by Jean Meslier
So, all these testimonies that I’ve recounted here of the person and thoughts of Jesus Christ, and his imaginations, words, deeds, how he behaved, and the judgments that were made of him in the world, clearly show that he was but a nobody, a vulgar and contemptible man, who was without intelligence, talents, or knowledge, and finally, that he was only a madman, a raving lunatic, a miserable fanatic, and a miserable rogue. But, this is the very person our God-Christ-cultists consider divine, this is the kind of person they worship as their loveable and divine Savior, as the almighty Son of an almighty God; here they also become far more silly and contemptible than the Pagans who tended to Divinize only their best people, those with rare and distinguished perfections. That being the case, it is evident that Christianity was, to start with, nothing less than a true fanaticism, since in the beginning it was only a sect of base and contemptible people who professed blind obedience to the false thoughts, the false fantasies, the false maxims, and the false opinions of a vile and loathsome fanatic, who came from the most vile and most miserable of all nations, who had already persuaded them so well that what he told them about the supposed restoration of the Kingdom of Israel and all the other fine promises that he made them, that they already asked him if he would soon restore the Kingdom of Israel and fulfill all the other fine promises that He had made to them[560]. Domine, si in tempore hoc restitues regnum Israel. And to prove that Christianity truly nothing but a vile and despicable fanaticism, we only need to look at the way the Historians of those times speak about them, and what the first Christians themselves say.
35. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY WAS ONLY A BASE AND CONTEMPTIBLE FANATICISM.
The Historians of those times only speak of Christianity as a pernicious, vile, and loathsome sect, and as a detestable superstition. Consider what Tacitus,[561] the Roman historian, says about them:
Nero, wanting anyone but himself to be blamed for the crime of the burning of Rome, cruelly put the Christians to death as arsonists, as people hated for their infamy, the people called Christians because of Christ, their author, who was punished to the utmost under the reign of Tiberius by Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea... This pernicious sect, after a certain period of repression, began to spread again, not only in its place of origin, but in Rome too, which is the meeting place and, as it were, the sewer for all the world’s filth. Even their dead were insulted, by covering them with the skins of wild animals and letting them be devoured by dogs, or attaching them to crosses and burning them to serve as torches and lights in the night… Even though these wretches were not innocent, and deserved the utmost punishment, they were still accorded compassion, because the Prince wasn’t putting them to death as much for public utility as to satisfy his cruelty.
That is how this historian talks about them. And Lucian has no more respect for them; he calls them wretched:
This wretched people despise everything, including death, from their hope in the immortality of the soul, and willingly offer themselves up to torture, since their first lawgiver, who was crucified in Palestine for having introduced this sect, taught them that they are all brothers, ever since they renounced our religion, and, worshiping the crucified one, they live according to his laws and believe that all is common, accepting his dogmas with blind obedience.
The hatred against the Christians[562], says the Roman History, was so intense in the Roman empire, that they were accused of causing of every mishap that came to the Empire, so that if the Tiber overflowed, if the Nile did not rise high enough, if the rain stopped, if the earth quaked, if a famine or a plague occurred, the people raged against them, and cried that they should be handed over to the lions and wild animals.
But let’s learn from themselves about how they were regarded, along with their doctrine and their way of life, for their own testimony on this point should be above suspicion. “We preach,” said their great Saint Paul[563], “Jesus Christ crucified, which is scandalous to the Jews and which seems like madness to the Gentiles.” But, as he imagined that there was great wisdom hidden in this madness, he gloried in it, as if it were a true, extraordinary, and divine wisdom. “God forbid”[564], he said, "that I should glorify in anything but the cross of Jesus Christ.” “I think,” he said elsewhere, “that God has exposed us as if we were condemned to death, for a spectacle to the world; we are fools,” he said, “for the love of Jesus Christ, we are weak, we are despised at present,” he says, “we suffer hunger, thirst, nakedness, mistreatment, and we have no secure place, we give blessings for the curses that come our way[565], we are persecuted and we endure it, we are insulted and we pray to be forgiven, and we are treated like victims to be sacrificed for public crimes, and like filth, the earth’s rejects. We are harried on all sides,” he says again, “we are persecuted[566], we always bear in our bodies the mortification of Jesus Christ.” “In all things we show,” he also said, “that we are servants of God, by great patience in affliction, adversity, in oppression, in our wounds, in prison, in seditions, in toils, in vigils and fasts, we pass through infamy and the slander of being seducers[567], although we are preachers of the truth, as strangers, although we are known, as those who are punished and who are always ready to die.” “Remember,” he said, addressing his Christian comrades, “remember these first times, when, after having been baptized, you had to endure great and cruel combats, exposed to hatred and affliction on one side, and on the other, feeling the pains of those who were treated in the same way: for you have empathized,” he said to them, “with those who were in chains, and you have joyously allowed your property to be taken, knowing that you had far greater goods that will never perish.” And the same Apostle, referring to those who were killed in the persecutions, said: “some have been tortured on the rack, others have suffered ignominy, whips, bonds, prison, others have been stoned, cut asunder, tried, and cut down by swords, still others have turned vagrant, dressed in sheep and goats' skins, being poor, afflicted and maltreated. Others have withdrawn to the deserts, upon mountains, into dens and caves in the earth…” etc. These testimonies show that reality was quite contrary to all the glorious and favorable predictions made by the ancient supposed prophets about the advent of their supposed Messiah and liberator to deliver them from their captivity, but they also show quite frankly that Christianity was not, and was not originally regarded, as anything but madness and a vile and loathsome fanaticism; for the reason why the first Christians were treated this way: hated, despised, and persecuted everywhere, as they were, was certainly due only to the falseness, madness, and absurdity of their doctrine and due to their mad and ridiculous way of living, this is what rendered them so odious and loathsome everywhere: and what is even more amazing is that, despite all of this, they still thought they were wiser than all other men: for they imagined that their madness was a completely supernatural and divine wisdom: this is why they said, with their great Mirmadolin St. Paul, that that which appears to be folly in God, was wiser than all men, and that it was by the folly of their preaching[568] and their doctrine, that God would save those who embraced their faith, and that He had changed wisdom of the world into madness: Stultitiam Deus fecit sapientiam hujus mundi. This is why they also say of themselves that God had chosen out of this world those who appeared to be stupid, to the confounding of the wise; that He had chosen the weak to confound the strong, and that He was served by those who were vile and loathsome in the world to the destroy what was great in it: Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat sapientes, et infirma mundi elegit Deus ut confundat fortia et ignobilia mundi et contemptibilia mundi elegit Deus ut ea quae sunt destrueret. And that, as they fancy it, so that none should glorify themselves before God: ut non glorietur omnis caro in conspectu ejus.
All of which clearly shows that Christianity started as a vile, ridiculous fanaticism, and consequently, it is obvious that our Christ-cultists suffer from vulgar errors on this point, even more ridiculous and absurd errors than the Pagans ever fell into; for the pagans never claimed to transform
human wisdom into folly, or human folly into supernatural and divine wisdom, as Christians do, and therefore it should be no surprise that they have a proverb in Italy that goes: you must be crazy to be a Christian.
36. THE THIRD ERROR OF THE DOCTRINE AND IDOLATRY AND WORSHIP OF GODS OF DOUGH AND FLOUR IN THEIR SO-CALLED HOLY SACRAMENT.
Our Roman Christ-cultists, as well as those who are not Romans, blame and condemn the Gentiles for their worship of idols of wood, stone, copper, bronze, plaster, gold, or silver, and they find that it was and still now is great folly and blindness for people to worship immobile statues and idols, who have no life or any sensations, and which are incapable of doing any good or any harm to anyone; our Christ Romans jeer at these idols and these supposed Deities of wood or stone, gold or silver, etc., who, as they say, have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, who have mouths and speak not, have feet and can’t walk, and who have hands and can’t do anything with them, etc. They are quite right to make fun of such deities and those who worship them. But why, then, are they so moronic or so mad as to do the same thing too: to worship weak little idols, or images of dough, which are in a sense less than the idols of gold or silver: here, the saying might well be applied to our Roman Christ-cultists: the pot is calling the kettle black: voe tibi, voe nigroe dicebat cacabus olloe! They see, as Jesus Christ said, a mote in the eye of their brother and companions, the Pagans, while failing to see a beam crushing their own eye, i.e., they see in the Pagans, their brothers, the folly of their idolatries, while they fail to see the greatest follies in themselves, greater idolatries and greater superstitions than those of the Pagans. I’m not talking about idols of wood and stone, or idols of copper or plaster, of gold or silver, to which our Roman Christ-cultists pay the same honors that the Pagans gave to their false Deities: I’m well aware that it’s not their intention to worship them as Deities, as the Pagans did; I’m talking mainly about their small idols of dough and flour that are cooked between two irons, which they consecrate and eat every day, although they truly worship them as their God and Savior.
If the Deity truly wishes, as our Roman Christ-cultists say, to be worshiped in the bread and wine, or as they put it, under these visible species or appearances of bread and wine, then why would He not also, and why would He not also have inserted Himself, or had Himself worshiped in wood and stone, in plaster and in copper, in gold and in silver, or rather, under the visible species or appearances of these or similar things? For there is certainly no greater impossibility or indecency in this than in that. Our Christ-cultists wouldn’t dare deny that their God-Christ can’t as easily change wood or stone, gold or silver, into his body and blood, as they claim He changes bread and wine; for if they denied one, there would be equal reason to deny the other, and thus, according to their principle, the possibility of such a thing would be equal for both things, i.e., it would be the same in either case, and consequently, the Deity might as truly be found in the idols of wood or stone, of gold or silver, if you prefer, as in the small idols or images of dough that that the Roman Christ-cultists worship, and they would thus be on an equal footing with the Pagans, and they will also be as well-grounded as them in their opinions, because it would be as easy for either party to claim that the Divinity truly resides in the idols of wood or stone, of gold or silver, as in idols made of dough or flour.
But besides, by thinking about what, in this respect, would seem to be most suitable for the majesty of a God, it certainly seems that it would be more suitable for Him to have Himself worshiped in something firm and solid, such as wood or stone, or in some other rich and precious material, such as gold and silver, than to want to be worshiped in vile and weak little images of dough and flour, which in themselves are not solid, which melt away in the rain, and which would blow away in the wind, and which would let themselves be eaten by rats and mice. Certainly, if it’s a blindness and folly in Pagans to believe that the Deity truly resides in their idols of wood, stone, gold or silver, or plaster, it is even greater blindness and greater folly for our Christ-cultists to believe that their God truly resides in body and in soul, in flesh, in bones and in blood in feeble little images of dough and flour, which the least breeze could carry off, and the tiniest mouse could eat.
If you heard, my dear friends, that there is a country in some foreign nation and a religion, where the peoples and the priests eat the Gods they worship, and where the gods are only weak and small images of dough, which they cook between two irons, which the priests consecrate with four words, which they secretly pronounce above them, and where they carefully keep their gods in boxes for fear that rats and mice might eat them first, or fearing that the wind might carry them off, wouldn’t you laugh at their simplicity, or rather the idiocy of these poor ignoramuses, to worship the Gods which rats and mice might eat, and that the least wind might carry off, if they weren’t careful about them, as I’ve just said? You certainly won’t laugh if you don’t already realize that the joke would be on you, since you are the ones who moronically believe that they’re worshiping and eating their God, while piously and devoutly worshiping and eating, as you do, your little images of dough, which your priests tell you are your God and your divine Redeemer.
37. A COMPARISON WITH THE CONSECRATION OF THE GODS OF WOOD AND STONE, OR THE GODS OF SILVER AND GOLD.
There is something bizarre in Christianity, for its people profess to devoutly eat their Gods[569], and they inhumanely eat and tear each other to bits, strange indeed! How could anyone persuade men, senseless as they are, of such strange and absurd things? How could they be persuaded that the whole body and all the blood, the soul, and the divinity of a Man-God be, truly and really, in the form and shape of a vain, small image of dough, and the form and shape of a little drop of wine, and that the whole body and all the blood would not only be in the whole shape of the image of dough and the drop of wine, but that they would be at the same time whole and entire under each part of this little image and under each part of this drop of wine? How can anyone be persuaded that the entire substance of this image of dough and that all the substance of this wine would be entirely changed into the body and blood of this God-Man, and that this change could be instantly effectuated by the virtue and power of 4 words only, that a Priest pronounced on these little images and on this wine! And that, as often as the Priests would pronounce these words on different images of a similar nature, or different quantities of wine, they would again change their substances into the body and blood of this Man-God, who appear, by this means, simultaneously in a thousand, in thousands, and in millions of different places, without any increase in its Being, and without any division of Himself? To be sure, nothing so ridiculous or absurd can be found in any of the Pagan Religions. How, then, were reasonable and judicious men able to be convinced of such strange and absurd things? I am not surprised that crass and ignorant people would let themselves be convinced of such things: it’s easy to get ignorant and simple-minded people to believe anything. But for wise and enlightened people, and for well-educated people and scholars, and intelligent people, even a mind eminent in vivacity and comprehension, to indulge, along with the ignorant, in such vulgar and absurd errors, and that they have made themselves, and that they still do at present, the protectors and defenders of them, to support and maintain them by the cowardly motives of temporal interests and the respect of men, or by the ridiculous stubbornness of wanting to strengthen the losing side, rather than to take pleasure in disabusing the masses in good faith, by clearly showing them the vanity and falseness of all they are so stupidly taught to believe; this has always seemed quite strange to me. What! So, doctors, famous doctors even, who are so good at critiquing and condemning the errors of idolatry of the Pagans, feel no shame when they themselves bow before mute idols and feeble little images of dough, like the most ignorant rubes? They don’t blush to preach publicly and loudly, the same thing they so openly condemn the Pagans for? Is this not an abuse and a clear prevarication of their ministry? Do they think that t
he vain and ridiculous consecration of their feeble idols of dough is more powerful and efficacious than the vain consecrations by the Pagans of their idols of wood or stone, gold or silver? Do they think that the 4 words of their so-called consecration are stronger and more virtuous than the famous, pompous, magnificent, supposed consecration that was done, for example, in Babylon, of that famous and prodigious golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up on the plains of Dura, in his kingdom? This statue, which was made completely of gold, was 60 cubits high and six cubits wide. The King, having set it up in that plain, then wanted to have it dedicated and consecrated as solemnly as possible. For this, he commanded all the great Lords, all the Princes, all the Governors, all the Magistrates, and all the Officers of his Kingdom to come and present themselves on a particular day, before this statue to solemnly perform this dedication and consecration, and at the same time he gave a commandment to all the people that, from the moment they heard the sound of trumpets, the oboes, and all the other musical instruments, which began to play immediately after the consecration of the statue, they all have to bow to it and worship it as a God, threatening severe punishment against any who failed to worship it. The King’s commandment was promptly executed, all the great Lords, Princes, Governors, Magistrates and Officers of his kingdom appeared on the day indicated before this statue, with a multitude of peoples, who crowded all around, to see this amazing statue and the magnificence of this consecration, which then occurred before this whole nation, in the most solemn manner possible. Once this so-called consecration was performed, the oboes, trumpets, and other musical instruments sounded, and at the same time everyone bowed to worship this statue, as a newly minted God. This might have been the most solemn and beautiful consecration that was ever performed. And would our Christ-cultists think that such a consecration would have had the force or virtue of making this golden statue into a true God, either by changing all the substance of this gold statue into God, or by drawing or capturing the Divinity within this statue? Surely not; they’ll refuse to believe that, they’d even be ashamed to say it! Why, then, do they think that their vain and frivolous purported consecration of four words only, which they pronounce over feeble, small images of dough, and over a few drops of wine, would have the power to change bread and wine into the body and blood of their God-Christ? Where does this supposed force and power come from, to change a little image of dough and a few drops of wine into an omnipotent God, and to change, as they say, in a single moment, the whole substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of a God-man? O lunatic Doctors! How do they dare to maintain, or even publicly teach and suggest such ridiculous and absurd things? Prejudice, habituation, birth, and education have to make strange effects in the human mind, since they blind them to such a degree. For nothing but prejudice, habits, birth, and education are the only things that could now lead men to blindly accept such ridiculous and absurd things. There is certainly nothing like this in all of Paganism, and it seems like the Christian religion was only invented to see how far human madness could be pushed; for there is nothing so ridiculous or absurd that our Roman God-Christ-cultists won’t think they should blindly accept it, on the pretext of their divine faith. “For Christians,” says Montaigne[570], “it is an occasion to believe, when they encounter something incredible: it’s all the more so according to Religion, as it is contrary to human Reason”