A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  There is no denying that, in such choosing, there is a true acceptation of a people on God’s part, since He only chose one in preference to all the others; and it can’t be denied that there is injustice in such acceptance of a people and of persons, since it occurred only by favor, and without respect to anyone’s deserts; and finally, it can’t be denied that such acceptance of peoples and persons has been odious to all other peoples, since it was to their own prejudice, and tended to nothing but their own ruin.

  As, thus, it can’t be proper for a supreme goodness, or a supreme wisdom and justice to intend any unjust or hateful acceptance of persons or of peoples, we must not think that an infinitely good, wise, and just God would ever have intended to make such an acceptance of the Jewish people to the detriment of all other peoples on earth, or that He should have wished so particularly to employ His omnipotence to favor and confirm such an acceptance of peoples and of persons: for this reason, it seems quite obvious that the supposed miracles that are said to have been performed for this purpose are far from credible. Let none say, on this point, that there would be no injustice in God so choosing certain people or whole peoples in preference to others, since God, being the absolute master of his own graces and blessings, can grant them to anyone He likes, and nobody has any right to complain, criticize, or accuse Him of injustice; let none, I say, bring such a futile argument; for if God is truly the author of nature, if He is truly the author and father of all men and all peoples, as our Christ and God-cultists all say, He should love them all equally as His own workmanship, and consequently He should be an equal Protector and Benefactor to all of them. For he who gives being, must also give, according to the true maxim, the necessary consequences and outcomes for welfare. Qui dat esse debet consequentia adesse, unless our Christ-cultists mean to say that their God deliberately made creatures to make them miserable and unhappy: which would certainly be an unworthy think to say about an infinitely good being. And therefore, if God has given being to all men and all peoples, it must likewise also give them all the well-being and consequently it must also encourage all of his divine benevolence and his good graces without making any unjust and odious of persons or peoples, such as the one that claims he made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their posterity, the Jewish people.

  If we are told that God will give love and favor equally to all his Peoples and to all Men, if they equally deserve to be loved and to be equally favored by his graces and benefits, but as they do not all deserve this favor, and that on the contrary most men and people draw on themselves, by their vices and wickedness, the disgrace and punishments of God, we should not be astonished, it might be said, that God would love some more than others, and that He should prefer some to others, sharing His favors more with them, and there is nothing unjust in such acceptance of some people in preference to all the rest. In response to this, it’s easy to say that, if all men and all peoples are equally the workmanship of God, as they are said to be, then they are all just as He made them and wanted to make them, and therefore they would all have just as much virtue, just as much merit, and just as perfection as He deigned to give them, such that, if He gave some of them more virtue, more merit, and greater perfection than others, to favor them more particularly with His graces and friendship, or as St. Paul puts it, make a more abundant display of His riches, greatness, and mercy on them, as on vessels of predestination and blessings which He wanted to destine for His glory and which, on the other hand, He granted to others less virtue, less merit, and less perfection, even to the point of depriving them completely of all those advantages in order to exclude them from His friendship and His good graces, or, as St. Paul also puts it, to show in them the effects of His wrath and His might, as on vessels of abjection and reprobation, which He destined to be eternally miserable; there would obviously still be, in this, an unjust and odious acceptation of persons. And, since it is far from proper to attribute to an infinitely perfect Being such an unjust and odious acceptation of persons, it clearly follows that the miracles which are supposed to have been performed in consequence and in favor of such an acceptation of persons, are quite discordant with the way one ought to think of the Greatness, Kindness, and Justice of an eternal perfect Being, and consequently, that these supposed miracles are in no way credible in and of themselves.

