A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  Ah! My dear friends, if you truly knew the vanity and folly of the errors they maintain among you, on the pretext of religion, and if you really knew how unjustly and unworthily that authority is abused, which has been usurped over you, on the pretext of governing you, you would certainly feel nothing but revulsion for all that you are made to worship and respect, and you would feel nothing but hatred and indignation for all those who abuse you, who govern you so badly, and mistreat you so unworthily. This reminds me of the wish once made by a man who was, although neither well informed nor educated, but who, by all appearances, had enough good sense to properly judge all the detestable abuses and ceremonies I am criticizing here. It seemed, from the way he expressed himself, that he was quite keen-sighted and that he’d searched quite deeply into the mystery of iniquity, which I’ve just mentioned, since he was so good at recognizing its authors and abettors. He wished, he said, on the subject at hand, that all the powerful men in the world and all the nobles could be hung and strangled with the guts of the priests[15]. This expression will certainly seem quite crude and vulgar, but you have to admit how frank and candid it is. It is short, but expressive; and it adequately and tersely explains exactly what those people deserve. As for me, my dear friends, I have a wish on the same subject (and I would not fail to do it, if it could work): I would like the arms and the strength of a Hercules to purge the world of all vice and iniquity, and to have the pleasure of beating down all these monsters of error and iniquity, who make all the peoples of Earth groan so pitifully. Do not think, my dear friends, that I am guided here by any particular desire for vengeance, or by any motive of animosity or any self-interest; no, my dear friends, it is nothing like passion that inspires these feelings in me or makes me speak and write like this: truly, it is only my zeal for justice and truth, seeing you so unworthily oppressed on one side, and my aversion for vice and iniquity, which I see so insolently reigning everywhere, on the other. One cannot feel too much hatred or aversion for people who cause so many detestable evils everywhere, and who abuse mankind so universally. What? Is this not a good reason to banish and shamefully drive out of a city and province all those deceitful charlatans who, on the pretext of charitably distributing such salutary and effective cures and medicine to the public, are only abusing the ignorance and simple-mindedness of the people, while selling them expensive drugs and harmful and pernicious ointments? Yes, no doubt, we have good reason to banish them and drive them out, as the notorious deceivers they are. In the same way, are we not right to openly criticize and severely punish all these brigands and highway robbers who spend their lives pillaging, killing, and cruelly massacring everyone who has the misfortune of falling into their hands? Yes, certainly, it would be right to punish them severely, there is good reason to hate and detest them; and it would even be a terrible idea to let them carry on with their depredations. With all the more right, then, my dear friends, shall we criticize, hate, and detest, as I am doing here, all these ministers of error and iniquity, who so tyrannically lord it over you, some over your consciences, and others over your bodies and goods, the ministers of religion, who have dominion over your consciences, being the worst abusers of people, and the princes and other great men of the world, who lord it over your bodies and goods, being the greatest thieves and murderers on Earth. “All those who have come,” said Jesus Christ, “are thieves and robbers”: Omnes quotquot venerunt, fures sunt et latrones. John 10:8.

