by Jean Meslier
This, then, is a true image of the idea that we must have of the uncertainty of stories, not just secular stories, but especially those that we want to regard as the holiest and most sacred; for, since these are of utmost consequence in matters of religion, each party had to rely on and strengthen its position as much as possible, and to this end, each sought to produce, in favor of itself, its own versions, true or false, and then, to make them more favorable to itself, everyone added and altered them as they pleased, for the benefit of their own party.
16. THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE GOSPELS.
This is something even our Christ-cultists cannot deny, since, without mentioning many other serious people who have recognized the additions, emendations, and falsifications that have happened at various times to that which they call their Holy Scriptures. Their St. Jerome, a famous doctor among them, says directly, in many parts of his Prologues on the so-called Holy Scriptures, that they have been corrupted and falsified, having already been, at that time, in the hands of all sorts of people who added to them, he says, and who took from them as they pleased, so that there were as many different versions as there were different copies of these Scriptures. He says[88], speaking of his so-called holy Scripture:
Masons, carpenters, those who work in wool, fullers, and all manner of artisans, can’t enter their craft without prior apprenticeship; but of the art of reading, explaining, and interpreting the Holy Scriptures is the only craft everyone wants to enter: the ignorant along with the wise, doting old men, batty old women, and chatty sophisters tear it up on a daily basis and set out to teach before learning, and, more shameful still, women set out to teach men, and all of them are presumptuous enough to want to teach others that which they don’t know themselves; while others, on the pretext of their education in the human sciences, and their skill in tickling the ears of their hearers with beautiful speeches, imagine that everything they say is God’s own law, although they refuse to learn what the Prophets and Apostles wrote, but know only how to apply to their own fancy the testimonies that fail to agree with the subject as if it were some great wonder, instead of a great vice, to corrupt the judgments of Scripture in this way, and to seek to bend them into harmony with their fancies, and giving them forced meanings... those are vain puerilities and mummeries like those of actors in farces and comedies, teaching what one ignores, and not even being aware of one’s ignorance.[89]
And in his Preface to Joshua he says that “among the Latins there were as many different versions as there were books, each one adding or removing as they liked, certain that whatever is contradictory cannot be true... What folly,” he adds, “to add what is false after having said what is true…”[90]
And note what he says in his Prologue Galeate:
If the Septuagint version were even more pure and complete as the Seventy interpreters translated it from Hebrew to Greek, it would be vain for the Holy Father and Pope to have a new Latin Translation made from the same book from those who wrote it in Hebrew, all the more as it would have been correct and just to approve, with his silence, that which would already be authorized by custom at the beginnings of the early Church: but for the present, since there are as many different copies as there are different nations, and since this first and ancient version is corrupt and falsified, do you really think that it’s only up to me to choose and discern as I please, between the true and the false, and that it’s only up to me to fabricate a new work in an old one, to make one from the two, and thus to expose myself to the mockery of the Jews who make fun of me by saying that it would be like wanting to blind crows, as they say... to be sure, the Apostles and Evangelists knew the Septuagint version, why do they refer to things that are not in the Septuagint, where do such things come from?[91]
And in his Preface on the same book to Domnion and to Rogation, he says that:
This book is so corrupt in the Greek and Latin versions that there are not as many Hebrew names as barbarian and unknown ones that have been placed in it; which cannot, he says, be attributed to the Septuagint translators, who were filled with the Holy Ghost; but rather to the scribes and copyists who did not write correctly, and who often combined 2 or 3 words into one, removing some syllables from the middle, and often making 2 or 3 words from one, because they were too long to pronounce[92].
And in his Preface to Job, note how he speaks of his enemies:
May my dogs know then, and learn that if I have worked on this volume, I’m not responsible for the ancient version, but rather for clarifying, by our interpretation, that which is obscure in it, that which has been omitted, and even that which was been polluted and corrupted by the scribes[93].
And consider what he says in his Preface on the Gospels to Pope Damasus:
It is certainly creeping from a great abuse in our volumes, in that there or on a Manuscript an Evangelist said something more than another did not say, the Interpreters or Translators have believed they should add that which lacked in the rest and have believed they should correct all the others on the model of that of the Evangelists, which they had read first, which is why we find everything jumbled up, and why Mark contains many things which come from Luke, Matthew many things from Mark, and John lots of other places which belong to the others[94].
And finally, in his Preface to the Psalms look at what he said to Paulus and to Eustochium.
Having been previously at Rome, I began to correct this book according to the Septuagint, and I had already corrected a great part in haste, but since you still see, O Paulus and Eustochium, that this book is still corrupt through the fault of the scribes, and that the ancient error is more in fashion and credit than the new correction, you obligate me as if I were cultivating a land afresh, which has already been used, and as if I pulled out thorns that are returning freshly, since, as you say, it’s necessary to prune, all the more often, the bad plants since they grow more eagerly[95].
