In the regions of Chaldæa and Syria the barbarians also had their
legends of the origin of evil. Among one of these nations in the
neighbourhood of the Euphrates it was said that a serpent, meeting
a burdened and thirsty ass, asked what the ass carried. “The recipe
of immortality,” said the ass; “God has bestowed it upon man, who
has laid it on my back. He follows me, but is far off, because he
has only two legs. I die of thirst; prithee tell me where there is a
stream.” The serpent led the ass to water, and, while it drank, stole
the recipe. Hence it is that the serpent is immortal, while man is
subject to death and all the pains that precede it.
You will observe that the serpent was thought by all peoples to
be immortal because it cast its skin. If it changed its skin,
this must have been in order to become young again. I have spoken
elsewhere of this naïve theology; but it is well to bring it once
more to the notice of the reader, in order to show him the nature of
this venerable antiquity, in which serpents and asses played such
important parts.
The Syrians rose higher. They told that man and woman, having been
created in heaven, desired one day to eat a certain cake; and that
they then asked an angel to show them the place of retirement. The
angel pointed to the earth. They went thither; and God, to punish
them for their gluttony, left them there. Let us also leave them
there, and their dinner and their ass and their serpent. These
inconceivable puerilities of ancient Syria are not worth a moment’s
notice. The detestable fables of an obscure people should be excluded
from a serious discussion.
Let us return from these miserable legends to the great saying of
Epicurus, which has so long alarmed the whole earth, and to which
there is no answer but a sigh: “Either God wished to prevent evil
and could not do so; or he was able to do so, and did not wish.”
A thousand bachelors and doctors of divinity have fired the arrows of
the school at this unshakeable rock; in this terrible shelter have
the Atheists taken refuge. Yet the Atheist must admit that there is
in nature an active, intelligent, necessary, eternal principle, and
that from this principle comes all that we call good and evil. Let us
discuss the point with the Atheist.