  Besides, since one should, as I’ve said, think of the Greatness, Kindness, Justice, and Wisdom of an infinitely perfect Being, in any way that’s not consonant with those divine perfections, we should not think that a God who is infinitely perfect would so particularly employ His Omnipotence to work miracles on slight occasions and in matters of slight importance, while refusing to also use it on occasions which were far more important, or in matters which were of far greater import. For it would be improper for a supreme Wisdom to apply to small things while neglecting the big ones, it would be improper for a supreme Wisdom to pay more attention to the accessory than to the principal part of anything. It would be unsuitable for a supreme Justice to punish slight failings severely while leaving great and abominable crimes go unpunished. And finally, it would be improper for a supreme Kindness and a supreme Wisdom not to wish to be so beneficent to men in their most urgent needs, as it shows itself to be in the least of all. I say in the least because it’s in the most urgent needs where the Kindness should rather be manifest; such that a supreme Kindness which was accompanied by a supreme Wisdom and a supreme Might, as the supreme Kindness of an Omnipotent and infinitely wise God would be, should not fail to appear or show itself to be at least as beneficent to men in their more urgent than in their least needs.

  But if the miracles which are reported in these so-called holy and divine Books, both the Old and the New Testaments, were true, this would mean that God has specifically put His omnipotence and Wisdom to use in carrying out minor things while ignoring greater and more important things; it could be truthfully said that He was more concerned to oversee the lesser good of men than to see to goods of greater, and principal importance: it can truly be said that He wanted to more strictly punish certain people for slight failings, while He wouldn’t have punished others for extreme and highly wicked vices or crimes. And finally, it can truly be said that He wished neither to act nor show Himself to be as beneficent to men in their most urgent needs, as He would have wished to show Himself in the least of their needs. This is easy to show, as much by all the miracles claimed to have been performed, as by those He didn’t perform, and which he would nevertheless certainly have performed, if it were true that he’d done any at all. Firstly, as for the miracles that are supposed to have been performed by the intervention of Moses His Prophet, in what did they consist? In changing, for example, his rod into a serpent and this serpent into a rod; in changing water into blood, and making a lot of frogs, grasshoppers, flies, etc., and other base and bad insects come to a whole Kingdom; in bringing contagious diseases to animals; in bringing lowly ulcers to the bodies of men and animals; in desolating, if you can believe it, an entire Kingdom by hailstones and furious storms, and all that for the love of and in favor of a single base and miserable little people called Israel! In what else did they consist? In dividing the waters of the sea to make way for this base, small people which was fleeing; and to swallow another people which was in pursuit of them; in causing manna to fall from Heaven to feed this people which wandered for 40 years in a desert; in bringing water from a rock to quench the thirst of this people which was parched, in bringing from beyond the sea a prodigious multitude of quals to satisfy the gluttony and sensuality of this people, which wanted to eat flesh; in miraculously keeping the clothing and footwear from wearing out during these 40 years; and finally, in the times of Joshua, of causing[150] the walls of some cities to fall at the sound of his trumpet, and in stopping[151] the course of the Sun for an entire day, to give this people enough time to fight and overcome its enemies. And so on with most of these great miracles of the Old Testament, which are so boasted of. But what do all these fine miracles tend
towards? And why is God said to have performed all of them? Only to free this people from servitude, from which it was thought to suffer in Egypt, and to bring it into possession of a country which God is said to have promised their fathers to give to them. It is recorded in these books that God sent an angel to a desert to console and comfort Abraham’s servant[152] that his wife Sara had dismissed from her house for reasons of jealousy. It is recorded in this book that God himself appeared to Abimelech[153], king of Gerar, to warn him not to touch the woman he had taken, since she was the wife of said Abraham, and that He had prevented him from sinning with her, to keep him from offending against Him. It is said in this same book that God sent two angels[154] for the express purpose of saving Lot and his children from the conflagration of Sodom. It is said that God sent an angel to the father and mother of Samson[155] to warn them that they would have a son, and that he would drink neither wine nor beer, from his childhood, because he would be a Nazarean of the Lord, from his earliest youth. It is said in another place that God sent an angel[156] which in a single night killed 185 thousand men from Sennacherib’s army, who were besieging the city of Jerusalem. It is said that more than 50 thousand harvesters, who were harvesting in their field of Bethsames in their field were killed as God’s punishment, because they had seen the Ark of the Covenant[157] which the steers happened to be pulling past there, without knowing where they were going. It is recorded there that God was once so angry one day because David had ordered a census[158] by reason of vainglory, and so He slew more than 70 thousand of his people by sending a plague expressly to punish this offense, and many other examples could be adduced, which it would take too long to relate.