And particularly with respect to the books of the Old Testament, Ezra[96], the priest of the Law, himself testified that he corrected and added to these so-called holy books of his Law in their entirety, which had been, he says, partially lost and partially corrupted; he divided them into 22 books, according to the number of Hebrew letters, and composed many other books whose doctrine should only be communicated to the wise. If these books have partially lost and partially corrupted, as Ezra testifies, and as the Doctor St. Jerome says in so many places, then there can never be any certainty with about what they contain. And, insofar as the same Ezra[97] says that he corrected and restored them to their complete form under the inspiration of God Himself, there is no certainty in this, and there is no impostor who could not say the same about himself. All the books of the Law of Moses and the Prophets that could be found were burned in the days of Antiochus. The Talmud, which the Jews regard as a holy and sacred book, and which contains all the divine laws and ordinances, collects the notable sentences and sayings of the Rabbis with their exposition, both of the divine laws and the human laws, and an infinity of other secrets and mysteries of the Hebrew language, is seen by Christians as a book filled with nothing but dreams, fables, impostures, and impiety. In 1559, they burned 12 of these Talmuds in Rome by commandment of the Inquisitors of the Faith, which were found in a library in the city of Cremona. The Pharisees, who were a well-known sect among the Jews, accepted only the five books of Moses and rejected all the Prophets. Among the Christians, Marcion and his followers rejected the books of Moses and the Prophets and introduced other scriptures of their own. Carpocrates and his followers did the same thing, rejecting the whole Old Testament, and maintaining that Jesus Christ was only a man like anyone else. The Marcionites and the Severians also considered the entire Old Testament as evil and rejected most of the four Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. The Ebionites accepted only the Gospel of Matthew, rejecting the three others and the Epistles of Paul. The Marcionites published a Gospel under the name of Matthias to confirm their doctrines. Similarly, the Apostolics introduced other scriptures to m
aintain their errors, and used a book called Acts, which they attributed to St. Andrew and St. Thomas. The Manicheans[98] wrote a Gospel in their manner and rejected the writings of the Prophets and the Apostles. The Elkesaites had a certain book that they said had come from heaven and rejected almost all the books of the Old and the New Testament or found them for their fantasy. Origen[99] himself, with all his mental resources, did not fail to corrupt the Scriptures too, and forged, it is said, completely of irrelevant allegories and thus completely twisted the true meanings of the Prophets and Apostles, and had even corrupted some of the principal points of doctrine[100]. His books are now mutilated and falsified; they are no more than pieces patched together and collected by others who came after, and one also finds manifest errors and faults. The Alogians attributed the Gospel and Apocalypse of John to the heretic Cerinthus, and therefore reject it. The heretics of recent centuries reject as apocryphal many books which our Catholics consider holy and sacred, such as the books of Tobias, of Judith, Esther, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children in the Furnace, the Story of Susanna, that of the Idol of Bel, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and First and Second Maccabees, all of which are considered holy and sacred by Roman Catholics, and to all of these uncertain and dubious books one might add many other equally worthless ones which were attributed to the other Apostles, such as the Acts of St. Thomas, his sayings, his Gospel, and his Apocalypse. Likewise, the Gospel of St. Bartholomew, that of St. Matthias, that of St. James, that of St. Peter and those of the other Apostles, along with the deeds of St. Peter, his preaching book, that of his Apocalypse, and that of the judgement, that of the Infancy of the Savior and many others of a similar cast, which are all rejected as apocryphal by the Roman Catholics, even by the Pope Gelase and by the Holy Fathers of the Roman communion.
That this is so, even our Christ-cultists cannot deny. It is obvious, clear, and evident that there is no basis, nor any appearance of certainty, about the authority which is supposedly granted to these books, nor about the truth of the deeds contained in them, and if there is no foundation or any appearance of certainty on this point, it is obvious, clear, and evident that the alleged miracles reported in them cannot serve either as proofs, or as sure and certain testimonies of the truth of a religion. And even greater confirmation of this truth is the fact that the very ones who most are most eager to push the authority of the alleged miracles reported there, necessarily have to recognize and confess that there is no certainty or divine authority in their books, or any truth in the facts that are contained in them, if their faith, as they say, does not assure them on it, and does not absolutely oblige them to believe in that way: but since this faith is, as I said, a blind belief in things that are not seen or known, it is, as I have said, a blind belief in things that are neither seen nor known: it is, as I’ve said, a principle of errors, illusions and impostures; such that the above-mentioned, supposed miracles and the above mentioned, so-called holy and sacred books, even as avowed by those who sustain them, any other certainty of truth than a blind belief, it is obvious, clear, and evident that they cannot serve as certain testimonies of the truth of a Religion.