  You may say, my dear friends, that I am speaking in part against myself, since I myself am of the same character and profession as those whom I here call the greatest abusers of the masses. True, I do speak against my own profession, but in no way against my own inclination, or against my own feelings: for, as I have never treated belief lightly, and have never been inclined to superstition, and as I have never been so stupid as to ever grant any importance to the mysterious follies of religion, nor have I ever had any inclination to carry out the duties thereof, or even to speak of them with reverence or any approbation; on the contrary, I had would always have preferred to openly display my contempt for them, if I had been allowed to speak according to my inclination and according to my own feelings. And thus, although in my youth I allowed myself to be led very easily into the ecclesiastical state, to please my parents, who were quite glad to have me there, since it was an easier, more peaceful, and more honorable life than that of most men; however, I can truly say that no temporal advantage ever brought to me any love for the performance of a profession which is so full of error and impostures. I have never been able to find my place among the greater number of these jolly, pleasant gentlemen who take such great pleasure in greedily taking and receiving large sums for the vain functions of their ministry. I felt even more aversion for the mocking and buffoonish tone of those other gentlemen who think of nothing but having a good time on the large revenues from the large benefices they hold, who, when they’re alone with their fellows, mock the mysteries, maxims, and ceremonies of their religion, and also laugh at the simple-mindedness of those who believe them and who, in this belief, furnish them so piously and abundantly with the wherewithal for such great entertainment and easy living. That Pope[16] proves this, who himself mocked his own dignities, and that other one[17], who once said, while joking with his friends, “My, how we do get rich from this fable of Christ.” It’s not that I criticize their laughter, when they merrily laugh about the vanity of the mysteries and mummeries of their religion, since such things are indeed deserving of laughter and contempt (how simple and ignorant are those who do not see of vanity of this), but I critique this bitter, burning, and insatiable greed of theirs, profiting from public errors, and this demeaning pleasure they take in mocking the naivety of those who are ignorant, and whose ignorance they maintain. If their supposed character, and if such good benefices as they possess, allow them to live so fatly and contentedly at public expense, they should at least be somewhat sensitive to the suffering of this same public, and they should not increase the burdens of the poor masses, multiplying by a false zeal, as many do, the number of errors and superstitions, and they should never mock the naivety of those who, by good and pious motives, benefit them so greatly, and wear themselves out for them. For it shows enormous ingratitude and despicable treachery to mistreat one’s benefactors like this, since the people are the benefactors of the ministers of religion, since it’s only by their labors and from the sweat of their bodies, that they derive all their necessities and all their abundance.

  I don’t think, my dear friends, that I ever gave you any reason to believe that I ever held such views as the ones I’m criticizing here; you’ll have been able, on the contrary, to notice on many occasions that I felt very differently, and that I was quite aware of your suffering. You’ll have been able to notice, too, that I was never very eager about that pious lucre of the functions of my ministry, having often performed them without asking for any payment at all, as often as I could, and having never been the sort to brood over great benefices, or to seek after Masses and offerings. I would always have preferred giving over receiving, if I had had the means of following my inclinations in such matters; and, while giving, I would always have been more concerned about the poor than the rich, according to this teaching of the Christ, who said that “it is better to give than to receive”: beatius est magis dare quam accipere[18], and, according to Montaigne[19], who taught his son to always prefer he who reached his hand out to him, over he who turned his back on him. I would gladly have imitated good Job[20] in the days of his prosperity: “I was,” he said, “the father of the poor, the eye of the blind, the foot of the lame”: oculus fui cœco et pes claudo, pater eram pauperum... I would gladly have stolen, like him, the prey from the hands of the wicked, and I would gladly, like him, have broken their teeth and jaws: conterebam malas iniqui, et de dentibus illius auferebam praedam[21]. “It is only the great-hearted men,” said wise Mentor to Telemachus[22], “who seek all the glory of being a good man.” And with respect to the fa
lse and fabulous mysteries of your religion, and of all these other pious, yet vain and superstitious duties and exercises which your religion imposes on you, you also know well, or at least you should have easily been able to notice, that I never subscribed to any bigotry, and that I never recommended that you practice it. I was, nevertheless, obligated to instruct you in your religion and speak of it to you a times, to fulfill, such as they were, these false duties of mine, which I had committed to do as the priest of your parish, and thereby I had the displeasure of finding myself bound to this troublesome necessity of acting and speaking entirely against my own views, of having the displeasure of personally filling your heads with stupid errors and vain superstitions which I hated, which I condemned, and which I detested in my heart: but I protest that I always found it difficult, and only did it with extreme repugnance; this is also why I so hated all the vain functions of my ministry, and in particular all the idolatrous and superstitious celebrations of Masses, and these vain and ridiculous sacramental administrations, which I was obliged to give you. I have cursed them countless times in my heart, when I was obligated to perform them, and particularly when I had do them with a little more attentiveness and a little more solemnity than usual: for, seeing that at such times you came to your churches with a little more devotion, to attend some vain solemn ceremony, or listened a little more devotedly, to that which you were told was the word of God Himself, I thought that at such times I was even more unworthily abusing your good faith, and that I consequently deserved greater blame and contempt; which increased my aversion for these kinds of vain ceremonious functions so much that, hundreds of times, I have come close to letting my indignation break out publicly, almost being unable to hide my resentment on such occasions, or to contain my outrage. But I managed to hold it in, and I will try to stay in control until the end of my days, not wishing to expose myself, during my life, to the indignation of the priests, or the cruelty of tyrants, who will be unable to find tortures they deem violent enough to punish such supposed temerity. I will be very glad, my dear friends, to die as peaceably as I have lived, and besides, since I have never given you any reason to wish me harm, or to rejoice if any came to me, I don't think you would have been happy to see me persecuted and tyrannized on this account: for this reason, I have decided to hold my tongue.

