by Jean Meslier
7. THEY BELIEVED THAT MEN COULD BECOME GODS AFTER THEIR DEATH.
It was also customary for the masses to deify or rank among the Gods those who had excelled in some rare virtue, or who had rendered some notable service or done some notable service to their country. This led Montaigne to say so judiciously[32] that man is certainly mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he is busy making gods by the dozen, and not only by the dozen, but even by the thousands, and delineates the exact extent of their power. Which among these gods or these saints, so amusingly forged by the ancients, are old and broken, he says, which are married, which aren’t, which are young and strapping[33], which heal horses, which heal men, which heal the plague, which heal ringworm, which coughs, which one kind of gallstones, which the other kind, which cause grapes to appear, which make garlic, which are in charge of lewdness, which of merchandise: to each kind of artisan their own God… some are so puny and popular (for they were once so numerous that it was at very least 36,000), who were then piled up to make something like 5 or 6 thousand to produce a single blade of wheat, they gave 3 to a door, one on the wood, one on the hinges and one on the threshold, 4 to a child, one as the protector of their undershirt, another of their drinking, another of their eating, and still another of their head, which were all reverenced in different ways. What a pity it is, says Montaigne, to see men deceiving themselves with their own aping and inventions, like children, he says, frightened of the very face of their playfellow, which they themselves smeared and darkened[34].
Nothing, says Pliny[35] shows the imbecility of man more than their wish to assign some image or effigy to the divine. It’s a great folly, he says, to believe that there have been any, and even greater madness to establish Gods according to the virtues and vices of men, such as chastity, harmony, courage, hope, honor, mercy, faith, etc., but all these deities come, they add, from the fact that fragile men, laden with hard work, seeing only poverty and infirmity, respectively worship the things they needed most pressingly. This is why, he continues, the Gods’ names began to change, according to regional differences in devotion, and that in a single region, an infinity of Gods could be found, among whom even the infernal gods were also placed, along with disease and all sorts of plagues, due to their fear of such things. From these superstitions, says the same author, come those temples dedicated to fever, which were founded and dedicated to the Palatium, and that of Orbona who brought death to infants. Next to the temple of the genies and familiar spirits, he continues, is the temple of Bad Luck, which is on the Esquiline Hill: and thus it is no wonder if there are more Gods in Heaven than men on Earth, since, he says, everyone forges as many Gods as his fancy conjures up, and that men pick and choose as their patrons many Gods, to whom they give names and titles such as Jupiter, Saturn, Juno, Mars, and many others: for, this same author continues, it was once customary to rank among the Gods those who were particularly dedicated to living well in the world, in recognition of their contributions. And from there have come all the different names of the gods and goddesses whom the Romans have worshiped under the names of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, Aesculapius etc., and under these other names of goddesses, whom they worshiped under the names of Juno, Diana, Pallas, Minerva, Venus, Ceres; for it is certain that all those beautiful divinities are produced only by the vanity and idiocy of men, and some nations are so incredibly blinded by superstition that they have divinized vile and filthy beasts like dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, snakes, etc., including inanimate objects such as fire, the Sun, the Moon, the stars, stones, forests, etc., and among all these vain beliefs Montaigne found nothing, he says, that was more insane or ridiculous than the attribution of divinity to man; by which, he said, we are made gods, as antiquity did[36]; goes far beyond the supremely meager capacity of words. He continues: “I would rather have followed those who worshiped snakes, dogs, and even cows: especially since their nature and existence are less well known to us, and we have more space to imagine whatever we like about those beasts, and to attribute extraordinary capacities to them. But to make gods,” he says, “of our puny condition, the imperfections of which we should know well, to attribute to them our desires, rage, vengeance, marriage, reproduction, and relations, love and jealousy, our body parts and bones, our fevers, our pleasures, our deaths and burials, as well as having divinized not only faith, virtue, honor, peace, harmony, liberty, etc., but also pleasure, fraud, death, envy, old age, poverty, fear, frenzy, misfortune, and along with other miseries of our frail and null life: such behavior,” he says, “could only come from a superb intoxication of the human mind.”
This is what Agesilaus, called The Great, the king of Thessaly, made fun of in such a funny way, for the Thessalians[37] had come to inform him one day that, in recognition of the benefits he had brought to them, they had canonized him and placed him among the Gods[38]. “Is your nation”, he asked them, “able to make anyone a God, then? If so, first make one of your own people into one, and then, once I’ve seen that it did him any good, I’ll accept your offer[39].” The Egyptians forbade, on penalty of the gallows, anyone from claiming that Serapis and Isis, who were their Gods, had once been men: even though everyone knew this was true. And their effigy, represented with a finger upon the mouth, referred, as Varro says, to this mysterious ordinance of their Priests about keeping their mortal origins secret, which was necessary to avoid the ruination of all veneration for them[40].
8. THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY.
It is said that the first inventor of these false was a man named Ninus the son of Belm, the first king of the Assyrians (around the time of the birth of Isaac, around the year of the world, according to the Hebrews, 2101) who, at his father’s death, set up an idol to him, which shortly afterward took the name of Jupiter, and which he wanted everyone to worship as a God. From this, they say, come all forms of idolatry which have spread throughout the world. Cecrops, the first king of the Athenians, was then the first king to invoke this Jupiter, ordaining sacrifices to him in his States, and he thus became the author of all the other idolatries which were later received there. Janus, who was a very ancient king of Italy, was, according to Macrobius, the first to dedicate temples to the Gods, and he also instituted the sacrifices to them; and, as he was the first who had brought the knowledge of the Gods to his peoples, he was also recognized after his death by them and worshipped as God, such that men never sacrificed to other Gods without first calling on this Janus. The very authors whom our Christ-cultists call holy and sacred, speak in nearly the same way about the invention and origin of all these false divinities, and not only do they attribute their invention and origin to men, but they even state that the origin and invention of all these false divinities are the cause, the source, and the origin of all the maliciousness which is scattered throughout this world, for their book of Genesis[41] states that it was a man called Enos, the son of Seth and the grandson of the first man, who, according to them was Adam, first called on the name of God, iste coepit invocare nomen Domini. And in their book of Wisdom, it is stated expressly that the invention and the veneration of idols or false divinities is the origin, the source, the beginning, and the end of all the evils which are in the world: infandorum enim idolorum cultura omnis mali causa est et initium et finis[42].
Here is how the same supposedly holy and sacred books speak of the invocation of these false divinities and of their beginnings. A father, notes the author of the book of Wisdom[43], finding himself extremely afflicted by the sudden death of his son, has an image made to try to console him for his loss, and seeing this image which he at first had not regarded as anything more than the image of a beloved son, who had been taken by death; but, later being blinded by an excess of love for this son and for the image and portrait which he had had engraved, he began to see and worship as a God that which he previously had only seen as the image of a dead man, and commanded his servants to honor it, to offer it sacrifices, and ultimately to pay divine honors to it[44]. This bad practice, then communicated and
transmitted everywhere else, soon becomes customary, the private error soon becomes a public error, and finally this custom ends up in the form of law, and it is confirmed and authorized by the ordinances of princes and tyrants, who force their subjects, on strict penalties, to worship the statues of those whom they placed among the Gods. This idolatry, say the same books[45], was so widespread that the peoples who were far away from the prince had his image brought, consoling themselves for his absence with his statue, to which they paid the same honors and the same veneration as they would have rendered to their prince, if he had been present. The vanity and skill of the painters and sculptors, continue the same books[46], contributes much to the progress of this detestable idolatry: for, as they worked very hard, each from the other, to make fine forms, the beauty of their workmanship drew the admiration and veneration of the weak and the ignorant, until the masses, whose simplicity is easily abused, were quickly seduced by the beauty of the workmanship, imagining that such a statue could only have been the representation of a God, and thought that he who was previously only regarded as human must be venerated and served as a God. This, say these very holy and sacred books of our Christ-cultists, is how idolatry, which is the shame and disgrace of human reason, spreads through the world: through the self-interest of the artisans, the flattery of the subjects, and the vanity of princes and kings, who can never keep their authority within its proper bounds, have given names to idols of stone or wood, of gold or silver, in honor of which idols they celebrate festivals full of extravagance and folly, and to which they offer inhumane sacrifices by cruelly immolating their own children to them, and calling peace the ignorance they suffered from, although they’re made even more miserable and wretched than by a horrid war, tot et tanta mala pacem appelant[47]. Finally, the same books of Wisdom say that the worship and reverence of these detestable idols is the cause, the beginning, the progress, and the height of all vices and all manner of terrible deeds: infandorum enim idolorum cultura omnis mali causa est et initium et finis[48].
All the testimonies that I’ve cited show us clearly: not only that all the religions, which are or which have been in the world, are not and have never been anything but human inventions; they show us even more clearly that all the divinities which are revered there are nothing but the creations and inventions of men, and that it is from the very adoration of these false divinities that all the worst evils of life proceed: omnis mali causa est et initium et finis. And something that confirms this truth all the more is that there is no divinity anywhere which has publicly and openly revealed itself to mankind, nor any divinity which has publicly and manifestly given, by itself, any law, or presented any precept to the world. Montaigne says[49]:
Look at the record which philosophy has kept for two thousand years, and more, of celestial affairs: the Gods have never acted, have only spoken via man and even via a few particular men, and this only covertly and as it were in secret; and the most often it was even at night by imagination and in dreams.