  It is easy to see by all these examples and all the miracles that I have related that God actually did on those occasions must have particularly employed His power in doing evil than good, since the miracles I’ve just related, tend only to afflict the peoples, to render provinces, cities, and kingdoms desolate, and to destroy entire armies: it is easy to see by these examples and these miracles that He was more concerned to look after the physical welfare of the Jewish people than its true perfection, which would have been more beneficial to it; since all these miracles of Egypt are thought to have been performed only to put them into possession of a foreign country, without making this people any wiser or more perfect. For this people, being in this way more favored of God than any other people, became wiser for all that, no more perfect or more grateful to its benefactor, as the same books show in the criticism that Moses gave them:

  You have seen all the miracles and wonders that God has done for you in Egypt and before Pharaoh; you have seen all the victories He has brought you over your enemies and all the other benefits He has bestowed upon you: but He has not given you the spirit of understanding to grasp the significance of the wonders He has done for your benefit, or the spirit of wisdom to use it well[159]. Et non dedit vobis Dominus cor intelligens et oculos videntes et aures quae possunt audire usque in praesentem diem.

  It is easy to see from these examples and these miracles that He must have punished some people, including the innocent more severely for slight faults and mistakes and even things they never did, than the wicked for monstrous vices and crimes, since He would have so severely punished a people for slight mistake which a King might have committed by carrying out, whether through curiosity or pride, an enumeration of his subjects, and when He so severely punished the Bethsamites for such a slight fault, while He allowed, moreover, and still does allow, many horrific crimes to go unpunished. Finally, it’s easy to see in these examples and these miracles that He shows Himself to be more beneficent for slight occasions than for an infinity of other occasions which are incomparably more urgent and important, since He would have been kind enough, on one hand, to send an angel to console and succor a simple servant who had been left on her own, while He allows an infinity of others to languish and die miserably, without help or any assistance in their needs, while on the other hand He was so careful to miraculously preserve certain clothes and shoes, while He left and still leaves every day so many great goods to be lost miserably, and so much wealth by fires and shipwrecks, or other unhappy accidents that occur so often in the world.

  What! Should the supreme Goodness, the supreme Wisdom, an infinitely perfect Being miraculously preserve, for 40 years, the clothes and footwear of a vile and wretched people by keeping them from wearing them out with their feet and their backs, but refuse, then and now, to watch over the natural preservation of so many goods and so much wealth which would have been or would still be so useful and necessary for the subsistence of the people, who were and are nevertheless perishing every day by all sorts of unhappy accidents; but He wouldn’t even preserve the richest or most precious ornaments of His temples, or even His temples themselves when affected by fire. These supposed miracles are simply incredible. What! Would a supreme Goodness, a supreme Wisdom, an infinitely perfect Being have sent His angels for the express purpose of preserving or saving certain women from danger, certain children, or certain other individuals! He sent angels to Tobias and certain other people to guide them in their travels, to save them from danger, and give them good advice at need, and He sent to the first heads of the human race, Adam and Eve, a demon or a devil in the form of a snake to seduce them, and thereby to lose the whole human race! That’s not credible. What! He intended, by a special favor of His Providence, to keep the King of Gerar from offending Him and succumbing to a slight misstep with a foreign woman, which misstep would have had no ill consequence, and meanwhile He refused to use this same Providence to keep Adam and Eve from offending Him, and succumbing to the sin of disobedience, which sin was, according to our Christ-cultists, fated to be so dire, and which led to, as they say, and caused the loss of all humanity! That is not credible. It is said in one of these so-called holy and divine books that God led him guides the righteous in the right paths, and by right paths, and that He shows him the Kingdom of God that He gives him the knowledge of the saints[160]: justum deduxit Deus per vias rectas et ostendit illi Regnum Dei et dedit illi scientiam sanctorum, honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius. But which righteous person needed to be guided by the right paths, more than these first people, whom He would, according to our Christ-cultists, created in justice? It surely would have been these first righteous people whom He should have led by the right paths, and to whom He should have shown the Kingdom of Heaven, and given them the wisdom of the saints, since the entire happiness or misery of humanity depended on their conduct, for better or worse. But God didn’t do this, since these first men fell so rapidly into sin.

  What, again! A supreme goodness, a supreme wisdom, an infinitely just and perfect God wanted to severely punish the Bethsamites and the innocent people in the time of David for trifling faults, or even for things they didn’t do, while consciously leaving unpunished so many abominable crimes and so much wickedness as was committed in those days, and still is today, throughout the world! It’s just not credible. What? Should a supreme goodness, a supreme wisdom, an infinitely just and perfect God choose a specific to sanctify it, protect it, and put its omnipotence to work specifically in its favor, while at the same time omitting to give it the spirit of Kindness, the spirit of Understanding and Wisdom to be able to act well and control itself properly, or even to sufficiently recognize the grace and favors of its benefactor-God! This is not credible. What? So, a God engraved the commandments of the Law, with His own finger, on stone tablets, but He didn’t think to engrave them internally on the hearts or minds of his peoples, so that their observance would come from pleasure and love, even though He had chosen these peoples to sanctify them and lavish graces and blessings on them! This is not credible. Finally, a supreme Kindness, a supreme Wisdom, an infinitely perfect God, wanted to harden the hearts and blind the minds of Kings and many important people, as they say, just to have occasion to lay waste to them and destroy them in favor of the miserable little nation of Israel! This is
not credible. Where would Kindness be? Or wisdom? And where is the Justice of an infinitely perfect Being here?

  Let’s come to the miracles claimed in the New Testament. They consist, as it’s said, principally in that Jesus Christ and his Apostles miraculously and divinely healed all sorts of maladies and infirmities, and that, for example, they gave, as they pleased, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to mutes; that they made the lame walk, that they healed paralytics, that they cast out demons from the bodies of the possessed, and that they resurrected the dead. Many such miracles appear in the so-called holy Gospels. But we see many more and even a number of other types of miraculous works in the books that our Christ-cultists have made for the admirable lives of their Saints. For we see in these beautiful books, if we believe them, a near-infinity of things that are miraculous and divine in all sorts of ways. They relate how they constantly healed all sorts of maladies and infirmities and cast out demons, and all this, in the mere name of Jesus, or by the mere sign of the cross. They commanded, as it were, the elements, which obeyed they voices, they only had to speak for it to happen. God favored them so highly with this supreme power that He even guaranteed it to them after their deaths, favorably restoring health to those who went or came piously to honor their tombs, their bones, and their ashes. Even better, if you believe everything said of them in their books, this power of performing miracles extends to the least of their garments, and even to the shadows of their bodies, and even the shameful instruments of their deaths and suffering. For it is said of the apostle St. Peter, for example[161], that the sick were brought to him in the streets, so that when Peter passed by, his shadow would at least cover some of them and they would be healed. They say that many miracles were produced by the chains which once shackled this same apostle in the prison in Jerusalem. And what isn’t said of the wood of the cross of Jesus Christ! It’s said that this cross was miraculously rediscovered 300 years after his death, and that it was recognized among other crosses where thieves had been crucified with him, through various miracles, including the resurrection of certain dead people, when they were made to touch it. It’s said that the wood of this cross, called the true cross par excellence, has been piously preserved, that portions of it are given, as precious relics, to all the pilgrims who go to honor him in Jerusalem; but that notwithstanding this fact, the supply of it never runs out, but instead, it always remains intact, as if nothing had ever been taken from it[162] which is, our Christ-cultists say, quite miraculous, since so many pieces of this supposedly true cross can be found throughout the world that if they were reassembled, there would be enough wood to make many large crosses. It’s said that the stocking of St. Honoré raised a dead man on January 6, that the staffs of St. Peter, St. James, and that of St. Bernard performed miracles. The same is said of the rope of St. Francis, the staff of St. John of God, and the waistband of St. Melanie. It is said that St. Gratiliano was divinely informed about what he should believe and teach, and that, through the merits and power of his prayer, he moved a mountain which had kept him from building a church. St. Homobonus is said to have changed water into wine, and that the doors of the church would often open by themselves at his approach. The tomb of St. Andrew is said to have produced a constant drip of a liquid which healed all sorts of illnesses; that the soul of St. Benedict was seen rising to heaven wearing with a sumptuous cloak, surrounded by burning lamps; that when St. Christopher stuck his staff into the ground, it immediately turned green and blossomed like a tree; that when the Pope St. Clement, was cast into the Sea with an anchor attached to his neck, collar, his life ended, but that angels built him a chapel at the bottom of the sea. When St. John of Damascus’s fish was cut off, it was miraculously restored to him the following night, while he was asleep, and it was replaced so perfectly that there was no trace of what had happened. St. Dominic said that God never refused him anything he asked for. It’s said that Saints Fercolas or Ferunins continued speaking even after their tongues had been cut out; that St. Francis commanded the swallows and swans and other birds, and that they obeyed him, and that often the fish, the rabbits and hares would come to sit in his hands and on his lap. Or that the body of St. Edith was found intact 100 years after her death. Or that that of St. Teresa is still perfectly preserved; that it’s dressed and undressed as if it were living and that it could even stand up with a little support. The same is said of the body of Rose of Viterbo. It’s said that whoever drank the water where St. Godelina was drowned, was healed of their diseases; that while St. Hedunige was praying before a crucifix, the crucifix raised its hand and gave her its blessing as a sign of assurance that her prayer would be answered. Once, when the Angelic Doctor Saint Thomas of Aquinas was praying in Naples before a crucifix, this crucifix spoke to him several times, telling that what he had written about it was right. Bene scripsisti de me Thoma. That St. Ildefonsus, Archbishop of Toledo, miraculously received a beautiful white chasuble from Heaven, which the Virgin Mary gave him for his upholding the opinion of her virginity. That St. Antonin similarly received a fine cap from Heaven. It is said that St. Lawrence and several other saints healed the blind and other people by tracing the sign of the cross on them. Or that after St. Lucian was beheaded, his body stood and carried the head more than a half-league near to Beauvais, and that his body was miraculously found later on. It’s said that the image of Our Lady of Liesse was made through a miracle and sent from Heaven by angels. That St. Melon resurrected an animal from a herd that had been killed by the negligence of a servant, that he changed water into wine, and a stone into bread. That when St. Paul and St. Pantaleon were decapitated, milk came out instead of blood. It’s possible to read in the life of blessed Peter of Luxembourg that, in the two first years after his death, 1388, 1389, he performed 2 thousand 400 miracles, among which were 42 resurrections, not counting above 3000 other miracles which he’d performed since then. It’s said that when the 50 philosophers who had been converted by St. Catherine were thrown onto a bonfire, their bodies were found intact afterwards, without a single hair being burned, -- that the body of said St. Catherine was taken away by angels after her death and buried by them on mount Sinai, -- that after St. Quentin’s head was cut off, his body was thrown on one bank of the Somme river, and his head on the other, which, after 50 years were miraculously rediscovered, and that his head united of its own accord with his body, -- that St. Regina’s head was cut off, her soul was brought to heaven by angels in the sight of all, and that a dove set a lavish crown on her head, -- that St. Vincent Ferrier raised a dead person, who had been hacked in pieces, and a part of the body was half roasted and have cooked, that his cloak had the power to drive out devils and heal various diseases, -- that the baskets