  But, since this reason obliges me to hold my tongue at present, I will at least speak to you post-mortem, in a way: with this aim I commence writing here, to disabuse you, as I mentioned, as much as I can, of all the errors and superstitions in which you have been brought up and pastured on, and which you drank in, as it were, along with your mothers’ milk. The poor people have been miserably abused for so long now by all sorts of idolatry and superstition; the rich and the powerful have pillaged and oppressed the people for so long: it is time to disabuse them everywhere and let them everywhere know the truth of the matter. And if, to soften the crass and untamed attitude of the common people, it was once necessary, as some claim, to amuse them with vain and superstitious religious practices, to more easily hold them in a bridle, it is certainly even more necessary now to disabuse them of all those vanities, since the cure has become worse, over time, than the illness was. This would be the task for all intelligent people, and for all the wisest and most enlightened in serious thought, and to strive hard, in such an important matter, to disabuse the people of their errors, wherever they may be found; showing how hateful and despicable is the excessive authority of the powerful men; stirring the masses everywhere to shake off the insufferable yoke of the tyrants, and generally in persuading all the masses of these two important truths: that, to become perfected in the arts which are useful to society, and to which men should primarily devote lives, they must follow the lights of human reason only; and that, to establish good laws, they must only follow the rules of human prudence and wisdom, that is, the rules of probity, justice, and natural equity, without being pointlessly distracted by anything impostors may say, or anything the idolatrous God-cultists might do; which would, generally speaking, bring all men immeasurably greater wealth, more contentment, and more peace of body and mind than all the false teachings, or all the vain practices of their superstitious religions could ever do.

  But, since none have come forward to bring this light to the people, or rather, since nobody dares to do it, or even, since the books and the writings of those who have already sought to undertake it have not appeared publicly for anyone to see, since they have been intentionally suppressed, and are then hidden from the masses to make them unavailable, to keep them, by this means, from learning about the abuses, the errors, and the imposture which have been upheld among them, instead distributing only the books written by a multitude of pious ignoramuses or hypocritical con-men who, in the shadow of piety, mean only to maintain or even multiply these abuses, errors, and superstitions; since, I say, things are in such a state that those who, with their education and their refined minds, would be the best positioned to successfully undertake and carry out such a fine, good, grand, and praiseworthy plan as that of disabusing the masses in the books they offer the public, instead they favor, uphold, and multiply their errors, adding to the weight of the yoke of superstition, instead of trying to abolish such things, and bringing them into contempt, they themselves seek to flatter the great, gratuitously showering them with undeserved praise, instead of attacking them for their vices and liberally telling them the truth, and they only do such a cowardly and unworthy thing from base and unworthy complacency, or for cowardly and self-interested reasons, to better pay court to them, and win their favor, they and their families and associates, etc.; and so I, as weak and unintelligent as I may be, I myself will try here, my dear friends, to openly reveal the truth, and clearly show you the vanity and falsehood of all these mysteries which are said to be so great, holy, divine and venerable, which you have been made to adore, along with the vanity and falsehood of all the supposedly great and important truths which your priests, preachers, and doctors so urgently oblige you to believe, under penalty, as they say, of eternal damnation. I will try, I say, to show you their vanity and falseness: let the priests, preachers, doctors, and all those who abet such lies, such errors, and such imposture be offended and aggrieved after my death; they can, if they want, go ahead and call me ungodly, an apostate, a blasphemer, and an atheist; let them insult me and lay as many curses on me as they