by Jean Meslier
It seems that it was this great Mirmadolin, this chosen vessel of Jesus Christ, called St. Paul, who discovered the first invention of such fine spiritual and mystical senses; for, seeing on one hand, that those things which he believed should happen, according to these supposedly divine promises and prophecies, hadn’t happened, and that the time for their fulfilment had come and gone, without any indication that they truly would take place, as he believed; and on the other hand, refusing to recognize or sincerely confess his error on this point, fearing, no doubt, the shame of looking like a dupe, he decided, to hide his error, to set aside the literal sense, the proper and natural sense of these promises and prophecies, in favor of a new sense, which nobody expected and which nobody had yet dreamed of, that is, of interpreting these promises and prophecies spiritually, allegorically, and mystically, to this effect saying that all that had been said and all that was done and that occurred or was practiced in the law of Moses was all a type of what should be fulfilled and occur in Christianity.
This is how he explains himself in his first letter to the Corinthians[408]: “My brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant that our fathers walked under the cloud and that all of them passed through the sea, that all of them ate the same spiritual meat, and that they all drank the same spiritual drink. For they all drank,” he said, “of the spiritual stone that followed them, and this stone,” he said, “was Jesus Christ.” Petra autem erat Christus. “But” he continues, “many of them were not acceptable to God, since He put them to death in the desert, yet these things,” he continues, “have served us as types and instructions, lest we follow, like them, our unruly desires, and lest we fall, like some of them, into idolatry, as it is written, that the people sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance, and lest we commit fornication, as some of them did, which occasioned the death of 23 thousand of them in a single day, lest we put Jesus Christ to the test, like some of them, who, having tested him, perished by the serpents, and to keep you from murmuring, as did some of them, who were exterminated by the Angel. For all these things happened to them,” he said, “as a prefiguration of what was to happen among us, who find ourselves at the end of the ages, and they were written for our instruction.” And in his letter to the Galatians[409], this is how he addresses this topic:
Tell me, you who would still submit to the law, have you not read what is written in the law: Abraham had two sons, one a servant and one from a free woman, but the son of the servant, it says, was born after the flesh, and the son of the free woman was born according to the promise, which is said by allegory, for these two mothers are the two covenants, i.e., the two wills, one of which was made on Mount Sinai, and produces only slaves, which is represented by Hagar, the servant. For Sinai is a mountain of Arabia, which is related to the Jerusalem we now see, and which is in bondage with its children. But the Jerusalem which is above is free, and she is our mother, and of her it is written: Rejoice, you who are barren and has no children, raise your voice and give cries of and joy, you who never gave birth, for she who was abandoned, has more children than she who has a husband. But as for us, my brothers, we are like Isaac, the children of the promise, and as in that time, he who was born according to the flesh, persecuted he who was born according to the spirit, the same thing is now seen: but as it is written, drive out the servant and her son, for the son of the servant will not be the heir with the son of the free woman. But, my brothers, we are not the children of the servant, but of the free woman, which is Jesus Christ, who set us free, since God sent His son in the fullness of times, to be the Redeemer of those who were under the law, and for the adoption of children would be fulfilled in us.
In this same sense, he says in his Epistle to the Romans[410], that all those who are descended from Israel are not necessarily true Israelites, nor are all those who are born of Abraham his true children, because, they say, we should only consider his posterity through Isaac, that is, that they are not children of the flesh who are the true Israelites and the true children of God, but that they are the children of the promise, like those of Isaac, who boast of being the true children of Abraham, and consequently the heirs of the promises to whom it belongs, as he says, the adoption of the children of God, the glory, the covenant, the law, the worship of God, and the promises which, he believes must be fulfilled, not literally, but spiritually in Jesus Christ. That’s why he says, in his Epistle to the Galatians[411], that “Jesus Christ delivered us from the curse of the law, that the blessing promised to Abraham was fulfilled in the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, and that by faith we receive the Spirit, which had been promised to us. But God,” he said, “made these promises to Abraham and to his son Isaac. He did not tell him,” he said, “‘to your sons’, as if He were speaking of many, but ‘to your son’, as if speaking to only one, who is Jesus Christ,” he says, “such that the law, which was given 400 years after these promises, has served us,” he says, as a Tutor to lead us to Jesus Christ, so that we might be justified by faith, and after faith had come, we are no longer,” he said, “under the Tutor, for you are all children of God, by faith in Jesus Christ. Thus,” he continues, “there are no longer Jews, nor Greeks, neither free, nor slaves neither men nor women; but you are all one in Jesus Christ. You are, therefore,” he told them, “the children of Abraham and consequently the heirs according to the promise”: which promise should, however, according to him, only be fulfilled spiritually, in Jesus Christ. This is why he said, in his Epistle to the Ephesians[412], that God has blessed us in Jesus Christ with all the spiritual blessings of the heavens, and that Jesus Christ has won for us the remission from our punishments by the spiritual riches of his grace, and whom, he says in his Epistle[413] to the Colossians, “all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are contained. Let none then,” he told them, “condemn you concerning drinking and eating, or days and festivals, or new moons or Sabbath days, which were only the shadow of things to come, and of which Jesus Christ is the body. If, then,” he adds, “you are resurrected with Jesus Christ, seek those things which are above, where Jesus Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Love[414],” he told them, “that which is of heaven, and not that which is on earth,” meaning, by these words and this interpretation of the law and the promises, that they should not be concerned only with the carnal and temporal goods of the earth, and that they should not attach their hearts and affection to such things; but that they should principally desire and seek heavenly things, as the only goods which had been promised to them by the law and by those promises, in the figurative form of the carnal and temporal goods of this life.
And to get a better reception for this new interpretation of the law and the prophets, and even wanting to have his teaching and all he said on this subject be received as a supernatural and divine wisdom, this is what he said in his first Epistle to the Corinthians[415]:
We preach wisdom, not the wisdom of this world, or that of the princes of the world who perish, but we preach the divine wisdom, which is hidden in His mystery, and which He predestined before the ages for us, to raise us to glory. Wisdom which has been known to no prince on Earth, but which God has revealed to us by His spirit, since nothing is so deep but what can be sounded out by His spirit, even the deepest secrets of God. The carnal man does not understand the secrets of God[416], it is unable to comprehend them, since it is only by the spirit of God that they are discerned.
This is also why he says that the letter kills, but the spirit vivifies, meaning that the literal interpretation of the law and the promises is self-refuting, and that it confounds those who pursue it; but that the spiritual interpretation, which he gave to them, was the true sense, in which they should be understood. And as if those to whom he preached such a fine and subtle doctrine, were to provide him in return, with an abundance of all his food and board: “You’re shocked,” he said, “if we take of your temporal goods, after having planted spiritual goods among you?” Si vobis spiritualia seminavimus magnum est si carnalia vestra metamus?
Thus, according to the wonderful doctrine of this Doctor to the Gentiles, the two wives of Abraham and his two sons spiritually represent two mysteries. The servant symbolized God’s Covenant with the Synagogue, which was only a servant, and who begot, as this Apostle puts it, only slaves, while the wife represented God’s Covenant with the Christian Church, which is the free one, and the wife of Jesus Christ, according to what the same Apostle says. Similarly, the son of the slave, who was born according to the flesh, represented the Old Testament, which was only for the carnal Jews, represented by the son of the slave-girl; but the son of the free-woman, who was born according to God’s promise, symbolized the New Testament, which is for the Christians, who are the real children, represented by Isaac, who was born according to the promise. As proof of which, says the Apostle, (note this well) is the fact that Sinai, where the ancient law was given, is a mountain in Arabia, which is connected to that which is now the earthly Jerusalem, which is a slave with all its children, whereas the higher Jerusalem, which he calls our mother, is the one who is free, and begets children according to the promise. So, following the doctrine of this Apostle, the earthly Jerusalem would not be the Holy City, or the city chosen and beloved by God, as the scriptures say, but these statements only refer to the higher Jerusalem, as this Apostle says, or the heavenly Jerusalem.
Similarly, according to the doctrine of this Apostle, the true Israelites would not be those who are actually Israelites by fleshly birth, but only those, who would be so according to the spirit of the faith of the ancient Patriarchs. According to the Doctrine of this Apostle, the promise of giving them a powerful Redeemer, who would deliver them from captivity to all their enemies, does not mean a Redeemer, who would be powerful in a worldly sense, or even a physical deliverance from visible enemies, from men, but only a Redeemer who would be powerful according to God, and a spiritual deliverance from invisible enemies, who are the devil, vice, and sin. And finally, according to the Doctrine of this Apostle, the promise to bring them gloriously and triumphantly back into the possession of their lands and countries, where they would always enjoy the happiness and bliss, in an abundance of all goods, does not mean any glorious and triumphal return that they would ever have in Judea and Palestine, where they would remain, or the enjoyment of the temporal goods of this life; but rather, a spiritual enjoyment of celestial and eternal blessings, which the righteous should, according to this fine doctrine, enjoy eternally in Heaven, and where Jesus Christ, their Savior and Redeemer, will lead them gloriously and triumphantly, after they have generously defeated the Demon, the vices, and the passions, who would be the greatest enemies of their salvation, all of which things, as well as many others like them, which it would take too long to relate, were symbolized for us, divinely and mysteriously, in all that happened and occurred in this ancient law, and all that, based on this fine argument, that Sinai, where the old law was given, is an Arabian mountain, which is connected to the one which is now the earthly Jerusalem, which is a slave with all its children, and on the pretext that Abraham had two wives, the one who was a servant represented the synagogue, and one who was married, represented the Christian Church; and on the pretext, again, that Abraham had two sons, one of whom was by the slave, represented the Old Testament and the other, who he had by his wife, represented the New Testament. Who can help but laugh at such a vain, stupid, and ridiculous doctrine as that? Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici?[417]
If, according to this fine way of interpreting allegorically, figuratively, and mysteriously all that was said, all that is done, and all that is practiced in this ancient Jewish law, if someone wanted to interpret allegorically and figuratively all the words, deeds, and adventures of the famous Don Quixote de la Mancha, they would certainly find as many mysteries and mysterious prefigurations as they went looking for; they could forge as many allegories as they liked, and would even find a wholly supernatural and divine wisdom there, no less than what is done in this ancient law; but you would have to be wonderfully simple-minded, and miraculously gullible to piously trust such vain interpretations, such empty promises. However, the entire Christian religion rests on this vain and ridiculous foundation, and all the mysteries, all the doctrine, and all the fine hopes of our Christ-cultists for an eternity of bliss in Heaven are based on these vain and ridiculous spiritual and allegorical interpretations of their Holy Scriptures. Therefore, there is almost nothing in all this old law which their doctors don’t try to explain mystically and figuratively by something that happens in their own; they find and see nearly everywhere, like visionaries do, symbols of their Christ and of what he was and what he did; they find prefigurations, and they see it in many people of this Old Testament, such as Abel, Isaac, Joshua, David, Solomon, and many others, for they claim that all these men were only types of their Christ; they also see types of him in animals and beasts, for they find it in the paschal lamb, the lion of the tribe of Judah, and even in the goats mentioned in the 16th chapter of Leviticus.
Finally, they find it and see it even in inanimate things, such as the boulder that Moses struck with his rod, in the mountain where God spoke to Moses, and in the brass serpent that the same Moses set up in the desert: for they claim that all these things and many others like them, which I will omit here, prefigured their Christ; and thus, according to this fine manner of speaking and interpreting allegorically all that occurred in this ancient law, they find that everything was a representation of their mysteries.
The deliverance of the Jews from captivity in Egypt, and their passage from the Red Sea were, according to the Fathers of the Church and the Christ-cultist Doctors, an excellent prefiguration of the deliverance of mankind from the captivity of the devil and sin, by the waters of Baptism. The Egyptians, who were submerged and drowned in the waters of the Sea, in pursuit of the Israelites, are a symbol that the unruly passions, the lusts and evil desires of Christians should be submerged and drowned in the waters of penitence.