made by St. Julian, the Bishop of Le Mans, also healed the diseases of some of those who carried them, -- that St. Yves, while on his way to preach, and the bridge of a river he was using, broke, he made the sign of the cross on the waters, which suddenly divided and reunited after he had passed, -- that when some aged men had honorably buried the body of St. Julian de Brioude, they suddenly regained their forces and youthful vigor, -- that on the day of the canonization of St. Anthony of Padua, all the bells in the city of Lisbon rang by themselves, without anyone knowing where it was coming from, -- that this Saint, having gone one day to the banks of the sea and having called to the fish to preach to them, they assembled in a crowd before him, and that, sticking their heads above the water, they listened attentively to him. It’s also written that the day of the translation of St. Isidore, at the moment when they began removing the earth that covered him, all the bells of the city of Madrid rang by themselves; the same thing also happened, it’s said, the death of St. Eleazar and of St. Annemund, and the ringing continued until their burials were over. At the trial of the canonization of St. Hyacinth, there were nearly a thousand miracles performed on people, who were said to have received health by the intercession of this Saint, being struck by various grievous ailments, such as headaches, problems of the ey
es, jaw, throat, and teeth, as well as fevers, stomach troubles, epilepsy, etc., in sum, there was no kind of ailment for which this Saint didn’t have amazing cure; he also resurrected many, both during and after his life; the animals also, they say, felt his intercession; finally, say our Christ-cultists, it would seem that God had made him the Lord over health and illness, life and death, since he obtained them so readily by his prayers. He passed, it’s said, over waters like over land; and what’s even more particular, that, having one day crossed the river Ceristhenes, the remnants of his footprints were visible on the surface waters in the path from one bank of the river to the other, where he had walked. It’s also said that an image of the Virgin spoke to him. See his life on the 16th of April. It’s said that St. Francis performed a near-infinity of miracles during his life and after his death; he drove, it’s said, many devils from the bodies of the possessed, he gave sight to the blind, he healed the lame and afflicted, he resurrected the dead, he gave children to barren women, the bread blessed by this Saint, the pieces and bits of his patched clothes, the rope he used as a belt, the water with which he washed his feet and his hands, in brief, whatever he touched, served as cures for diseases and adversity, and rest from labor; he spoke familiarly to animals just like people, he equally called them his brothers and sisters, such as the ewe and the cicada that he called his sisters, which obeyed everything he told them to do; and his brothers the birds, to which he preached as if they understood what he was saying to them. The body of this Saint, it’s said, is still standing without any support, with its eyes open like it’s alive, turned slightly upwards, towards Heaven. It’s also said that his body is holy and intact, without any corruption, beautiful and rosy, as if it were still alive. It's also said that God favored St. Francis de Paul so abundantly that he seemed to be the Lord of all creatures, which were completely obedient to him: fire, air, water, and earth, death, animals, men, and devils were subject to the will of this saintly person, for he delivered many from the demons that possessed them, gave sight to the blind, made the mute speak, healed incurable diseases, resurrected the dead, and even the elements obeyed him; fire lost its power against him, walking above and holding it in his hands without being burned. He entered, it’s said, a burning furnace and put out its flames, which didn’t dare touch him; he crossed the sea of Calabria to Sicily, with his companion, riding on his clothes which he had stretched upon the waters as a safe raft, and in addition to all this, he also had the gift of prophecy, and an infinity of other similar miracles, which would take too long to share here. Truly, there is nothing so vain or trivial, or even so ridiculous, when it comes to what the authors of these lives of the saints find pleasure in piling miracles upon miracles, as skilled forgers of these lies as they are.