17. THE SO-CALLED HOLY SCRIPTURES BEAR IN THEMSELVES NO CHARACTERISTICS, EITHER OF WISDOM, OR OF SUPER-HUMAN ERUDITION.
But let us see a little, whether these so-called holy and divine books bear, in themselves, any particular marks of Divinity, for example, erudition, science, wisdom, holiness, or any other perfection which could only be suitable to a God, and whether the supposed miracles reported there agree perfectly with what we should think about the greatness, goodness, justice, and infinite wisdom of Almighty God; for it's not credible that books which were truly made under the direction or inspiration of God would fail to contain a science, a wisdom, and an erudition which is completely perfect, or at best, it’s not credible that it would contain the same flaws, the same errors, and the same impostures which are ordinarily found in other books, whether by negligence, ignorance, or the inadequacy of the men who are their authors.
Similarly, it is not credible that the miracles related in these books would not agree and be fully compatible with what we should think of greatness, goodness, justice, and wisdom an infinite God who would have produced them; since it is quite clear and evident that we must not attribute to an infinitely perfect Being things that would be incompatible with the supreme perfections of His nature, or the supreme perfection of His will. Now, it is clear and obvious that the so-called holy and divine books do not show in themselves any particular signs of erudition, knowledge, wisdom, holiness, or any other perfection that could be said to come only from God. Far from it, they manifestly contain the same flaws, the same mistakes, and the same imperfections which are clearly found in the other books due to the negligence, ignorance, and the failings of those men who compose them. Therefore, there is no indication that these sorts of books truly come from God, or that they were truly made under the particular inspiration of His Spirit. Likewise, the supposed miracles reported in them in no way agree with what one must think of greatness, goodness, justice and infinite wisdom of a God who would have made them: therefore, they must not be attributed to the Omnipotence of a God, and it must not be accepted for a single minute that He made them.
Firstly, as concerning the above-mentioned, so-called holy and divine books, of which I have said that they bear no internal marks or any characteristics of authority, or of divine inspiration, it is easy to convince anyone who is even minimally enlightened; you only have to read them, and you will see, as I’ve said, that there is no erudition, no profound learning, no sublime thoughts, nor any other production of the mind which surpasses human ability. On the contrary, all one will see there is, on one side, fabulous stories and narrations like that of the creation of the world, that of the formation and multiplication of men, that of a supposed earthly Paradise, that of a snake who could talk, argue, and which was even more subtle and clever than humans, that of a donkey who could speak, chastising his master for mistreatment, that of a universal flood and an Ark in which animals of all species were contained, that of the confusion of tongues and the division of nations, not to mention the many other vain, vulgar, and frivolous tales which serious authors would be ashamed to relate, which stories or narratives certainly have no less the air of fairy tales than that which has been invented about the industriousness of Prometheus, Pandora’s box, or the war of Giants against the Gods, or many other similar ones which the ancient poets invented for the amusement of those of their times. On the other hand, we do find a mish-mash of laws and ordinances, or vain and superstitious practices, involving the sacrifices and purifications of the old Law, and with respect to the true discernment of animals, some of which it supposes are pure, while others are impure, which laws and ordinances are no more respectable or less vain and superstitious than that of the most idolatrous nations. There one also finds the simple stories, whether true or false, of many Kings, of many Princes, or many other individuals who lived, well or badly, or who have performed certain actions, whether fine or wretched, among many other base, indifferent, or frivolous deeds which are also related there; to compose such stories as are shared in the above-mentioned so-called holy and sacred books, no less in the old than in the New Testament, it required no great ingenuity, and, consequently, there was no need for divine revelation for that purpose either. It does no honor to a God to make him the author of so many idiotic and vain tales; He must be easily amused if it amused Him to reveal such trifling things. Finally, one finds in the above-mentioned books nothing but the words, behavior, and doings of these renowned and famous Prophets, who said they were particularly sent and inspired by God. It’s clear, by their words and deeds, that they are far closer to fantasists and fanatics than to men of wisdom and enlightenment. Even if one can find, in some of these books, many good teachings and many good and beautiful moral maxims, for example in the Proverbs of Solomon, in the Book of Wisdom, and in Ecclesiastes; but there is nothing there that is be
yond the scope or capacity of the human mind or human wisdom. Far from it; we commonly see that there is more intelligence, knowledge, eloquence, order, clarity, civility, consistency, precision, and even more wise and solid instructions in the books of the secular philosophers, historians, and orators than in any of these so-called holy and sacred books, both the Old and the New Testament, the principal wisdom of which consists only in making people piously believe in errors and make them religiously observe vain superstitions. So that, without speaking in particular of many serious authors who have composed many books, both on the human sciences and on the proper ordering of morals, and full of good examples and good advice, I believe I can say that, for example, if we had nothing but Aesop’s Fables, they are certainly cleverer and more instructive than all these vulgar parables included in the so-called holy Gospels.