The Christian Apostolical Roman Religion teaches, and compels belief,
that there is but one God, and, at the same time, that there are three
Divine persons, each one being God. This is absurd; for if there are
three who are truly God, then there are three Gods. It is false, then,
to say that there is but one God; or if this is true, it is false to say
that there are really three who are God, for one and three can not be
claimed to be one and the same number. It is also said that the first of
these pretended Divine persons, called the Father, has brought forth the
second person, which is called the Son, and that these first two persons
together have produced the third, which is called the Holy Ghost, and,
nevertheless, these three pretended Divine persons do not depend the one
upon the other, and even that one is not older than the other. This,
too, is manifestly absurd; because one thing can not receive its
existence from another thing without some dependence on this other; and
a thing must necessarily exist in order to give birth to another. If,
then, the Second and the Third persons of Divinity have received their
existence from the First person, they must necessarily depend for their
existence on this First person, who gave them birth, or who begot them,
and it is necessary also that the First person of the Divinity, who gave
birth to the two other persons, should have existed before them; because
that which does not exist can not beget anything. Nevertheless, it is
repugnant as well as absurd to claim that anything could be begotten
or born without having had a beginning. Now, according to our
Christ-worshipers, the Second and Third persons of Divinity were
begotten and born; then they had a beginning, and the First person had
none, not being begotten by another; it therefore follows necessarily
that one existed before the other.
Our Christ-worshipers, who feel these absurdities and can not avoid them
by any good reasoning, have no other resource than to say that we must
ignore human reason and humbly adore these sublime mysteries without
wishing to understand them; but that which they call faith is refuted
when they tell us that we must submit; it is telling us that we must
blindly believe that which we do not believe. Our Christ-worshipers
condemn the blindness of the ancient Pagans, who worshiped several
Gods; they deride the genealogy of those Gods, their birth, their
marriages, and the generating of their children; yet they do not observe
that they themselves say things which are much more ridiculous and
absurd.
If the Pagans believed that there were Goddesses as well as Gods, that
these Gods and Goddesses married and begat children, they thought of
nothing, then, but what is natural; for they did not believe yet that
the Gods were without body or feeling; they believed they were similar
to men. Why should there not be females as well as males? It is not more
reasonable to deny or to recognize the one than the other; and supposing
there were Gods and Goddesses, why should they not beget children in the
ordinary way? There would be certainly nothing ridiculous or absurd in
this doctrine, if it were true that their Gods existed. But in the
doctrine of our Christ-worshipers there is something absolutely
ridiculous and absurd; for besides claiming that one God forms Three,
and that these Three form but One, they pretend that this Triple and
Unique God has neither body, form, nor face; that the First person of
this Triple and Unique God, whom they call the Father, begot of Himself
a Second person, which they call the Son, and which is the same as His
Father, being, like Him, without body, form, or face. If this is true,
why is it that the First one is called Father rather than mother, or the
Second called Son rather than daughter? For if the First one is really
father instead of mother, and if the Second is son instead of daughter,
there must be something in both of these two persons which causes the
one to be father rather than mother, and the other to be son rather than
daughter. Now who can assert that they are males and not females? But
how should they be rather males than females, as they have neither body,
form, nor face? That is not an imaginable thing, and destroys itself. No
matter, they claim chat these two Persons, without body, form, or face,
and, consequently, without difference of sex, are nevertheless Father
and Son, and that they produced by their mutual love a third person,
whom they called the Holy Ghost, who has, like the other two, no body,
no form, and no face. What abominable nonsense!
As our Christ-worshipers limit the power of God the Father to begetting
but one Son, why do they not desire that this Second person, and the
Third, should have the same power to beget a Son like themselves? If
this power to beget a son is perfection in the First person, it is,
then, a perfection and a power which does not exist in the Second and in
the Third person. Thus these two Persons, lacking a perfection and a
power which is found in the First one, they are consequently not equal
with Him. If, on the contrary, they say that this power to beget a son
is no perfection, they should not attribute it, then, to the First
person any more than to the other two; for we should attribute
perfections only to an absolutely perfect being. Besides, they would not
dare to say that the power to beget a Divine person is not a perfection;
and if they claim that this First person could have begotten several
sons and daughters, but that He desired but this only Son, and that the
two other persons did not desire to beget any others, we could ask them,
firstly, from whence they know this, for we do not see in their
pretended Holy Scriptures that any One of these Divine personages
reveals any such assertions; how, then, can our Christ-worshipers know
anything about it? They speak but according to their ideas and to their
hollow imaginations. Secondly, we could not avoid saying, that if these
pretended Divine personages had the power of begetting several children,
and did not wish to make use of it, the consequence would be that this
Divine power was ineffectual. It would be entirely without effect in the
Third person, who did not beget or produce any, and would be almost
without effect in the two others, because they limited it. Then this
power of begetting or producing an unlimited number of children would
remain idle and useless; it would be inconsistent to suppose this of
Divine Personages, One of whom had already produced a Son.
Our Christ-worshipers blame and condemn the Pagans because they
attribute Divinity to mortal men, and worship them as Gods after their
death; they are right in doing this. But these Pagans did only what our
Christ-worshipers still do in attributing Divinity to their Christ;
doing which, they condemn themselves also, because they are in the same
error as these Pagans, in that they worship a man who was mortal, and so
very mortal that He died shamefully upon a cross.
