10

That said, if we ask what is that, the God? I respond that this word represents the universal Being in which, as in Saint Paul's saying, we have life, movement, and being. This notion has nothing that is unworthy of God; because, if everything is God, everything necessarily follows from its essence. It absolutely must be such as what it contains, since it is incomprehensible that entirely material beings are maintained and contained in a being which is not. This opinion is not a new point. Tertullian, one of the most knowledgeable men that Christians have ever had, declared against Appelles that what is not corpora is nothing, and against Praxeas that all substance is corpora.* This doctrine, natheless, was not condemned in the first Councils.

• "Quis autem negabit Deum esse corpus, etsi deus spiritus? spiritus etiam corporis sui generis, in suâ effigie". Tertullian. adv. Pray. Cap. 7.

11

These ideas are clear, simple and the only ones that a good spirit is able to form of the God. Natheless, there are few who are content with such simplicity. The vulgar people used to the flatteries of the senses demand a God who resembles the Kings of the earth. The ritual, the great splendor which envelops the kings, blinds them in such a way that it removes the idea of a God that approximately resembles to kings. It replaces the expectation of going to heaven with the increases in the number of celestial courtiers, enjoying the same pleasures that one tastes in the Court of Kings; which deprives humans of the only consolation which prevents them from despairing in the miseries of life. It is said that there must be a just and vengeful God who penalizes and rewards: we want a God susceptible of all human passions; we assign feet, hands, eyes and ears to the God, and yet, we do not want a God constituted in this way to have anything material. It is said that the human is the God's masterpiece and even his image, but we do not want the copy to be the same as the original. Finally, the God of the people today is subject to a lot more forms than the Jupiter of the Pagans. What is the weirdest is that the more these notions contradict each other and disturb common sense, the more the vulgar revere them, because they stubbornly believe what the Prophets said about them, though these visionaries were not among the Hebrews as were the augurs and soothsayers among the Pagans. We consult the Bible, as if God and nature explained themselves in a particular way. Although this book is only a few fragments brought together at various times, collected by various people and published by the consent of the Rabbis, who decided, according to their admission of what should be approved or rejected, that the book confirms or opposes the Law of Moses.

Such is the malice and stupidity of humans. They spend their lives quibbling and persist in respecting a book where there is hardly more order than in the Alcoran of Mohammad. A book, I say, that no one understands. It is so obscure and poorly designed that it only serves to foment divisions. Jews and Christians love to consult this grimoire than to listen to what the natural Law that God, that is to say Nature, the principle of all things, has written in the hearts of humans. All other laws are nothing but human fictions and pure illusions brought to light, not by the Demons or evil Spirits, who never existed except in idea, but by politics of Princes and Priests. The former wanted to give more weight to their authority, and the latter wanted to enrich themselves by spouting an infinite number of illusions that they sell dearly to the ignorant.

All the other laws which triumphed that of Moses, I mean the laws of the Christians, are only based on this Bible of which the original is not found, which contains supernatural and impossible things, which speaks of rewards and penalties for good or bad actions but which are only for the other life. Lest the deceit be discovered, no one having ever returned from it. Hence, the people, always floating between expectation and fear, are held back in their duty by their opinion that God only created humans to make them eternally happy or unhappy. This is what led to an infinite number of Religions.

III

The meaning of the word Religion: how and why there are numerous religions

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.

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.*

• See the passage of Tertullien, cité plus haut. Hobbes, Léviathan, Cap. 12, pag. 55, 56, 57.

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.*

• Hobbes ubi suprà de homine. Cap. 12, p. 58.

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* 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.

• 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.

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.* 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.

• Hobbes, Leviathan : de homine, Cap. 12, p. 59 et 60

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*, 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.

• 4th book of Samuel, chap. 8. Israelites demanded the King.

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.* 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.** 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.

• Confessions, Books 7, Chap. 9, vers 20. ** Banquet of Plato.

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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.* 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.

• Confessions, Books 6-8.

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.

IV

Sensitive and Obvious Truth

1

Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are what we have just depicted. Obviously, it is not in their writings where we ought to look for a veritable idea of divinity. The appearances and conferences of Moses and Mohammed, as well as the divine birth of Jesus, are the grandest fraudsters that could have been enlightened and that you must avoid if you love the truth.

