Of the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
I.
After having examined his policy and morals we have seen nothing
more Divine than in the writings and conduct of the ancients. Let
us see if the reputation which followed him after his death is an
evidence that he was God. Mankind is so accustomed to false reasoning
that I am astonished that any one can reach a sane conclusion from
their conduct. Experience shows that there is nothing they followed
that is in any wise true, and that nothing has been done or said by
them which gives any evidence of stability. In the meanwhile it is
certain that common opinions are continually surrounded with chimeras
notwithstanding the efforts of the learned, which have always opposed
them. Whatever care has been taken to extirpate follies the people have
never abandoned them only after having been surfeited with them. Moses
was proud to boast himself the Lieutenant of the Lord of Lords,
and to prove his mission by extraordinary signs. If ever so little he
absented himself (which he did from time to time to confer, as he said,
with his God, as Numa and other lawgivers also did) he only found on
his return traces of the worship of the Gods which the Israelites had
seen in Egypt. He successfully held them forty years in the wilderness
that they might lose the idea of those they had abandoned, and not
being yet satisfied they obeyed him who led them, and bore firmly
whatever hardship they were caused to suffer in this regard.
Only the hatred which they had conceived for other nations, by an
arrogance of which most idiots are susceptible, made them insensibly
forget the Gods of Egypt and attach themselves to those of Moses
whom they adored, and sometimes with all the circumstance marked in
the laws. But when they quitted these conditions little by little to
follow those of Jesus Christ, I cannot see what inconstancy caused
them to run after the novelty and change.
II.
The most ignorant Hebrews having given the most vogue to the law
of Moses were the first to run after Jesus, and as their number
was infinite and they encouraged each other, it is not marvellous
that these errors spread so easily. It is not that novelty does not
always beget suffering, but it is the glory that is expected that
one hopes will smooth the difficulties. Thus the Disciples of Jesus,
miserable as they were, reduced at times to nourish themselves with
grains of corn which they gathered from the fields (Luke vi., 1),
and seeing themselves shamefully excluded from places where they
thought to enter to ease their fatigue (Luke ix., 52-53) they began
to be discouraged with living; their Master being without the pale
of the law and unable to give them the benefits, glory and grandeur
which he had promised them.
After his death his disciples, in despair at seeing their hopes
frustrated, and pursued by the Jews who wished to treat them as they
had treated their Master, made a virtue of necessity and scattered
over the country, where by the report of some women (John xx, 18)
they told of his resurrection, his divine affiliation and the rest
of the fables with which the Gospels are filled. [44] The trouble
which they had to make progress among the Jews made them resolve to
pass among the Gentiles, and try to serve themselves better among
them; but as it was necessary to have more learning for that than
they possessed--the Gentiles being philosophers and too much in
love with truth to resort to trifles--they gained over a young man
(Saul or St. Paul) of an active and eager mind and a little better
informed than the simple fishermen or than the greater babblers who
associated with them. A stroke from Heaven made him blind, as is said
(without this the trick would have been useless) and this incident
for a time attracted some weak souls. [45] By the fear of Hell, taken
from some of the fables of the ancient poets, and by the hope of a
glorious Resurrection and a Paradise which is hardly more supportable
than that of Mahomet; all these procured for their Master the honor
of passing for a God, which he himself was unable to obtain while
living. In which this kind of Jesus was no better than Homer: six
cities which had driven the latter out with contempt and scorn during
his life, disputed with each other after his death to determine with
whom remained the honor of having been his birth-place.
By this it may be seen that Christianity depends, like all other
things, on the caprice of men, in whose opinion all passes either
for good or bad, according as the notion strikes them. Further, if
Jesus was God, nothing could resist him, for St. Paul (Romans, v. 19),
is witness that nothing could overcome his will. Yet this passage is
directly opposed to another in Genesis (iv, 7), where it is said that
as the desires and appetites of man belong to him, who is the Master,
so it is agreed to accord free-will to the master of animals, that
is to say, man, for whom it is said God has created the universe.
But without wandering in a maze of errors and positive contradictions,
of which we have discoursed sufficiently, let us say something of
Mahomet, who founded a law upon maxims totally opposed to those of
Jesus Christ.