A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  Therefore, the first of these miracles, the greatest and most glorious for him, and at the same time the most necessary and most advantageous for men, would certainly have been to truly heal them all of all the maladies and infirmities of their souls, i.e., the vices and the bad passions. The first, the most beautiful, and greatest of these miracles would have been to make all mankind wise and perfect, both in body and in mind. The first and principal among these miracles would have been to truly sanctify all men and effectively save them all, making all of them perfectly happy in Heaven. Certainly this, my dear Christ-cultists, would be the first, the finest, the greatest, the most glorious, the most advantageous, the principal, and the most necessary of any miracle that your allegedly divine Christ should have performed, since that was the precise reason why he came down from heaven and into the world, as he himself said, and as it is written in his Gospel[173] . “When I am raised up from the Earth,” he said, “I will draw all things unto me.” Et ego si exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad me ipsum. Behold he who was raised up, and he was raised in two different ways, our Christ-cultists inform me: he was raised up when he was attached to the cross, and he was raised up when he rose up to Heaven: he was referring to one or the other, or even both kinds of elevation together. Therefore, the first, the most beautiful, the greatest, and most favorable miracle that he could have done, and that he should have done, according to his own words, after having been raised up from the Earth, would have been to actually and gloriously draw everything to himself, and since it is written that he came to take away the world's sin, to destroy the works of the Demon, to sanctify men, to find and to save what was lost, and in brief, that he came to redeem all men from sin, from eternal damnation, and to save all, once again: the first, the most great, glorious, the most favorable, the most needful, and at the same time, the most desirable and most considerable of all miracles that he could ever do and that he should have done, according to his first and primary goal, was to effectively take away all the sins of the world, to take away all their vices, all their injustices, all their iniquities, all the wickedness and all scandals. The first, the greatest, and most advantageous miracle that he might and should have performed, according to his primary and principal aim, was to actually liberate all men from the slavery of vice and sin, to heal them from all the maladies of their soul, and to effectively sanctify and save them all, since they were all lost in sin; he came for the express purpose of saving all that had been lost. But, since it’s completely obvious and fully certain that he failed to perform such miracles, nor is there any room to believe that either he or his so-called Saints, have performed any miracles of the sort I’m talking about, and it is, therefore, quite vain for our Christ-cultists to try to prove the truth of their Religion on the basis of the certainty of their claimed miracles, which are truly nothing, as I’ve said, but illusions, lies, and impostures. All that I have said fully shows how little doubt remains on the matter.

  22. THE THIRD PROOF OF THE VANITY AND FALSEHOOD OF THE SO-CALLED DIVINE VISIONS AND REVELATIONS.

  Let’s come to the supposed divine visions and revelations, on which our Christ-cultists also claim to base and establish the truth and certainty of their religion. To give a fair and true idea of these divine visions and revelations, I don’t think we could do better than to say, in general, that they are such that if anyone now dared to boast of having such divine visions and revelations, and thought they could take advantage of them in any way, they would unfailingly be seen, each and every one, as insane, since they would be just like madmen, fantasists, and insane fanatics. But consider the nature of these supposedly divine visions and revelations. God, say these supposedly holy books (which I’ve already spoken about), having appeared for the first time to Abraham, told him this[174]: Leave your country (he was then in Chaldea), leave the house of your father, and go to the country I will show you; this Abraham having gone there, God, says the history, appeared to him a second time, and told him: I will give you this whole country where you are, to your posterity: and in recognition of this gracious promise, Abraham set up an altar to Him[175]. Some time later, God appeared to him again in a night vision[176]; he seemed to show him an oven from which a great plume of smoke was pouring[177]. Then God made a covenant with this Abraham, he told him: I will give this whole country to your posterity, from the river of Egypt to the great river of the Euphrates[178]. Abraham, at the age of 99, God appeared again to him and told him: I am the almighty God, walk upright before me and be perfect[179], for I will establish my covenant with you, and I will greatly multiply your seed[180], you will be the father of many nations[181]. You will no longer be called Abram, as heretofore, but you will be called Abraham, because I have established you as the father of many nations[182]. I will make with you and your seed an eternal covenant, and I will be your God, the God of your posterity after you[183]. Here is the covenant that I will make with you and with all your descendants: you will circumcise, God told him, the foreskin of all your male children[184]. That, He told him, will be the sign of my perpetual covenant with you[185]. Every male infant will be circumcised on the eighth day, for I want you to carry the sign of my covenant in your flesh[186]. On which this Abraham began by having himself circumcised first, and to circumcise all the males of his household[187]. After that God, says the history, wishing to tempt this Abraham, to see if he would be obedient to what he ordained, appeared to him and told him[188]: take your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go and offer him yourself as a sacrifice in the place where I will show you[189]. Immediately, that very night, Abraham departed with his son Isaac, to sacrifice him[190]. And, on the third day, having come to the place where he was to offer him in sacrifice, Abraham, having prepared everything for the sacrifice, took his sword, and, as he extended his arm to deliver the death-blow to his son, he heard a voice from heaven, saying, Abraham, Abraham, do not strike your son, or do him any harm, I now know that you would not have pardoned your son for love of me, and now since you have done this and have not pardoned him, in heeding my word, I swear to you by myself that I will bless you, that I will multiply your posterity like the stars in the sky, and like the grains of sand in the sea, your descendants will be victorious over their enemies and all the nations of the Earth will be blessed in your seed, because you have obeyed my voice[191]. After the death of this Abraham, God appeared at night to his son Isaac and told him: “I am the God of your father Abraham, fear not, for I am with you to bless you. I will multiply your posterity for the love of my servant Abraham[192]”, in recognition of which Isaac set up an altar to God, who had appeared to him. After the death of his Isaac, Jacob, his son, going one day to Mesopotamia in search of a suitable wife, after having walked the whole day, feeling fatigued by the journey, he wanted to rest for the night, and, having laid down on the ground, and having set his head on some stones to rest there, he fell asleep, and while he slept, in a dream he saw a ladder set up on his head, the end of which reached Heaven, and it seemed to him that he saw the angels of God rising and descending by this ladder and that he saw God Himself on the highest step of this ladder, who told him:

  I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, your father, I will give to you and to your posterity the whole land where you are, your posterity will be as numerous as the dust on Earth, it will stretch from the East to the West, and from the North to the South, and all the nations of the Earth will be blessed by you and your posterity. I will be your protector wherever you go, I will lead to safe and sound from this land, I will not forsake you, until I have fulfilled all that I have promised you.

  Jacob, having awakened from this dream, was gripped with fear, and said: “What? Is God truly here, and I didn’t know it? Oh, how terrible this place is: it’s none other than the hand of God and the door to Heaven[193]”. Then, having risen, he set up a stone, on which he poured some oil, in memory of what had occurred, also making an oath to God that, if he returned safe and sound, he would offer Him the tenth of
all he had. Now, consider another fine vision he had a few years later, when he had begun watching the herds of his father in law Laban, and had agreed with him that he would have as compensation all the multi-colored lambs the ewes gave birth to. Being avid for his profit, as is natural enough, he passionately wished for his ewes to have many lambs of varied colors, and with this passionate wish in his heart, he had a pleasant dream one night that he saw[194] the males leaping on the females and that they all produced lambs of various colors. Delighted at having such a fine dream, God appeared to him and told him: “Look and see how the males mount on the females and how they are of various colors, for I have seen, he told him, the deceit and injustice done to you by your father-in-law Laban; now rise,” God told him, “leave this country and return to your own country.” As he returned to his country, with his whole family, and with all his earnings from his father-in-law, he had, so the story (or the fable) says, met a stranger during the night, with whom he had to fight all night until dawn; and when this man was unable to defeat him, he asked him who he was, and Jacob told him his name; then this stranger told him, “You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have been strong in contending with God, will all the more reason,” he told him, “will you be strong in contending with men[195].”

  Consider, then, what were the first of these fine supposedly divine visions and revelations; the rest should be judged the same way we judge these. And what semblance of Divinity do we find in such vulgar dreams, and such vain illusions? If some rustic, common fellow, or some good shepherd from the country, like Jacob, who I just spoke of, was, came and told us that he had made an agreement with his father-in-law or anyone else for that matter, to watch his herds alone, on condition that all they produced which was multi-colored would constitute the just compensation for his service, and that, as a testimony that God wanted to favor him and procure him an ample reward for his services, He had appeared to him in a dream, spoken to him, and told him all these words: “I am the God who already appeared to you in a certain place; I’ve seen the deceit and injustice done to you, you will not be frustrated in your reward, I will fulfill all your desires; look and see how the males in your herd leap on the females; they will produce for you all their offspring in various colors, and thus your compensation will be great.” If, I repeat, someone now came to tell you such silly tales, and that those who told them to us, truly believed they’d had certain divine visions and revelations, and wouldn’t we consider such people as insane, or as simple-minded fools? We certainly would do so, and if these same people continued to tell us that they’d had, by night, encounters with men unknown, with whom they’d fought all night, and that these strangers, finding it impossible to defeat them, had told them that they had been fighting against God or against the Gods, and if, on the basis of such a vision, those people regarded these imaginary victories as a divine omen, or as a divine assurance of the victorious power they would have access to, in coming struggles against their enemies, would we not just laugh as the idiotic imaginations of these poor folks? No doubt, we would only laugh at them. Likewise, if any foreigners, say, a few Germans, or a few Swiss who had come to France and seen the most beautiful provinces in the Kingdom, and then informed us that God had appeared to them in their country, that He had told them to come or go to France and gave them and their descendants all the fine lands, seigneuries, and provinces in the Kingdom, from the large rivers of the Rhine and the Rhone to the ocean, that He would make an eternal covenant with them and their descendants, that He would multiply their races, that he would make their posterity as numerous as the stars in heaven and the grains of sand in the sea, and that, in fine, by them God would bless all the nations on Earth, and that, as a sign of his covenant with them, He commanded them to circumcise themselves and all their male children, who are born to them and their descendants, etc., tell me who would do anything but laugh at such nonsense, and think of these strangers as madmen, as fantasists, and fanatics who were out of their minds? Make no mistake, everyone would only laugh at and mock such fine visions and supposedly divine revelations.