The passage of the Jews through the Red Sea, and the cloud which covered them, was a prefiguration of baptism and the new law. The manna they ate in the desert prefigured the Eucharist. The water that Moses brought from the stone he struck, was a figure of Jesus Christ himself, and those who were punished in the desert prefigured the punishment that God will lay upon the bad Christians.
The birth or the advent of Jesus Christ has been portrayed, say the same Church Fathers, by the seed of the woman Eve, which would crush the serpent’s head. The blessings promised by God to Abraham and his whole posterity, which was to be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea, were a figure of spiritual blessings that Jesus Christ would bring to men, and a prefiguration of the great number of the faithful, who would unite under the law. See the Epistle to the Galatians, shared above.
Abel, say these same Holy Fathers, was a figure of Jesus Christ, and his death prefigures the death of Jesus Christ, and Cain, who killed his brother Abel, prefigured the Jews, who killed Jesus Christ. Isaac, offered in sacrifice, was, they say, a figure of Jesus Christ, sacrificed on the cross. The wood which the same Isaac carried for his sacrifice, when he walked with his father to be sacrificed, prefigured Jesus Christ carrying his cross. The covenant that God made with Abraham and his son Isaac was a figure of God’s covenant with men, through his son Jesus Christ, and the two sons of Abraham, namely Ishmael, born of Hagar, his maid, and Isaac, born of Sarah, his wife, symbolized, as I’ve already said, the two Testaments: The Old one being prefigured by Ishmael, the maid’s child, and the New one, prefigured by Isaac, the son of his spouse. The children Abraham had by his concubines represented, says St. Augustine, the carnal men of the New Testament, while the presents that Abraham gave them before dying prefigured, says Augustine again, the natural gifts and the temporal advantages that God gives in this world to carnal men, heretics, and infidels. But, by making his son Isaac the heir of everything, this prefigures, he says, the fact that the true Christians, who are the beloved children of God,
would be the heirs of His grace, His friendship, and eternal life.
The oath Abraham made his servant swear, while touching his leg, when he sent him to look for a wife for his son Isaac, prefigured, says St. Augustine, the fact that Jesus Christ was to be born of his flesh, and, as it were, descend from this leg, which he made him touch. This is why, figuratively using all the details of this mission, he says that Abraham prefigured the Eternal Father, and Isaac, his son, represented the son of God, Rebekah, who was to be the wife of Isaac, represented the Church of Jesus Christ, while the servant, who found Rebecca at the fountain, represented the Apostles of Jesus Christ, who make the covenant between the Church and its Head, which is the same Jesus Christ, while the fountain, where the encounter occurred between the servant and Rebekah, prefigured the waters of baptism, where the spiritual covenant begins, which is contracted with Jesus Christ, in baptism. The jewels, which the servant gave to Rebekah, represent the obedience and good works of the faithful, while Laban, the brother of Rebecca, who received the servant, and fed him, as well as giving his beasts straw and hay[418], represented those who donate a portion of their worldly goods, to feed the preachers of the Gospel, and finally, Isaac, leaving home to meet his mistress, represented the son of God, leaving the Heavens, as it were, to come into the world. These are certainly pretty imaginations. Is it possible that a doctor, such a famous doctor as that one, was indeed amused to utter such nonsense! But that's not all.
The collision of the children in Rebekah's womb, before she gave birth, prefigured, says the same Dr. Augustine, the collision, i.e., the misunderstandings, debates, and disputes, which occur between the good and the wicked, in Rebekah's womb, that is, in the bosom of the Church, which is their common mother[419]. The two male children that came from her belly[420] prefigured, says God Himself, two peoples, who were to be born and who would be divided, and according to what is said, that the greater would serve the lesser, this prefigures the way the wicked, who are more numerous and stronger, would serve the good and the elect, who are weaker and fewer; but how should the wicked, who are more numerous and stronger, serve the good who are weaker and fewer? It seems, instead, that they rise above them and oppress them. “It’s because”, says St. Augustine, “the wicked give exercise to the virtue and patience of the righteous, and they often give them the chance to deserve much and to make great progress in virtue.”[421]
