A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  Note how a judicious author handles these writers and their pious and fabulous histories of the lives of their saints; and his authority must not be questioned by our Christ-cultists, since he himself belonged to their supposedly holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion. This is what he says in his book Apologie des Grands Hommes[163]:

  All the historians, with the exception of those who are perfect heretics, never represent pure things to us, but they bend them and rework them according to the face they want them to have, and to support their judgment and make it attractive to others, consciously adding to the material, lengthening and amplifying it, biasing it and disguising it as they see fit. Experience teaches us that nearly all the histories for the past 7 or 800 years (the same goes, even more so, for the older ones) are so large and swollen with lies, that it seems that their custodians must have fought over who would win the trophy for inventing the most. It’s clear that all our old Romans found their origin in the illusions of the Bishop Turpin, the salvation of Trajan, of a John the Levite, and the opinion that Virgil was a Magician, at least Helivandus. ...The exceeding ease or lightness in believing all things and all manner of lies has led to the composition of many fabulous histories, which come in quick succession: for the stupidity, along with the folly of men, has gone to such an exceptional point, according St. Agobard, Bishop of Lyon in 833, that there is now nothing so absurd or ridiculous that the Christians won’t believe it more easily than the Pagans ever did, amid all the errors of Idolatry. All of which histories were followed by the Romans, who began immediately under the reign of Louis the Debonnaire and were so widely multiplied in the ignorance of the age, that they let themselves be easily charmed by all those prodigious falsehoods, that all those who meddled in historiography in those times, also sought, to make it more pleasant, to insert plenty of similar narrations; as was so pertinently noted by a certain Doctor in Theology, who frankly confesses that it was the usual intention of the authors of those times to believe that they hadn’t written in a scholarly fashion, or eloquently enough, if they had failed to mix in many poetic fictions with their works. ...It’s an oddity that Delrio, le Loye, Bodin, de Lavere, and Goderman, who were once and still are men of credit and merit, should have written with so little circumspection and so much passion about demons, sorcerers, and magicians, having never rejected any story, no matter how fabulous or ridiculous, of the great number of false and absurd ones which they’ve included pell-mell and without distinction alongside the true and legitimate ones, since, as St. Augustine notes, mixture with lies tends to falsify the truth, and that, as St. Jerome puts it, liars are not believed, even when they tell the truth. Witness the shepherd of Aesop, who had cried wolf inappropriately so often that he was neither believed nor helped by anyone when this animal was tearing his flock to pieces: in the same way, it can be said that all the ridiculous stories, all the tales woven whole-cloth, and all the obvious falsehoods that these authors so readily allow into their books, infallibly do them harm, and worse still, to the contempt of the truth on the subject they handle, when some curious mind has a whim to examine them more diligently and circumspectly than their authors cared to do. Just as we’ve seen in the past century that the Heretics used our own weapons and stories from the Golden Legend, and the lives of the saints, the apparitions of Tundalus, the sermons of Maillard, Menot, and Bodette and other similar pieces written with no less by way of superstition than simple-mindedness, to confirm themselves in their opinion of the nullity and falseness of our miracles[164].

  20. THE CONFIRMITY OF THE SUPPOSED MIRACLES OF CHRISTIANITY WITH THE SUPPOSED MIRACLES OF PAGANISM.

  It’s not without good reason, really, that they see them as falsehoods and lies, for it is easy to see that these supposed miracles were only invented in imitation of the fables and fictions of the pagan poets; which is evident from their similarities. If our Christ-cultists say that God truly gave power to his saints to do all the miracles which are reported in their biographies, the pagans also say that the daughters of Anius, the high priest of Apollo, actually received from the God Bacchus the gift and power to change all that they wanted into wheat, wine, oil, etc. Similarly, they say, Jupiter actually gave to the nymphs who educated him a horn from the goat which nursed him in his infancy, which held the power to provide them abundantly with everything they asked for. Are these not fine miracles? If our Christ-cultists say that their saints had divine revelations, the pagans said first that Athalides, the son of Mercury, had obtained from his father the gift of being able to live, die, and return to life as he pleased, and that he also had a knowledge of everything that happened in this world and the other one; similarly, they had said that Aesculapius, son of Apollo, resurrected the dead, and that, among others, he resurrected Hippolytus, son of Theseus, in answer to the pleas of Diana, and that Hercules also resurrected Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, king of Thessaly, to return her to her husband. If our Christ-cultists say that their Christ was born miraculously of a virgin, without any carnal knowledge, the pagans had already said that Remus and Romulus, the first founders of the city of Rome, were miraculously born of a vestal virgin named Ilia, Sylvia, or Rea Sylvia. They had already said that Mars, Arge, Vulcan, and others had been born to the goddess Juno, without carnal knowledge, and that Minerva, the goddess of the sciences, had been conceived in the head of Jupiter, and that she sprang out fully armed when this God hit his own head. If our Christ-cultists say that their saints made springs burst forth from stones, the pagans had already said that Minerva made a fountain of oil burst forth, as a reward for a temple which had been dedicated to her. If our Christ-cultists boast of having miraculously received images from heaven, for example that of Notre-Dame de Lorrette and of Liesse, and that they miraculously received many other gifts from heaven, such as the one claimed by St. Ampoule of Rheims, or the white tunic which St. Ildefonso is said to have received from the Virgin Mary and other such things, the pagans bragged before them of having received from a sacred shield from Heaven as a sign of the preservation of their city Rome, and the Trojans also boasted of having miraculously received from Heaven their Palladium, or their simulacra of Pallas, who came personally, they say, to take her place in the Temple which had been built in honor of this goddess. If our Christ-cultists say that their Jesus Christ was seen by his Apostles rising gloriously up to Heaven, and that many souls of their supposed saints were seen transported gloriously to heaven by angels, the pagan Romans said before them that Romulus, their founder, was seen in glory after his death. Similarly, they say that Ganymedes, the son of Tros, king of the Trojans, was transported to heaven by Jupiter to serve him as Echanson, they even say that the hair of Berenice, having been consecrated to the temple of Venus, was soon after transported up to Heaven; they say the same thing of Cassiopeia, of Andromeda, and even of the ass Silene. If our Christ-cultists say that many bodies of their saints have been miraculously preserved from decay after their death, and that they have been miraculously found by divine revelations, after having been long lost, without any knowledge where they might be; the pagans say the same thing of the body of Orestes, who was miraculously, they say, found on basis of the oracle’s information. If our Christ-cultists say that the 7 sleeping brothers slept miraculously for 177 years, that they were closed up in a cavern, the pagans say that Epimenides the prophet slept for 57 years in a cavern where he had fallen asleep. If our Christ-cultists say that many of their saints also spoke miraculously after having had their tongues or heads removed, the pagans also say that the head of Gabienus sang a long poem, after being separated from his body. If our Christ-cultists glory in the fact that their temples and churches are adorned with many scenes and rich presents, which show the miraculous healings which have been done by the intercession of their Saints, we can also see, or rather, we could once have seen in the temple of Aesculapius many depictions of the miraculous remedies and healings which he performed. If our Christ-cultists say that many of their saints have been miraculously preserved
in burning flames, without receiving any harm in either their bodies or clothes, the pagans said that the devotees of temple of Diana walked on burning coals, barefoot, without being burned, and without any injury to their feet; they also say the same thing of the priests of the goddess Feronia and the Hirpi, who walk barefoot without being burned on burning coals of bonfires, in honor of Apollo. If angels, as our Christ-cultists say, built a chapel to St. Clement at the bottom of the sea, the pagans also say that the little house of Baucis and Philemon was miraculously changed into a majestic temple as a reward for their piety. If our Christ-cultists boast of having their saints for protectors and that many of them, for example, that St. James, St. Maurice, and others have often appeared amid their armies, mounted and wonderfully equipped to fight on their behalf against their enemies, the pagans also say that Castor and Pollux have appeared many times, in battle, to fight for the Romans against their enemies. If our Christ-cultists say that a ram was miraculously found, to be offered as a sacrifice in Isaac’s place, when his father Abraham intended to sacrifice him, the pagans also say that the goddess Vesta miraculously sent a heifer to be sacrificed instead of Metella, the daughter of Metellus: they similarly say that the goddess Diana miraculously sent a doe in Iphigenia’s place, when she was on the pyre to be burned, by which means Iphigenia was miraculously spared. If our Christ-cultists say that St. Joseph fled into Egypt on the warning he received from an angel from heaven, the pagans say that Simonides the poet, was spared many grave perils because of the miraculous warnings that were sent to him. If Moses made a spring of white water burst from a boulder by striking it with his staff, the pagans say that the horse Pegasus did the same thing when, by striking a boulder with its foot, it caused a spring to burst out. If our Christ-cultists say that St. Vincent Ferrier resurrected a dead man who had been hacked to pieces, and parts of whose body had been roasted and cooked; the pagans also say that Pelops the son of Tantalus, king of Phrygia, having been dismembered by his father, as food for the gods, and having recognized this barbaric cruelty of a father towards his son, collected his body parts, gathered them, and brought him back to life. If our Christ-cultists say that many of their crucifixes and some of their other images have miraculously spoken and made responses; the pagans also say that their oracles have divinely spoken and that they have given responses to those who asked them for advice. They also say that the head of Orpheus and that of Polycrates performed miracles after their deaths. If God revealed by a voice from heaven that Jesus Christ was his son, as the Evangelists claimed, the pagans also said that Vulcan showed, by the apparition of a miraculous flame, that Coeculus was truly his son. If our Christ-cultists say that God has sometimes miraculously fed some of these saints, similarly the pagan poets say that Triptolemus was miraculously fed by a divine milk by Ceres, who also gave him a chariot to which 2 dragons were harnessed. Similarly, they say that Pheceus, the son of Mercury, having come from the belly of his mother already dead, was nevertheless miraculously fed by her milk. If our Christ-cultists say that many of their saints have miraculously softened the cruelty and ferocity of the cruelest and most ferocious beasts, the pagans also say that Orpheus won over, by the sweetness of his singing and the harmony of his instruments, lions, bears, and tigers, softening the ferocity of their nature by the sweetness of harmony; they also say that he charmed stones, trees, and even that rivers would stop midstream to hear him sing. But, to keep things brief, skipping over many similar examples which could be shared here, if our Christ-cultists say that the walls of the city of Jericho fell miraculously to earth by the sound of trumpets, the pagans also say that the walls of the city of Thebes were built by the sound of Amphion’s musical instruments: the stones, say the poets, working by themselves, built these walls, moved by the sweetness of its harmony, which would be even more miraculous and far more amazing than to simply see walls falling down.