  And yet there is no reason to judge otherwise, or to think more favorably about all that these great and so-called holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with respect to the visions and the allegedly divine revelations which they believe or at least say that they had, and thus they merit no more attention than those of those foreigners, of whom I just spoke, since they were truly nothing but errors and illusions or lies and imposture, as those of these foreigners, whom I have just mentioned, would be; and it is even certain that if these three good patriarchs could return in the flesh, right now, to tell us that they had such visions and divine revelations, we would be well within our rights to laugh, and we would certainly not fail to regard all these so-called visions and divine revelations as anything but errors and illusions, or as lies and imposture.

  I say as error and illusions, if these persons seemed to truly believe that they had such visions and revelations; and, in this case, we would see them as visionaries and as people who had weak minds; but we would consider them liars, rogues, and impostors, if we judged their persons and their intentions any differently. But whether these Patriarchs had the aim in that of deceiving others, or if they themselves were mistaken from the outset, it is easy to conceive of the vanity and falseness of all their supposedly divine visions and revelations; they are quite easily discovered of themselves, not only by this unjust and odious acceptation of peoples or persons, which I’ve already mentioned in favor of which it’s claimed, nevertheless, that these revelations were given, because it is not credible that a God who would be infinitely good, perfect, and just would ever have wished, or ever do, or authorize something so unjust and odious as such an acceptation of persons and people, but they are also revealed by three other different places. 1). They are revealed by this vile, ridiculous and shameful sign of the supposed covenant that God had made with men; 2). By the cruel and barbaric institution of bloody sacrifices of innocent beasts, which Moses attributes to this same God, and notably by this cruel and barbaric commandment, which it also says that God told Abraham to sacrifice his son to Him,

  3). By the manifest lack of fulfillment of such fine and advantageous promises as it likewise says had been made by God to the three above-mentioned Patriarchs. For, since the sign of this supposed covenant is vile and absurd, since the institution of bloody sacrifices of innocent beasts is cruel and barbaric, as well as this commandment to a father to sacrifice his son, and finally, the above-mentioned supposed promises which are so great, so magnificent, that God made to these Patriarchs, which have turned out to be ineffectual or unfulfilled, are so many certain and evident proofs of the vanity and falsehood of these divine visions and revelations.

  Firstly, as for the sign of this supposed covenant of God with these Patriarchs and all their descendants, it is clearly ridiculous since it consists in a vain and ridiculous cutting of the flesh or the skin of the most shameful part of the human body. What! Shall an omnipotent and perfectly wise God amuse himself, or be amused, in wishing to give an entire nation the sign of His covenant with Him in the most shameful part of their bodies; and He would have wanted this sign to consist in such a vain and ridiculous cutting of flesh or skin? That’s far from credible. If an omnipotent God truly had wished to choose a particular people, and if He had wanted to bring the sign of his covenant to their bodies, He would undoubtedly have chosen a better, more worthy and honorable sign than that, and would undoubtedly have placed it in the most noble, most important, and most apparent part of the body, to make, by this particular gratification of His goodness, His people more beautiful, perfect honorable, and considerable than all other peoples. But to say that He opted for such a vain and vile sign of his covenant as what He is said to have chosen, and that He wanted to place it in the most shameful part of the body? That is unworthy of the greatness and supreme majesty of a God, and it would even be unworthy to think that He would even think of
such a thing.

  23. THE FOLLY OF MEN IN ATTRIBUTING TO GOD THE INSTITUTION OF THE CRUEL AND BARBARIC SACRIFICES OF INNOCENT BEASTS, AND BELIEVING THAT THESE SORTS OF SACRIFICES ARE AGREEABLE TO HIM.

  Secondly, with respect to the institution of the bloody sacrifices of innocent beasts, the supposedly holy and sacred books[196] that contain these revelations, openly attribute them to God, along with the institution of the altars and the consecration of the Priests to offer Him sacrifices upon these particular altars. They record, in these same supposedly divine books and revelations, that God had commanded that these priests should pour the blood of the animals around His altar, which they offered Him in Sacrifice; that they should burn these animals, that they cut them to bits and burn their flesh on His altar. God, for His part, promised that He would be greatly pleased by the odor from the smoke of the victims which they offered Him in this way, and, in keeping with that, we also see in these same books, that after the Flood, when Noah had left the Ark, where he had been enclosed with his wife and children and all kinds of animals, away from the Flood’s water, once he had departed from the Ark safe and sound, he set up an altar to God, and as a gesture of gratitude he offered some animals in sacrifice on this altar[197], and God, these same books say, showed him that he had found the smoke of this sacrifice very nice, and by consequence He promised never to curse the Earth again because of man, since, He says, they are inclined to evil from childhood. Now see, according to the same books, what God ordained in His Law, with respect to animal sacrifice and the consecration of the Priests. The Lord, say these so-called Holy Scriptures, spoke to Moses and said: