A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  Omnia jam fiunt, fieri quae posse negabam,

  Et nihil est de quo non sit habenda fides!

  Indeed, nobody can imagine anything more ridiculous or more absurd, than what this religion teaches and requires belief in. As proof of which we need only note what the Christ-cultist doctors use as a basis to establish such beautiful and admirable mysteries as theirs are; you would be surprised to learn this, if I hadn’t already shown half of it to you: but I should also tell you clearly and openly!

  They are based, precisely, on only a few dubious words spoken by a miserable fanatic, their Christ, who told them that he and his Father were one, and that he would send them a Spirit of truth, who would proceed from his Father and from himself, and from that, they conclude as to their so-called Very High, Very Holy, and Very Adorable mystery of the Trinity, which they say is a single God in three persons, which they name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as if dubious words, like those of their Christ, could only have one meaning. Holding the bread, which he gave his Apostles to eat, he said[571]: ”Take and eat, for this is my body”, and equally presenting them wine to drink in a goblet, he told them: “Let all drink, for this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, which will be shed for the salvation of many”, and upon these words our Christ-cultists doctors want to maintain, absolutely, that their Christ changed the bread and wine, which he was then holding, into his body and his blood, and that he truly gave his body and his blood, his soul and his Divinity to his Apostles, under the species and appearances of bread and wine, which he gave them to drink and eat, as if these words of their Christ could not have another sense than the one they attributed to them. And, since he also then told his Apostles to do the same thing in memory of him, they go on to conclude that he also then gave to his Apostles, and in their own persons and those of their successors, the power to change, as he did, the bread and wine into his body and blood, and consequently that his soul and his Divinity are also found there; since a living body as he then was, and as they claim he still is, is not without its soul, nor a God without its Divinity! And here, as on the dubious words of a fanatic, our Christ-cultist Doctors erect imaginary mysteries, which they call supernatural and Divine. Look how, on the basis of the dubious words of a fanatic, they worship a God in three persons, or three persons in a single God, and it’s on the same basis of this fanatic’s dubious words that they attribute themselves the power or potency to make Gods from dough and flour, and to make as many as they please. For, according to their principle, they only need to say four words on any quantity of these little dough images, or as many glasses of wine as they have, and they will make as many Gods as they have little images of dough and glasses of wine as happen to be in front of them, even thousands and millions; for they say that, with their four words: this is my body, or this is my blood, which they say are efficacious of themselves, it is, or it would be possible for them to also consecrate hundreds of thousands of these little images of dough, as to consecrate a single one, and consequently, that it is, or that it would also be possible to make, by this means, hundreds of thousands or thousands of millions of Gods, as to make a single one of them. What folly! These vain men, these priests, and these deceivers of the masses, are unable, with all the supposed Power of their God-Christ, to make the least fly or the least worm, but they think they can make thousands of Gods! If their God-Christ couldn’t have given them the power to make a single grain of wheat, or a single grain of barley, or a single oat, then he couldn’t have been able to give them tot power to make Gods, at will, and as much as they pleased, with four words changing bread and wine into His body and blood! You would have to be struck by an odd blindness indeed, and a strange mental bias, to believe and maintain such ridiculous and absurd things, and that on such a slight and vain foundation as a few dubious words of a fanatic. He also told his Disciples[572] that he would give them complete power and authority over impure spirits, to drive them out, and to heal all sorts of maladies and infirmities. Do our doctors and priests therefore claim the same power of healing all sorts of maladies and infirmities? They couldn’t say this with a straight face.

  38. THE ROMANS’ WORSHIP OF GODS OF DOUGH OPENS A LARGE AND SPACIOUS DOOR TO ALL MANNER OF IDOLATRY.

  Can they not see, these blind doctors, that it’s opening a wide and spacious door to all sorts of idolatry, to worship and teach the worship of images and idols of dough, on the pretext that the priests had the power to consecrate them and change them into Gods, by simply pronouncing 4 vain and frivolous words? Couldn’t all the priests of the idols in the past, and could they now not have a similar power? If it was only about alleging and finding such vain and feeble pretexts as these of our Christ-cultists, to attribute oneself such a power, it would be easy for all the idolaters to find the same thing, and even to find powers that are more specious and more likely. It’s said in so-called holy books of our Christ-cultists, that[573] God confounded the wisdom of the wise, and that He would change the wisdom of the world into folly. But whoever said these words, they truly find their fulfillment in the words of our Christ-cultist Doctors. For their wisdom[574] turns out on this occasion to have truly become folly, since they have been weak and vulgar enough to worship the weakness and baseness, to worship of idols feeble puny dough-idols, and they are so mad as to believe they’ve received the power to make Gods from a wretched fanatic.

