It was 1716...
...and the
Enlightenment was just about in full effect.
Philosophes
all across Europe were flipping the institution and the
Old Regime the bird.
Nothing was sacred, except
Reason.
Anonymity was key for many authors, especially for those who challenged
such institutions as the church. The author of The Treatise of the Three
Imposters did just that. Who are these three imposters, you might ask? Ah, the
Pope, the King, and the Bishop(s)? No. Perhaps a
handful of local priests? Negatory my good buddy.
Yes, it's true. The author of this piercing
treatise sought to channel reason into the deepest depths of his peers and
challenge the most basic of their religious instincts.
The crazy thing is, the author claims the majority of the body of the text
was written in the year 1230 A.D. The author claims he has just rewritten the
original claims and modernized the arguments to parallel the reason of the
day. Here is a chapter listing:
Whoever wrote the text blames the "silly ideas of God" on the mass confusion
and panic of the day. He states that "the rage of false prophets and selfish
souls" brings about false ideas and misunderstanding. The author reveals himself
as a hard materialist and, of course, a skeptic. The author proposes that man
created God as an explanation for the unknown, for it is the nature of man to
answer questions regardless of the truth of the answer. Privations will fill
themselves, even if it is just filler. To the author, if God is anything, it is
all things. However, he says that Christian view of God is a kingly one who
wears a crown and resembles a man. He says this is unfounded and simply a
projection of man on the universe. Borrowing from Hobbes, the author states
that "fear which created Gods, made also Religion." He states that in an effort
to form a society, humans used these Gods as a pillar for the commonwealth,
knowing nothing better around which to rally.
He says of Moses,
"The ambitious, who have always been grand masters of the
art of trickery, have always followed this method in expounding their laws, and
to oblige the people to submit to them they have persuaded them that they had
received them either from a God or a Goddess." The author rejects Moses as an
imposter and
magician.
He says of Jesus,
"Considering that Moses was renowned because he commanded
an ignorant people, he undertook to build on a similar foundation, and his
followers were only some idiots whom he persuaded that the
Holy Spirit was his
Father, and his Mother a Virgin. After several years, his services being of no
value to the Egyptians, he returned to his own country, where, quite proud of
the miracles he knew how to perform, he proclaimed himself God." According to
the author, these policies "were the skillful and witty evasions of the
destroyer of the
ancient law and the founder of the new."
"Moses threw himself into an abyss by an excess of
ambition to cause himself to be believed
immortal." The author said Mohammed
knew how to control a crowd and tell the people what they wanted to hear.
Here is a chapter listing:
- OF GOD
- REASONS WHICH HAVE CAUSED MANKIND TO CREATE FOR THEMSELVES AN INVISIBLE
BEING WHICH HAS BEEN COMMONLY CALLED GOD - (What a classy title for a
chapter.)
- WHAT GOD IS
- WHAT THE WORD RELIGION SIGNIFIES, AND HOW AND WHY SUCH A GREAT NUMBER HAVE
BEEN INTRODUCED IN THE WORLD
- OF MOSES
- OF NUMA POMPILIUS
- OF JESUS CHRIST
- OF THE POLICY OF JESUS CHRIST
- OF THE MORALS OF JESUS CHRIST
- OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST
- OF MAHOMET
- SENSIBLE AND OBVIOUS TRUTHS
- OF THE SOUL
- OF SPIRITS WHICH ARE CALLED DEMONS