like, I won’t be discomforted at all, this won’t give me the least hint of anxiety. Likewise, let them do what they will, at that time, with my body; let them hack it into pieces, let them roast or fricassee it, and even devour it, if they want; they can use their favorite sauce, I won’t let it bother me at all. I will then be entirely beyond their reach; nothing will then be able to frighten me. I only foresee that my relatives and friends might on that occasion feel sorrow and displeasure, when they see or hear whatever may be done or said unworthily of me after my death. I would truly prefer to spare them this suffering; but this consideration, as strong as it is, can't hold me back; my zeal for truth and justice, my zeal for the public welfare, my hatred of and indignation against religious imposture, as well as the pride and injustice of the powerful, who so imperiously and tyrannically dominate the Earth, will prevail over this competing private consideration, as strong as it may be. Besides, I do not think, my dear friends, that this undertaking will render me as hateful, or attract as many enemies as might be expected. I might even flatter myself that if this writing, as formless and imperfect as it is (since it was executed in haste and rushed onto paper), might pass further than your own hands, or that it might happen to come to the attention of the public, and that all my feelings and all the arguments on which they are based may be fully analyzed, I might then, at least with men of intelligence and probity, find as many who approve as who would censor it; and I can say that many of those who, in their capacity or profession as judges or magistrates, etc., will, through a human respect for popular attitudes, be obliged to condemn me publicly, but will actually ap
prove of me in their hearts.

  3. THAT ALL RELIGIONS ARE NOTHING BUT ERRORS, ILLUSIONS, AND IMPOSTURE.

  Know then, my dear friends, that all that has ever been said and practiced in the world in favor of the worship and adoration of the Gods is nothing but error, abuse, illusion, lies, and imposture; that all the laws and ordinances ever published under the name and the authority of God or the gods are truly nothing other than human inventions, including all those fine spectacles, feasts, and sacrifices, and all the other religious and devotional practices held in their honor. All these things, I say, are only human inventions, which, as I have said already, were invented by clever and scheming politicians, then cultivated and multiplied by false prophets, seducers and impostors, then received blindly by the ignorant, and finally maintained and authorized by the laws of the princes and the powerful, who make use of these sorts of inventions, intending by such means to keep the majority in bridles and under control; for at bottom, all such inventions are only bridles for calves, as Montaigne said[23], but they only bridle the minds of the ignorant and the simple. The wise aren’t bridled by it, and won’t allow themselves be bridled; because, ultimately, only the ignorant and simple attach any faith to it and let themselves be guided by it. And what I say here in general about the vanity and falseness of the world’s religions is not only applicable to the pagan and foreign religions, which you already consider false, but I say this no less of your Christian religion, which you call the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman one, because it is truly no less vain or false than any other one; for it may be that none are as ridiculous or absurd as it is, in its principles and in all its principal points, or which is so contrary to the very nature of right reason. I say this, my dear friends, to keep you from being fooled again by the fine promises it offers you of eternal rewards in a paradise, which is only imaginary; and that you may thereby put your minds and your hearts at ease with respect to all the vain fears it give you, of the frightful punishments of a Hell which does not exist. For, all the fine and magnificent things you are told about the former, and the terrible and frightful things about the latter, are only fables. There is nothing to hope for, nor is there anything to fear after death. Therefore, profit wisely from the time you have by living well, by enjoying the goods of life and the fruits of your labor soberly, peacefully, and joyously, if you can, for this is the best you can expect, since death, ending life, also ends all knowledge and all sensations, both good and bad.