  When I see or imagine our doctors, and even an angelic doctor at their head, who humbly bow before their little idols, or images made of dough, and hear them devoutly saying, with their Angelic Doctor: “I worship you devoutly, O Supreme Deity, who are truly hidden behind these figures: adoro te devote latens Deitas quoe sub his figuris vere latitas, or devoutly singing these words: Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cernui… etc., I find this spectacle worthy of both ridicule and indignation. I say worthy of ridicule, since all these fine teachers certainly deserve to be laughed and jeered at, for doing such a thing, but at the same time, there is plenty to be indignant about, to see that the very ones who should be able to free others from error and disabuse them of such a vain and mad superstition, are the very ones who are pressing them on more and more into it every day, if they could with their words and examples, and that principally to extract therefrom, for their benefit, greater benefit. For it is quite certain that if they didn’t find their profit and advantage in it, they would never take the trouble to keep or promote such a vain and odious superstition as that, and if only some of them were ignorant or stupid enough to readily believe what they say of it to others, I would certainly find them, in this, worthier of being attached to the rack of asses, and eating thistles with them, than to be seated among the sages: but are there no donkey or cows stupid enough to bow down to idols, and therefore I dare to venture that all those who worship them are beneath donkeys and cows. O foolish Galatians! Who could have so blinded them? O insensati Galatae? Quis vos fascinavit? Gal. 3:1.

  Do not they also see, these capable and subtle Doctors, do they not see that the same reasons or arguments showing the vanity of the Gods or the idols of wood or stone, gold or silver, that the Pagans worshiped, similarly and equally show the vanity of the Gods and the idols of dough and flour that our Christ-cultists worship? For what reason and by what right, for example, do our Christ-cultist Doctors scoff at the vanity and the falseness of the Gods and idols of the Pagans? Is it not for the clear and obvious reason and that they are only works of human hands, and that they are only mute and unfeeling images, which have eyes and see not, which have ears and hear not, which have mouths and speak not, which have hands and do nothing, which have feet and do not walk, and which, finally, can do nothing to benefit those who revere them, or harm those who despise them. It is on this firm and solid foundation of truth that all the wise and enlightened men, all the so-called Holy Prophets, and even the Apostles of Jesus Christ, fanatics as these were, condemned idolatry, and scornfully dismissed the superstitious adoration of wood and stone idols, as well as the worship o
f gold or silver idols, and those made of everything else.

  This is how the Prophets speak of them: “The Gods of the gentiles,” says the Prophet King David[575], are nothing but gold and silver, and they are the work of human hands. They have,” he says, “eyes and see not, ears and hear not, they have mouths and speak not: they have nostrils and smell nothing, they have hands and touch nothing, they have feet and do not walk, and they make no sound or give any voice by the throat. May all those who make them,” he said, “become like them, as well as all those who trust in them.” Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea et omnes qui confidunt in eis. The author of the book of Wisdom[576] calls idolaters fools, inasmuch, he says, as they believe that all the idols of the gentiles are Gods, even though they can’t use their eyes to see, their nostrils to breathe the air, their ears to hear, or the fingers on their hands to touch anything, any more than their feet to walk. “Wretched,” he says, “are those who have called Gods the works of their own hands, the gold and silver wrought by artifice, or the wood and stone to which they have given some resemblance, human or animal, to worship them, then keep them in places of honor, against a wall, to which they strongly attach them with irons, lest they fall, for they can neither stand firm by themselves and without support, or help themselves in any way; and despite this they have no shame in bowing before these idols; they feel no shame in addressing them and making vows for them and their children, to lifeless and soulless things; they feel no shame in pleading for health before mortal and inanimate things; they feel no shame in asking for a fortuitous journey from something that can’t walk, or take a single step; they ask for strength, skill, industriousness from something without any sense; they consult about everything they should do from something that can’t make any reply; and finally, they invoke and call to their aid things which are completely useless. Cursed, says the same author of Wisdom, cursed be the wood and other materials from which the idols are made, and cursed be those who make them, because the beginning of all vices and all corruption is, he says, in the invention of idols, and the veneration of these miserable idols is the origin, the source, the beginning, and the cause of all the evils, and all the wickedness which fill the whole Earth[577]. Infandorum enim idolorum cultura omnis mali causa est initium et finis.

  This is how the prophet Jeremiah spoke of the vanity of idols, writing to those of his Nation, which had been taken captive, and led to Babylon, where many such idols could be seen.