2

As we have seen, God, if you wish, being only nature, the assemblage of all beings, all properties and all energies, is necessarily the immanent and not distinct cause of his effects. He cannot be called good, nor bad, nor just, nor merciful, nor jealous, which are qualities that only fit humans. Therefore, God cannot punish or reward. This idea of punishments and rewards can only seduce ignorants, who only conceive being simple, which is called God, under images that do not at all fit him. Those who use their judgment, without confusing its mechanism with those of imagination, and who have the strength to get rid of the prejudices of childhood, are the only ones who have a clear and distinct idea of them. They envisage it as the source of all beings, which produces them without distinction.

3

We must therefore not believe that the universal Being, commonly called God, values a human more than an ant, a lion more than a stone. There is nothing about him that is beautiful or ugly, good or bad, perfect or imperfect. He does not mind being prayed for, sought after, caressed. He is not moved by what humans do or say, he is susceptible neither to love nor to hatred. In a word, he is no more concerned with man than with the rest of creatures, of whatever nature they may be. All these distinctions are only inventions of a narrow mind; ignorance imagined them and interest fomented them.

4

Hence, any sane human cannot believe in God, nor Hell, nor Spirit, nor Devils, in the way that they are commonly spoken of. All these big words were forged only to fool or intimidate the vulgar. Therefore, let those who want to be even more convinced of this truth pay serious attention to what follows and get used to making judgments only after ripe reflection.

5

We admit the infinity of stars that we see above as solid corpora on move, among which there is one destined for the Extraterrestrial Law, where God stands in the middle of galaxies. This place is the abode of the Blessed, where it is assumed that good souls will go when leaving the body. Without stopping at such a frivolous opinion and which nobody of common sense can admit, it is certain that what we call Heaven is nothing other than the continuation of the air which surrounds us, fluid in which the Planets move, without being supported by any solid mass, just like the earth we inhabit.

6

We imagined a Heaven that we made the abode of the God and the blessed, or, according to the Pagans, of Gods and Goddesses. We have since imagined a Hell, or underground place, where we ensure that the souls of the villains descend to be tormented. Natheless, this word Hell, in its natural sense, expresses nothing other than a low and hollow place. Poets invented Hell to contrast with the residence of the celestial inhabitants, which they supposed to be high and elevated. This is exactly what the words infernus or inferni in Latin, and Aδης (Hades) in Greek mean: a place that is obscure and formidable. Everything that is said about it is merely imagination of Poets and the deceitfulness of Priests. All the speeches of the former are figurative and calculated to make an impression on weak, timid and melancholic souls. They were changed into an article of faith by those who have the grandest interest in maintaining this opinion.

V

Of the Soul

1

The soul is better to deal with than Heaven and Hell. For the Reader's curiosity, it'd be therefore appropriate to talk about it in detail. Before defining it, we must explain what the most famous Philosophers thought about it. I will not use more words, so that it can be remembered more easily.

2

Some have claimed that the soul is a Spirit, or an immaterial substance; others have maintained that it is a slice of divinity; some make it look very subtle; others say it is a harmony of all the body; for some, the soul is the most subtle part of the blood, which leaves it in the brain and is distributed by the nerves. That said, the source of the soul is the heart where it is generated and the place where it exercises its noblest functions is the brain, leaving the blood. These various opinions have been formed about the soul. Natheless, to study the soul better, let's divide it into two. In one, the Philosophers believed it to be corporeal; in the other, they conceived it incorporeal.

3

Pythagoras and Plato argued that the soul was incorporeal, that is to say, a being capable of subsisting without the aid of the body and which could move on its own. They claim that all animal souls are portions of the universal soul of the world, that these portions are incorporeal and immortal, or of the same nature.

4

These Philosophers believed that the universe was animated by an immaterial, immortal and invisible substance, which does everything, which always acts, and which is the cause of all movement, and the source of all souls that emerge from it. Now, as these souls are very unmixed and transcend the body, they do not unite immediately, but through a subtle corpora like flame or air, which the vulgar mistakes for Heaven. Then a subtler body, then another a little less gross, and always like this by degrees, until they can unite with the sensitive bodies where they descend. For them, death of the body is the life of the soul, which was there as if buried, and where it only weakly exercised its noblest functions. Hence, through the death of the body, the soul leaves its prison, gets rid of matter, and reunites with the soul of the world from which it emanated.

According to this opinion, all animal souls are of the same nature, and the diversity of their functions or faculties comes only from the difference in the bodies into which they enter. Aristotle admits a universal intelligence common to all beings, which regards to particular intelligences what light regards to the eyes. As light makes objects visible, universal understanding makes these objects intelligible.* This Philosopher describes the soul as what makes us live, feel, conceive and move, but he does not say what this being is, which is the source and principle of these noble functions, and hence, our doubts about the nature of the soul are left unresolved.

• Le Dictionnaire of Bayle. Art. Averoës.

5

Dicearchus, Asclepiades, and Galen in some respects, also believed that the soul was incorporeal, but in another way. They said that the soul is nothing other than the harmony of all the parts of the body, that is to say, what evolves from an exact mixture of the elements and the arrangement of the parts, of moods and minds. Therefore, they say, health is not a part of one who is well, although one may be healthy. In the same way, although the soul is in the animal, it is not one of its parts, but the treat of all those of which it is composed.

Whereupon, these authors believe the soul to be incorporeal, on a principle quite opposed to their intention. To say that it is not a body, but only something inseparably attached to the body, is to say that it is corporeal. Because we call corporeal not only that which is body, but everything that is form or accident, or that which cannot be separated from matter. These Philosophers maintain that the soul is incorporeal or immaterial. We see that they do not agree with themselves, and therefore do not deserve to be believed. We ought to move on to those who have admitted that the soul is corporeal or material.

6

Diogenes believed that the soul is composed of air, from which he ended up with the need to breathe. The air passes through the lungs into the heart, where it heats up, and where it is then distributed throughout the body. Leucippus and Democritus said that the soul was made of fire and that, like fire, it was composed of particles. The soul easily settles on all parts of the body and makes it move.

Hippocrates said it was composed of water and fire; Empedocles of four elements. Epicurus believed, like Democritus, that the soul is composed of fire, but he added that in this composition there enters air, vapor, and another substance which has no name, and which is the principle of affect. From these four different substances, a very subtle spirit is made, which spreads throughout the body and which must be called the soul.

Descartes also maintains, but miserably, that the soul is not material. I say miserably because never a Philosopher reasoned so badly on this subject as this grandeur; and this is how he does it. First, he says that one must doubt the existence of one's body; to believe that there is none; then reason in this way: There is no body; yet I am, therefore I am not a body; therefore, I can only be a substance that thinks. Although this beautiful reasoning is quite self-defeating, I will natheless say my thoughts.

1. Mr. Descartes' doubt is totally impossible. Although we sometimes think that there are no bodies, it is natheless true that there are bodies when we think about them.

2. Whoever believes that there is no body must be assured that there is not one. No one is able to doubt oneself, and hence, if one is assured of this, one's doubt is useless.

3. When he says that the soul is a substance that thinks, he does not teach us anything new. Everyone is fit for this, but the difficulty is to decide about what this substance is.

7

Not to be biased and to have the healthiest idea to be formed of the animal soul, without excluding the human being who is of the same nature and who does not exercise different functions by the diversity of organs and moods, we must pay attention to the following.

Obviously, there is in the universe a very subtle fluid, a very loose and always moving matter. The source of this matter is in the sun; the rest is spread in other corpora, more or less, depending on their coherence and nature. The soul of the world is what governs and vivifies it, some portion of which is distributed to all the parts that compose it.

The soul is the fire in the universe. It does not burn by itself, but by different movements that it gives to the particles of other corpora into which it enters, it burns and makes its heat felt. Visible fire contains more of this matter than air, the latter than water, and the earth has much less. Plants have more than minerals, and animals even more. In the end, this fire contained in the corpora makes it feel, which is the soul or what we call the animal spirit spread throughout the corpora. Now, it is certain that this soul, being of the same nature in all animals, dissipates at death, as well as at that of beasts. From there it fits into what Poets and Theologians tell us about the other world is an illusion that they have depicted for reasons that are easy to guess.

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.