It would be of no use for our Christ-worshipers to say that there was a
great difference between their Jesus Christ and the Pagan Gods, under
the pretense that their Christ was, as they claim, really God and man at
the same time, while the Divinity was incarnated in Him, by means of
which, the Divine nature found itself united personally, as they say,
with human nature; these two natures would have made of Jesus Christ a
true God and a true man; this is what never happened, they claim, in the
Pagan Gods.
But it is easy to show the weakness of this reply; for, on the one hand,
was it not as easy to the Pagans as to the Christians, to say that the
Divinity was incarnated in the men whom they worshiped as Gods? On the
other hand, if the Divinity wanted to incarnate and unite in the human
nature of their Jesus Christ, how did they know that this Divinity would
not wish to also incarnate and unite Himself personally to the human
nature of those great men and those admirable women, who, by their
virtue, by their good qualities, or by their noble actions, have
excelled the generality of people, and made themselves worshiped as Gods
and Goddesses? And if our Christ-worshipers do not wish to believe that
Divinity ever incarnated in these great personages, why do they wish to
persuade us that He was incarnated in their Jesus? Where is the proof?
Their faith and their belief; but as the Pagans rely on the same proof,
we conclude both to be equally in error.
But what is more ridiculous in Christianity than in Paganism, is that
the Pagans have generally attributed Divinity but to great men, authors
of arts and sciences, and who excelled in virtues useful to their
country. But to whom do our God-Christ-worshipers attribute Divinity? To
a nobody, to a vile and contemptible man, who had neither talent,
science, nor ability; born of poor parents, and who, while He figured in
the world, passed but for a monomaniac and a seditious fool, who was
disdained, ridiculed, persecuted, whipped, and, finally, was hanged like
most of those who desired to act the same part, when they had neither
the courage nor skill. About that time there were several other
impostors who claimed to be the true promised Messiah; amongst others a
certain Judas, a Galilean, a Theodorus, a Barcon, and others who, under
this vain pretext, abused the people, and tried to excite them, in order
to win them, but they all perished.
Let us pass now to His discourses and to some of His actions, which are
the most singular of this kind: "Repent," said He to the people, "for
the kingdom of Heaven is at hand; believe these good tidings." And He
went all over Galilee preaching this pretended approach of the kingdom
of Heaven. As no one has seen the arrival of this kingdom of Heaven, it
is evident that it was but imaginary. But let us see other predictions,
the praise, and the description of this beautiful kingdom.
Behold what He said to the people:
The kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his
field. But while he slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
wheat, and went his way. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto
treasure hidden in a field, the which, when a man has found, he hideth
again, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that
field. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking
goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and
sold all he had, and bought it. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like
unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind;
which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered
the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. It is like a grain of
mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field which, indeed, is
the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among
herbs, etc.
Is this a language worthy of a God? We will pass the same judgment upon
Him if we examine His actions more closely. Because, firstly, He is
represented as running all over a country preaching the approach of a
pretended kingdom; Secondly, as having been transported by the Devil
upon a high mountain, from which He believed He saw all the kingdoms of
the world; this could only happen to a visionist; for it is certain,
there is no mountain upon the earth from which He could see even one
entire kingdom, unless it was the little kingdom of Yvetot, which is in
France; thus it was only in imagination that He saw all these kingdoms,
and was transported upon this mountain, as well as upon the pinnacle of
the temple. Thirdly, when He cured the deaf-mute, spoken of in St. Mark,
it is said that He placed His fingers in the ears, spit, and touched his
tongue, then casting His eyes up to Heaven, He sighed deeply, and said
unto him: "Ephphatha!" Finally, let us read all that is related of Him,
and we can judge whether there is anything in the world more ridiculous.
Having considered some of the silly things attributed to God by our
Christ-worshipers, let us look a little further into their mysteries.
They worship one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, and
they attribute to themselves the power of forming Gods out of dough, and
of making as many as they want. For, according to their principles, they
have only to say four words over a certain quantity of wine or over
these little images of paste, to make as many Gods of them as they
desire. What folly! With all the pretended power of their Christ, they
would not be able to make the smallest fly, and yet they claim the
ability to produce millions of Gods. One must be struck by a strange
blindness to maintain such pitiable things, and that upon such vain
foundation as the equivocal words of a fanatic. Do not these blind
theologians see that it means opening a wide door to all sorts of
idolatries, to adore these paste images under the pretext that the
priests have the power of consecrating them and changing them into Gods?
Can not the priests of the idols boast of having a similar ability?
Do they not see, also, that the same reasoning which demonstrates the
vanity of the gods or idols of wood, of stone, etc., which the Pagans
worshiped, shows exactly the same vanity of the Gods and idols of paste
or of flour which our Christ-worshipers adore? By what right do they
deride the falseness of the Pagan Gods? Is it not because they are but
the work of human hands, mute and insensible images? And what kind of
Gods are those which we preserve in boxes for fear of the mice?
What are these boasted resources of the Christ-worshipers? Their
morality? It is the same as in all religions, but their cruel dogmas
produced and taught persecution and trouble. Their miracles? But what
people has not its own, and what wise men do not disdain these fables?
Their prophecies? Have we not shown their falsity? Their morals? Are
they not often infamous? The establishment of their religion? but did
not fanaticism begin, and has not intrigue visibly sustained this
edifice? The doctrine? but is it not the height of absurdity?
End Of The Abstract By Voltaire.