  When you arrive in Babylon, you will see Gods of gold and silver, stone and wood, magnificently carried on men’s shoulders, which inspire fear and reverence for them. Keep from becoming like these idolatrous people, and keep far from the worship of these Gods, and do not fear them, or pay them any respect, for they are,” he said, “only false Gods, their tongues were polished by artisans, they are overlaid with gold and silver, but they cannot speak; they have crowns of gold on their heads, but the Priests put them there, and take them away as they please, and they keep rust or vermin at bay. They are sometimes dressed in purple and silk, but they can’t shake the dust from their faces, and they sometimes hold a scepter in their hands, but they can’t use it to bring justice to anyone. Similarly, they have sometimes a sword in their hands, but they can’t use it to defend themselves against thieves who might come to rob them[578], which will show you that they are not Gods, so do not be afraid of them.

  Said this prophet. He continued: “Many candles are lit before them, but they see none of them”; the same thing applies to the idols of our Christ-cultists, the same thing this Prophet says, goes on in the Churches. He continues: “bats, swallows, and owls come to rest on their heads and leave their droppings there, but they do not feel a thing. Know, then, that they are not Gods, and do not fear them in any way. They are carried on men’s shoulders”; here he seems to be referring as much to the Christian idols as to those of the Pagans; he says further:

  since they can’t walk, if they fall to the ground, they can’t get up again, if they are not set back up, they can’t stand or move; they can’t give anything or take anything from anyone, they can’t reward anyone for the services paid to them, or punish the insults made against them; they can’t succor the widow, or the orphan, they are like crude stones, taken from the mountain, and like useless tree trunks. All these Gods of wood or stone, and all these Gods of gold and silver, the lowest beasts on Earth, are better than them, because they can hide under some roof and in some hole and be useful for something, but these gods of wood, these gods of stone, and these gods of gold and silver can’t be useful for anything. Know then, that they are not Gods and do not fear them at all. Unde sciatis quia non sunt Dii, ne ergo timueritis eos.

  This is why it was also expressly forbidden in the Jewish law, on which our Christ-cultists nevertheless base their Religion, and all their principal mysteries, in it, it was expressly forbidden, not only to worship these Gods of gold and silver, of wood or stone; but it was also very explicitly forbidden to make any graven image, or any image of anything which is in the sky, on the earth, or in the sea[579]: non facies tibi sculptile neque omnem similitudinem quae est in coelo desuper et quae est in terra deorsum vel eorum quae sunt in aquis sub terra non adorabis ea neque coles[580] for fear, says the Law, that men, being led astray by the resemblance of something in the sky, on the earth, or in the waters, they might worship them as Divinities. And doesn’t the Apostle St. Paul[581], speaking of these insane idolatrous Doctors, say that they will be lost in the vanity of their reasoning, and that their deranged mind has been filled with darkness, and that, while calling themselves wise, they became madmen, in that they transferred the glory of the incorruptible God to the form of corruptible man, to birds, to quadrupeds, and to snakes. And besides, he urges his colleagues to flee idolatry[582] fugite ab idolorum cultura. All the Apostles of Jesus Christ unanimously forbade idolatry and the worship of idols. They even forbade the Pagans who embraced their faith from partaking in it. “As for those Pagans,” they said, “who have received the faith, we have written to them to refrain from the worship of idols and even of meats which would have been sacrificed to idols”[583]. And if they thereby forbade the worship of idols of wood and stone, gold and silver, this certainly wasn’t to offer them idols and images of dough for their adoration. Indeed, there is no indication that they worshiped, or ever promoted the worship of idols and images of dough for adoration, and if they had wanted them worshiped, it would have been only through an excess of folly and extravagance, to utterly forbid the worship of idols and to want at the same time to promote the worship of feeble little images of dough; but there is no indication that their folly went that far on this point, and it is amazing that, even today, when so many seem to be so disabused and to have seen through so many other vulgar errors, that there would still be people who are insane enough to take the trouble of crossing seas and risking their lives in foreign lands on the pretext of converting, or rather perverting, people to their false Religion. It is astonishing that our missionaries will dare to travel to these foreign nations to teach them about the vanity of their idols and Gods of wood and stone, gold and silver, which they worship, and at the same time dare to hold up for their worship idols and Gods of dough and flour, and it is amazing that these zealous missionaries and ministers of errors have been able, and that they can still manage to persuade reasonable people of such things, and get them to abandon the worship of idols of gold and silver, in favor of feeble little images of dough. Let this be said in passing.