This is clearly noted in the books of Moses themselves, which are received and approved by our Christ-cultists[50]. Here is how they make their Gods speak: “if someone is a prophet among you,” he tells them, “I will appear to him in a vision or I will speak to him in a dream.” This was, indeed, how it is said that He called Samuel[51] and how He spoke to him; this is how it is noted that he appeared and spoke to many others, if we believe our God-cultists and our Christ-cultists, who sing in one of their solemn festivals the following words, which they take from their book of Wisdom: “During the night when all is silent, your word, Lord, is heard from the highest heaven. Cum quietum silentium contineret omnia, et nox in sui cursu medium iter haberet omnipotents Sermo tuus de coelo a regalibus sedibus prosilivit, venit.[52]”
But if it were truly Gods who spoke in this way to men, as some would have us believe, why would they always hide like this when speaking to them; why would not instead show their glory, their power, their wisdom, and their supreme authority everywhere? If they do speak, this isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, for any reason other than to be heard, and if they want to give laws, precepts and ordinances to men, they should intend for these to be followed and observed; and for this, why would they be so dependent on the organs and ministry of men that they can’t do without them? Why could they not speak or communicate by themselves to all mankind? Could they not make their laws public and have them observed immediately by themselves? And if this is the case, it’s a sure sign of their weakness and impotence, since they can’t do without the human assistance in their affairs, and if it’s because they don’t want to, or if they don’t condescend to show themselves or speak openly and publicly to mankind, this is to give them every reason for mistrust, it’s to give them good reason to doubt the truth of their words; for all these so-called visions and nocturnal revelations which the God-cultists boast of are certainly too suspect and too illusory to merit our confidence, and it is in no way probable or credible that the Gods, who are supposed to be perfectly good and perfectly wise, would ever want to employ means as suspect as these to make their will known to men, and not only would this give them reason to doubt the truth of their words, but it would also give them every reason to doubt the truth of their existence, and give them plenty of room to believe that they are far from who they claim to be: for it’s simply not credible that, if there truly were Gods, that they would be content to have impostors abusing their names and their authority to deceive mankind with such impunity. Besides, if all it took was only for a few simple individuals to say that God has appeared to them in a dream or in secret, and that He had spoken to them and that He had secretly revealed to them such and such mysteries, and that He had secretly given them such and such laws and ordinances: if, I say, all it took was for one individual to say such things, and even to assume that, if he needed to perform a few false miracles for them to be taken on their word, it is clear and plain that there would be no impostor who could not do such things in their favor, and who might no less confidently tell each other that they had had visions and revelations from Heaven, that God spoke to them, and that He revealed to them whatever they wanted everyone else to believe. Thus, those who claim to have had secret revelations of mysteries, laws, ordinances, and the will of God, or if you prefer, the Gods, are in no way credible in what they say, and they do not deserve a hearing, because it is not credible, as I have said, that the Gods who are supposedly perfectly good and perfectly wise, would ever use such deceptive and dubious means as these to reveal their will to mankind.
But how then, it may be asked, how is it that so many errors and so much imposture have been able to spread so broadly across the planet, and how have they been able to be maintained for so long and so powerfully in the minds of mankind? It would indeed be amazing for someone who only judged human things from the outside, unaware of the spinning of all the hidden clockwork; but for those who are able to judge otherwise, who see things up close, who see the moving wheels and the crafty machinations of men, and who know all the ruses and artifices which impostors rely on, this is nothing to wonder at. They are disabused of all their finesse and all their subtlety. They know, on one hand, all that pride and ambition are capable of doing in the minds of men. They know, on the other hand, that the powerful always find enough flatterers who, by their cowardly groveling, sanction all they do and all they might intend to do; they also know that imposters and hypocrites use all manner of ruses and artifices to achieve their goals, and finally, they know that the masses, as weak and ignorant as they are, can neither see nor discover by themselves the ruses and artifices which are used against them, and they cannot resist the power of the powerful, who bend them at will beneath their authority, and it’s by that precise means, i.e., by the authority of the mighty, by the cowardly groveling of their flatterers, by the ruses and artifice of impostors, and by the ignorance and weakness of the masses, that all errors, all idolatry, and all superstitions have spread over the Earth, and this is precisely
how they are kept alive and even strengthened every day.
But nothing sets in a clearer light both imposture and its progress in the world than this typical, avid curiosity of the masses for extraordinary and wondrous things, and their great facility to believe such things: for, as it’s plain that they enjoy hearing such things, that they listen with astonishment and amazement, and they see all these things as well-attested truths, the hypocrites on one hand and the impostors on the other, take pleasure in forging fables for them and filling their ears with all they want to hear. Note what Montaigne[53] says of them here:
The true field and subject of imposture are things unknown, forasmuch as, in the first place, their very strangeness lends them credit, and moreover, by not being subjected to our ordinary reasons, they deprive us of the means to question and dispute them: For which reason, says Plato, it is much more easy to satisfy the hearers, when speaking of the nature of the gods than of the nature of men, because the ignorance of the auditory affords a fair and large career and all manner of liberty in the handling of abstruse things. Thence it comes to pass, that nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know; nor any people so confident, as those who entertain us with fables, ...and although the variety, and the continual discordance of events, throw them from corner to corner, and toss them from east to west, yet do they still persist in their vain inquisition, and with the same pencil to paint black and white.
He also says that:
